Sybil’s Place

©06/2009 by: Jackie

I was wiping the bar when he walked in. It was an hour before closing time, if any such thing exists in my establishment. Eddy always claims that once you’ve found Sybil’s, you’ll find that it never really closes. But first you have to find it.

You have to find it. That’s the trick. Or maybe it has to find you.

So he walked in and I could immediately tell that he wasn’t going to be around for long. He didn’t have the smell of the regular about him. He did however carry the smell of the desperate, and so strongly that even Constantin looked up from his Bloody Mary.

B-list supers, Constantin calls my regular clientele, and he’s probably right. Con is a good lad, but he’s also 600 years old at the very least (the first few hundred years he couldn’t be bothered counting, so it’s a rough estimate) and despite his strong instinctive urges, he has stayed off the blood for the last 150 of these years. Con has gone on the wagon when he developed a conscience. The Vegan Vamp, Eddie calls him. Poor Con always drinks Bloody Marys, and of course the alcohol doesn’t do anything for him, but the name of the drink conjures up happier times for him I suppose. Times of exhilaration and freedom. Con is a regular. A very regular; I can’t imagine the bar without him sitting at the end of it, nursing a spiked and spicy tomato juice, a sad frown on his handsome but pale countenance.

Eddie’s a regular too, and he has his own spot at the bar as well. It’s not because he’s such a creature of habit, because really he isn’t. It’s because he moults. He moults when he’s drunk, when he’s worried, when he can’t make up his mind… which comes down to most of the time, since he’s stuck in mid-transformation and can’t seem to decide which way to go with himself. So he’s got his own corner, and he hoovers it himself. Some of the other regulars, like Paul, are allergic to wolf hair.

So he walked up to the bar, this new customer. He looked tired and, well, desperate, in a subdued, controlled sort of way. But however much the owner of this type of desperation has a rein on his emotions, I can always tell. I guess that’s the reason I run this bar.

I saw Eddie lift his hairy head and sniff the air – he was checking out the new guy, and trying to determine what was wrong with him to have made it in here - and I raised an eyebrow at him. Don’t frighten off the newbies, my eyebrow said. Eddie nodded and buried his nose in his beer again, and the man chose a bar stool and sat, looking at his hands first, then up at me.

His eyes! He had the most amazing, blazing, intense eyes that I’ve ever seen on a human. They sat, burning their liquid fire of despair, in a good face. What am I saying, a very good face. Strong jaw, solid nose, and one of those very special mouths. Sensitive, sensual, but it could go a hard line on you in an instant. Which seemed to neatly sum up the man I saw before me. Mouths can say so much about a person.

“What can I get you tonight, sir?” I asked politely.

Paul laboriously climbed out of his bucket, no doubt to check out the new arrival, and he sat back down in his regular chair at the back. “She never calls any’un sir, laddie, ye cannae be that special,” he called out in his thick brogue.

“Be quiet, Paulie,” I called back, knowing how much he hated to be called that. “You’re still looking a little too liquid for me; you’re not getting any more alcohol for at least another hour.”

Paul, another of my long time regulars, was a shape shifter who couldn’t maintain his shape once he got too drunk. That’s why he always had a bucket next to his table; soon as he reached the level of drunkenness that made normal people throw up, Paul would dissolve into a puddle of quicksilver fluid. If he still had the awareness to aim, most of him would land in the bucket when he lost it, but I don’t want to have to count the times when I’ve scraped him off the wooden floorboards before he’d burn a hole in them. Paul can get a little corrosive when he’s out of shape.

The man at the bar looked over his shoulder and nodded. “Hi Paul. How are ya goin?”

He turned back to me and sighed, then said, “Lemme have somethin’ strong. What single malts d’ya have?”

I smiled. “I can tell you’ve never been here before. Just tell me what you’d like to drink; I can assure you I’ll have it.”

“Oki doki, well… Laphroaig would be good I reckon.”

“Australian?” I ventured, while just out of his eyesight, below the bar, the right bottle materialized in my hand. His voice was almost as mesmerizing as his eyes were. Dark, gritty, masculine, yet soulful and full of promise. I thought I’d like to hear that voice sing.

“Yeah… haven’t been back to Oz for a while though. You have good ears, lady. Are you the Sybil?”

You have no idea, I thought, no idea how good my ears are. From just these few sentences I have gathered that you have lost your heart to someone who broke it, and you knew it would happen and you went ahead and fell in love with the woman anyway. My mouth said, “Yes, I am the Sybil. Here’s your drink, sir.”

“Theer, I cannae believe it, she does it again. Calling him sir,” Paul piped up. “Ye hae a name, laddie?”

The man turned around on his barstool and toasted Paul. “I’m Terry. Pleased to meet ya. What’s the bucket for? You anticipatin’ something nasty?’

“You could say that again,” I murmured, which had Terry turn back my way, one eyebrow quizzically aloft.

“So Sybil,” he said, sipping and visibly savouring his drink, “how is it, luv, that I’ve walked this street from the office to my flat on a very regular basis for the last five years, and I’ve never noticed this place before?”

“Hmm,” said I, “because you weren’t looking? We’re here all the time, but we’re not always easy to find.”

He nodded. “I reckoned as much.”

“It’s usually when something changes,” I continued gently, paving the way for what I knew needed to happen, “something profound, something earth-shattering, that people start seeing the world in a different light. And when that light is right, they find their way to Sybil’s. Just like you did today.” I smiled at him warmly and gave him a refill before he could ask for it.

“Profound, earth-shattering,” he mused softly, just like I expected he would. “Yeah, I reckon that sums it up nicely.” He knocked back his second drink and thumped the glass on the bar. I immediately hit him with a second refill. His eyes seemed to change colour when he picked up his glass once more and I knew then that he would tell me everything.

They always did. They always told me everything. Sometimes I had to put up a fight, break through their armour, but not with Terry. He was eager to talk, eager to tell me how he’d gone into this job, thinking he’d do a quick hostage negotiation gig for an engineer in Tecala. The anxious wife had gotten to him immediately, in a way he couldn’t really put into words. She had been vulnerable and strong at the same time, and all he’d wanted to do was wrap his arms around her, protect her, comfort her. And then he got called back. The insurance hadn’t been good. He’d had to leave the woman, Alice, and that last look of despair she had given him had kept him up nights; it had burned right into his soul and it wouldn’t let him think of anything, anyone else. And then he’d done it. He’d crossed the boundary. He’d given up his job as a K&R negotiator and had gone back in, a rogue, to help her. Rescue her. Save her. Hold her love her make her his. To bring back her husband from the mountains where he was being held by guerrillas. And of course he had succeeded; after all he was very good at what he did. And of course, with the husband back home, there was no place for Terry, the rogue, and he’d done what every good knight in shining armour would do in a similar situation: he’d ridden off into the sunset.

It had been a no-win situation from the very beginning. Terry had known this. And he’d gone in all the same, wearing his heart on his sleeve, brandishing his vulnerability like a semi-automatic. And now, while he nursed his broken heart, he found himself wondering if he had done it on purpose. If he’d allowed himself to fall in love with Alice, knowing full well how unattainable she was, and even making sure with his own actions she remained that way.

This insight into his own mind ate away at him. He looked at me with his blazing eyes, imploringly, trusting me as only a desperate man can trust a lady bartender.

I smiled slowly. “There is something I could do to help you, Terry,” I murmured, “but you will have to trust me a whole lot more first.”

He swallowed; he was feeling the underlying implications of what I said. “Well I’m up for it if you are, luv,” he said, with an attempt at a cocky smile, but I could feel his doubts. His pain.

It was best to get started before he changed his mind; after all, I could only help my customers if they consented, whatever form that help needed to take. Although I must confess, helping this particular human the way he needed to be helped wasn’t necessarily a job I would shy away from; he was too good looking for that. Too well built. Even creatures of my ilk cannot be denied a certain personal taste. Yes, I would probably enjoy helping Terry.

“Con,” I called out, “would you mind watching the bar for me?”

“Certainly not,” Con said, getting up in that fluid, just-a-little-bit-too-fast way to be entirely human.

I saw Terry’s eyes widen as he took in Constantin’s appearance: the gauntness, the pallor, the dandy style clothing. Nevertheless, Terry didn’t say a word. Con graced him with a smile that could not be described in any other way than pointy, and he joined me behind the bar.

“Off you go, Sybil,” he said, making it sound not like a name but like a species. Which, I suppose, is not entirely untrue. There are more like me, but I believe I am the only one running a bar.

I turned to leave, but then remembered. “Oh Gods, it’s a Wednesday!”

A collective groan from Paul, Eddie and Con ensued.

“What’s wrong with Wednesdays?” Terry wanted to know.

“Aye, I was wond’rin at the quietness o’ the night,” Paul said, getting up and picking up his bucket. He joined us at the bar.

“Paul, I don’t mind you sitting on a barstool, but if you burn a hole in it I’ll be after your arse, in whatever state it is in. Liquid or solid,” I said to him sternly. He’d cost me quite a lot of furniture already in the past few centuries.

“Dinnae upset yerself, Sybil, I’ll be careful. I just want to lend a wee hand when Doug decides to grace us wi’ his presence.”

“And I appreciate it. Now, boys, be careful, and if necessary, you know where to find us.” I stepped around the bar and extended a hand towards Terry. He took it with a question in his eyes, but followed me willingly enough to a chorus of cheers and don’t worry’s.

To the back of the bar we went, and up the dark, hidden stairs. To my small but comfortable flat, where I would do my utmost to reach, and heal, this man Terry who had found his way into my bar and who, for that alone, deserved no less than my very best effort at making him whole again.

“Who’s this Doug bloke?” I heard him ask as he ascended close behind me. His voice rumbled though me in a very pleasant way.

“Oh… he comes in on Wednesday nights mostly, and he has a bit of a violent streak when he gets drunk. He’s a big lad, which isn’t surprising, as he’s… well, he’s a troll. There aren’t many places serving him, but as you can see from my other regular punters, I don’t do species discrimination. Everyone is welcome at my bar, if they can find it. Unfortunately,” I grinned good-naturedly, “Doug can always find it.”

“Hmm,” said Terry, and I felt him chew on what I’d said, and more to the point, what I’d left unsaid. I opened the door and led him in, and heard him gasp softly as he took in the reds and purples, the cushions, the frescoes, the candle light. I have a taste in interior decoration that can only be described as opulent, and it goes back all the way to the ancients. My roots.

I know there is something overwhelming in opening a door to a room blazing in candle light. It is a much stronger sensation than its electric counterpart. I have electricity in my flat, I’m not wholly unpractical. It’s just that I thought for Terry, the candles would do something. Set the mood. I was right, of course.

As soon as we were inside and the door closed behind us, he pulled my hand toward him and spun me around. I landed neatly in his arms, against his wonderfully broad chest, and before I knew what or how, his lips were on mine and his hand pulled the long pin out of my hair. It cascaded down to beyond my buttocks and I felt him tense, harden in anticipation. He kissed me with ardour, augmented by an obvious amount of field experience, and I enjoyed his despair-fuelled fire so much that I almost let him have his way. But then reason kicked in. I’m sure it would be very pleasurable, for the both of us, but it would hardly be helpful.

I pulled away kindly and looked up into his confused gaze.

“Thought you wanted to…?” he growled, and he tried to pull me closer again.

“Oh… I do, Terry, I do… but in time. Everything in time. Now. Do you trust me?”

His confusion seemed to grow. He shook his head briefly to clear it and fixed me with his burning stare again. “Reckon… yeah…?” he softly said.

“Not good enough, Terry. Do you trust me, utterly and completely trust me? Would you put your heart in my hands and believe I would do it no harm? Would you allow me to touch you, awaken you, peel away every layer of protection you have built around yourself, and once you are bare and nude and unprotected, and you lie quivering in my hands, will you trust me enough to believe you will be safer than you’ve ever been in your entire life? Because that is what I intend to do with you, Terry my sweet. Bring you back to your essence, and then love you until you are whole again. Now, do you trust me?”

“Bloody hell,” said Terry. “I thought you just wanted to go for a quick root.”

I grinned. “Nothing that is truly good is quick. I’m sure you know that.”

“Well,” Terry said jokingly, “I remember a certain sheila in Bangkok…”

“Yes, yes, make light of it if you must, but I am convinced you know what I speak of. And you must give your consent, and your trust, or else this will not work. We can actually have a… what did you call it? A quick root, and it will certainly be enjoyable. But Terry, take a risk. Put your trust in me and see where it will take you… Please?”

Terry pinched his lips and looked at his feet. Looked up at me again. Back down at the tips of his toes. He blew out his breath then finally looked up, into my eyes, and held them. “Okay,” he whispered, “I trust you.”

In my hand, behind my back, a strip of black silk found its form. I raised my hand and showed it to Terry, and I whispered back, “so close your eyes…”

One more sigh. One more blink of those luminous pools of desperate intensity and he did as I asked. I took a brief moment to admire the silk of his surprisingly long lashes as they lay shivering on his cheeks, and then I tied the silk of my magic around his head. Lovingly, mind you; not too tight.

I felt more than saw him tremble when he let me. But he let me nonetheless. So I took his hand and guided him over to my sofa, which was lush and velvety, like most of my furniture. I turned him around and whispered in his ear, “you can let yourself fall backwards now,” and to my surprise, he did. He sank into the pillows and let them embrace him, and I knelt beside him, running a hand up his chest until it came to rest at his throat. I felt him swallow a little nervously and I moved my other hand to make a goblet with my special drink appear.

“Terry,” I whispered in his ear, purposely making my breath ghost across the skin of his neck, “you must taste this.” I placed the goblet on a low table, dipped my fingers in the golden liquid it contained, ran my other hand through Terry’s hair until he leaned his head back then let the mead drip from my fingertips onto his lips.

He licked then groaned softly. “What the fuck is that?” he murmured, anxious to taste more of the strong, sweet nectar of the Gods. I knew the sensations that would course through his body now. Just a few drops and his blood would be on fire. His heart would race and his mind would soar wild and free on the updrafts of pure instinct.

“Sybil,” he moaned, leaning blindly into me, “lemme have some more of that. Christ that’s good…”

“Later, my sweet,” I whispered, and I touched his jacket. It dissolved with not so much as a sigh. I gently pulled his polo out of his soft-worn jeans and he moved with me, leaning against me, staying close, granting me access. The skin of his back was hot, radiating the raw need that was building inside him now.

“Sssybil,” he softly hissed when my hand ran along that smooth expanse of skin. I dispensed with the polo the same way the jacket went, and I had to draw breath when I saw his beautiful torso. He was sculpted, but naturally so. He was in very good shape, but not from vanity-driven exercising in a gym. He had just enough chest fur to run my fingers through.

His breathing sped up. I dipped my fingers in the goblet again and dripped a little mead on his left nipple, and Terry gasped an “Oh God…” right before I lowered my head and gently licked the liquid off his sensitized skin.

He shook. I softly suckled, running my fingers over his other nipple until he made a grab for me, rolling over me, bucking against me.

“Sybil, fuck, I want ya now, Christ, you’re drivin me bonkers with this…” he grated, making a grab for his blindfold.

“No… wait. Terry, wait.” I ordered softly, stilling him with a hand against his heart.

He responded immediately and I couldn’t help the smile. I enjoy the power I can exert over humans, especially when they are beautiful male specimens like this one. His heart rate slowed and his body relaxed, and he leaned against me heavily. His head dipped, landed on my shoulder and his breathing slowed, and deepened.

My grin quickly vanished, driven off by a self-deprecating frown. I should know better than to give vanity a place in my heart: look what I’d done. I’d put him to sleep.

“Terry,” I softly said into his well-formed pink ear. What an amazing man he was. Even his ears had beauty to them. I couldn’t wait to see him in the altogether. “Terry, open your eyes, we aren’t finished yet…”

A gentle sigh and he awoke, moving against me slightly. I felt myself go moist for him, unplanned, unbidden; my own instincts awakening and humming in anticipation to the tune of his undiluted perfection. I ran my hands through his short, soft hair, stroking the almost bristly bit at the back of his neck tenderly. He lifted his head, silk blindfold still in place, and nuzzled my face in search of my mouth. I allowed it, I couldn’t help myself. His lips were fire, passion, persuasion, the sweetest seduction on the face of this earth. His tongue was velvet and slick, bold, investigative, yet tender and thoughtful. I melted beneath him and suddenly found we were moving in unison to an elegantly undulating rhythm that only we could hear.

With some effort, I took control over the situation again. I cupped his cheek in my hand and made him stop, gently, gently, always mindful not to undo the trust that had already been built. “Terry, my sweet, the time has not yet come… Soon, believe me, but not yet… There is so much more you need to feel before we can ride the wave together…Come, sit up.”

He complied on a soft, disappointed growl. I reached down and made his shoes disappear, and then his socks. Then, I ran a hand over his firm upper leg, revelling in the texture of his jeans, imagining how years of wear had softened the fabric to its current velvety state. Terry’s body had done that. Terry’s magnificent body.

The jeans dissolved, as did the belt. And as it turned out, he wasn’t wearing anything else.

“Sybil,” he husked, “What the fuck are ya doin with my clothes?”

“I am making them disappear,” I answered truthfully, running my hand along his bare leg. His skin, his soft hairs, felt so much nicer to the touch than the jeans. Warm, solid, electric… I could feel his want, the urgency building under his skin, burning my hand.

“What about your own clothes…?” Terry tentatively reached out a hand and fumbled for me, purely by accident encountering a fold of my toga style dress. (Yes, I am that old fashioned). He quickly got his bearings and cupped a breast, groaning his pleasure when he explored its fullness.

My breath hitched – I hadn’t expected such a surge of lust pummelling my senses. I wanted this man; I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted a mortal. “Terry,” I sighed, “stop it, I can’t think… I’m trying to help you…”

Again, he managed to deftly roll himself on top of me, navigating by touch alone, and again we lost ourselves in the purest passion. His hand moved up my bare leg, hitching the dress out of the way as he urgently pushed for entrance. My core clenched in sweet agony for his touch, his tip to reach me, the electricity of our sexes meeting for the first time. It was almost too much to bear. And yet I knew. The time was not yet right.

“Wait… Terry… wait…” I gasped. This was the third time. I vowed there would not be a fourth.

He sat up all by himself now, grinning. Understanding was beginning to dawn. “What do you want me to do luv,” he whispered, holding out a hand for me. I took it while my dress evaporated off my body and I grabbed the goblet that stood there waiting for us.

“I want you to drink,” I said, my voice low from wanting him. “Drink, and tell me what you see. Tell me what you feel. Be brutally honest. Trust me. Trust me, Terry…”

I put the goblet to his lips and he drank eagerly, the glow of the mead lighting up his body from the inside out. His skin became a warm honey tone. He glowed like he contained a piece of the sun itself and he moaned, caught in a confusing curl of emotions twisted together, ranging from the deepest passion, the highest exhilaration, the darkest despair and the strongest hope. He was feeling the fullness of life coursing through him without boundaries, washing over him, astounding him with its richness.

The last sip in the goblet, I kept to myself. To me, the nectar of the Gods is no more than an invigorating drink, but I love it. I love the magical taste of it. And I love to share it.

To Terry, it would be a truth serum that would deconstruct him yet give him the power to recreate himself, a phoenix from the flames, emerging stronger and wiser. And I would be his catalyst.

“Now tell me, Terry,” I sighed as the mead warmed my insides. I leaned against him, our naked bodies melding together and moving like one. Teasingly – I couldn’t help myself, he was just so beautiful -  I let one last drop of golden mead fall on his trembling tip, which gave a pearl of liquid in return as Terry arched against me.

“Lick it off,” he growled. “Sybil, fuck’s sake, lick… it… ohh…”

I bent and complied, revelling in his salty tang mingling with the mead. Such a heady combination. I took him into my mouth completely, just for a quick taste, but then found I could hardly get enough of him as he greedily pumped into my mouth, a small urgent groan punctuating every stroke.

With a shameless wet plop, I released him then sighed into his chest fur, “no, no… you cannot simply seek your release like that. You have to tell me. What do you see? What do you feel?”

He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me onto his lap, right against his raging hardness. “I see…” he rumbled low and unwittingly sexy, “I see a bruised little boy running from home, his dad an angry drunk, his mum beaten into a pulp. He swears to grow up big and strong and true, and yet he runs. He is a coward. He’s only small, what could he have done to save his mother?”

“Nothing, Terry, nothing,” I whisper as I surreptitiously move against him a little. “What more do you see?”

“I see… I see a soldier,” Terry’s voice took on a distant quality, and I knew he was entering the dream state the mead could grant the determined seekers of wisdom. “A soldier fighting hard, fighting for a good cause. But he forgets the best cause there is. His love, his life. His child. His wife. He just kills, without judgment, without discrimination. How good a cause is that?”

“The soldier needed to learn to think for himself,” I whispered in his ear, while I softly rubbed my breasts against his chest. “He needed to learn that fighting is not the only way to win the war. That sometimes the only war there is, is raging inside his head…”

His arms around me tightened. My core overflowed with molten want against his rigid length, soaking it in slickness. He moved against me, rubbing a little, parting the petals that protect my most secret place. The sensation was overwhelmingly good. It filled me and vibrated through me and I felt like one giant string, tuned to the music of the planets.

“What more, Terry, what more do you see,” I sighed as he intensified the rubbing motion. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold off our union much longer.

“I see… Oh fuck, Sybil, I see the power of true love… and I’ll never have it. I’m not worthy, I never was…” He moved against me more urgently.

“But you are, Terry, you are so very worthy… you can be anyone you want to be… you must believe me…” I sat up a little and moved my hips just so. His hot tip slipped inside me and I hovered, waiting.

“Oh fuuuck… Sybil…” Terry groaned in suspended agony, eyes pinched close.

“`You must believe me… say you believe me…” I shook with the control it took to stay suspended above him, when all I wanted to do was let go, lower myself onto him and ride the wave of our passion to its completion.

“Christ, I believe you, I swear I believe you, now COME ON,” Terry growled in shudders, pumping up and into me violently.

And I let go, and fell onto him, into him, and we fell back into the couch and we fucked, and fucked, and fucked like the first beings on earth coupling. We kissed and licked and scratched and pulled and pushed and fought and loved and fought and loved again, and when I felt my completion was near, I reared up and ground out, “You-are-worthy-Terry-Thorne…” and fell into heaven.

Terry followed hard on my heels, finding his own bliss with a wild growl. He pulsed his essence into me and shuddered from head to toe, emptying himself completely, then falling into my arms undone, a little boy again, whispering “…I’m worthy, I’m bloody worthy…” and then, through the endlessly wise and healing magical wisdom of the nectar of the Gods, slowly and quietly slipping into a restorative sleep in my arms.

I contemplated keeping him close to me. I knew I could. I’d love him, and he would in all probability love me. But then I reconsidered. How long would it last? He would age. I wouldn’t. His life passed like a blink of an eye for me, while for him, I would never age. I would stay the same, for ever and ever…

And so I let him go. I lovingly, silently, magically transported him back to his flat and laid him in his bed, kissed his brow and stroked his hair and laid my hand over his heart, giving it strength. I blessed him with every grain of power I could command. And I left him a small flagon of mead on his night table.

For him to find. For him to find me, if he needed me. For him to return to Sybil’s Place, should he ever need it. And I knew I’d love him forever. He was more than worthy of that.

THE END