Lust Bites

by Madelynne Ellis

Broken Angel is what results when my imagination is allowed to run riot. It’s the outpouring of years of role-playing and comic/manga reading, entwined with gothic horror and a large dose of visual kei. In a sense it’s a retelling of an old story, you know the one – hero caught up in events has to stop the apocalypse. In this case, the return of demon rule on Earth.

Here's the blurb to help clue you in:

After stealing a copy of an ancient manuscript, Blaze Makaresh finds himself being hunted down by a gang of Youkai – demons who infiltrate human society in order to satisfy their hunger for sex and flesh. When Talon, an elite society of demon-hunters, come to his aid, he's soon enmeshed with the beautiful Asha, and the dawning of an age old prophecy.


The ever lovely Portia da Costa was kind enough to stop by and pose a few questions.

Q. I love the sound of your hero Blaze. Is he inspired by any one movie star, singer or other male celeb? Or is he a composite figure? Or even a fabulous creation purely from your fantasies?

I tend not to use famous people as character templates, but in this instance, Blaze’s image is very heavily based on Japanese mega star Camui Gackt, specifically in his video to the song Vanilla. I just love the kohl-lined eyes and manga hair. I was also quite taken with the idea of him locked in a cage, so naturally I had to include that in the story.



Q. Tell me a little more about the world of Broken Angel. It feels bleak and post apocalyptic, and like something out of a [very good] comic book. And yet some names of places and people sound slightly British. Is that the case? Is it an alternate universe England or a completely imaginary?

Post apocalyptic is a very good description; basically the city Blaze inhabits is split in two. The Heights, where the rich folk live in their metal and steel skyscrapers and the Old City, which is bit like York or Edinburgh squashed into a tighter area and allowed to decay. It’s a city surrounded by a vast wasteland. No one really knows much about what lies beyond the walls. It’s a community largely cut off from the rest of the World. It is intended to be an alternate Earth or perhaps a future Earth pushed into another dark age by the loss of electricity.

Q. Demon hunters fighting in lace and satin? That's unexpected. The costumes of the Talon sound remarkable... can you describe some of the detailing? And where does the look derive from?

The look is heavily based on Visual Kei and Elegant Gothic Lolita imagery, which in turn is based on the Victorian and Edwardian fashions of the European aristocracy with a heavy dose of black and a splash of Ziggy Stardust thrown in. I wanted something that was visually striking, but which would also serve as a mask behind which the members of the Talon could hide. They’re essentially vicious china dolls.

Any more questions folks? If so, please ask them in the comments.


Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the sneak teaser.

The interior of the mausoleum was surprising clean and scentless. The narrow entranceway widened after a few feet into a heptagonal chamber, where Jaku had lit a hurricane lantern that hung from the ceiling. For want of a bandage, he’d pulled his leather glove back on. He was busy lighting a wooden torch when they reached him.

Blaze peered into several of the deep cubbyholes that lined four of the walls. ‘No bodies,’ he remarked.

‘They’re out walking, as they have no guardian to protect them yet.’ Jaku’s low voice echoed off the stonework. ‘We’d best make sure we’re gone by the time they return.’ He opened a door, which led onto a spiral stair. ‘There are two levels below this. The lowest opens into the city catacombs, but the way is warded with old magic. I should be able to get us through. Wait here, and don’t touch anything.’

The moment the door closed, Asha grabbed him. ‘Since we’ve got a moment,’ she hissed. She backed him against a wall and pinned his hands above his head. ‘Talk to me,’ she growled into his face. ‘Tell me what happened in Rodgers’ office. Why did you kiss me? Why is Venom chasing you? What’s this all this about?’

Alarmed, Blaze shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I swear it.’

‘Show me your back.’ She didn’t wait for him to turn, just spun him around and wrenched up his jacket and T-shirt as far as they would go. ‘Aah!’ She jerked him forwards into the cold stone wall as her fingertips traced over the smooth skin of his shoulders. ‘How? There’s not even a mark.’

‘I don’t know.’ He pressed his cheek to the cool granite, feeling sickly hot again. He didn’t have any answers for her. All he knew was that her touch was making his temperature rise.

Asha continued to rub her palms across the tight muscles of his back as if trying to find a single defect. He shivered, as the strange caress roused further heat in his loins. His cock slowly thickened, and the memory of her mouth forming a perfect O around his shaft returned with vivid clarity.

Blaze pushed her off and turned around. ‘I swear, I don’t know, but stop.’ He held her at arm’s-length, his hand pressed to her abdomen just below her breasts. He was aware of her breathing, shallow like his own. She was looking at him, her expression starting to glaze again.

‘There’s this as well,’ he blurted. He didn’t know what was happening, but maybe they could make sense of it together if they trusted each other.

His stomach was already showing, so he only had to pull the black fabric a little higher to show her the brand upon his skin. ‘It happened in the bathroom, the same time my skin healed. I didn’t know if it was something you’d done, or if it was a result of the attack or what. It’s why I kissed you. You were so insistent on checking my wounds. It was the only thing I could think of to distract you.

She traced her fingertip over the symbol on his chest. It sent shivers of pleasure rippling through his abdomen. His next breath came out sharp. ‘Careful,’ he gasped. She didn’t remove her hand, just kept her palm pressed to the sigil.

‘I take it you don’t normally tear iron bars off walls.’

‘No.’

‘What are you feeling?’

Blaze shook his head. He couldn’t put it into words, and wasn’t sure if he wanted to. He certainly didn’t want to share the fantasy running through his head about how he longed to lift her skirt, reverse their positions and fuck her until every vestige of her mask cracked, her skin turned ruddy, and their bodies smelled of sex and each other.

‘Tell me.’

He could hardly breath, let alone speak.

‘Pain?’ Her hand slid down his front from his breastbone to the sensitive space between his naval and his groin. ‘Pleasure?’

Even her words were like a caress. Blaze trembled. His balls felt heavy and tight, just the way they had when she’d fellated him. ‘Careful! Careful!’ he whimpered. ‘Last time it hurt.’ He grit his teeth.

Asha kept her hand still, although it remained in contact with his naked skin. ‘Then tell me what you’re feeling?’

‘Fire. Burning.’ He had to spit the words out. His mouth felt parched, and he could feel his temperature spiralling upwards. His eyes snapped open. ‘Touch me, Asha.’ He wrenched open his fly with one hand and dragged her palm down to his crotch with the other. ‘Please. I need you for this… I don’t understand it, but I need you.’

‘What do you mean?’ she demanded, although her soft palm closed around his aching shaft.

Blaze just sighed in relief as her thumb rubbed a lingering caress across the head of his cock, and pleasure raced along the shaft like a stream of sparklers. He didn’t understand, but he knew he needed to come.

His eyes fluttered, then rolled upwards into his head.

It was raining ash and feathers: great black feathers… The sky was distorted, coloured a yellow-tinged metallic grey, and all the clouds had creepy blood-red linings. He was naked on the cathedral steps…no…the roof. For a split-second, he was disorientated, then he spread his arms wide. Lightning struck the roof. It crackled along the apex and poured into him until he was full of fire and light. His whole body was ablaze.

It was the most excruciating and ecstatic experience of his life.

Almost consumed, he was suddenly snatched back from the flames and trapped again within his own body. Asha was staring at him, her hand still curled around his cock, although she was no longer caressing him. Steam was pouring off his body.

‘Venom’s done something to you,’ she gasped. Then she turned and fled onto the spiral stair.


Madelynne Ellis

PS: Don't forget to add a comment for a chance to win one of three copies of Possession we're giving away this week.

by Mr Madelynne Ellis

Blame the ancient Egyptians. They invented cosmetics. Without them, you might all have natural, healthy complexions, unspoilt by foundation, and your eyes would be open and clear, enhanced only by what nature gave you. But where’s the fun in that?

More specifically, blame Cleopatra, one of history’s greatest vamps and serial monogamists (and a legendary fellatrix, according to some accounts). Having married her own brothers, Caesar and then Mark Anthony, as well as notched up an alleged 1000 lovers, she’s left an indelible mark on history and inspired a legion of goth chicks and neo-pagan priestesses. But her legend wouldn’t have endured without a few very special women.

The first official vamp was the silent screen goddess Theda Bara. It was her nickname, and the studio encouraged the image of spooky seductress for all it was worth. If a woman is called a vamp, it’s a comparison to her, the lover and destroyer of men. Unsurprisingly her most famous role was as Cleopatra, although sadly only still images remain. In interviews she alluded to mysticism and witchcraft, and became a powerful archetype of dark female sexuality. Her studio hinted that her name was an anagram of “Arab Death”, but the truth was a little more mundane. Born Theodosia Goodman, she’d never even been to Egypt. But like all vamps, the fantasy overshadows the reality.

A more recently famous Cleopatra, with a similar appetite for husbands if not fellatio, came in the form of Elizabeth Taylor. And boy did she look fine in eyeliner. I should admit at this point that I’ve got a thing for eyeliner and mascara, the darker the better. I can’t tell you how it started – maybe Dusty Springfield had something to do with it, or some inadvertent youthful exposure to seventies porn.

I can tell you how it developed. Heavy eye make-up carries certain, ah, spooky connotations, which is why I offered to write about it. Halloween (or Samhain) should celebrate and address all those dark aspects of the human psyche – movie monsters or half-remembered pagan myths, it’s all the same. And every aspiring vamp should know that make-up can bring out the goddess in you. Anyway, back to the story… by the fifties the iconography of the vamp had been reabsorbed by horror in the form of Vampira,

and given a comic twist by both Morticia Addams and Lily Munster. Throughout the seventies, Hammer wasn’t the only studio to realise that sex and horror go together very well. Barbara Steele starred in a string of Italian horror movies, and mesmerised audiences with her anime eyes.

So what the hell was so sexy about them? What makes so many men sit up and beg at the idea of a little necrophilia? The vampire was already well established as an erotic figure. If sex is a meaningful exchange of bodily fluids that creates life, then the vampire is an exchange of bodily fluids that negates life, or creates anti-life. No wonder it become such a staple of the gothic movement. I always preferred Le Fanu’s earlier Carmilla to Dracula, but maybe that’s a guy thing.

Maybe we need to analyse this. You may love or hate Sigmund Freud, but remember he gave you the word libido, and a whole language of sexuality. He proposed that there’s an opposite force to the life instinct, a death instinct called thanatos. Simply put, humans seek the simplicity and negation of death, or unbeing. AKA Nirvana. We like the idea of it so much that we personify it as various caped, cowled and skeletal figures. Or if you’re a poet drunk on laudanum, you sexualise it.

“Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold :
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Then along came Siouxsie, and everything changed… With the invention of punk and later goth, everyone could look like a vampire or a witch, and Theda Bara’s legacy became public domain. Heavy eye shadow became a manifesto, or statement of intent – one way or another, I’ll suck you dry. You know you want it.

I’m out of time, and there’s still so much to cover. Any suggestions for other archetypal vamps/femmes fatale? Ever vamped it up yourself? What was the effect?

“and I leave you as a souvenir the dark, fanged rose that I plucked from between my thighs…”

Angela Carter, The Lady of the House of Love

Mr Madelynne Ellis