The temple was almost silent. A single woman held a vigil, watching for three days now, without food or sleep, waiting for Syn to return. From time to time she would be bought water, and would drink while being barely aware of doing so, staring into the snake pit, watching the shifting patterns made by the serpents.
She saw, reflected in the coils, the sins of all the city. Each petty theft, every rape, every murder, all were visible to those who knew how to look. And moving through them all, behind every wicked though, every evil action, she saw the shape of Syn, spreading her influence through the people.
But now the pattern shifted with a purpose. Syn was returning to the temple. The seething pit appeared almost to bubble up, as though a great force pushed from beneath. From within the snakes, Syn emerged, fully in human form. She pulled herself from the pit, bringing a huge python draped over her naked shoulders.
The woman maintained her silent vigil, watching Syn playing with her newly chosen pet, flicking their forked tongues together, twisting together in a music-less dance. Then Syn looked up, seeming to notice for the first time her observer.
Syn walked over to the woman, lifting the python without effort, placing it around her neck. "They come to me so easily," Syn said. "Even before I touch them, they have embraced sin. They all love me, love what I give them to fill their meaningless little lives, love the pleasures I bring to them."
Syn knelt down in front of the woman, and kissed her between the legs, forked tongue briefly probing deep. The snake's head slithered over Syn's back, trying to return to her, and with one hand she guided it around her neck as she lifted her own head from the woman's crotch. "Do you love me?" she asked.
"You are all that is worthy of love in this world, all that I could ever love," came the reply. Syn slid her tongue up the woman's chest, and kissed her right nipple, barely more than a brush of her lips.
"And do you love sin?" she asked.
"I live only to serve sin, to take its pleasures as my own, to give myself to its mistress."
Syn moved onto the left breast, flicking her tongue against the nipple. One hand reached around the muscular neck of the python as it crawled down her body, lifting it back onto the woman's shoulders, while the other slid up her inner thigh.
"So now you want to become my priestess? To sacrifice your humanity in order to serve me absolutely?" Syn ran her fingers through the woman's pubic hair, one slipping deftly inside her.
"There is no greater honour, Lady." Syn stood, her right hand still pressed between the woman's legs, the left reaching around, squeezing her right buttock, and drew their lips together. The embrace was returned, held for a second, before Syn pulled away to speak once more.
"Then I shall grant you that honour." She slid her hand from between them, and curled it across her partner's shoulder-blades, the tips of her finger stroking the skin of the python's head, her muscles pulling the two of them together. Again they locked lips, this time not a fleeting touch, but a forceful coming together.
Syn's left hand crept between the cheeks of her ass. "Ready?" she said, not breaking the kiss to speak. Before the woman had a chance to reply, Syn's tongue wrapped around hers, wrestling it to the floor of her mouth.
As Syn's embrace crushed them together, she felt something slide over her tongue, down into her throat, the familiar rhythmic muscles of the serpent crawling. Her eyes widened, and she tried to pull away, but was powerless against Syn's strength.
She could feel it as it dived down through her body, and then the most excruciating pain, deep inside her chest, as though it was forcing its way through her organs. She tried to scream, but her mouth was full of snake; her fingers curled, digging her nails into Syn's body.
Its tail flicked against her teeth, a second's respite before the head of the next serpent entered from Syn's mouth, a second filled with a sound halfway between a laugh and a moan from Syn.
One snake forced her jaw open as it pushed into her, another tore at her insides. Such pain, and yet such pleasure too, from being with Syn, from kissing Syn, from the gentle motion of Syn's fingers, the electric touch of the mistress of all things pleasurable.
More snakes, following each other, out of Syn and into her. The pain spread through her entire body, overpowering everything save for the sensation of Syn against her, and then even that.
She woke, surrounded by darkness, by pressure.
"Priestess!"
The voice came from all around her, and as the walls of her cocoon shifted she recognised Syn's skin against her own. Coils dropped from upon her, letting through the candle-light of the temple, revealing Syn's human upper body.
"Priestess!" This time almost seeming with love.
"I serve, Lady." Her voice shocked her, a human voice spawned from a serpent chorus. "What would you have me do?"
"See what you have become, Priestess." Syn touched her just below her left breast. Around Syn's fingers the skin seemed to bulge outwards, and she placed her own hand besides Syn's, feeling the shifting forms inside her body. Syn bent over her, breathing warm breath over her chest. Beneath it, the skin became translucent, then seemed to melt away entirely.
The priestess gasped, seeing what lay beneath her skin. No bones, no glistening organs, just snakes of all types and sizes, slithering over and around each other. As the skin of her whole body faded away, she moved her arms and legs, watching how the snakes shifted to simulate muscles moving, hundreds of independent bodies, somehow combining to create her.
As she watched, her skin grew back again, gradually hiding the snakes under a smooth coating, making her indistinguishable from any other woman.
"You are beautiful, are you not? But I can not watch you all the time, for you have work to do."
"What work can I do for you, Lady?" asked the priestess.
"Though I have absolute power over those who choose to embrace me, there are those who have never reached for my gifts, who have never tasted my pleasures. I can not share myself with them until they first come to me. But you, you can guide them to me, can show them the wonders they have never even dared to dream, can turn their lives to me."
Syn leant forwards, pressing their bodies together, touching their lips to each other. She slid her hands down the body of the priestess, the snakes beneath her skin rippling as they fought to put themselves under Syn's touch.
"Go now," she said. "Search for those who do not know me, show them my pleasures through your body." A final kiss, two forked tongues intertwined for a second, and Syn slid back into the pit.
The train was almost as full as it could possibly be, sweaty commuters trying their best to keep a respectable distance from each other, ensuring hands stayed out of trouble, apologising at every bump which knocked them together.
All except for one woman, seeming to trip at every opportunity as she made her way through the carriage, sending her knocking into her fellow passengers, every flailing hand brushing against a nipple or sliding between a pair of legs. She seemed to dispel the cloud of modesty from around her, men and women alike moving all too obviously to block her progress, forcing her to push past them, all parties seeming to enjoy the process.
Though she seemed to enjoy her touch, her attention was elsewhere, looking at those who did not so much as glance at her, who shuffled away as she approached. Her gaze lingered on each person, then she would shake her head, slide further up the aisle and find another to stare at.
She stopped, settling on one young man, sitting by a window, hidden behind a newspaper. For a while she stood and watched him, saying a few words to herself under her breath.
As the train approached a station it clattered over a set of points. The carriage jerked sideways, and she fell forward, over an elderly woman, her head landing in the lap of the man she had been watching, ripping through his paper, one arm knocking a cold cup of coffee from the table in front of him down his leg.
"I'm so sorry," she said, speaking directly into his crotch. She pulled herself up, to a disapproving look from the woman in the next seat, still supporting her lower body. She twisted round, so that she was sitting in her lap, and whispered in her ear. The look melted from her face, replaced with one of almost fear.
She got back to her feet. "Still, it's always pleasant to meet a woman of your age who knows how to use a whip," she hissed, loud enough to be heard by those nearby.
"I, umm, have to, ummm, excuse me," the old woman said, blushing and almost jumping from her seat, pushing through the crush to the door into the next carriage.
"Well, I guess this seat is free then." She smiled at the man, who still seemed to be slightly shocked at their close encounter. "I'm really sorry about knocking your drink over you. I get off at the next stop, I can probably find you something dry to change into."
"Don't worry," he stammered. "It's my stop too. I live just near the station, it's no big deal."
"Excuse me?" she asked. "When a beautiful woman invites you back to her place, you don't say no. Call me Priestess, by the way, and let me say it will be a pleasure to seduce you. Now, would you like to come back with me and change into something dry?"
"Really, I'm fine." The train slowed. "This is my stop, if you'd be kind enough to let me out."
"Oh, but this is where we both get off," she said. She stood up. "If you won't come back to my place, I guess yours will do." Taking his hand, she dragged him to the carriage door before he realised what was going on.
The door opened with a hiss, and he wriggled from her grip to dart out into the rain. She followed him, falling in step as the train pulled away.
"Please, stop following me," he said, stopping and turning to face her with a swiftness that almost caused her to run into him. She took a step back.
"All I want is some meaningless sex. Is that too much to ask? Is there something wrong with me?"
"I'm not interested. Sorry."
"Not interested? You're scared, that's what it is." She advanced half a step towards him. "You've never slept with a woman, never seen one naked, never even kissed anyone but your parents. You think I'm evil, think everyone should be sexless as you are. You don't know what pleasure is, and are afraid to ever find out. I know about you. I know how you scrub your hands if you accidentally brush someone, that you will run back and just stand under the shower for half an hour because I touched you today. I know that you hate yourself every time you have to touch your own cock just to take a piss, that you could never let anyone, not even yourself, commit the sin of bringing you any pleasure from it. That you're too fucking afraid to let me show you how to embrace sin."
He stood, his face just inches from hers as her tirade built almost to a scream. She finished, and for half a second he stood in shock, and then ran down the road. She watched him, until he faded into the rain.
His key seemed not to fit the lock, and he spent what seemed like minutes trying to open the door, his heart pounding. She had not followed him, he would have seen, but she had known his secrets. Finally opening it, he burst through the door, banging it shut behind him, checking every lock securely closed, and curled up against the wall. She was right: he would have to shower, would have to scrub himself clean, not just the dirt on the outside, but the tarnish he felt on the inside.
She had not followed him. There was no need; she knew where he lived. Now she stood at the door to his apartment, listening to the sound of the shower, echoing the rain outside.
She tried the handle, found it locked. There was no other way in from the landing, and this was the third floor; climbing in through the window would not be an option. But nor was it necessary.
Standing in front of the door, she screamed in pain, drowning out the rain, the agony of being ripped apart. She fell to the floor, writhing, whole body convulsions diminishing into a thousand separate sinuous bodies twisting apart from each other.
He sat under the running water, his soaked clothes sticking to his skin. Her scream pierced him, flashing bright lights across his vision, and he doubled over to vomit into the flow. Deafened by the intensity of the scream, and his own pain, he did not hear the locks twisting open.
The door opened inward, snakes slithering down from the handle as it swung far enough to allow a broad python's head through. The snake slid forwards on the carpet, following a trail of wet footprints leading towards the almost-closed door of the bathroom. Its blunt nose silently pushed the bathroom door open, and the serpents slithered inside.
A curtain hung over the edge of the bath to keep the shower water from soaking the floor; now it served to hide the reptilian visitors from him. The python crawled up the foot of the bath, poking its head just far enough over to see him at the other end, curled up with his head between his knees, eyes pointed downwards.
Unseen, it moved the few feet down the bath towards him. Elsewhere, other snakes crawled around the room, readying themselves.
He looked up, his face washed clean of the vomit, though its bitter taste still persisted in his mouth. For a second he looked the python in the eyes, mouth open as if to cry out, but with no sound, and then it struck, teeth digging into the right side of his chest. Together they twisted in the bath, a single coil looping around him as he was pulled forwards onto the body of the snake.
From the curtain rail above another snake dropped down onto him, and the flow over the edge started, snakes pouring into the bath around him, slithering over him, sliding beneath him.
As they moved together, the almost silent, yet also deafening, hissing of countless snakes merged into a single voice.
"Sin will embrace you."
Now he found his voice, screaming to block out her words. The coil around him tightened slightly as he exhaled, but the teeth released their hold. The python raised its head to look back into his eyes, seeming to attempt to force him into silence with its stare.
Smaller snakes flowed up the python's body, wrapping around the head, twisting it into new shapes, into the perfect beauty of the priestess. Elsewhere around his body, he felt movement as she rebuilt herself. The cold-blooded touch of reptilian skin became the yielding warmth of the woman he feared; of all women he feared.
Still only half formed, she lay beneath him in the bath, both arms and coils wrapped around him to hold their bodies together. Her lips closed on his screaming mouth; her tongue a writhing serpent inside him. A hand across his back ripped at his sodden clothes, razor-sharp nail splitting his shirt with ease, drawing blood from across his spine.
Her shape still shifted beneath him, the muscles of distinct coils fading away into a single smooth body. The band across his body slid down, became a leg, while another leg came from beneath to wrap around him, holding him as tightly as the coil had ever done.
She let him break free from her kiss; let him pull back slightly from her. As he did so, she slipped a hand between them, pulling the shirt from him, then sliding down, into his pants.
"And you will learn to embrace back."
With the arm still around his back, she pulled him back onto her, raising her lips to meet his. The other hand gently teased his limp cock, feeling out what it had to offer. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and she writhed against him.
His hands, trapped beneath her body by the weight of them both, tried to tear at her flesh. Their movements confined, they managed little more than digging his nails into her skin. His legs pushed against the bath, trying to raise his body from hers, but the strength of her own legs held him down.
She could taste the vomit in his throat, could smell the sweat on his body, tainted with terror. But she could also feel the heat against her hand as blood began to flow into his penis, responding to her touch against his wishes.
Fully human now, save for her forked tongue flicking inside his mouth, she slithered against him with the same grace as in her serpent form, lubricated by the warm water, running in a thin film over them. She pulled his pants down with her hand until she could hook them in one toe, and from there stripped him with her feet.
Their bodies naked together, she guided his half-erect penis into her, using her fingers to stimulate both him and herself. Though he still fought against her, she could sense the desire for submission now. He hardened within her, arousal starting to compete with the overpowering scent of fear in his sweat.
Now he was inside her, she took the hand which had been between them and wrapped it around him, strengthening her already tight hold against him. Almost without effort, she twisted the two of them around, so that she lay on top of him. His hands, freed from beneath her, ripped at her back, tearing the thin flesh to reveal the seething coils beneath.
She slid her body up and down against him, causing him to gasp and his fingers to curl. As she ground her body against his, his resistance faded and disappeared altogether.
Finally she felt him on the cusp of orgasm. There she held him, twisted their bodies as one again, so that he was once more on top.
"Sin is yours, if you will take it."
He took it, raising his body to plunge it back into hers, only two more times before he came within her, collapsing onto her body.
As they lay in the bath, the water washing the sweat from them, a third presence joined them. Syn walked through the bathroom door, pulling back the curtain to stand naked before them.
"You have done well, priestess. This one is mine now. You may leave."
With that, the body beneath him was gone. For an instant he had the sensation of a hundred serpents slithering past him, and then nothing. He stood, knees weak from his ordeal, and embraced Syn as she stepped into the bath with him.