A Woman Scorned

Serapis awoke from his unpleasant dreams with his head throbbing in pain. "Ophelia!"

"Why Serapis, I never thought I would have the pleasure again."

In a panic, he struggled with his tight bonds. "Let me go!"

Ophelia pursed her lips and shook her head. "Absolutely not." She slowly dropped onto her knees and looked upon his barely clad body. "You are fit as ever, just as delicious as I remember you. Are you still as virile?"

"Not for you."

"Of course not." Without a bit of tenderness, Ophelia began to rake her fingers over his body. "I really do not understand what it is about you. You are a mere boy, and yet you are so succulent for a ravenous woman."

Serapis strained to raise his head as Ophelia bent down to the bare flesh of his stomach. He tried to wriggle away as he felt her lips on his skin. Ophelia avidly sucked his flesh into her mouth, pulling him between her sharp little teeth. Serapis yelled out in pain as she bit into him and continued to suck at his flesh as if drawing blood. "Are you mad, woman?"

Ophelia raised herself again, and smiled at the dark red mark she had left on his belly. "Perhaps a little. Maybe I will do that all over your body."

"You will not!"

"You're right. What I have in mind is much more painful."

Serapis stopped cold. "What are you going to do with me?"

Ophelia's smirk sharpened. "Revenge, darling. Sweet revenge."

"Revenge for what?"

"Are you a complete imbecile? You were promised to marry me, if you recall, and you squirmed your way out of the betrothal."

Indignation colored his pale features. "Only because you murdered two dozen people in our city--and admitted to it readily! You are fortunate I exiled you instead of having your executed."

"Still you rejected me, Serapis, and I do not take well to rejection. Let me introduce you to your executioners."

His face whitening, he cried, "You're going to kill me?"

"And what a death it will be! I have had three years to fantasize what I would do to you should you ever be helpless and in my power. Now here you are! Your body beckons me, darling, and I realize I could have my fill of you before I kill you." She shook in an exagerrated shudder. "But the thought of making love to a man so soon to experience a tortuous death simply leaves me cold."

"What death?" he asked weakly.

She only smiled as six tall, burly beings came into his view. They seemed human enough, except for a profound vacancy in their faded eyes. Serapis shrank away from the descending hoard, but they held him still, their sharp-nailed fingers digging into his skin.

"My new people, Serapis. Therads, they call themselves. A most remarkable breed of creature--obedient, malicious, and quite fond of youthful human flesh." Ophelia pursed her lips. "Particularly the broiled kind."

Therads! Kaia had warned him about these savages, he thought miserably. Two of the Therads ran their tongues up his bare legs and along his thighs as they tasted him greedily, as three others licked the flesh of his bare chest avidly. The sixth took delight in kneading his flesh, making some careful inspection. Serapis yelped in revulsion and tried desperately to squirm away, but their pressure held him down firmly.

"Feed on him all you desire, my pets, cover him in your hunger. Handsome Serapis, great king of Abydos--food for wild beasts."

Ophelia had planned this as part of his torture, he realized--that he should be subject to the vile Therad tongues. "For the love of the gods, let me go," Serapis pleaded, wincing as a Therad licked roughly at his manhood with its tongue. "I have never done anything so cruel to you."

"How it mends my heart to finally hear you beg."

"Ophelia! By the gods, do not kill me. I have no heir."

"Too bad that you rejected me, then. I could have given you an heir."

"Have mercy on Abydos, if not on me."

"Never." The creatures concentrated on Serapis' lower body as Ophelia grabbed the king by his thick hair. She brought her face very close to his, puckering her lips in a bitter mockery of ardent lovers. "Do you really think the Abydiads will care whether or not you are devoured? Oh, the ladies will weep piteously, but not for your leadership." She watched with a grin as the Therads grew more hungry for a taste of his young flesh.

Serapis groaned miserably, feeling the many hot, panting tongues on his body. He cried out when he felt the sharp pain of a bite, and writhed as the entire company began to nibble on his flesh just hard enough to pain him. Ah, goddess, what would they do to him? Would they maul his body before they burned and ate him? "The gods will have revenge on you," he shouted at Ophelia.

"At the moment they take revenge on you, it seems to me." Ophelia gazed into his twisted face. "I thought you liked being devoured, Serapis. So the ladies have said to me, and so I remember. But I think the Therads have played enough now. You have whet their appetite."

Ophelia addressed the Therads in a brusque voice. "Strip him. Cover him in oil." Then Ophelia reconsidered. "No, leave him dressed. His burning chiton will exacerbate his pain."

The Therads attacked Serapis with their hands full of olive oil, pulling on him and reaching under his chiton to coat his entire body. Serapis lay frozen in shock, simply unable to accept his fate, disgusted at the intimate touch of these beasts on his body. Ophelia had passed much time indeed devising this merciless death.

Even as they lifted Serapis off the ground and carried him to his place of torture, the Therads continued to lick and bite his flesh ravenously. Serapis kicked out as he could, trying to free himself from their repulsive grip with no success. "Artemis, save me!" he cried out, shutting his eyes tightly.

The harness they fit around his shoulders hung from a high bough. A pull on the rope suddenly lifted Serapis off the ground. He fought not to scream in the incredible pain, enduring the merciless distension of his muscles, the dragging weight of his body wrenching his shoulders from their sockets. Their cackles resounding, the Therads hauled Serapis off the ground very slowly, purposefully jerking the rope to exacerbate the agony in his shoulders.

At Ophelia's command, the Therads stopped lifting Serapis. His stomach wrenched, for they had lifted him so far above the ground that the drop alone would kill him. Now Serapis watched as Ophelia lead the building of a pyre beneath him. The Therads piled dried branches, pouring oil over the wood to feed the flames, and oil from his own coated body dripped onto the pyre. Serapis wiggled furiously in his terror as he watched Ophelia approach the pyre with a blazing torch.

"It is a well-known fact in Abydos that her king fears the flame more than anything in this world." Ophelia looked purposefully at her lit torch, and then turned back to Serapis. "Which makes your burning all the more a fitting end, does it not?"

"Fitting end for what? I am a good king!"

"By what standards? You are indulgent and selfish, and for this do I cast you to your death by burning in degrees. Ah, but slowly, Serapis--I will not drop you into the fire all at once.First, I will burn the flesh from your feet, the muscles from your legs. You will beg for my mercy long, long before you die."

Serapis cried out passionately as Ophelia threw her torch into the pyre, igniting the timber. He whipped his head around, praying for some escape, some rescue. But he saw nothing but the gang of Therads waiting to feed on his body, and Ophelia' smiling face. His horror swelled as the flames quickly spread through the wood, consuming the pyre in a raging fireball.

Now Ophelia took the rope into her own hands and slowly began to lower Serapis into the flames. Serapis felt the scorching heat on the soles of his feet, and he threw all his strength into swinging the harness that bound him away from the growing fire. But his efforts only brought biting, derisive laughter from his captors.

Ophelia's harsh chuckle rose above the crackling pyre as she looked up at Serapis. "Forever the optimist, aren't you? Perhaps you need a firm reminder that your death comes this day."

Ophelia lowered the harness further, and Serapis shrieked in pain as the flames licked at his feet. He bent his knees and jerked his feet away from the flames, but Ophelia continued to lower him into the fire. Sweat pouring from his face, Serapis snapped his head around to glare at Ophelia. "If you stop this, you may yet live."

"Ah, no, your highness. I will roast you."

Serapis continued to try and swing himself away from the fire. Now he could feel the searing heat rising from the flames upon his legs, heating the oil that covered his body to an uncomfortable temperature. "Then have mercy on me," he shouted. "Cut of my head, slit my throat, but do not do this!"

"Is it too painful for you already?" Ophelia asked mockingly. "Can you not bear the thought of your beautiful body burning to a charred crisp? Then I am all the happier. You will be well aware of the fire consuming your body before you die, Serapis. I promise you."

Serapis gulped hard as he felt himself descending deeper into the flames. The unbearable heat against his body drove him to screams. He knew he had not even yet entered the fire, and already the pain tortured him brutally. In horrified realization, he looked down at his chiton, at its whiteness slowly singing to a light brown, knowing the fabric would burst into flames at any moment. Serapis helplessly bewailed the inevitable approach of his agonizing death.

Such is the ironic fate of the king of pleasure, he thought

miserably.

Emilie J. Conroy

ejconroy778@gmail.com