The Pied Piper
they to fear?
    "You may take ten pounds, or you may go
without," suggested Brewer Cole. “Ten pounds for a few minutes of
work, you should be grateful.”
    Chloe made a squeal of outrage, but the piper
again met her eyes and gave a small shake of his head.
    "Very well," the dark musician rumbled, and
he offered a quiet smile before laying his pipe to his lips once
more. This time there were no shrill notes of scraping and gnawing,
and squeaking and scurrying. The music he played was a sensual
caress that whispered along Chloe’s skin and made her heart pound a
little faster. Every note was a kiss, every lilt a seduction.
    As the piper turned and began to pace down
the streets, the elders mocked, but from every kitchen and parlor,
from every garden and shop, the eldest daughters of Hamelin came
out to follow.
    Dancing, laughing, swaying and quivering, the
enraptured throng moved up along Gold Street and down Silver
Street. And beyond Silver Street lay the cool green forest full of
old oaks and wide-spreading beeches, and there followed every unwed
woman of marriageable age, enthralled by the piper’s bewitching
tune.
    In and out among the ancient oaks the town
elders caught glimpses of the piper’s many-colored coat. But they
thought their daughters were only rejoicing in their freedom from
the rats, and did not suppose they might be enchanted, until the
music faded and died away within the lone green wood and the women
did not return.
    Chloe danced beside the piper himself,
laughing and twirling as he watched. She hesitated only a moment
when the strange mist began to rise from the forest floor and block
out the lights of the city beyond.
    The forest seemed to shimmer around them, the
trees quivering as if they had a life of their own. Then she knew
that they were no longer in the woods of her childhood. They were
transported to some other realm, where the deer and the foxes came
out to watch the seductive dance of the Hamelin daughters. The
eagle and the owl took congress from the sparrow above them. And
the very trees bowed and whispered in time with the piper’s
song.
    Dark shadows emerged from the mists and took
the form of men, every inch as tall and every male as handsome as
the pied piper beside her. A few of them even withdrew pipes of
their own.
    Chloe’s heart swelled with the music. All
around her the daughters of Hamelin danced faster, captivated by
the song. The women swayed and whirled, shedding their clothing as
they danced among the caressing hands of the seductive pipers.
    Chloe moaned and sighed in turn as the harsh
cloth of her own dress seemed to slide away without care. She
wanted to be rid of it, to be as naked and free as the wild wind in
the trees.
    An impressive man began to gyrate behind her,
his powerful body sliding and grinding against hers, but Chloe had
eyes only for the pied piper, and he had eyes for her.
    As the other man’s hands slid over her body
she could see the lust gleaming in the piper’s admiring
countenance. His gaze burning along her naked flesh, searing her
everywhere they touched, stirring a smoldering heat that drew down
to dampen the lips of her pussy and made her body tremble.
    She offered a timid smile and opened her arms
to draw him in.
    It was then that the pied piper finally
shrugged off his cloak and revealed what he truly was. Not a man at
all, but a creature taller than any man, with a powerful chest and
waist that tapered down into the hind legs of a wild goat or
stag.
    In shock she looked about and realized that
none of the pipers were men. They were satyrs, the half-men of the
forest and musical servants of Dionysus.
    She felt a twinge of fear as their leader
strode towards her on black, cloven hoofs. Yet as he drew himself
up before her, tall as an oak and broad as the mighty river, the
hooves vanished and the dark fur fell away, leaving only a nude man
in their place.
    Oh, such a man as she’d never seen
before!
    A tremulous shiver whispered down to

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