Make It with the Greatest Villains of All Time! Let's face it, sometimes a villain, or villainess, is so deliciously fiendish, we are turned on in spite of ourselves. Who hasn't been attracted to such world famous baddies as Loki, Morgaine Le Fey, the Sheriff of Nottingham, Lucretia Borga, Fu Manchu, or Dr, Mabuse? Villains and Vixens is a fascinating anthology of all enw stories that explore the erotic appeal of villains and their female counterparts, the vixens. You will be surprised at the superb quality of the writing and sheer story telling ability, as well as by how individually each writer approaches topic. Some of the black hearted scoundrels in this book are simply wicked, while others are two-legged monsters; a few are the epitome of domination and sadism, while a couple are, in their own way, kind. The authors do an incredible job of conjuring a marvelous assortment of rogues, rapscallions, knaves, and black hearts: Evil Queens, Fu Manchu, Fallen Angels, Dark Fairies, the Marquis DeSade, Wicked Pirate Captains, and many, many more--each more evil and beguiling than the last. You won't want to miss this very special anthology assembled by prize-winning authors and editors, Jamie Joy Gatto and M. Christian.
EXTRACT
INTRODUCTION
`Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.`
Paradise Lost, John Milton
Okay, let's be honest: being stalwart is dull, moderation is for
cowards, laws are to be broken, the world begs to be conquered, greed
is good, heroes are fools ... and there's nothing quite as wonderful
as a good villain.
Sure, we might applaud a lantern-jawed force for justice, apple pie,
and baseball, but deep down don't we all really lust for the sinister,
the flamboyant, the cruel, the scoundrel?
And why shouldn't we? The best--and only--thing Superman can get is
Lois Lane; no one remembers Naylan Smith, only the fiendish Fu Manchu;
Holmes wants his needle, Moriatry wants the world; Bond likes it
shaken, not stirred, Blofeld likes it groveling at his feet; Jekyl was
a kindly doctor, but Hyde was a wild libertine.
Without an adversary or nemesis to oppose, a hero is nothing--just
someone sitting on his thumbs. Villains, though, are pro-active: they
don't react, they act--they have desires, often deliriously twisted
desires, but at least they want to do more than serve the status quo.
Villains sit in mountainous aeries, surrounded by chrome gadgetry,
leather carapaced assassins at their beck and call; they wring their
hands, celebrating their own diabolical cleverness while restraining a
heroic Adonis in some infernal appliance; they smile at the sight of
blood like the best S/M player; they seize the world; they dare; they
write their fever dreams and bizarre fetishes across the globe in mile
high letters. Most importantly, while a hero is someone you'd take
home to mother, the villain is the one you know, deep down, would be
the best fuck.
That's what this book is about. Kitten-with-a-whip Jamie Joy Gatto
and I wanted to create a book where might makes right--because it's so
damned hot; where [the] you don't want to escape the evil clutches of
the Dragon Lady; where the power-mad and thoroughly twisted rule--and
we couldn't be happier; where gender ambivalent assassins and
dominatrix commandos are the date of choice; where a leering,
top-hatted, cloaked cad ties a swooning damsel in not that much
distress to the railroad tracks--in other words, a place where the
good guys lost and the bad guys finally won.
Villains and Vixens is a celebration of the dark, the allure of the
rascal. Within these pages--with the talents of these absolutely
wonderful writers--we're going to peek behind the mad scientist's lab,
the criminal mastermind's lair, and the tyrant's palace, to show you
the seductiveness of these so nasty men and women. Here, we're going
to see what makes these bad people so wonderfully, erotically good.
* * * *
Villains and Vixens was a fascinating book to assemble, due in part
of course to being able to work with the wonderful Jamie Joy, but also
for the chance it gave us as editors to dip into the dark souls of
some truly remarkable writers.
The concept of the book was easy enough in principal: having skilled
writers explore a villain's erotic appeal--to play with the dark
seductiveness, the raw ego, the rampant id of some legendary dark
figure. What surprised both of us was not only the superb quality of
the writing and story telling ability, but also how each writer
approached the challenge: some with humor, some with thoughtfulness,
some with subtlety, some with terror, all brilliant and powerfully
erotic.
What was also interesting was how each and every writer in this book
drew on their love of characters being bad. Some of the black-hearted
scoundrels in this book are simply wicked or mischievous, while others
are two-legged monsters; some have a sense of honor, while a few are
without qualms; a few stories feature villains as the epitome of
domination and sadism, while a couple are, at least in their own way,
kind. Just as the flavor of nastiness was different from author to
author and story to story, so too was the choice of villain.
Restricted by the only authority any literary villain bows
to--copyright law--these writers did an incredible job of conjuring a
marvelous assortment of rogues, rapscallions, knaves, and black
hearts: Evil Queens, Fallen Angels, Dark Fairies, the Marquis DeSade,
Wicked Pirates, and many, many more--each more twisted and beguiling
than the last.
I hope you'll agree that this is a truly wonderful book: a place that
recognizes that the heart, the soul, may dream of peace and prosperity
but that other parts of who we are--sensual and sexual components of
our humanity--lust and hunger for control, destruction and power ...
just like the villains we adore.
-M. Christian
San Francisco, CA
* * * *
TO RIDE HIM HOME
by Kate Hill
Sigyn perched on the highest peak of the gleaming walls of Asgard.
Her clawed, Valkyrie toes clutched the white stones as she leaned
forward. The single claw which curved from the bottom of each delicate
heel held fast as she gazed through grayish clouds overhanging the
stronghold of the Nordic gods. On earth, a battle raged below: a mild
distraction of mortals shrieking war cries, slashing and bludgeoning
one another, and feigning greatness.
Sigyn smiled mockingly at swords that would snap between her teeth
and round wooden shields which her fingernails could splinter. The
Vikings thought themselves masters of warfare and terror, while
overhead the immortals laughed. At least Sigyn laughed.
Her Valkyrie sisters swooped from the sky and perched on walls beside
her. They moaned gutturally as the scent of blood wafted from the
frozen field below. Sigyn glanced at Odin's other battle maidens and
sneered. To her, they'd lost their enthusiasm for mortal suffering.
After all, and according to the Valkyrie code, suffering was what
human battle was truly about.
It seemed every immortal in Asgard had his or her own agenda
regarding mortal conflicts. Odin wanted to ensure an army of strong
swords to fill Valhalla for the final prophesied battle which would
end the gods' reign. Thor took pride in watching the foolish human
males model themselves in his image, caring only for fighting and
gaining all the muscle of a draft horse. Sigyn traced her lips with
her tongue, thinking that she wasn't completely against Thor's hand in
the fate of mortals. All that muscle beneath hot, tender flesh felt so
good against her own icy skin when she held the body of a dying
warrior.
Unlike the gods, the Valkyrie's only interest in earthly men was for
carnal pleasure. Nothing made a Valkyrie's heart pound or her sex melt
like the thought of riding a dead mortal home. In that forbidden place
between life and death, they made wild love to men as they flew them
to Valhalla. Once in Valhalla, Valkyries lost their fascination for
the newly immortal warriors; the battle maidens longed for the heat
and softness of the human world; they loved blood and pain, or at
least they once did.
Sigyn thought her sisters had become too gentle in their love play
with the dead. Even their appearance had begun to change: ragged tufts
of demon hair was now combed smooth and braided in the fashion of
colorless mortal wenches. Rather than reveling in the glorious, sheer
tunics spun by Freyja's dressmakers, most of the Valkyries now donned
golden armor and covered their demonic feet with leather boots. The
younger ones even seemed to look more human, having delicate features
rather than exotic ones, and bodies which seemed to lack the long,
steely muscles of a goddess. In Sigyn's mind, The Valkyries were
slowly becoming a disgrace to the powers who created them.
But not me, Sigyn thought. She inhaled deeply, allowing the
blood-scent to fill her lungs. She dropped from the wall and sped
toward Earth. Her bare feet sank into crimson slush as she pranced
through the battle field, weaving her way around corpses in slashed
leather armor, their battle-scarred faces already turning gray in
death, until she found what she desired.
`So pretty.` Sigyn's sharp fingernails raked the ragged, bleeding
stump where the warrior's hand had been. Though near death, he moaned
in agony, and Sigyn's nipples hardened beneath the flimsy white tunic
molded by rain and blood along her voluptuous curves.
`All so pretty.` Her eyes swept the field once again. The scent of
blood and fear was delicious and far more powerful than the false
courage mortals wore into battle. Courage smelled too fresh, too
sweet. Terror was so much headier, pungent-like herbs combined with
the musky aroma of mating.
Sigyn watched her Valkyrie sisters stalk among the bodies, choosing
favorites to fondle and nip. They straddled the waists of the dead,
ground their pelvises against frozen groins, and tongued bloodless
lips. The beautiful fiends clasped their thighs around lifeless waists
and levitated, the scent of their passion racing on the wind as they
rode the dead to Valhalla.
`Stupid,` Sigyn muttered, turning her attention to the man beneath
her. The man who still breathed. She lowered her mouth to the severed
limb and licked it with her rough, catlike tongue. She lifted her
face, saw tears roll from the man's sightless blue eyes, and smiled.
Lashes lowered, her sex pulsing, she used her nails to slash away
armor and woolen clothes, baring a man's body of thick muscle, old
wounds, and soft, human flesh.
She slid over him and leaned so close to his face that his tears
burned her chilled flesh like a fire's sparks. She whispered, `You're
dying, but you're not dead yet. We have magic, you know. I'll show
you.` Sigyn clasped his flaccid organ. Her nails scraped it to
wakefulness.
`Have pity,` he murmured, though she felt his heartbeat quicken,
pulsing weakly as she rekindled human lust in spite of his pain. She
realized the combination was the most terrifying thrill he'd ever
experienced, and knowing this pushed her own rapture to its limits.
She shivered and slipped him into her sex drenched in chilly liquid
passion. He gasped into her probing mouth as his phallus of ice filled
her. Her thighs clasped his waist as they rose in the air, her pelvis
grinding, her fingers biting his bare shoulders, her own immortal
heartbeat deafening the claps of thunder. The field darkened, and as
cold rain pelted her flesh, Sigyn tore her mouth from the dead
warrior's and screamed her release to the storm clouds overhead.
* * * *
`I don't know why you do it.` Balder shook his head sadly in Sigyn's
direction. They stood in the winter garden at Asgard. Located just
outside of Valhalla, the circular garden was a bewitching place filled
with ice statues and shimmering trees with white and silver bark. The
shouting, laughter, and singing from Odin's great hall was muted, and
Sigyn was glad. There was nothing more annoying to her than the sounds
of good cheer.
Balder's long fingers stroked the nose of a horse sculpted from ice.
`The others wait until they're dead before taking their sinister
pleasure.`
Sigyn narrowed her eyes at the god. He doesn't deserve his own power,
she thought. He's too weak and thinks too much about those ...
mortals.
`No one else cares,` she shrugged. `Not your father, mother, or
brothers...`
`Oh, I care.` Loki, Balder's younger brother snickered from where he
sat under a leafless tree.
The differences between the siblings were marked: Loki was tall and
sleek with eyes the blue of a nighttime sea and hair so dark it was
almost black. Balder was thickly muscled, like one of his pet Vikings,
with hair as pale as his godlike flesh and eyes the light gray of baby
bird's feathers.
Loki continued, `There's no lovelier sound than your voice when
you've drained one of them dry.`
`See?` Sigyn's full lips curved upward, revealing tiny, sharp teeth
of a cleaner white than snow. She approached Balder and splayed her
hands across his broad chest. `You're a god,` she stood on tiptoe and
edged her lips closer to his, `Surely the sight and sound of Valkyrie
lust appeals to you just a little.`
`Not at all.` Balder grasped her shoulders. His fingertips bruised
her to the bone, and he shoved her so hard that she landed in a snow
drift beside Loki.
`You disgust me,` Balder added as he strode inside Asgard's white
stone walls.
Sigyn hissed and clenched fistfuls of snow into balls of ice.
`You don't disgust me,` Loki sang and leapt on top of her, his head
of dark brown curls tickling her neck as he sucked one of her nipples
through her tunic.
`It's no fun, Loki.` She kicked him off her and stood.
`How can you know? You haven't tried me.` Loki leaned back on his
elbows and flashed her a smile of pure evil. His slightly protruding
front teeth and the playfulness in his dark blue eyes softened his
wicked expression and pushed aside any second thoughts Sigyn had
regarding a tryst with him.
`I know because you're a god.` She folded her arms across her chest
and glared at him. `What fun could it be without the smell of fear?
Without blood, without pain?`
`Bet you'd like to see Balder on the field of death,` Loki continued.
`Bet you'd love to torture his flesh and ride him home.`
The thought made Sigyn icy wet.
`Mmm,` Loki purred, reaching between his legs to adjust the growing
bulge in his gray leather trousers. `That is a temptation. You do know
that Balder is destined to die. Someday.`
`When that someday comes,` Sigyn ran her fingertips over her breasts,
smiling inwardly as Loki's eyes followed her every movement, `you can
wager I'll be the one to ... ride him home.`
`Why don't you come watch me tonight? See how much fun mortal women
have with me?`
`Why should I care about mortal women?` she scoffed.
* * * *
Following Loki was easier than Sigyn thought it would be. The smell
of lust and fear surrounded him, only slightly less powerful than the
horror on the battlefield. She hid behind a thick tree trunk and
watched him as he blew a kiss to a pile of sticks, causing a fire to
kindle. Flames cast jagged shadows on his naked flesh. Tiny dark hairs
curled against his chest and long, sinewy thighs, and a thicker swatch
covered his groin. His cock, heavy and tinted burgundy in the
firelight, grew above pendulous testicles which bounced a greeting to
the mortal who lay in a pile of leaves.
The woman wore a greasy woolen tunic cut low enough to expose the
tops of large, soft breasts. The enticing globes swelled with every
agitated breath, and Sigyn smiled as she sensed the woman's fear and
passion.
`This isn't right,` the woman murmured.
`Yes, but isn't that what makes it such fun?` Loki squatted and
jerked her into his arms, one hand buried in her filthy blond mane. He
forced her face close to his and traced her mouth with his tongue
before taking her bottom lip between his teeth and biting.
Loki swallowed her agonized scream as he kissed her deeply. She
clutched handfuls of his dark brown curls and yanked, though at the
same time her legs entwined with his. She thrust her pelvis hard
against him, and Loki tore his mouth from hers and gasped in
pleasure.
`Yes, my ignorant little whore,` Loki snarled. `You're learning
quickly. You want this, don't you?`
The woman stared at him through half-open eyes, her cheeks flushed.
Sigyn smiled. She felt the woman's conflict. Her puny human mind told
her that such vicious pleasure was wrong, but her immortal spirit
cried out for the ultimate pleasure/pain only a god could give. A god,
like Loki, unhindered by guilt.
`I'm disloyal,` the woman moaned as Loki slid her tunic down her
shoulders and revealed even more of her breasts so his tongue could
bath the pinkened spheres. His saliva turned cold in the night breeze,
and she shivered.
`Yes, you are disloyal.` Loki's voice was deceptively soothing. `And
you love it. You're shameless, a slut tearing at the trousers of a
god, and it thrills you.`
`No!`
Loki dropped her suddenly, and she grunted as her back slammed
against the frozen soil.
`I see your nagging mouth won't let us enjoy this, even though your
body wants mine.` Loki turned his back to her and walked closer to the
fire so that the woman couldn't see his face. But Sigyn could, and she
nearly cheered.
Loki was grinning, his teeth visible, his dark blue eyes gleaming.
Behind him, the woman leapt, panicked, to her feet and threw her arms
around his waist.
`You don't understand.` She wept, her hands sliding up his torso
until they clutched his hard chest. `My husband...`
`I'm your husband.` Loki turned, his features shifting, his eyes
slanting, a wiry blond beard sprouting from his jaw.
Sigyn smiled. At times Loki's magic was almost as exciting as her
own.
Using both hands, he ripped the tunic from the woman's body and threw
it in the fire. Flames leapt, Loki laughed, and the woman wailed,
clutching his dark head closer as he flung her onto the rocky dirt and
devoured one of her nipples.
Behind the tree, Sigyn drew a deep breath. She took one of her own
nipples between thumb and forefinger and squeezed. Oh, he's good, she
thought, watching Loki's nails leave bloody scratches down the woman's
arms.
Sigyn had followed Balder once and had been sorely disappointed at
the god's gentle ways. He had made love just like a mortal. Sigyn had
nearly fallen asleep from where she'd watched, clinging to the smelly
roof of a thatched hut.
As Loki's hips thrust fiercely against the woman's soft curves, he
lifted his head from her shoulder and stared directly at Sigyn. The
Valkyrie froze, her eyes fixed on Loki's, her hand at her breast. He
can't know I followed, she thought. Impossible!
Then he winked. His tongue poked through his lips and wiggled in
Sigyn's direction. Her jaw clenched and heart pounding, Sigyn fled.
