Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
We have an apple tree. Planted by the previous owners, they warned us against the sour fruit, and, until this week, every apple it had produced had been shrunken and shrivelled. But, a few days ago, my wife had brought me an apple from the tree. Although recognisable as the same variety of apple, this was perfectly formed, looking juicy and inviting.
I took a bite. It tasted as good as it looked. I was about to take a second, but my wife stopped me.
"Good?" she asked. I nodded. "Can I try?"
But the apple was too good to share. "No," I said, "It might be poisonous. I don't want to risk us both."
"You're just being greedy," she accused me. I denied it, and promised that I wouldn't eat any more of it until I was sure that I was ok.
"Besides," I said, "If the tree grows one good apple, it will probably grow more. If I survive this one, we can have as many as we like." I could tell that she wasn't satisfied, but I didn't care. After all, I might have been being greedy, but I was right as well. There would probably be more apples, and these she could have. But this one was mine.
I carefully diluted some lemon juice with water in a bowl, and placed the apple into it.
"Why are you doing that?" she asked. "After all, we'll be able to have plenty like it, remember?"
I could tell that she was angry. "How about, if I don't die in the next six hours, you can eat it?" She gave me an exasperated look, but agreed. Of course, I would have eaten it by then.
However, when I came to eat it, I slipped, dropping the bowl onto the floor, smashing it, spilling the water and causing the apple to roll under a cupboard. She heard, and came to investigate.
"You were going to eat that, weren't you?" I could hardly deny it.
"Fine," I said, "I'll throw it out. It'll taste of dirt now anyway, after it's rolled around on the floor." I retrieved the apple, and dropped it into the bin. It did nothing to calm her anger, but it at least served to make her drop the matter.
By the time night fell, she was still angry with me. I lay in the bed next to her, but she shuffled away, leaving me cold and alone. I tried to make it up to her.
"Look, I'm sorry about the apple. I don't know what came over me." She ignored me. "I promise, the next apple that tree produces, it'll be yours." Still silent. I gave up, and soon fell asleep.
A few hours later, I woke up, on instructions from my bladder. I got out of bed to go and relieve myself. Having done so, I started back to the bedroom, but something drew me downstairs, into the kitchen. I opened the bin, and there was the apple. Under the faint light it looked as pristine and as perfect as when I had bitten into it earlier. I took another bite. It had lost none of its flavour, none of its juiciness. However, there was a definite after-taste of that evening's curry, which it had obviously mixed with in the bin, and I threw it away again.
I trudged back up the stairs, and back into the bedroom. I could hear my wife breathing the steady breaths of the sleeping, and in the faint moonlight I could see her bare breasts where she had thrown back the covers to escape the heat of the night.
I wanted to make love to her then, and knelt beside her to blow in her ear and wake her. She stirred, and I offered myself to her.
"I'm trying to sleep," she said, and turned away from me, pulling the covers around her. I gave up, and fell asleep on the other side of the bed.
It was that night that she first came to me, in my dreams.
Dreams of lust, of passion, of fear. Dreams that burnt throughout night, that seared themselves onto my consciousness. And every dream of her.
Every desire my wife left unfulfilled that night, she satisfied. All night in my dreams I lay beside her, with her, and inside her. Her body was so perfect, her touch so sensual, and her love-making so wonderful.
In my dreams I explored every square inch of her body. We tried every sexual position I knew, and the many more that she knew. She pleasured me in ways I never knew possible. We were as one person, the way that she understood my lust, that she responded to my every desire.
But it was only a dream. As dawn came, she said her goodbyes and left me to a couple of hours of dreamless sleep. When I awoke, the bed was empty, the sheets wet with my sweat, and crusted with my semen.
My wife was in the kitchen, dressed, and eating breakfast. Her anger had left her overnight, and she was back to her usual self.
"I gave up trying to share a bed with you," She said. "You were tossing and turning all night, moaning and groaning."
"Sorry, it must have been the apple. I guess it wasn't such a good idea to eat it after all." I don't know where the lie had come from, it had seemed to almost speak itself. "I'm still not feeling very good, actually. I think I might have to call in sick." Working held no attraction when I could spend the day in bed, in the company of my night-time lover.
"You want me to stay and look after you?" she asked.
"I'm not eight years old, you know. I can probably take care of myself. You have a job to go to, anyway."
"I suppose so. It's probably time I left, actually. If you have to vomit, please try and keep it well contained. It does stain terribly."
I returned to bed, to try and sleep, to bring back the dreams, but there was nothing. It was then that I remembered the apple. Only after a bite of that had I received such welcome dreams. I fished it out the bin again, expecting to find it brown and dried, but to my surprise it still looked perfect, although with some of the curry still adhering to the side. I washed the apple clean, and took another bite.
It was just as good as before. I washed the bite down with a glass of water, and went back up the stairs to bed.
This time sleep came easily, and soon the dreams returned.
My lover of last night was waiting for me. As I entered her dream world she joined me, welcoming me to her domain by taking my erect penis within her mouth. She stimulated me almost to the point of orgasm, her tongue and lips so precise in their pleasuring, but then stopped, leaving me on the brink.
She took her mouth away from my penis, and stood up to kiss me. I could taste my own sweat on her lips, the faint traces of my semen which tainted her sweet breath. And then, as we stood together, I felt something over my shoulders.
Until that moment I had been afraid of snakes. But when I felt the sinuous body upon my naked flesh, saw the serpent's tongue tasting the air between us, looked into those unblinking eyes, I had no fear.
As the snake held our bodies together, I slid deep into her. I was almost ready to come immediately, but she held me back, controlled me, almost torturing me. She had such skill, to hold me at the limit of my arousal.
It was as she held me that I felt more of the coils on my body, and then suddenly we were surrounded. Snakes of all different sizes and colours, from those little thicker than my finger to those as large around as my waist. All I could see in every direction was the writhing bodies, save for my lover on top of me.
And then she took me to my climax. Spasms wracked my body as the sensation ran through me to spurt into her. Snakes encircled us, holding us in their coils, exploring us, over us, under us, and between us.
Serpentine bodies forced us apart, and she disappeared from my view. I drifted through the scaly mass for what seemed like hours. Occasionally I saw her, deep in pleasure, and she would touch me, sharing that pleasure with me, but most of the time it was just the snakes, no longer objects of fear, but of lust, of desire.
And then they were gone. I looked at the clock. It was just coming up to five. I had slept through the whole day, and my wife would return any second.
I remembered the apple. It was still sitting on the sideboard in the kitchen. I grabbed some clothes and rushed downstairs. I took one bite and hid it, just as I heard her key in the door.
She came in, asked me how I was, told me about her day, general small talk. I paid her little attention, letting my responses come without thinking
Her body was still as good as the day we married, beautiful enough to arouse the interests of any man. But now, compared to the woman of my dreams, I could barely stand to look at her.
I envied my dream self, free to love such beauty, not tied down within the confines of marriage. And with that envy came the knowledge of how to resolve the matter. With it came her voice, telling me to make the sacrifice that could give her life, could bring her into the world.
And I knew that I had to do it. I could not live my waking life while my dream self took such pleasures. I had to bring my lover to this world, to join me. I had to not just have her as I dreamed, but to wake up beside her, to feel the warmth of her body, to lie in the stillness of the dawn, listening to her breathing, feeling the soft touch of her breasts against me.
"You want to come out for a walk?" I asked.
"Have you even been listening to me?"
"Sorry, my mind's been elsewhere. But I've spent the day in bed, I need to get out. Will you accompany me?"
"Fed up of playing the eternal sloth, then? Of course I will. You might want to tidy yourself up slightly first, though."
So we went out together, a familiar route we had walked many times before, down to a secluded spot. There, concealing a kitchen knife in my hands, I kissed her. I slowly slid my hands up her body onto her shoulders, and then slit her throat.
At first she just looked shocked, and then she attacked me, with a violence I had not thought possible. But the blood flowed readily, and within seconds she fought no more.
As she slumped within my arms, crimson blood soaking into the grass below, I felt her spirit leave, and another flow into the body. She straightened, pulling herself up, and embraced me, her tongue brushing my lips, her body pressed against mine. I could feel as she changed, the familiar body marred with the pallor of death becoming the shape I knew so well from my dreams.
We tore off each other's clothes, and we fucked there, a rough, animalistic loving, relishing in the slick sensation of the bloodstained grass. Every pleasure in my dreams was nothing compared to what I experienced then, no sweat-soaked night could match the feeling of being with her in the flesh, the warmth of her body in the morning air, the taste of her lips tainted by the metallic tang of blood, and of finally coming within her.
It was then that she told me her name. She would not speak of her origins, nor explain how it was that she had entered my dreams, and entered the world. Just that she was the Lady Syn.
I crossed the town with her, bloodied and naked, just as I had been born. She must have held some power over all people, to prevent them from seeing what was so obvious, for no-one looked at us, avoiding us, yet never recognising that we were there.
That first night with her was amazing. Sometimes she was gentle, tender and soft, at others violent, fierce and vicious, and always insatiable, unrelenting. No man could have experienced such pleasures before, but yet part of me felt still unsatisfied, knowing that the apple still waited for me, wondering what powers it would unlock, what joys it could bring.
And so I left her company, left her lying in the midst of the rumpled bedding, in the debris of frantic lovemaking, and took another bite.
It was there that the reality hit me, in the early morning light.
My wife's blood still stained my fingers, and memories of her death, of her murder at my hands came back to haunt me. Yet I felt no remorse. It was a sacrifice that needed to be made, for it was the only way to bring the Lady Syn into this world.
But what I did feel was anger. Not at Syn, for it was not her fault that it had to be this way, but at myself, for marrying such an ugly creature. At the world, for not permitting Syn to be born into it.
I screamed my anger, kicked cupboards, threw plates, smashed glasses, but it made me feel no better. Syn appeared at the door, naked and beautiful, but it did not calm me.
"Why did I have to kill her?" I shouted at her, but she just laughed. I took a knife, the same knife I had used to kill my wife, and I stabbed at myself, trying to destroy the murderous beast that lurked within.
One wound in the left arm, just above the elbow, through the muscle, grazing bone.
One in the left shoulder, too high to cause any real damage, barely more than a flesh wound.
One in the heart. Blood spurted out with each beat, and I looked down in shock and in horror at what I had done to myself.
And the Lady Syn came over to me, pulled out the knife, and put her lips over the last of these wounds. I swear I could feel her tongue touching my heart as she kissed the broken flesh.
When she lifted her head, the bleeding had stopped, and I was whole again.
She lead me back up the stairs to bed, and lay down, I upon her. As I penetrated her, I began to sense the change. The warmth of her body, the soft touch of her pubic hair, it was now the coolness of the serpent.
I felt the coil, extending between my legs, and then wrapping them in its sensuous touch. With my hands I explored down her back, from her long hair, over her shoulders, all as she had felt many times before. But as I reached her waist, there her smooth skin became scales. Her legs were legs no longer, but a long serpentine tail, rapidly twisting around our bodies.
She held us together, squeezed us and crushed us. I needed to make no effort as she manipulated me, forcing me deep within her reptilian vagina, and then pulling me out. The powerful muscles in her tail not only pressed on me from the outside, but within her.
Then, as I was about to come, she tightened the coil between my legs, holding back the wave attempting to burst through. Within her hold I fought her, trying to give my body the space it needed for the impending orgasm, but she held me with grips of steel.
Every struggle only made the pleasure more intense, made her hold even more unbearable. Finally she tightened the coils around our bodies, forcing us so hard together, forcing her deep within me, and dropped the pressure between my legs.
My body tried to convulse as I came within her. I could not move independently in the coils, but we shuddered together, again and again, until I could take no more, and finally we laid still.
I awoke before her in the morning, and crawled out of the coils. Even though I had not eaten a proper meal for a couple of days, I was not hungry. But there was one thing that I had to eat.
I brought the apple up the stairs and took a sixth bite, leaving only a single mouthful. Syn had woken by then, and she unwrapped her coils to let me inside, then pulled me against her, drawing my erect penis inside her.
"Take me higher," I begged. I knew what the next step would be, that she could change completely to the serpent. I would never have believed that a snake could cause such desire in me, but it was now all that I needed.
"I will no longer have a human aspect, you understand? It will be you and the serpent. The serpent knows no caution, it has no cares. It will love you, and it will give you pleasures beyond any imagination, but it can crush you, and it can kill you."
"I am not afraid," I answered her. "I brought you to this world, I gave you life. As you are mine, so will be the snake. I am master of you both. Now, change!"
Even as I was still deep inside her, she changed around me. The warmth of her skin became the coolness of scales. The last touch of her tongue on my lips lingered as her head grew away from mine, her sinuous body stretching upwards to then wrap around me. Green and black coils surrounded me, writhing against my skin.
At last the snake stopped growing. No coil was less than a foot thick, and most were double that. Her length was immense, covering not only the bed, but the whole room in a shimmering carpet. In the middle, I lay, delighting from head to toe in her massiveness.
"Love me!" I commanded. "Squeeze me! Crush me!" She began to oblige, starting just with a gentle pressure, almost unnoticeable.
My erection slipped out of her as she slid around me, but was immediately caught between coils, held tight as they slipped against one another. Syn must have noticed, for she began a gentle undulation, stimulating my penis, altogether different, but no less pleasurable, compared to my penetration of her.
I could feel the tightness now. There was no pain in it, each squeeze bringing new and different sensations. Her weight alone was enough to crush me, but I could tell that she was holding me safe, protecting me from herself, giving me at all times just what I needed.
The serpentine body was no less sensual than any of the other forms I had encountered her in. What it lacked in the impossibilities of her dream form, in the warmth and moistness of her human sexuality while she was all human, or in the soft touch of her breasts under the hardness of the constricting coils as she took both human and snake forms, it made up for in her size, in her power, and in her animal nature.
And what other form but her current could have given me the pleasures which the snake could? Every way I turned, every extended arm, every inch of skin found her muscular coils. My body, so naked and vulnerable beneath her, and my soul, flying high in the pleasure, but at the same time bound in her coils, enveloped by the power, electrified by the dominance of my Lady Syn over me.
How many times I came, how many orgasms I experienced within those coils, how many times I spilled my seed upon her, I do not know. Time slows down in those circumstances, pleasures blur together, merging together into waves of euphoria.
I know at times I could barely breath, held so tightly I could feel each rib protruding through the skin of my chest, pushing deep into her coils, and then her releasing me, saving me seconds from slipping away.
I know that at other times I could barely feel her at all, lying within a warm cocoon of her body, letting me recover, letting me prepare for another round of the incredible sensations she would be soon to give me.
And finally, I know that every sacrifice I have made along the way, every choice, every act of supposed wrong-doing, it has been worth it. Anything to bring such beauty into this world can only be considered my duty. I have chosen my pleasure over all else, and I am proud to have done so.
So now we lie together, the Serpent Syn and I. She still moves beneath, around and above me, I lie unmoving, exhausted from our exertions. She has taken me to the very limits of pleasure, and together we have pushed them back, discovering new joys, new sensations. If I lived forever, I would never experience what I have in these last few days.
And yet there is still one bite of the apple. I see it, just within my grasp. I know she has given me everything, but with my last bite, can she give me more? I pick up the apple, and suddenly I hear her voice inside my head. She begs me to finish it, to finally allow her to fully enter this world, to be whole.
Even with my every desire satiated, what can I do but give in to it? Every mouthful of the apple has redoubled my pleasure. I am tired, overused and quite literally squeezed dry. But I can keep going. I have to have it all, to give in to the glutton of pleasure I have become.
And so I bite into the flesh, still as perfect as the day it was picked. The final mouthful comes free, and I chew it, and then swallow. The core drops from my hand, oozing juice onto Syn's coils.
It is now that I realise.
It is now that I recognise Sin.
The pleasure falls away, and the pain of the crushing coils is all to real. The tenderness of the bruises, the unbearable throbbing in my erection, the vice like grip on my empty testicles, all clamouring for my attention.
And as I look upwards into the gaping jaws of the Serpent Sin, I know now that it is too late. I have given myself to Sin, and soon Sin will consume me utterly.