Sloth Read online

  “Oh, Mercy.” Sloth unzipped her lover’s trousers and pulled out the very thing Mercy had manifested without meaning to think of it at all. Can I deny it, though? I’m so damn horny all the time now that I’ve got to get creative. At least she hadn’t dreamed anything beyond a nice, custom-made apparatus that she often coveted when in her relationships. With Marissa and other ex-girlfriends, it was always about what they could get for cheap whenever they visited the sex shops. Not always about practicality, either. At least this one isn’t some crazy color, like shocking pink or blue. Those always unsettled Mercy, who didn’t want to be reminded of an ‘80s night at the local club whenever she fucked her partner. Unfortunately for Mercy, Marissa preferred the fake colors to the more “realistic” ones they could get to match Mercy’s skin tone.

  Until now, Mercy had no idea how much she wanted to ram anything she could strap around her waist right into this gorgeous goddess’s ethereal body.

  “This is doing it for me,” Sloth said. On the subject of ethereal bodies… Someone was getting prettier by the second. Was it the otherworldly glow illuminating this goddess’s skin? Or was it the light wrapping around every strand of hair and caressing every fold of her dress? It’s probably how wet she is. Mercy could see it where she lay. If there was one thing she appreciated about a gaggle of sinning deities ready to sleep with her, it was that they came prepared. Who needed foreplay in one of Mercy’s dreams? Everything was foreplay! “Lie back like that, Mercy. Remember what I said about going for a ride?”

  “That’s how you’re gonna sin me up, huh?” Why was Mercy delaying this? Her own body tingled with the desire to watch this woman be fucked by a phallus pulled straight from Mercy’s imagination.

  Sloth pinched herself, closing her eyes. “How about we save that for a little bit later? Let’s make this first round about fun. God, I want to fuck you, Mercy. How about you? Want to watch me do all the work? First round is on me. I can make you work for it later.”

  “Hell. Yes.” No point mincing words now. Mercy was on a mission.

  “I thought you might say that.” One of Sloth’s hands traveled down to her slit, rubbing her clit as the rest of her became wetter beneath her dress. “Here we go, honey.”

  With her skirt pulled back so Mercy could watch, Sloth aligned her hips with Mercy’s strap-on and slowly lowered herself atop it.

  “Oh…” The voice echoed in their small chamber, Mercy gazing at this woman’s body opening up to take a mortal being’s overactive imagination inside of her. “My, my…” Sloth involuntarily thrust forward, allowing the head of Mercy’s strap-on to penetrate deep inside. “Doesn’t that feel good?” This picturesque image was short-lived, however, as Sloth soon flung herself into the kind of raucous merriment Mercy had been waiting for ever since the day Marissa told her she wasn’t interested in sex anymore.

  It was unlike anything Mercy had seen since before then, too. Real world. Dream world. Doesn’t matter. What someone else conjures for me is always better than what I think of for myself. Sloth’s golden skirts aside, her breasts unconstrained, and her hair dangling from her head as she grinded against Mercy’s thighs and groaned. One hand leveraged against Mercy’s bent knee while the other pleasured the glistening nub between Sloth’s folds. I think this might be the hottest one yet. Maybe Sloth was on a mission to prove to her sisters that she was far from the most boring lover among them. After all, how could Mercy ever tell anyone about this one day? “You might not believe it, but the hottest one was Sloth. Yes, sloth. Like the animal. She fucked me so hard that I didn’t think she could take anymore. Then I remembered she was an immortal being born for nothing else, and she kept going without losing energy. I can only dream of being so hellbent on orgasm.”

  Mercy’s first time with both Lust and Avarice was nothing like this. Both of those women seduced her for the sole purpose of injecting her with diabolical sin. Now here was Sloth – sleepy, lethargic Sloth – riding Mercy for the sake of pleasure. “Amazing!” she cried, showing Mercy every single second that transpired between the legs. If I look away, will I turn to stone? All Mercy knew was that she was turning into a nymphomaniac again. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to idly lie there, passive, inactive. She would have to take Sloth for herself. “I haven’t done it like this in so long. Not even in my own dreams! Oh!”

  Although she hardly had to lift her hips to make this magic happen, Mercy wanted more. She wanted the pleasure as well – watching was no longer enough. One of her heavy arms draped across her chest. Mercy wished Sloth would fuck her like her sisters had. This deity clearly had enough energy for a good romp!

  “Ah…” Sloth stilled, regathering her bearings as she concentrated on both the strap-on inside of her and the look on Mercy’s desperate face. “I almost came.” She smiled, teasing Mercy by cupping her breasts and pinching her hard nipples. Mercy’s moan erupted across the bed, shaking Sloth where she braced herself for more. “I’ll save it for you, though.” Much to Mercy’s disappointment, Sloth eased off, falling backward onto the bed with her legs still open. “Come fuck me, Mercy. Rip me open and let me give you my lifesaving sin.”

  At first, Mercy couldn’t find the energy to move. When Sloth forked her fingers around her folds, showing off how wet and soft she was, Mercy had no choice. I have to have her. She pushed aside those pillows and dove between Sloth’s legs, prepared to fuck the sin out of her.

  And into me.

  “Mercy!” Sloth cried, hands holding her legs apart as Mercy leaped between them. “You know you want it. Don’t hold back. You could never hurt me.”

  Mercy couldn’t get in there fast enough. She embraced Sloth’s supine body and thrust into her, the resistance of malleable flesh erotic enough without that pealing cry caressing Mercy’s ear.

  “Fuck me!” No matter how much these goddesses shouted it, Mercy could never comply quickly enough. She thrust into Sloth, again and again, reaching for her depths while concentrating on pleasuring everything she touched. If there’s anything I’ve learned about these immortal women, it’s that they love it when I go right for their core. That’s where the sin was, of course. That was also where Mercy needed to take it into herself. The more Mercy rammed into her, remembering that she couldn’t hurt this being if she tried, the more it seemed to work. Sloth’s cries filled the dream world as she pulled Mercy down for a kiss. “Consume me,” she hissed, raising her hips to thrust back against Mercy.

  Dangerous, boundless energy coursed through Mercy, as it had for weeks. Yet this was different. This was the lustful side of her renewed nature, not the greedy side. The energy compelled her to not only fuck Sloth with everything she had, but to suck her throat, grab her breasts, and bite her nipples when the angle was auspicious enough. Mercy lashed her tongue against whatever it tasted, awing at the perfect form of Sloth’s body in a dream world. Dreams and deities thrown together created the type of body Mercy didn’t want to cast aside for all the money in the world.

  “I’m coming!” Sloth’s bottomless body pulled Mercy in until she couldn’t pull out again. “Come with me! Fuck me, and come with me!”

  One thrust later, Mercy teetered over the edge of sin.

  Something reached into her, pushing into her crevices and expanding within. All of that energy, both physical and mental, exploded from Mercy. She cried out, the lucid dream making everything attached to her feel realer than ever. And… and… Mercy closed her eyes and hid her face within Sloth’s bosom as she felt something unleash from the core of her soul. From me, to her. From her, to me. The warmth enshrouding them wasn’t from sweat or friction. It was from the knowledge that the sin was shared between them once more.

  This is her gift. Taking all of the energy that hounds me. No wonder this was such a one-way street. There was only one lane for Mercy’s soul to travel as she held pleasure in one hand and relief in the other. The two were never far from apart.

  The deity drowned in what Mercy generously offered, begging for more, more to e
nter her if Mercy were willing to part with it.

  She was.

  As the last of her energy drained from her, Mercy passed out from the dream world, falling into Sloth’s inviting embrace.

  ****

  Mercy awoke, draped on her couch, head propped up on one end with her feet resting on the other. She tried to get up, yet before she was two inches off the arm of the couch, she yawned for the first time in days.

  She had forgotten what it was like to be so tired – so lazy. Mercy slipped back into her dream world, but Sloth was not there. The deity had disappeared when her job was done, like the others.

  Well, like most of the others.

  Somewhere between dreaming of endless promotions and endless sex with beautiful women, Mercy found a woman she had not seen in many, many weeks.

  “Hello, Mercy.” Acedia stood in the middle of Mercy’s dreaming subconscious. She did not say anything else. She didn’t have to. Not in Mercy’s dream. Instead, the translucent goddess disappeared into the darkness, surrounded by black tendrils and the long, skinny arms of a woman enshrouded in ebony.

  “Hello, Mercy.” Crass laughter boomed in the back of Mercy’s mind. The woman with black tendrils coiled around the light of Acedia’s body and snuffed it out before Mercy had the chance to reach for her.

  The laughter continued, following Mercy through the rest of her dreams and as she awoke on her couch to the cracking of daylight. She remembered it as she stumbled to the bathroom.

  It haunted her as she stared at her reflection in the mirror, wondering who gazed at her from the shadows.

  5

  She slept Saturday away, indulging in a restful stupor for the first time since her depression took hold of her soul. Yet this wasn’t anything like the endless dreams she encountered when trying to forget all the ways Marissa had hurt her. Honestly, she didn’t dream at all. No sweet midnight trysts in her mind. No memories rearing their ugly – and, sometimes, lovely – heads. No nightmares haunting her every time she drifted off to sleep. That’s how Mercy liked it. That’s what brought her a restful reverie for the first time in much too long.

  There was overdoing it, of course, and one thing she learned from Acedia and her avatars was that overdoing it was… not a great idea. Yet Mercy wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. She had been brought the boon of sleep, and for the first time in over a fortnight, she slept until she could slumber no more.

  When she stumbled into the kitchen late Saturday evening, it was already growing dark outside. Mercy yawned her way through preparing some food and staring at a movie on Netflix. She didn’t remember what she ate nor what she watched. Neither mattered anymore. Not when there was a shower to take, moisturizer to apply, and a few emails to read before falling asleep again until early Sunday morning.

  It wasn’t unusual for Mercy to get up so early, although she usually preferred to sleep in a little on Sundays. The one day a week it actually feels good. She remembered the Sundays of her childhood, which were more stressful than any school day. Her mother would get her up extra early to have a big breakfast in the kitchen, but such weekly pleasures were short lived when Mercy was expected to suck into a tight, scratchy dress and help her mother carry reverential supplies to the church on the other side of town. From nine until ten-thirty, it was Sunday school. From eleven until noon, it was regular church service. While other families would jet off to do shopping and eat out at the local diners, Dina and Mercy’s grandmother always stayed behind for extra Bible study and to help the pastor clean up. There was no escaping the church.

  It still felt strange to get up at six on a Sunday morning and not get ready for church, and Mercy hadn’t gone in over fifteen years. Not since I last gave it a go in college. That was the last summer she lived with her mother, out of a financial necessity Mercy made sure didn’t happen again the following summer. I’d rather live with half a dozen roommates in a rundown house than live with my mother. At least they didn’t pressure her to go to a place she was never truly welcomed. That taste of independence Mercy first enjoyed in college changed her life.

  It still felt strange.

  Mercy washed up but wasn’t in the mood to make herself a big breakfast. She wasn’t that hungry at all. Not bad for not remembering what I ate last night. All Mercy remembered was her dreamy visit with Sloth, which had been more fantastical than any other visit with a deity. Who can say that much? Mercy knew she should eat, however. What better way to treat herself for another round of healing than to head out to a local breakfast spot?

  This was a woman who often had coffee for breakfast. Sometimes, she’d toast herself a bagel. Other times, she rushed through a drive-thru and got a donut for her troubles. The only time she had anything of substance for her early meal was if she were meeting someone at a restaurant or splurging on a smoothie bowl from a place near her work. She never gave herself enough time for that, though. It was always straight to the office, where she worked through her gurgling stomach until lunch allowed her to grab a sandwich from across the street. If she was lucky.

  Although Mercy lived in a quiet residential neighborhood, only two blocks away was a semi-bustling shopping district that boasted two diners (one of which was an award-winning brunch spot,) a Starbucks, and an indie coffee shop that was open earlier than Starbucks. Both were open at seven on a Sunday, but Mercy decided on the place that offered freshly baked blueberry muffins and promised cappuccinos that made her mouth water in anticipation.

  She hadn’t been there in weeks. Not since before Acedia came into her life – to save it.

  The place was half-full that early on a Sunday. Some were dressed for church later that day, but others were in sweats or jeans, chatting with family members or idling on their laptops while forcing their eyes to stay open. Mercy barely took stock of them before lining up behind a small family with children, her gaze locked on the cold case full of cakes and pies. She was an adult. She could have pecan pie for breakfast if she wanted.

  Right before the cashier called on her, she caught sight of someone sitting in the far corner of the cramped café.

  At first, Mercy didn’t take much stock of the young woman with curly brown hair and a white blouse. Most women in that neighborhood fit such a description. Look at yours truly. Mercy didn’t sport curls like those, though. Nor did she have an ethereal glow about her whenever someone wasn’t looking.

  You’ve got to be kidding. Mercy stuttered her way through her order. Apparently, her subconscious wished her to eat something healthy for her first real meal in nearly two days, for she ordered an American breakfast plate alongside a hot cup of coffee. When she turned around again after paying, she confronted the woman sitting in the corner, staring right at Mercy.

  There were other places to sit. Empty tables and chairs that would have made more sense for a woman who came in by herself. Yet Mercy walked straight to Acedia’s table, wondering how she was here in corporeal form. Drinking an Italian soda. Are you kidding me?

  Acedia’s wide smile was toothier than Mercy’s third-grade class picture. “Good morning.” She pulled her plastic cup out of the way, giving Mercy plenty of room to sit with her at the small table. “Glad to see you up and about. I figured you would be asleep for about thirty-six hours, and it’s always nice to know my calculations weren’t off that much.”

  Mercy slowly sat in the seat Acedia motioned for her to take. “How are you doing this?” she whispered. “Who are you possessing? That’s how it works, right? You’re possessing some poor person.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about them.” Acedia’s elbow was planted firmly on the table. “They were fast asleep in their seat when I came in here to wait for you. It’s only been about ten minutes, maybe? I noticed you were leaving your house and knew you were coming here.”

  “How did you know that? Don’t tell me you can read my thoughts.”

  Acedia tilted her head, smile progressively waning. “I can… to an extent.”

  “Oh, God.”
/>   “Only your will and motivation. I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking. But, come on, it’s my job to know what you want to do! How else can I help someone like you?”

  “I don’t recall asking for your help.”

  “Yet you did.”

  The corners of Mercy’s mouth twitched. “Yes, I suppose I did. That’s what you keep telling me, anyway.” She took another gander of the people sitting around them and threw her voice across the table. “Nobody can hear our conversation, right?”

  “You are talking, are you not?”

  “Pardon me for not wanting to sound crazy in public.”

  A barista came by with Mercy’s coffee. After thanking her with a wry smile, Mercy stirred in a little cream and one small package of sugar. I totally sound crazy.

  “You’re not crazy.” Whether that was in response to the last thing Mercy said – or thought – remained unknown. Acedia sipped her Italian soda, taking a small moment to appreciate the bubbling flavor. “You know, the setting and the kind of people I work with change, but some things are the same. Like them worrying that others might think they’re crazy.”

  Mercy continued to stir her coffee without a word.

  “As it so happens, there’s never been a better time in history for us to meet like this. You should have seen how difficult things got during the witch trials.” Acedia continued to nod, completely unaware that her brown curls were threatening to dip beneath the lid of her Italian soda. As soon as a bit of cream touched her heavenly tendrils, Mercy cocked an eyebrow and decided to say nothing. “Can you imagine trying to have affairs with a woman while everyone was waiting to call her a witch for dallying with demonic beings in the night?” Acedia scoffed. “That’s when I started my biggest hiatus.”