In the Bedroom of Medusa
Welcome to Nature's Corrupted, Magen Cubed's newsletter. This is a place to share writing, thoughts, observations, and personal stories at the intersection of art, fiction, and life.
Coming September 30th
An ancient monster in the modern-day. A gilded castle with whispered secrets. A peculiar sapphic romance.
When Evelyn agrees to become the live-in companion of the secretive Lady Demetria Balaskas, the human finds herself falling for a creature lost to time.
In the Bedroom of Medusa is a lush, erotic, and patently off-beat F/F romance novella featuring a relationship between a curious human and a gorgon seeking intimacy with another woman despite her beastly appearance. It is a story about the connections between women and how the choices we make to protect ourselves may threaten the love we cultivate unless we learn to embrace the vulnerability — the terror of being seen — that comes with it.
Notes:
Contains a consensual (and largely playful) dominance/submission relationship dynamic.
Contains monstrous anatomy (Demetria’s snake hair is not sentient but an extension of her body/nervous system), light bondage, the use of blindfolds, impact play, and affirmation play.
An Excerpt from In the Bedroom of Medusa
"May I touch you?"
Evelyn licked her bottom lip. "Yes, Mistress."
A gloved hand skimmed the crest of Evelyn's hip in a restrained touch. Fingers moved to trace the downward slope of Evelyn's thighs and then up again. The hissing grew louder still as Lady Demetria reached Evelyn's ribcage to feel her hitching breath. A soft, flicking tongue — too small and fine to be human — swiped at Evelyn's thigh. Another tongue followed, then another, as Demetria's hands ran down her tensing stomach.
"Do snakes frighten you?" asked Demetria.
"No, they're just animals," Evelyn found the mettle say.
She was never afraid of things like snakes or spiders, even as a child. A lithe, scaled body twined around Evelyn's wrist. Evelyn couldn't see it through her blindfold, but she could feel the snake tasting her fingers.
"These are not animals, Evelyn."
The sound of her heart thudding in her ears drowned out the hissing.
"Are they a part of you?"
The lady remained silent. Snakes — heads and tails, all different sizes and lengths — slithered out from underneath her veil to lick at Evelyn's hips, thighs, navel. Holding a breath, Evelyn extended her fingers to touch them, unsure of what she would find. She was met with the prickle of hooked fangs and inquisitive tongues, gasping as forked muscles curled around her fingers. Fear ran in contradiction to the heat pooling in her belly, a heady cocktail of curiosity and excitement. Demetria's gloved hands roamed up her chest, around her breasts to settle on her shoulders.
"Yes," Demetria answered softly and with some hesitation. "The snakes grow from my body, but they can't hurt you. If this frightens you, we can stop."
Primal flashes of stone pottery and marble statues leaped to Evelyn's mind as if from the dark. Photographs of museum collections or stills from old movies, all depicting a snake-haired woman. A gorgon. The Medusa. A snake bit into the pad of Evelyn's thumb in a gentle tease, its tongue flicking out to taste her skin. It should have frightened her — the blindfold, the hissing, the secrets hidden beneath the lady's veil — but it didn't.
Instead, it excited her.
"You're not human, are you?" she asked if only to hear Demetria say the words.
"No, I'm not."
"Is that why you won't let me look at you?"
"Yes. Are you scared?"
Evelyn swallowed. She could leave. She could put on her dress and walk out of the parlor and never think of this again.
Instead, she answered resolutely, "No, Mistress."
Softly, as if with gratitude, Demetria said, "Good girl."
In Other News: Leather and Lace Giveaway
I’m currently hosting a GoodReads Kindle Giveaway. You can enter for your chance to win one of 100 ebook copies of my latest book Leather and Lace: Book One of the Southern Gothic Series through August 31st.