crop of artwork by MenchiMenagerie, story and image here:

See the full story at the WordPress link or here!

This is part 2 of 3 of the lastest collaboration between @MenchiMenagerie and me.

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Elle stood in the mouth of the cave and peered into the blackness within.  “You’ve got to be kidding me…” she muttered.  ”This can’t possibly be the place.  Evie must have lied to me…I’ll see her punished severely for this!”

But once her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Elle could see spools of fabric deeper in the passageway.  “Ahh, ok…there we go.  She must keep them here to keep them cool and dry.”

Elle took a look at all the dust and cobwebs, and then glanced down at her pristine white lab coat.  With a sigh, she took it off and folded it neatly before placing it on a clean-ish rock.  It left her wearing only the long black negligee she’d worn under her coat to tempt Evie, but since there wasn’t anyone else around, she wasn’t self-conscious about it.

After a few cautious steps inside, she paused to look about and listen.  Though the cave was creepy, with a sense of foreboding, she couldn’t see or hear anything that suggested danger.  

“Why didn’t I wear flats out in the field?” she muttered while picking her way over the rocky floor in her low heels.  Elle took a dozen more steps inside and grabbed a bolt of silk.  “Oh yeah, because I didn’t expect to go spelunking today.”

The moment she picked up the fabric, she heard a low hissing noise from further within the cave.  Elle froze instantly, her eyes searching the depths for the source of the noise.  

Her instincts were telling her to run, but her scientific curiosity made her pause.  She might not be a skilled fighter like Evie, but she’d had enough training from the Codex Cryptae to have the confidence to stand her ground.

Until she saw a shadowy shape moving in the darkness…on the ceiling.

Now it was time to listen to those instincts.  She turned and began to run toward the entrance, cursing again for wearing heels, and trying to navigate the rocky floor beneath.

‘Splat!’  Something struck her wrist…it was warm, and sticky.  She tried to shake it off, and when that didn’t work, she realized there was a long tendril of it stretching back into the dark.  When she tried to twist and pull away, she felt a sharp tug that yanked her wrist back.

Elle dropped the bolt of fabric, starting to feel a little anxious now.  She tried to keep moving toward the entrance of the cave, struggling against the sticky substance pulling her back.  

‘Splot!’  Another blotch of stickiness struck her high on the back.  Instantly it pulled at her, snapping one of the spaghetti straps of her negligee.  It arrested her forward momentum, and began to pull her backward.  

Desperately, Elle twisted her free arm behind her and reached up to try and pull the sticky stuff away.  Given a moment to think, she would have realized it was a bad move, but panic was beginning to take over her analytical mind.

‘Splut!’  Elle grimaced at her mistake as a third blob snagged her forearm.  Now the tendrils weren’t just tugging her backward, they were pulling her captured wrists together!  She didn’t have the strength or leverage to keep them from being drawn parallel and sealed together.

By then, Elle knew she was caught, but that didn’t mean she was ready to quit struggling.  She writhed and twisted her shoulders, trying to pull her arms apart and lean forward.  That only resulted in her other negligee strap sliding down her arm as her elbows came together.

A clicking sound came from the ceiling above and behind her.  Her mind filled in the image of hardened claws on stone coming closer.  Though she couldn’t see in the darkness behind her, reality actually wasn’t far from her imagination.  

Elle gave one more valiant effort, a violent twist of her body while she planted her feet and tried to pull away.  That bout of struggling caused the front of her negligee to slip off her breasts and land pooled around her waist.  She gasped as the cool air hit her bare flesh, and her resistance faded.

Elle’s struggles prompted her captor to strike both her upper arms with more of the sticky goo and begin to wrap the tendrils around Elle’s upper body.  At that point, both predator and prey knew the fight was over…all that remained was for the captive to submit.

Elle glanced upward, trying in vain to get a look at the creature who had imprisoned her.  She saw only red eyes before a large rounded shadow, and the movement of other, long slender shapes, that coincided with the clicking sounds.  

She was smart enough by now to put the facts together and realize this creature was part of Laressa’s silk production, silk similar to what was wrapping and suspending her at the moment.  But what kind of creature was it?  And what would it do with her?

“My, my, little silk thief,” the voice above Elle said in a light, taunting tone.  “You struggle bravely, but I wonder if you would continue to wriggle so deliciously if you knew just how delightful—and arousing—I found it.”

The words sent a chill through Elle’s body…but the voice…there was something about the voice.  Something incongruent between the voice and the fearsome shape above her.

“Let’s see who we’ve caught stealing today, shall we?” the voice continued.  “Such a lovely shape to go with that delicious wriggling…but let’s see if the face is as lovely as the shape?”

While the creature moved directly above Elle and into a position where they would be face to face, Elle suddenly recognized the voice.  It was one she’d heard several times before—usually in polite conversation, but also whispered breathlessly into her ear.

“L-L-L…Laressa?” Elle gasped, incredulous.

The creature froze in place for a moment, just a moment, before it spoke again.

“Elle?”

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to be continued…parts 2 and 3 coming soon!

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I love commissioning and collaborating with @MenchiMenagerie, because our best ideas come from us riffing on new and saucy interactions between our characters.  A sizzling hot idea will pop up, and suddenly we both know we MUST DO IT!

The above is a crop of his image; you can see the full image on his page: DeviantArt.