Read this on my blog!

http://spidernon.home.blog/2020/03/10/maria-the-dominant-shoggoth/

I stared out upon the bustling streets and twirled my pen furtively. The stars never lied. The Demons would be upon us soon. It was up to me.

Three months before I had found the dire warnings and predictions. I had feverishly set to writing to my old fellows from Miskatonic, hoping that the right counter spell could be found.

My pleas had fallen on deaf ears - they all said I was misinterpreting the signs again, that I had been wrong about the rising of Ascargarotha and the sundering by the Decayed Ones. This invasion by demon-women sounded laughably absurd to them. I was the Yith who cried Flying Polyp, and they told me such as kindly as they could. In truth, I conceded that they might be right. But the hour was quickly approaching when it would be too late. I had one more contact who could help, and I thought I might have found the solution in mankind's eleventh hour.

The Dean of Miskatonic was an old friend, fearful of the old gods as I was. My feverish research through the night had yielded that the Sigil of Lilith could be used to ward off the Invasion, but the only copy of the intricate rune was in his study. I knew he could easily reproduce the ward by sprinkling essential saltes upon his cellar floor in the right shape, and in so doing we would ward against the cataclysm. Our only enemy was tine. The circle needed to be drawn before midnight.

I stopped a moment to look through my collection of postcards, from sights and wonders all over the world. A sickly childhood had robbed me of much time outdoors, and given me time to spend with the books of my dead uncle, which impregnated in me such horrors that I saw the true peril which existed in the outside world. I rarely emerged, and then only on strictly important business.

I thumbed through the postcards with a sigh. How I would have liked to have been a normal child, and run and played in parks. As insipid and pointless as that activity was - and it was - it looked awfully fun. And some days I imagined what it would have been like to see the great sites of the world, like the Great Wall or the Flavian Amphitheatre, to sit in some hot summer climate and watch the night grow dark slowly while crickets and toads filled the night with their noise.

"Breakfast time, Tommy!" My maid Maria called out as she entered the room. I scrambled to hide the postcards.

Maria was two years younger than myself, a maiden from that land of mariachi, bullfighting, and salsa that they call Mexico. She had been a streetwise youth when my Aunt had encountered her during her travels. Maria had impressed my Aunt by an elaborate con which she had orchestrated to get my Aunt's pocket watch.

When the authorities apprehended Maria at my Aunt's prodding, the wealthy old woman instead took her from poverty on the streets and into her service. Maria was keenly intelligent and sharp, almost to the point of frightening, and my Aunt had Maria educated to exacting standards and in accordance with her humanist nature. She elevated her new ward to become a cosmopolitan versed in literature. In gratitude Maria became loyal to my Aunt in all things, and I had kept her on after my Aunt's passing out of a sense of duty. Well, that and it was spelled out in the Trust that I needed to employ her.

Although I had to admit that Maria was pleasant to interact with, as well as quite attractive and intelligent, she been allowed too much familiarity by my late Aunt, and she could be outright impudent. Her vulgar upbringing often showed through in her attitudes and perspectives on problems. I found it often refreshing, but just as often irritating.

"I made you some of your favorite: cinnamon-toast..." Maria began. She stopped, and looked at me, wide-eyed, as she saw that I was in the same clothes as when she had last see me. "You stayed up all night, didn't you?"

"I had much to do," I replied.

"When I came in at midnight last night, you promised me that you would go to bed in a few minutes, Tommy!" She said, her eyes flashing.

I cleared my throat. "Call me Thomas," I corrected, and not for the first time.

"Don't you give me that!" She said, her accent beginning to show. "You swore to me that you would sleep - you have been at that desk for two days."

I licked my fingers and turned a page on one of the thick manuscripts spread open on my table, finding another incantation which I should copy into the letter, just in case. I pursed my lips and began to transcribe it. "It can't be helped. The world's safety is at stake."

"As it is every week," she grumbled. She set down the plate of cinnamon toast in front of my writing with a loud slam, disturbing my pen and jeopardizing my letter.

"What is this?!" I exclaimed, scrambling to stop the ink from being smeared.

"English is not my first language, but I believe it is called 'food,' Tommy," Maria said.

"Thomas," I snapped. "And I cannot be interrupted for trivia! This letter is important!"

"Another dark god awakening?" Maria asked with skepticism. "Like Ascargarotha?"

"I was right about Ascargarotha!" I shouted. "I was just...off by fifteen hundred years. Mind you, in 3410AD mankind is in dire jeopardy. Or we would be, except we are doomed tomorrow."

"So what is it this time? Decayed Ones again?"

"Ha ha, I hadn't realized the Decayed Ones decayed. This time, it's Demon Women, about to overrun us and turn our society into a modern Gomorrah!"

She raised one of her dark eyebrows. "Demon women?"

"Women with horns, or batwings, or single, giant eyes!" I said in as spooky a voice as I could. "Fiends, crazed for men to enthrall and devour!"

Maria covered her mouth with her hand and laughed. It was a pleasant enough sound, but not when it was because you had said something she deemed absurd. I felt my face redden.

"Go ahead and laugh, laugh at me with the Others," I snapped, pushing aside the plate and resuming my scribbling. "I know what you all think of me: I'm a paranoid kook, wasting away in my room obsessed with discredited alchemists and theories..."

Maria's smile faded, and she looked horrified. "No Tom-Thomas...I don't think that at all. You are one of the smartest people I know. You just...you find these obscure legends and then you let them worry you so. And you must acknowledge this is the most outlandish one yet. Hedonist demon-women?"

"...yeah, I know." I sighed and rubbed at the bridge of my nose. I felt two gentle hands massage at my temples. "But I swear, this time it all adds up. The sources which describe it have never been wrong."

"You are certain?" She asked.

"As death. This time, this time there is no way I'm wrong. Demon women are about to invade. The texts make it clear, the stars are right..."

She stopped massaging my temples and looked in my eyes. "I believe you..." she said, and I was surprised. "But then, I've believed you every time, God help me. But your dear Aunt asked me to make sure that you stayed alive. Please eat..."

"My Aunt was always trying to nurse and burp me, even in her dotage," I muttered, a pang of sadness filled me as I recalled her sad deterioration. I sighed, and Maria rubbed my back.

"I miss her, too," she said sadly.

"You have even more cause to do so than I," I said. I took a deep breath. "You impressed her. She gave me care as was her duty to a blood relation, but I did not live up to her standard..."

"Don't say that," Maria said.

"It's true. She hated all my books. She said I should have gone into the Law. Instead I pursued the occult like her brother. She never forgave me for that," I said.

"No, no, Tommy. She spoke of you often, and only of how clever you were. She loved you more than-"

"Thank you, Maria," I said, clearing my throat and blinking away the wetness in my eyes. "It's Thomas. And that will be all."

Maria did not move.

"Maria..." I began.

"You must eat, first," she said, arms folded.

I reached out and munched on a piece of toast, knowing that until I did Maria would hover over me. It had been covered lightly in cinnamon as I always loved, and as is patrician to eat. I grunted satisfactorily.

"How is it?" Maria asked with happy eyes.

I chewed, masking how much I enjoyed the sweet taste of spice and crunchy toast. "It is acceptable," I said with as little emotion as I could manage. "Thank you."

She smiled ear to ear. She was of more heavily conquistador stock than Aztec, as her face and eyes held all the charm and beauty of Spain. Her smile, despite its admitted charm, betrayed her rough life on the streets by its slight crookedness. But above all there was something in her eyes, both intoxicating and frightening, hinting to a lineage of the great priestesses to Sog'Yittthagora, the Astral Maniac Rooster-headed god known among those studied in lore. It made me both fear and intrigued by her.

"Good boy," she said in her incorrigible and familiar tone. She tussled my hair. "Go to sleep, soon," she commanded.

She scuttled off through the door to the hallway, pleased that I had yet again, done what she had wanted and not the other way around. I fixed my hair with pursed lips and resolved to destroy the remaining heated bread in defiance, but the cinnamon was so tasty, and I found myself overpowered by the aroma and driven to full consumption. It was soon all gone. In a frenzy of cinnamon I was driven even to the undignified licking of the crumbs from the plate. Satisfied, I put it aside and continued my letter.

It was near to lunch when I had finally finished my writing, since the instructions for the Dean had to be painstakingly translated into Voynich cipher. We were forced to encrypt messages, since the Cult in the mail service could uncover my message and intercede against me. At least, I assumed there was a cult. There were cults everywhere. My work done and reviewed for typos (which I constantly make), I pulled on the service cord, resulting in the faint ring of a chime. I heard the subtle clacking of light feet up the stairs. Most would have missed the noise, but I was sensitive to the sound of Maria's feet, having been surprised once too often at my desk by her sudden greeting.

"Yes, Tommy?" She asked.

"Thomas," I corrected her, yet again. I closed up the letter in an envelope and affixed the proper postage. "Kindly put this letter in the box."

"Of course. Is this about the invasion?" She asked, taking the letter and squinting at it.

I nodded, gravely. "It shall come soon, but I believe Dean Alcott at Miskatonic can stop it with the proper ward. But the letter must be mailed in haste. If it leaves now, priority, it should reach him by this evening."

"Of course, of course. Now what is it that happens, again?" She asked. "Demon women?"

"Yes," I replied. "The accounts say these monstrous females enter our world, use men as chattel and breeding stock, then probably destroy us."

"Probably?" she asked.

"Well, the accounts are clearly suspect. They describe years of paradise and pleasure, endings to serious wars and major sufferings, and the birth of glorious empires. But that's just nonsense."

"Why? You said earlier those accounts were reliable," she interjected.

"They are, or were to a point, but it makes sense that the writings would become propaganda," I said. "It wouldn't be the first time history was influenced by politics."

"I thought your books were all secret histories," she said. "Why would they make secrets into propaganda?"

"Perhaps the writers went mad," I replied with a hand wave. "Everything external to mankind is evil, or malevolent. Thinking otherwise is dangerous."

"Fair enough. What happens to women in all this?" Maria asked, which I couldn't blame her for being curious about.

"There is a suffusion of something called 'mana' which turns them into monster-women," I said. "They become as lascivious as the demon invaders. Men's own wives will turn upon them, and seize them in their beds. The accounts speak of women grasping up men they fancied, and binding them in sexual slavery," I shuddered.

"Really!? I mean, h-how..." Maria asked.

"How? Oh, a number of ways. Some of these women are just physically powerful, some have magic, some have aphrodisiac venom, and some are simply irresistible."

Maria's eyes lit up, and I saw the faintest traces of a smile as the light of my desk lamp danced in her eyes.

"Are you alright, Maria?" I asked.

She shook herself free, and raised up the letter with her customary, endearing grin. "Of course, Thomas. I will take care of this letter, don't worry."

I smiled. "Thank you, Maria. This letter may very well save civilization as we know it."

She nodded. "I think it probably can," she said. "So I shall do what I must. And you...will you finally get some sleep?"

I yawned. "Yes...yes, that sounds well," I said. I went to my bed in the corner of the room and lay down upon it. It was not a comfortable bed, and sleep always came at great cost in tossing and offered me little more than nightmares. But now I felt peace, and exhaustion from my intense efforts, and so I lay upon my bed and found my eyes drifting shut.

"Sleep well, Tommy," Maria whispered. I smiled, feebly attempting to correct my name.

Good Maria, I thought as she hustled away and shut the door. As my eyes grew heavy, I thought back to the accounts in the old books on my desk. I mused sadly that it would be nice if the stories of golden ages were true. But there was no way. Anything unfathomable or unknown was most definitely evil, that much all learned men agreed. These monster-women were probably hags of fierce and horrible dispositions...

I slept fitfully, dreaming of undulating nightmares and hideous blasphemous rites, as always. When I woke, the sun was setting. I made my way downstairs into the cavernous house which Maria kept up as well as she could, and which was with more success than not, as put footprint was light. Maria was putting the finishing touches on our meal. We ate in the dining room before the roaring fireplace -purely for ambience as it was summer- and as was typical Maria ate with me. Officially this irritated me, but unofficially this was one of the things I most looked forward to in a day. My all-black cat Lynch-Monkey rubbed against our feet, brushing against us affectionately as we all ate Maria's delicious carnitas (even Lynch Monkey, who got some raw bits of pork).

We discussed the news from France, and the sensational murder of newspaper editor Gaston Calmette by Henriette Caillaux, the second wife of French politician Joseph Caillaux. She had entered the newsroom and shot him in broad daylight, in front of witnesses. The murder rocked the French nation, as did the novel claim of temporary insanity which Henriette's attorneys argued for her.

Discussion of the case led to discussions of Paris, and how Maria had traveled there several times with my Aunt. Her brown eyes lit up as she discussed the breathtaking wonders of the City of Lights, and I found myself wishing I had gone with the two of them, sadly recalling that I couldn't go due to the many forces which were after me.

"...the Arc de Triomphe is quite breathtaking, too, but the Louvre was my favorite. So, so much beauty..." she said.

"I would love to see it," I said with a sigh. "To see the world."

"Well, why not go?" Maria asked innocently.

I laughed and shook my head. "No, no. Far too many gypsy pickpockets in Paris, and a Trans-Atlantic voyage is liable to mean disease. And then there is the open sea, and the terrible things beneath it like Ghorasagothogon..."

"I could go with you," she said.

"And what, keep me safe from the Hooked Ones of the Deep?" I asked with a laugh.

"Maybe not them, but I did manage to navigate Paris without being pickpocketed, and cross the Atlantic without getting a disease," she replied.

"It would be inappropriate. People may get the wrong idea and impugn your honor. Then you might have to kill a newspaperman..." I said.

Lynch-Monkey yowled and pawed at me as a fell breeze entered the house through the open windows. I picked him up and petted behind his ear. "What is it, Lynchie?" I asked.

"The air is unseasonably cool," Maria said, rubbing her arms. She looked about with restive unease.

I frowned. "I do hope Alcott got my instructions. If not..." I swallowed.

Maria stared at me with fear, but something else was there, too. She was apprehensive about something...

"I...I am frequently wrong," I offered to attempt to soothe her.

Maria looked as if she was going to say something, but she blinked and cleared her throat. "Perhaps some warmed ale and dessert, Tommy?" She smiled.

"Thomas," I corrected. I yawned. "No...I think I may turn in. I am still pretty tired," I said. I stood.

I leaned down a d picked up my cat, who let out an inquisitive meow. "Come, Lynchie," I said, giving his head a stroke. "You can stay with me tonight. Good night, Maria," I said.

"Good night, Tommy," she replied. She still looked worried about something.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

She looked at me, and looked with a gaze that I couldn't quite fathom. It was as if she were one of the priestesses of her lineage, and she were fearful of the gods she worshipped. "We shall see," she said.

I nodded. "Let us hope Fate favors us," I said.

As I entered my room, I thought I heard her say, in a voice just above a whisper:

"Oh God, please let it favor us."

I awoke to shattering glass, and loud cries in the night. Tossing on my dressing gown, I raced to my window. Outside there were fires everywhere, and broken in doors and annihilated locks. Figures shambled in the night, or raced after groups of frightened men. And I saw a Horror made flesh. It was both woman and cow, strangely erotic as it was nightmarish to behold. She had breasts as large as cannonballs and horns as sharp as the fangs of wolves. She walked on with the blithe smile of the vulgar, dragging in one giant hand and by the ankle a man of distinction, who was kicking and screaming in abject terror. The atrocity caused my genitals to stir in a most unfamiliar of ways, and I felt an urge to punish my wayward glans by squeezing it.

I shut my blinds as my mind raced. Alcott had not gotten my letter, or the essential saltes had been wrong, or I had been incorrect about the Sigil of Lilith. I raced to my books. Perhaps it was not too late...

I heard a piercing female scream from the Servant's rooms, and a sound like a shattering mirror. Maria was overtaken. I worked quickly, latching all of my barricades and drawing a circle of power on the floor with torn pages from the book of madmen. Soon I had a circle of Exstopilopiketl, the Yammering Crocodile, who plucks out the nose hairs of his undulating masses of worm-like followers. I wiped away the tears from my eyes as I thought of poor Maria, losing her mind as she became an insane sex demon.

I passed the night huddled in the corner, clutching Lynch-Monkey as I listened to the sounds of my entire gender being raped all around me outside. Surprisingly it sounded like they were enjoying it pretty well, which I realized had to be some witchery or trick to entice me outside. I wouldn't budge.

The sun rose, and the city was quiet. Looking out my window it looked less like a world ending apocalypse and more like a really, really ruckus party.

I heard movement on the stairs. Not the light clacks of Maria's pumps, but a sliding thud with a slurping sound. It was a sound alien and unnerving. It was monstrous. There was a knock on my door. A very strong knock, which Maria's slight frame had never managed to do before.

"Thomas..." I heard Maria's voice say. "Thomas, are you okay?"

"I am fine," I responded. "...How are you?"

"I'm very scared. you should come out of your room. I am concerned for you, that one of these monsters might hurt you."

"You always call me Tommy, Remember?" I said.

There was very long pause. "And that was frightfully familiar of me, I apologize. You always favored a more formal relationship. I am just concerned because of all these nasty monsters..."

"I am sorry, Maria, my letter must not have reached Dean Alcott," I said. "Or he ignored it. I have failed. And you have suffered for it. I should have found the courage to make the journey to Miskatonic myself..."

"Don't feel bad, it breaks my heart. You didn't fail anything, Oh Dear Tomm-Thomas," she said. "I never mailed the letter."

My eyes bulged. "What?!" I shouted. "Do you realize what you have done??"

"I won't apologize. The Demon-women will end all war and suffering, you said it was in your books, and they will give me a chance to get my Beloved."

"Your Beloved? Who- it doesn't matter, I'm not letting you in. I will not let myself be taken and turned into some-some-some..."

"Someone happy?" She asked.

"Yes...wait, no! Some thrall to sex-demons, to be reduced to a semen pump, then cast aside," I said.

"That's dreadful! You'd never be cast aside..." Maria said.

"Well, I intend to not find out. I shall die a free man!"

"Die? What are you going to do?" She said with real fear in her voice.

I swallowed. It was easy to be cavalier about suicide until it was time for the event. With shaking hand I opened my drawer. "I'll..." I began.

My pistol was not there. Suddenly my failsafe was gone. I felt more relief than horror, which I cursed as weak biological urge to continue living.

"You-you-you went and looked for your pistol, didn't you?" She said, angrily. "How DARE you? You think that's a solution?"

"You moved my revolver?" I asked, my voice raised.

"You're damn right I did, and thank God for it!" She shot back. "When I get in there, I-I-I..."

"You aren't getting in!" I said triumphantly. "I drew a circle of Exstopilopiketl, the Yammering Crocodile, on my floor. You can only enter if I allow it!"

There was a long pause. "What are you going to do?" She asked. "You can't stay in there forever."

I raised my chin. "I shall starve myself to death," I said.

"That is awful!" Maria said. "Don't be ridiculous. I made cinnamon toast for you, your favorite."

My stomach grumbled as I caught the aroma. It was around time for breakfast, and my stomach was not as committed to principle as my mind was. "No thank you," I said. "Lord knows what you have put on it."

"Cinnamon," came the predictable response.

"I have committed to my fate," I announced. "I shall not be taken. I am the last man."

"Oh, cram it. You have to eat," Maria protested.

"No I don't," I said. "I'd rather starve a free man than eat as a slave."

"A slave? That's ridiculous. Nobody is going to chain you anyplace and run a riding crop across your sensitive skin while you squeal for release."

I frowned. "Why would you even suggest..." I began.

"And what about Lynch-Monkey?" She asked over my question. "Are you really going to starve him?"

I looked at my dearest companion, who was sitting near the door, staring up at me with expectant eyes. After the shock of last night he had calmed, and was even purring. He looked up at me and yowled, announcing his intention to explore the rest of the household and reach his saucer of milk in the kitchen.

"...You're going to trick me," I said. "If I open the door, you're going to burst in and drain me to death."

"Be serious," she said. "We are adults. I'm not some horny demon who can't control herself."

"I don't exactly know what you are," I said. I lowered my voice. "...I heard you scream."

"Yes, well..." she said with something approaching embarrassment. "I was hoping I'd get batwings or a tail, but I, um..." she hesitated. "What I got was shocking."

"Describe yourself," I said.

"Well, I...I seem to be gelatin, but really thick gelatin that can morph. I still look like me, just blue. I am able to make myself into eyes, hands, feet, and even objects," she said. "I made a shoe horn. Do you want to see the shoe horn?"

"Maybe later..." I answered absently. I blinked. "Are you in a maid's outfit?" I asked.

"I guess. It's my skin, but it's kind of cloth, too," she said.

I exhaled. I had lucked out. I knew enough about shoggoths to know they were eager to serve their masters, but that they couldn't raise their hands against them.

"I will let you in, if you pledge to be good and not molest me. Do you understand? You will feed Lynch-Monkey and go back to your room," I said.

"Will you eat?" She asked.

"That is for me to decide," I said firmly. "Now, will you behave?"

She sighed. "Yes," she said, defeated. "I swear it."

I opened the door. I could describe what entered as a nightmarish horror, an entity of strange and otherworldly construction which jiggled and wriggled with such an UnNature as to drive a man insane, but the truth is that Maria was still as attractive as ever, in a way perhaps even more so, as if this were an expression of the woman within. Despite the wriggling tentacles covered with eyes and mouths which moved and swirled as she glided toward me, she was quite the cutie. She was taller now on her protoplasm bustle, her legs melded into the pool of thick goo. Her skin was purple and light blue, and her eyes had turned yellow. She still had the same crooked smile, and the same wonderfully unnerving gleam to her eyes, though now that gleam seemed so frighteningly dangerous that my heart quickened to meet her gaze.

I nodded, suppressing the depth of many emotions I felt seeing her this way. I motioned to the cat. "Very well. Take Lynch-Monkey to the kitchen and see that he's fed," I commanded.

Maria looked at me and blinked, smiling gently. She didn't move. "Lynch-Monkey has food, don't worry," she said. One of her tentacles nudged the cat, who idly pawed the tentacle as if it were a dangling string.

"Then go to your room, I command you," I said sternly.

She smiled.

"Y-you must obey me!" I said, aware that all evidence indicated otherwise. "I am your Master!"

"Master? Oh heavens no! Believe me, I can do you no harm," Maria said. She grinned her disarming grin, as she glided smoothly as a wave toward me. I backed against my desk as she rose up near my tall ceiling. "But I work for your late Aunt's Trust. She asked me on her deathbed to take care of you, and I am more eager to serve that purpose than I ever was before. You are not my Master; you are my Assignment. My eternal assignment. My Beloved. I shall take care of you, as my Mistress bade me to do, forever."

"You lied!" I protested. "You gave your word you wouldn't molest me!"

"In what universe would I feed Lynch-Monkey and let you starve?" Maria asked. "THAT would be monstrous. You can't make a deal with an insane man, and clearly you are insane. The deal is null and void."

"What? I am sane, it is you who are..."

"You are trying to starve yourself; that is insane," Maria said. "I clearly must take conservatorship of you, to protect you from yourself."

"C-conservatorship?" I asked with dread.

She blinked patiently. "Well, sure. You must be soothed and cared for. You are a very easily frightened person, paranoid and scared. It leads you to antisocial and dangerous behavior," she smiled, and mouths formed down her body with the same mischievous grin. "I am going to make you sane, so sane you'll never, ever think of such crazy things."

We both stared at each other for a moment, her with tentacles writhing with anticipation, me with a bead of sweat falling from my brow. I hesitated, then did the pointless thing that I knew would fail. I ran for the door.

Maria lunged, and a wall of protoplasm grabbed me and shoved me into my chair. I tried to resist, but diminutive Maria was now as powerful as a subway train. Lynch-Monkey, my brave defender, yawned and waddled off toward the kitchen, but as a final insult he rubbed up against Maria on his way downstairs.

"Lynchie, you traitor!" I hollered after him. "Maria, listen to me; you are being influenced by this mana..."

"Oh I know, Beloved. I think it is more important for me to talk than you, for now. You are only going to say things that make my heart hurt, because seeing you in distress is distressing. So please indulge me for a few moments, until you understand..."

She formed her hand into a ball gag, complete with straps. Seeing it, I struggled mightily to break free, but it was quite useless. It went into my mouth, deep in, and the gag was fastened behind me.

"There. It should be snug, but not too snug. Is that okay?" She asked.

"Mmmmph!" I yelled into the ball gag. As I did so, my tongue brushed up against it. I was surprised to find it was soft, like skin. As my tongue touched the gag, Maria began to finger her breasts and her hand found its way between her thighs. "Ohhh..." she rasped. "Oh God, it's more wonderful than I imagined..." She bit her thumb. "Mind you, I have always wanted to see you in one of these..."

"Mmmmph?" I said with a frown.

"Oh yes; if you think my desire to dominate you is new, it isn't. This is not from my new power," she said with a grin. "I have thought of this many times: to drug your tea, carry you to your bed, tie you down, watch you sleep peacefully, then awaken you and violate you. I knew being a little woman I could never do it, but now that I am a powerful slime-creature, I am stronger than you. Now I can do what I always wanted to do; I can rape you."

I stared at Maria, more shocked than horrified. If I could I talk, I might have said I hadn't realized the depth of her feeling, and that in some ways I felt the same, but that this seemed rather drastic and sudden and I wasn't sure about this.

"Mmmph," was what I managed to respond.

She smiled. She gripped me with a large black tentacle and dragged me on the floor. "I don't like this bed..." she said. "It is old, and you sleep poorly in it. I am going to make a...new...one..."

Tentacles rose up and snapped apart my old bed, and...absorbed it into the protoplasm through a process of digestion that is better left unsaid. A moment later a new bed was created, similar to the old. She tossed me on it, and as I lay on it I found that it was both firmer on the springs and softer on its surface. The sheets and blankets were so smooth they felt almost wet. Silken sheets wrapped about my wrists and ankles and pulled tight, becoming hard as chain.

She stood over me triumphantly. "Comfy?" She asked with her crooked grin.

"Mmmph!" I shouted in the ball gag. This sudden lack of control was jarring, as you can imagine.

"Good. Now, I intend to slowly cut up your clothes."

She went to my closet. I called out into the ball gag. She stopped and fingered herself between her legs briefly. "What, you thought I meant the clothes you were wearing?" She said when she regained her composure. "Be patient, my Beloved; I will cut them off you in time. But I do not want my sweet little Lordling to be burdened with clothes at all. You don't need those symbols of the old world anymore. First, your shirts..."

She grabbed up one of my dress shirts as her hand turned into a pair of shears. One snip later and the shirt fell into two pieces, useless. She smiled at me widely, savoring the look in my eyes, and the hardening in my pants.

For my penis hardened. This control, this total and abject mastery by my familiar and vexing maid, had made me nearly swoon. I imagine being bound forever, having my pretty little maid dominate me, to be utterly at her mercy and in her power. I absently moaned into the ball gag, running my tongue along it and imagining it to be her breast.

She stopped her cutting of my shirts, almost paralyzed by my moan, and braced herself against the wall. She looked at me with sparkling yellow eyes as if I somehow had power over her. She approached me, her chest rising and falling. Her 'clothes' fell away, revealing before me the first naked female form I had ever seen in flesh. I gasped. She was absolute perfection, her hips curved, her breasts smooth and full, and instead of slithering she formed feet and walked, which was itself like watching Artistry.

"I want you to do something, please..." she said, towering over me, her nude body covered in goosebumps and shaking with anticipation. "I-I want you to scream 'help!' as loud as you can..."

I stared at her with wide eyes. She drank in my shock and surprise, and put her hands to my face.

"Do it..." she almost begged. "If someone -anyone- hears you, I'll let you go."

I hesitated. Even if I wasn't keen to admit it, I wasn't sure that I wanted to be let go, but then my survival instinct kicked in. I yelled as loud as I could, screaming help into the Maria-ball gag. To my horror I realized her gag was effectively muffling my cry, pressing its tasty flesh into my mouth. Maria began rocking back and forth, swaying, fucking her fingers as her eyes rolled in her head.

My horror gave way to a sensation of total surrender - I was hers, completely and totally. I couldn't escape, and my powerlessness and defeat, made me so aroused that I let out another moan. My penis was aching to the point of pain. My hardness poked her through my pants and the sheets.

Her eyes widened to feel it, and hearing me moan in pleasure and anticipation into her ball gag, she began to shudder, bucking her goo-hips. She straddled me and began to rub herself against my hardened cock, furiously working at her clitoris as she did so. It was her turn to cry out, but this was loud, and full, and it rattled the entire house as her body spasmed. From her loins a torrent of goo gushed forth all over me, soaking my clothes.

The bed fell inward, collapsing into protoplasm which enveloped me and her. She wrapped her arms around my neck and began to kiss me all over my face. My ball gag morphed into a tongue, which began aggressively probing my throat. I gagged on it, and her new tongue eagerly reveled in my convulsions.

"You have been such a good, good Boy..." she said in between kisses. She took off the ball gag with the still writhing tongue. It merged into her hand. "I think you deserve a good boy's reward."

She pressed her own mouth against mine, and her tongue entered my mouth like a conqueror, wrestling with and subjugating me and moving my tongue as she willed. I moaned again, and she gripped me tighter. The protoplasm-bed tore my clothes to pieces, and ate them to make more protoplasm. I began to feel lips up and down my nude body -except near my cock- as the protoplasm cocoon morphed to mouths which began to kiss and lick every part of me.

I whimpered as my swollen cock received no attention, but Maria spoke through another mouth even as she kissed me :

"I have plans for you, and your first time, Tommy..." she paused for a moment. "It truly is your first time, isn't it?"

My mind reeled; I was still being kissed, aggressively, and could barely handle that, especially as Maria had put about five tongues in my mouth, which pinned my own and were batting it about in between them.

"I cannot WAIT to take my prim and proper little Lordling..." she purred. "But how? Should I use my mouth?"

"Mmmm," I said. The thought of all these tongues pushing around my penis in her mouth was amazing.

"No; I am having too much fun kissing you. How about I use my hand?"

She reached down and grasped my balls. I gasped. My penis twitched.

"You are just desperate for any kind of touch, aren't you?" She said. She grasped my shaft with her warm, smooth fingers.

"There isn't any way for a woman to more fully dominate her man than this," she said, tightening her grip. I cried out into her mouth, which made her bite her lip for a moment. "Your most sensitive part is at my mercy. I can do anything to it, and all you can do is feel it. Take it. Putting my hand here, I control you in totality..."

She squeezed at my base. I whimpered and thrust up my hips at the aching pleasure, and the tongues in my mouth redoubled.

"Yes, my cultured little Lordling is now nothing more than an animal desperate to get his release," she smiled, and slid her hand along my shaft. My eyes widened. This was pleasure so intense I could barely comprehend it...

"I should punish you a tiny bit. I have wanted to do this to you for years, but you always wanted to be so formal. Now, I think you would give me ANYTHING to have me grace you with my touch."

Her tongues relented, and removed themselves from my mouth. I found I had the power of speech again.

"Will you worship my body?"

I nodded. "Maria..."

"I don't think I shall allow such informality. You shall address me as Mistress," she said, squeezing my cock.

I might have fought or grown angry even a few minutes before, but my desire for the nude and intoxicating shoggoth was too much. "M-mistress..." I repeated.

She seemed to drink the word as it came from my lips. She gave me a rewarding stroke which involuntarily brought a sound from my lips. "Good boy," she whispered. "I think that you shall want to be my good boy, won't you?"

"Yes, Mistress," I said. The humiliation of being made to obey by my own servant was only adding to the intensity of my arousal.

"I am Mistress, and you are Tommy," she said. "You shall never, ever correct me again when I say your name, is that understood?"

"Never, Mistress," I said.

"Now," she said. "Will you worship my body if I give you release?" She blinked. "I...I need to feel you up against me. I need it."

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

She began to pump my swollen cock, her hand rising and falling, smooth and firm, gripping and massaging me. Tentacles held me fast, and held me tighter as she clenched her teeth.

She could do whatever she wanted to do to me in my state, and that is exactly what she did. She pulled, squeezed, stroked, and even licked and gave the lightest of nibbles. When I could take no more, and thought that I might burst, she pressed her lips against mine and kissed me, and I felt the first orgasm of my life. I cried out into her mouth.

She broke her kiss, and leaned in close to watch my face as she squeezed me tightly in her hand. I was aware of hundreds of eyes drinking in my spasms and cries, savoring my enjoyment.

It was beyond what I could describe, as if for a moment I had become pleasure and there was no other identity as waves of pleasure flowed from me with each pumping of my glands. It was not until my shuddering ended that a wave of relaxation and love came over me. Maria shut her eyes with contentment.

"Now," she whispered, pushing me between her legs gently. "Worship me," she said.

I leaned in and kissed at her sex as a leg wrapped around my head and pulled me in to her. She cooed and cried, laughed and teased. I went with what felt natural. In a way I think my lack of experience excited her, as I was earnest in experimentation and in reverential awe of her body. Her taste was sweet, like grapes, which I venture is not the case for most women. It made working on her quite pleasant indeed.

She convulsed and had another orgasm from my eager exploration of her body, splattering goo on my face. As she climaxed, a tentacle wrapped around my penis and began to pulse. I was quickly so engorged that I came after a few tight constrictions. My seed shot everywhere, which Maria's waiting mouths eagerly slurped up.

Maria insisted that we have sex in all her holes, which is an open-ended task with someone who can create and close orifices across their body. But she insisted those on her main body - her mouth, her rear, and her vagina- be taken, each in turn. Into each I shot a massive load, which only increased her frenzy.

It was sunrise when I was too exhausted too continue, and my Shoggoth Mistress showed me mercy by hugging me and turning our cocoon of slime into a bed again. A nice, warm bed, and she was a purple girl within it with no tentacles or goo, her arms wrapped around me.

Where we touched, I felt as though we were almost fusing into one, like her slime could simply flow into my body and envelop it also, keeping both whole but allowing us to cohabitate in the same space. The feeling was amazing, and it allowed for a deeper connection than I thought was possible, and a deeper feeling of belonging and warmth. I was being hugged from the inside, feeling all her love. It made me feel special, and I think it made her feel very special too.

"Thank you," I whispered into her ear.

Maria backed away. She blinked at me in contemplation with her mad yellow eyes, then smiled. "I wasn't expecting you to say that," she said.

"I feel like a lot of weight was removed from me, as if I were pushed into cold water, and found the shock of cold that I had feared to be the best part."

"You seem more relaxed," Maria said. "I like it. I like that I fucked the nervousness out of you." Her tentacles gripped at my body. "Your shoulders were always so tense. I think I finally got the tension out of them. There will be many more 'shocks' going forward. "

"I hope so, Mistress," I said. In truth I felt looser and more relaxed than I ever had before.

She kissed me. "And you can call me Maria, Tommy," she whispered. "I don't want us to be formal all the time. This isn't going to be some thing where I dehumanize and degrade you. I don't want that. I can't want that. Whatever I am now, all of that within me would revolt."

"I know you wouldn't," I said. I hesitated. "I trust you, Maria. That is why I will call you Mistress."

Maria grinned a wide grin, and devilishly I was held fast by tentacles as she pinned me and straddled me. "Mistress wants to fuck," she announced.

She was telling, not asking, and she took me with ferocity. Her lips joined mine, and she descended upon me, and after she rode me, I shot another load into her womb. With this completed, we drifted off into sleep, or rather I slept as she eagerly massaged my body in a trance-like state.

After that wonderful day, Maria and I settled in to a new domesticity, along with the rest of the world. I continued making my predictions and interpreting signs while Maria doted on (and dominated) me.

My friends all wrote me, praising my warnings (and kindly omitting that it was good that none of them had heeded them.) I wrote back, thanking them for their kindness, and predicting the assassination of the heir to the Austrian Empire, the prophecy which I had happened upon by reading the star charts after Maria had raped me near a bookshelf and knocked some of my uncles old writings off the top shelf. As it turned out, there was an attack in Sarajevo, but it was foiled when the assassin hit the armored carapace of the Arch-Duke's wife.

The prophesied war in which I described men dying of poison gas failed to materialize, but I accurately predicted that a Salamander-woman would save the Tsar of Russia's hemophiliac son from riotous workers and a rather nasty bank robber. So my reputation as being 'sometimes' right or interestingly wrong was cemented. I was known as a man with interesting prophecies and occult knowledge. As it turned out, the newcomer Demon-women heard of my predictions, and soon proclaimed me to be a great master of lore. I became a respected sage that would get consulted even by royalty.

All of this did little to affect Maria and I, who still lived simply in my ancestral mansion. We were always able to draw a comfortable stipend from the Trust, but now I had my own income to supplement it, as I was paid a fee for my consultations. Maria and I married, and she moved into my room. This made much sense, as she was now my bed, and my desk, and my writing equipment, and Lynch-Monkey's water bowl...

I descended from bed late one morning (once it released me at a toll of fifty kisses) to find Maria's main form practicing at the bottom of the grand stairway, near the outside door. She was forming boxes with handles out of herself. Luggage, it looked like. Lynch-Monkey stood a distance away, watching her with disaffected boredom as he occasionally leaned in to rub his face on a new suitcase. I squinted.

"What's all this?" I asked, looking at the luggage.

"I'm practicing," Maria said. "Technically we don't need luggage since I can make anything we need, but it's good to have some stuff pre-made so we can get it quicker."

"What do we need luggage for?" I asked.

"I thought it might be nice to go on a little trip, since that war you predicted didn't happen. Tommy, how would you feel about taking a trip..." she paused, savoring her excitement. "To Europe?!" Maria said.

"Europe?!" I exclaimed. I smiled, but then I thought of the implications. "But the voyage, and diseases, and the pickpocketing gypsies..."

"...and the restaurants, the museums, the culture," she said. Maria smiled at me, and drew me closer with one of her tentacles. "It'll be fun."

"But, what about all my other affairs..." I protested weakly. "And Lynch-Monkey?"

"Mrs. Cheshire will take care of Lynchie, she loves him. And you can write as well from a hotel as from your study, or our bedroom. I am taking you to all the places around the world that you have always wanted to see, but have been too afraid to go. Well, you are not going to be afraid anymore. We are going to be travelers."

"Travelers?" I repeated, full of fear and wonder.

"Yep! But baby steps first. To start, let's go for a walk in the park," she said.

I looked outside with big eyes. A bumblebee menaced close to the stairs. My eye twitched.

"Oh, I don't know..." I said fearfully.

Maria took my arm in hers, and held my hand with a reassuring smile. "It'll be alright," she said. I felt at the warmth in her hand. "There is nothing to fear. I've been reading that book on shoggoths that you gave me, and always remember one thing: I can kill most anything, and it would take sophisticated beam weapons or magic to harm me."

That made me feel much better, and we stepped outside. The bumblebee floated past me making a light buzzing sound, and didn't land on my eye and attempt to bore into my brain like I had feared it would. That scary scenario put to rest, I took a deep breath. The air was warm and fresh, and the bustle of people made for a pleasant backdrop of noise, as they were not riotous or rapacious or attempting to sacrifice to a forgotten god. We stepped out into the morning sun, and as we did Maria formed a large floral umbrella to shield us from the brightness. She rested the umbrella on her shoulder and we relaxed in cool shade as we enjoyed the brightness of day.

We walked down the road, and I felt happy. People were smiling, not scowling. Men walked arm in arm with their monster-wives, some little, some big. Some powerful, some weak. But all and everywhere there was love, and happiness.

"This is nice," I said. I looked at the shoggoth hanging from my arm, the beautiful Maria who was my Mistress, and I was happy.