Flash and Burn: First Five by E.J. Swenson Page A

bikini, and her slim pale
body--too pale for both health and fashion--rests on a plastic
chaise. She reads something forbidden on the glowing,
lozenge-shaped device that has fascinated her for almost a year.
Her thick chestnut bangs fall into her eyes, and she sweeps them
back with a shake of her head. She's absorbed in her book; she
wants to know what happens next.
    A loud thud disrupts her
reverie, and she springs up, moving with predatory swiftness
towards the noise. She feels rather sheepish when she almost knocks
over her new neighbors. They are a matched set of excessively
good-looking graduate students--one light and one dark--who live on
the ground floor and eye her with wary desire, exactly what they
are doing now. In fact, they seem mesmerized by the sight of her
long pale body and the tiny strips of crimson cloth obscuring what
they probably think of as the good
parts.
    She smiles widely and unhooks her bikini top,
freeing her tiny, strawberry-shaped breasts. The sight of her
blushing nipples, erect in the soft evening breeze, causes both men
to inhale sharply. The more confident one--the dark one with
shoulder-length hair the color of night and a lean, rangy
build--steps forward. That's all the invitation she needs. She
pulls him to her and lets his lips and tongue jostle with hers. She
deftly unbuttons his shirt and slides it off, tasting his warm,
minty breath.
    She's undoing his belt buckle when she feels
warm, sure hands around her hips. The other roommate--a cool blond
with an obsessively gym-toned body and slightly stiff
mannerisms--slides her bikini bottoms over her rump and thighs
until they fall to her feet. She steps out of them and leans into
him, sighing softly. He moans and reaches his hand around to the
mound between her legs. She worries for just a moment about
stubble--how long has it been since she shaved?--and then relaxes
into pleasure. His manicured fingers part her plump, lower lips and
find the juicy berry within.
    As her excitement builds, she teases and
nibbles the dark one's lips and pushes his jeans and shorts over
his hips, freeing his long, straight cock. The orgasm hits her with
sudden, thigh-clenching force, and she cries out, pushing the dark
one into his own climax. The smell of his semen as it hits the
humid night air awakens something else--something ancient--inside
her, and she plunges her teeth into his sweet neck, her fangs
piercing his jugular in the same easy way a straw slides into a
juice box.
    When she is sated, she releases him, and his
lifeless body slides bonelessly to the ground. She turns slowly,
her eyes bright with life and her mouth red with gore, and sees the
blond staring at her, terror and rapture mingling in the strained
contours of his face. She smiles. "So what are you waiting for? We
need to move the body."
     

3. The druid
    The altar is made of oak. The naked woman
bound to it wears a crown of mistletoe. She lies with a stillness
that resembles death, drugged into a dangerously torpid sleep. The
monk knows his duty. He must open her veins and let the earth drink
her blood. It's the only way to save the crops from a summer
drought that has lasted since the Equinox. The bronze knife in his
hand is pleasantly warm, as if it thirsts for the offering. It
feels good in his hand.
    And yet he hesitates. He has never before
seen a woman unclothed, and his eyes drink in the sacrifice with a
seemingly unslakable thirst. Her hair is a pale, shimmering red
that glows in the late afternoon sun, and her fair face is dusted
with freckles. Her body is a creamy vessel that tapers and flares.
Her breasts are soft, round moons tipped in blood. The cleft
between her legs is both confusing and inviting. As a monk
dedicated to serving the villages of the valley, he is no stranger
to self-denial. His body is strong and lean from hard labor and
frequent fasting; it has been conditioned to obey his will.
    He steels himself and raises the knife, only
to let it drop to his side. Part