The beast, by Janus Fall
Previous episode (Lilith part one)
1 Lilith – part two
That day it happened that while Eve slowly plunged into the pool, she noticed a strange phenomenon, which she thought was due to the heat. The air above the pond flickered and refracted messily in the sun light, bending and altering any outlines of the images that seemed almost to be mixed. Her shadow was strange and seemed almost to move, or rather to wriggle on the ground without following slavishly and mechanically all the movements of her body.
Finally, the Shadow broke away from her, as if it had reached its true own life, completely ceasing to replicate the movements of Eve.
The Woman, now very intrigued by that very strange phenomenon, lay down on the soft clay bottom, plunging up to her navel in a pleasant coolness, her shoulders resting on the bank. The Shadow had now reached the diametrically opposite end of the pool, had stood upright, and was taking on a consistency of its own, as if it were physically concrete, as if something other than Eve was, so to speak, filling it from inside; at the same time, it was tinged with a fleshy colour, until it was covered with a pale but rosy, clear complexion. It was beautiful.
The face of that second Eve was very similar to that of the first one, with the same long, soft and flowing hair; however, the new face was not exactly the same, like a mirror reflexion: the eyes were green, not brown, set under very dark eyebrows and surrounded by black and long eyelashes. Eve had a very lively and naive gaze, but it was replaced by another, which showed independence and self-awareness, mixed with a note of malice and lasciviousness.
The Shadow’s chest was magnificent, more tense and swollen than hers, with straight, almost sharp ends.
Nothing, in the aspect of the Shadow now made person, indicated submission or docility.
Two black horns, knotted like those of an Ibex but gracefully twisted as if they were a complicated hairstyle, branched off her head just above her ears.
Inside the Woman’s mind a voice began to whisper “Lilith”, whatever that meant.
The Shadow sat right in front of Eve, on the dry side, on the opposite side of the pool. She was staring at Eve straight into her eyes with a piercing gaze and expressing something imperative. She was sitting on the bank, her hands resting on the ground, her legs immersed up to the middle of her calves in the water, under the round leaves of the water lilies. She seemed to moved her legs alternately back and forth, jaunty, as in the distracted game of a child. She seemed lost in thought, as if she really wasn’t looking at the Woman.
Then, the Shadow slipped with a dart into the pond; while her head resurfaced among the flowers, about a meter away from Eve, the latter saw for an instant a long sinuous tail swimming at the water’s edge: now the Shadow had no legs and just below the groin her body was that of a lithe and muscular snake; her back and flanks were coloured like those of a leopard-like beast, pale yellow with thick black spots, small and round. Her belly was creamy white and, except for the length, resembled that of a slender greyhound.
The Shadow was now smiling, with a strange light into her eyes, and she slowly approached close to the Woman, almost touching her.
The slight ripples produced by the sinuous movement of the Shadow on the surface of the pond had preceded her; they reached and caressed Eve’s body with determined impulses. When this happened, an irrepressible wave of desire never felt before filled the Woman deeply into herself, reverberating in her bowels; her skin quivered and her lips barely parted, quivering. She was almost hypnotized by the gaze of the other, now so close that she, Eve, could feel her breathing.
Something warm, below, started to move even closer to the Woman’s body and with an almost unbearable, maddening slowness, it clung to her legs, upsetting her, wrapping her, squeezing her and climbing her whole body up to her pelvis. While Eve’s mind was agitated, almost sensing that she was lost, her flesh was filled with ever more intense shivers, when finally her partner encircled her in a shocking but at the same time very sweet embrace. The Shadow voice spoke again: “Let yourself go, abandon yourself.”
Eve had not yet known the pleasure of her flesh. Her predominant feelings were fear of the unknown and desire to totally immerse herself in it.
As in a dream, in a dark corner of her mind the scene of a great python swallowing a defenceless prey: a prey that wanted to be taken.
Everything became silence, but not peace.
(to be continued)
John Collier – Lilith
The skin of the angels 
