"AAAHHHH!"

Tiffany shrieked and nearly jumped out of her skin when the unseen hand fell upon her shoulder.

"H-how... I... I didn't know you could do that..." she stammered out, somewhat embarrassed by her frightened reaction.

Slarr pointed her in the direction of the jungle and told her to walk. Tiffany realized, not for the first time, that the environment here was very strange. It explained why berries were always avilable though. Some parts of the island seemed warmer than others. And it was never really cold anywhere. It was almost like the entire island had some kind of climate control system installed. Of course, that would be impossible... it must just be a matter of geography...

After walking into the thick, vine-laden canopy of the trees, Slarr stopped to inspect his payoff. As he did, he reached into a bag he had brought himself and handed her a heavy, old looking book.

Tiffany opened it to the marked page as instructed and peered down at the words, written in some strange language she didn't recognize. As she did, she felt suddenly dizzy. The world seemed to spin for a moment and it seemed like she could hear voices echoing inside her mind, speaking in a language not meant for human ears.

"Ohh!" She gasped, surprised by the odd sensation. The feeling passed as quickly as it had come, however and Tiffany stared down at the words.

"I... I can't read this... what does it say?"

“Oh? I didn't use that particular trick with you before? It's hard to keep track. This isn't my only trick.”

Leading her off he became visible at the rock he sat on, lemon yellow eyes surveying his goodies before selecting one. He peaked back at her as she exclaimed. “Then learn to read it. Focus.”

Going back to eating he left her at work with the book. It felt strange to look at, stranger to read. The more she tried the more those symbols changed as if constantly squirming upon the page as if those lines and shapes were alive.

They never did form coherent sentences but ended up resembling something she could try to pronounce. The words looked familiar in the end but certainly not English. By then Slarr hopped off the rock taking out several candles from his bag. He placed a black one on the rock he had been sitting on while ringing her body with white ones.

“Now lit that candle. The black one.” As if demonstrating how it was done he snapped his fingers causing the white candles all to be lit as if he ignited them with his flame only thing was that he actually produced no flames. Then he gestured toward the black candle to focus her attention on it.

“This should be easy. There is one condition. You cannot leave this clearing until you accomplish the task. Well, you can but then you'll see what those white candles do.”

He smirked at her then went back to eating.

Slarr told her to learn to read the words. Learn to read another language you were unfamiliar with? Really?

"Focus..." he said.

Tiffany tried. She concentrated on the symbols... words that weren't words... and that dizzy, spinning sensation washed over her again. The voices echoed in her mind. She didn't actually understand the words... and what she was doing couldn't really be called reading... but she could FEEL the words. Her eyes weren't interpreting the meaning of the symbols, it was more like the symbols were projecting some sort of empathic message to her that she could sense without fully understanding.

When he told her to light the candle, she understood he wanted her to do it the same way that he had done it... with a snap of her fingers. She was about to protest that that wasn't fair... she couldn't do it... he wasn't human... he was BORN with the ability to do that... but then she realized the voices whispering in her mind wanted her to try. Wanted her to light the candle...

She focused on the wick of the tall, black candle and imagined it lit. A glimmering flame dancing at the top of that smooth column of black wax, casting its wavering glow about the circle. She snapped her fingers and...

...nothing happened. Tiffany took a deep breath and gathered her focus, concentrating on the candle... letting the voices wash over her mind... she snapped her fingers again and a leaf lying in the grass burst into flame. Not the candle, but it was something. Enough to make her lose her focus. She stared at Slarr, open-mouthed, a look of confused amazement on her face.

"Did... did I just do that?"

In mid bite Slarr's eyes shifted to the burning leaf. The clearing was small and they were still in a jungle not that he had to worry about being engulfed in flames he made a slow wave with his hand snuffing out the fire.

She actually did that. He was surprised though hid it. He had considered all sorts of fun tricks he could have done producing flames and pretending that she had done it herself only for her to find that her abilities failed her when she tried to use them.

He was interested now. Not that it mattered in the long run, not with the inhibitors in place but a novice with that much control so soon. Well he could still have fun in other ways. “That was all you. I recommend you don't go burning the jungle down. Not that I care, I won't burn. Shokushu has some amazing medical technology but I don't think you want to feel it first hand.”

Gesturing her to continue he finished off the snacks before that candle could be lit. “Now remember what I said. Even if it means staying here all night you are not to leave until that candle is lit.”

He was ready to leave. Whether or not she would figure out the reason why the white candles were present was another matter. His intent was to leave her to it and circle back here after going invisible in order to watch the show that was almost certain to happen in his absence.

Tiffany could hardly believe it. She had set something on fire by channeling some kind of supernatural energy... but from where? Was the book with its strange symbols the source of that energy? Was it the whispering voices that had been echoing inside her mind? Was SHE the source?

She realized the voices had stopped and the weird feeling of vertigo had faded away now. Whatever tenuous connection she had made to that energy seemed to have been broken when she lost her concentration.

Slarr didn't seem as excited as she was. Of course, it was hard to tell because his face didn't really seem to register human emotion. He gestured for her to continue and said not to leave the circle until the candle was lit.

Tiffany closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She listened for the whispery voices, but they were gone. When she opened her eyes again, she realized Slarr, his treats eaten, had left. Where did he go? Was he coming back?

"Slarr? Slarr! I... I need some help..."

No answer. What should she do now?

She tried for a while to regain her connection to the voices and the mystic symbols from the book, but it was no use. She had lost her focus. Where was Slarr? Wasn't he supposed to be helping her? Tiffany looked at the ring of white candles glimmering around her in the dark. Slarr said not to leave until the black candle was lit... but, he wasn't even here! Should she blow them out and go? Tiffany realized that would be breaking her deal... but he never actually SAID she had to light the candle with magic. She could use one of the white candles to light the black one. Then she could look for Slarr. Tiffany walked over to the nearest of the white candles...

He watched from a perch in the trees. Naturally he ignored her for the time being. The candles served two purposes, the primary one being a beacon to whatever was out there. As it grew darker those candles would only serve to draw undo attention to her.

She looked nervous, or was that concern? He remained invisible even as she approached one of those candles. He had options of course, he could have snuffed out those flames with a thought or even produced more flame between her and the candles though that would have revealed his presence.

But he did nothing letting her lit the black candle. That was the second reason why he lit those candles leaving her to figure it out. If she hadn't then that would be on her, and if she figured it out then he wasn't wasting his time.

“Good. You completed the challenge. Perhaps not how you wished but it will require a sharp mind to obtain focus in the first place.” Slarr became visible as he hopped out of the tree. Waving he snuffed out all the candles save for the black one.

“Leave if you wish but you cannot take the book with you. It will be present next time. Stay and you will have access to it while you work on that candle and lighting it again. Make your choice by blowing it out if you wish to stay. I will remain here until morning if you stay.”

He explained as he took the book back up presenting it to her to either take or reject.

A test? So this had been some kind of IQ or problem solving test? It seemed Slarr hadn't had any actual expectations of her to begin with. Of course, she couldn't count that against him because then again, neither had she. She looked at the book in his outstretched claw for a moment, then reached out to take it. She wouldn't learn anything if she didn't put in the work.

"Slarr, what... what is this thing, really? Because I feel like it's not just a book. For one thing, the words seem to move around on the page... and when I tried to read it, it was like I could hear voices... whispering inside my head... I think it was whoever those voices belong to that set the leaf on fire. I think I could have lit the candle next, but... I... I lost my focus..."

“Hm ...” he looked at the book then grinned. “So that is how you perceive it. No surprise there since it was primed by my thoughts. This here is a life form, one with great telepathic abilities.

“Those voices were the thoughts of so many other creatures that it has had contact with. You couldn't understand any of them, correct? None of those thoughts were in English or any language that you are familiar with. Even my own, one tends to think in their native language after all.

“But now it knows English, well sort of. The reason why it was a book was my doing, my thoughts in what it should appear to you as. Those words shifted as it learned your language though it still has much to show you. Now look again to the leaf.”

When they looked back it was as he surmised, the leaf was intact and the book at influenced both their minds. “It was showing you what was possible. What you can do. It has scanned your mind and has learned what you can do. Tapping into that potential will be up to you but it is there. I didn't expect it to work so fast. Nor did I assume that you would pass this little test so quickly.”

He rubbed his chin in thought. “Now if you focus, really focus you might hear the occasional snippet of English in your thoughts. The more you concentrate and focus the clearer it will become. But there is a price for it's teachings. Tonight however it will be content with learning from you as you seek to learn from it.”

Tiffany wasn't sure she fully understood what Slarr meant. The book was alive? She had suspected it might be a tool that tapped into some mystical energy source. But an actual sentient creature? Yet it seemed to be true... surely that was the same leaf she had thought had been burned wasn't it? So... the whole thing had been... what? An illusion created by a self-aware telepathic being that looked like a book?

Tiffany looked down at the heavy tome she held in her hands. If the book was "alive" as Slarr had said, there should be no need to actually open it. She closed her eyes and tried to reach out to the intellect inside the book with her mind.

Tiffany's body suddenly jolted as if she had experienced an electric shock, standing tense and rigid in the dim, flickering glow of the white candles. She could hear it... she could hear the whispery voice of the book...

And it was laughing. It was laughing, but there was no joy or merriment in that sound. It was a cruel, mocking sound. Tiffany could feel tendrils of inhuman intelligence and will coiling around her thoughts and prodding at her mind like cold, invisible fingers. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. Dark images flashed through her mind. Images of pain and lust and blood and sex. The memory of her first encounter with Slarr drifted up in her mind like a bloated corpse floating to the surface of a murky swamp.

Her mind seemed to split in two. She was in the clearing, but she was in the cave. She could feel the rough stone against her back as he pushed her against the wall. She could feel his clawed hand on her leg, lifting it until her thigh rested above his hip. She could feel his cock, long and thick and so hard, thrusting deep inside her. She could feel the tight inner walls of her sex, hot and slick and wet, clenching down around his throbbing flesh in fluttery, rythmic spasms as he drove her against her will closer and closer towards orgasm.

In the clearing, Tiffany moaned as her nipples stiffened to hard, erect points visible even through her clothing. A rush of heat washed over her hips and through her lower belly, radiating outward from between her legs. Her clit was swollen and throbbing and aching... and she was so wet... she was so very wet. Her impending climax had somehow escaped from her memory and into the present. She could feel the unwanted orgasm building... closer and closer... she was so close... oh God... she was going to cum... he was going to make her cum....

She wanted to beg Slarr for help. She wanted to beg him to stop. Tiffany tried to focus her mind on the present. She was standing in a clearing in a jungle, not being fucked against a wall in a cave. It... it didn't matter that she could feel it... feel his cock... inside her... hard and deep... not... not real...

"Uunnhhh.... oohhh... ohh God... sluh-Slarr... hhhuuunnhhh... h-help... aahhh... h-help me..."

The book did not need to be opened though opening it would have allowed her to visualize her task better. Without opening it the life form that appeared to her as that tome probed her mind as it learned from her. Locking onto that dark memory it played it out again.

The events were recorded there in her subconscious. Even the details that she had forgotten or edited in her mind had still been there buried that it recovered now. She relived that experience as it latched onto the memory that it came upon as it tried to learn about the connection between the two and how they first met.

Slarr noticed. He was aware of how the book worked, it's motives. When it scanned his mind it had brought him to several different places over time. From torturing others, to being the toadie of things far more powerful then he to reliving personal experiences. He didn't think that the psionic entity would latch on to such thoughts so quickly but it was clear that the girl was having a reaction judging by those points so evident in her shirt.

The sounds of pleasure that cut across the small distance. She called out for him and it was clear that she was caught up in their first experience. She could have been asking for help, but by now she must have know that none of the guests here were going to help her, not without a price any way.

It looked like it was time for dessert. Moving closer he elected to try something new. “Help you?”

A clawed arm reached out cupping a breast. Another took the book away from her setting it down. The smell of burnt toast would hit her nostrils as the majority of his body minus his arm and head became smoke encasing her, slipping beneath her clothing with ease. He was like a second skin becoming solid in places beneath her without going through the process of reddening her of her clothes.

Just the tip of his member forming up beneath her panties. More would manifest itself as he pushed inside her that smoke becoming more and more solid.

One hand formed beneath her bra playing with an orb while the other remained outside of her clothing playing with it's twin above her clothes.

"Y-yes... hhuunnhh... h-help me... it's t-trying t-to... OH!"

Tiffany couldn't move, but she jolted in surprise as Slarr reached out and took hold of her breast. Even before starting his little trick of dissipating into smoke to slither beneath her clothing, he could feel how stiff and erect her nipple was, the tiny nub rock hard as it pressed firmly into the palm of his hand.

"Wha... AHH! What are you... ohhh... st-stop... d-dont... ohhh... ohh God... nnnhhh... n-no..."

Whatever psychic force had pulled the memory from her mind had changed it... amplified it... transforming it from just a mental image into a physical manifestation. Tiffany's body was experiencing the same unwanted but inescapable sensations as it had when Slarr had pushed her up against the stone wall of his lair. His thick, throbbing cock thrusting hard and deep inside her... fucking her... driving her inexorably toward the brink of ecstasy... her mind adrift in a haze of drug induced lust... unable to resist...

Tiffany could feel the orgasm building inside her. There was no gradual increase in her level of sexual excitement. The memory itself had occurred when she was already far beyond her usual limits of pleasure and arousal... and so somehow that was exactly what her body felt now. The only difference was the strange feeling of existing in two separate realities at once, the past and the present.

"Aahhh... aahhh... b-bastard... oohhh... you f-fucking... AAHHH! OHHhhh... mmmmhhhh..."

Tiffany managed a single, stammering admonition of his betrayal, then seemed to lose the ability to do anything other than shiver and moan. As the tip of Slarr 's rigid shaft materialized inside her panties, he could feel the heat of her arousal radiating outward from between her legs. The soft, pink folds of her outer lips felt swollen and hot and slippery wet against his skin. She was so wet... with barely the slightest push forward the head of his cock slipped between those parted lips and slid deeper into the tight embrace of her slick, wet sex. She was still as exquisitely tight as he remembered. Despite how slippery and wet she was, he had to increase the pressure of his thrust slightly to force his thick shaft fully inside her. She shuddered and moaned louder as he entered her.

"AAHHH! Oohhh... aahhh... ohhh God... aahhhhh..."

This had been new territory for him, though it was nothing exceptional on his part he did not have to waste time in removing or damaging clothing unless he desired it. Often it felt like taring wrapping paper off of a gift not that he had done so in such an incredible time unless clothes counted.

Like a second skin that smoke surrounded her and crept beneath those clothes. He became solid where necessary. Just like a cat seeing a mouse her aroused state caused him to pounce.

“I had no idea that the book would get straight to it. Besides, weren't you the one that agreed to learning by any means?”

He contributed to her pleasure by pushing that smoke inside her, smoke that became solid once inside her. Just as he recalled as he felt that tightness wrap around his member. His progress had been slowed as he pressed farther into her given that tightness now that he was solid there he had to contend with those physical barriers.

Protest as much as she liked he wasn't about to stop now. Besides, it would have been far worse if she didn't figure out that candle trick. The light would have served as a beacon to whatever was out there. Even Birch might have lost it at seeing those flames however meager but there wasn't much of a chance that they would encounter him this close to the campus.

His hand continued to mold and play with her breast above her clothes. “That book could have you caught up in your memories for hours. So this is the lesser of two evils so to speak. First ...”

Some of that smoke became solid where it did not touch her. He formed a back and his wings taking flight soon after. Straight up getting out of the effective psychic range of the book. Leaning in his tongue coursed over her neck as his pace quickened inside her, pressing in faster and harder as he had to exert himself a bit more.

“You can see the whole campus if you go up high enough. Not that there's much lit for you to see by.”

Hovering in the air he found that he could carry someone if he was mostly smoke not being strong enough on most occasions. While he gave her something to see he went on tending to her, the psychic link noticeably weaker the higher up he went but it was still in range, still feeding her thoughts stubbornly refusing to let go.

The past and present, memory and reality, that had been swimming in and out of focus inside her mind slammed back together as more and more of Slarr's rigid shaft solidified within Tiffany's molten depths. In both the memory and the present, he was inside her... and that commonality allowed the two realities to overlap enough that they almost seemed to merge back into a single entity.

The memory wasn't gone though, it played on inside her mind and she remembered... she hadn't climaxed as Slarr took her against the wall. He had forced her to the edge... so close... so near the brink of mind-numbing orgasm that her resistance had given in to the pleasure, given in to her own lust...

Suddenly, at exactly that point at which her will to resist had broken, the memory paused. Tiffany could hear the cold whispers of the thing from the book in her mind as its invisible fingers closed around that remembered moment, turning it back and forth the way a jeweler might examine a precious stone. Was it trying to learn how to break her will?

But then Slarr had done something unexpected. He flew upwards into the air, mostly solid, but that ashen smell, like a bakery on fire, let her know that some of him must still be vaporous unless that was just the smoke passing by her nose as he called it back to himself. The sudden distance from the book wasn't quite enough to completely break its hold on her mind, but it made it "stretch out" to hold onto her, and its control weakened considerably. Tiffany could hear its angry hiss echoing inside her head... and then all out once, she was herself again... back in the present.

Though her mind was once again her own, her body was another story altogether. Slarr was holding her high above the ground... his hands on her breasts... his thick, hard cock thrusting into the pulsing wet heat of her tight, clenching sex... faster and harder now... she was so close... he had to stop... oh God... if he didn't stop right now... she was going to cum...

"Oohhh.... st-stop... S-Slarr... aahhh... aahhh... p-please... don't... OHHhhh... ohhh my God... ohhh... f-f-f-fuck... ohhh..."

“Stop or fuck?” He acted as if he had been confused by her words. Of course when presented with both options it was clear which he was going to choose. While he had reduced the weight of his body keeping her airborne was something he was unable to do for long.

He knew this but kept at her blowing away at that hot tight sex and climbing even higher after a moments pause. Looking into her face her grinned hovering there before peeking over his shoulder and down.

Looking back he rolled their bodies to the left dropping from the sky suddenly. Like a roller coaster that climbed to the top of a track before that deep plunge he too fell coming screaming toward that clearing. While that brought her back in range of the book he did not care figuring that the surest way to brake it's hold was to get her to climax.

If that didn't work out then he was at a loss as to what to do. He was far from a genius after all and while not an idiot problem solving such as this was a little beyond him. It wasn't his problem so there had been no need to try to solve it.

Coming close to impacting the ground he pulled out of that dive at the last possible moment all the while pressing himself in and out of her body at a frantic pace only to slow it down when he was soaring back up into the sky this time high enough to get out of the books range before diving again ...

Tiffany's eyes widened as Slarr dove toward the ground. The fear from the fall made her grab onto him tighter... pressing herself more firmly against him... at the same time, his thrusts began to get even faster and harder... his cock plunging in and out of the slick, wet heat between her legs relentlessly...

"OHH! Wha-what the f-fuck... ohhh... AAHHH! OHHH... OHHH... AAAHHHH! AAHHH... AAHHHhhhhnnn..."

The added sensation of pressing her body so hard against him, her hands clawing at him and her legs wrapping around whatever solid parts of him they could find, as he quickened his pace and increased the force of his thrusts drove her at last over that edge she had been hovering on. Her inner walls clenched and opened, clenched and opened... squeezing his rigid shaft in a frenzied, chaotic rythm as a torrent of her hot, slippery fluids suddenly flooded out over his pounding cock and trickled down across her inner thighs.

"Ohhh... ohhh God... y-yes... don't... don't stop..."