AMENDS IN THE ABYSS: THE INFERNAL ATONEMENT OF SCOTT SUMMERS
CIRCLE TWO, LUST: THE TIDES AND TOWELS OF TEMPTATION
(NB: I know this is already getting a bit old, but I swear this will be the last time I do this: the main maiden of this chapter based on carnal indulgence will be none other than Kwannon—that is to say, the Asian body which Psylocke has occupied all this time. It is NOT Betsy, but rather the Asian mind in the Asian body (if you've read my other stories, you would know how this works…not sayin' you have to read them, just sayin' and all). Now, as will eventually be made clear in this story down the line, the individuals Scott encounters here are not the actual characters anyway—they are just manifestations or projections of them from his own perspective. It is NOT the case that all these other characters have gone to Hell; in fact, most of them are in Heaven, their souls anyway…as I will establish by the end of the story, Kwannon, for example, is in Heaven with Matsu'o, who has been her own true love, just as Scott is trying to get to Madelyne here through all the Circles. Not every Circle, by the way, will feature something Maddy endured; in fact, although I referred to this story before, when I mentioned I was going to write it in the coda to past stories, as the "Mega Madelyne" story, it's really just as much about Scott individually, and about the both of them as a couple. Anyway, for this chapter here, this will be the last time I will get into carnal stuff with Kwannon, as I don't want to cheapen her character so much (to be fair, as with my Polka story, here I will have beefcake physical description of Scott also, to match the stuff on his temptress here). But I will be done with Kwannon in this manner after this; I promise. As Chief Joseph once famously said, and I quote him verbatim: "I will perv out on Kwannon no more forever." Enjoy.)
Scott couldn't remember what happened immediately following his pushing through the portal from the previous place. It was if he had just…fainted upon his passage, his transit as nebulous as that of his X-Successors through the Siege Perilous, its sleek scarlet surface as carmine ominous as Scott's own ruby lenses. At the moment he was floating slowly through another dream, one in which he came face to face with his son once more. Cable was looking as gruff as he had ever been, was looking like the usual great-grandfather to Cyclops instead of the newborn whom Scott originally recalled him as.
What somewhat put the O5 Orpheus off a bit here, though, was the presence of that other seeming self of his son's…the one who seemed to wear a samurai's toaster for a helmet atop his head.
Cable…the thoughts pounded through his beyond-the-mortal-plane brain. Stryfe…
Feel familiar?
Scott's attention shunted to the version of his son which he at least thought he knew so much more thoroughly. What's this, Nathan?...Why is your…other you…here?
Just trying to get you all situated for the next Circle, Cable replied, giving his father a stern look. We're entering into Lust now. Of course, you've probably had this nightmare, the one of me and my ever-wayward clone, on so many nocturnal occasions in your time on Earth…
…but there was one time, while you were on a mission far out, in the hinterlands of the Mother Country of the Mutant Colossus. Do you remember having these visions, then?
Y…yes…and then…I woke up abruptly…ran out to the…
Good. You can place it all, now. Just trying to help here, give you fair warning of what you're gonna be up against…in more ways than one.
This dream here was Mom's idea, by the way. She's trying to get you to her as smoothly as possible. Dealing with her own demons alongside, too, she is; believe me, as tough as you think you might have it, Madelyne's working two jobs here in her own aftertime. You just bear that in mind when you get to her in the end.
The images of both Cable and Stryfe then faded, Scott left once more to his lonesome in the swirling mists of his subconscious. As he felt himself falling slowly through the steamy soup surrounding his sturdy frame, he thought about all the loving relationships he'd had in his life…and how for all the ones which came to fruition, there was an element of real love in each. Of course, on one end of the spectrum of the man's heart, there were the metric tons of marvelous times with Jean, which really needed no expounding-upon here, but suffice it to say she was the first woman with whom Scott really knew love, tenderness, and intimacy on a romantic level. This was not to say that she was the woman with whom he had known the greatest love, though.
On the other end of it all, there was Emma. Despite all the denigrating things one could say about the woman per se, as well as the inherent ickiness that the two seemed to radiate as a couple generally, Scott and Emma shared love at the end of the day, a love that very late in the pair's life had sired several children. In the end, beyond all the lust that listed to and fro upon the seeming sleaze-ship that was Scott and Emma's relationship, there was still a foundation of true love at the core.
(Yes, this author has to admit that he just coughed something up after typing that line, just as you most likely did after reading it).
But there was one encounter which stuck out in the man's mind…for him personally, one woman with whom he never built any such foundation, beyond the mere carnality of adult fantasy. Oh, as with Jean and Emma, she was just as much a psionic persuaderess, whose attempts at suasion regarding Cyclops involved swaying, sashaying, and just outright seducing her way into becoming his squeeze. And this woman almost succeeded in stealing Scott from the amorous occupation he'd had at the time with the Machine's first superior genetic ginger.
Perhaps what kept Scott from falling, back then, at least in the Machine's mainstream 616 reality if not this one, was the fact that the woman attempting to woo the Clops was coopted in psyche by another dame who was much more diffident and deferential to the boundaries of her compatriots when it came to significant othership.
In other words, if it weren't for Betsy's inadvertent barging into the body of the astounding Asian lady attempting to stealth her way into Scott's space in so many ways, that other mind within the minx might have succeeded in the endeavor.
Well, in this Hell now, there was nothing stopping the ninja out for nooky with the noble leader of the Xers.
And perhaps it would be this moment, in this Circle, that Scott would finally be claimed on all counts by Kwannon.
He awakened abruptly, again in a bed as with the last time…only this mattress felt much less stable, felt somewhat wobbly, felt somewhat…
…watery.
But unlike any waterbed in any novelty resort at which Scott might have stayed in the past, this one felt as if it contained a monsoon within the mattress, as if something within were living, breathing…swimming?
And then, at the foot of the bed, the lady emerged, sprang up, sprouted up in a spraying spout of sea spume. The dark lavender locks of the lady hung before her face at first, then were thrown back as she exposed her beauteous features upon the man.
"Ahh…" she started, stretching her sultry shape into full elongation before his eyes, Kwannon fully unclothed save for sea suds covering critical places. "It is another good morning…
"…isn't it, Scott."
She was such a stunning sight, with her glorious golden flesh flaunted all out in the open save for those slight scatches of seafoam, that Scott almost doffed his shades in spite of himself, like some 90210-theme-song-featured Jason Priestley in a jag of piqued arousal. (Yet another dated reference from this author; sorry about that). But he kept himself in check at the last second.
"Yes, Cyclops," Kwannon continued as she kept flexing her assets before him, noticing his fingers going to his glasses without her even opening her blissfully-closed eyelids. "That's about the only thing I'd like for you not to take off.
"Believe me…"
Then she ceased the stretch sharply, hunkered down prone onto the bed like a panther ready to pounce.
"I know of a certain pair of something I'd very much like to wrest from you."
Before the man could do anything, Kwannon's right hand shot out, grabbing the bottom of one of the legs of the soft bedtime shorts Scott realized only just now that he was wearing.
"This bed is sooooo sleek and sooooo smooth," Kwannon went on, whisking the undergarments from the fearless leader without any effort at all. "You and I, we decided it would be the best thing; it's let me do the two things I always love to do, without missing a beat in between.
"I can…literally…swim within it…" and now the lady eased herself more and more northward on the bed, her face reaching right between Scott's kneecaps, "doing laps within the linens, even while you sleep!
"And then…when I'm all done…I can reach out to the one man I always wanted for sooooo long, during my years on Earth, to have and to hold...and to have...and to have..."
She went a foot higher—and Scott reached down suddenly and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Pool party's long past over, lady."
And, as softly, yet as cogently as he could, he executed a maneuver that tossed her, off the mattress and high into the air. As he predicted, the woman wound herself into some kind of ninjaic corporeal configuration, so that she landed on her feet. Scott never wanted to harm her in any way; it was just that, when one got down to it, Kwannon's temptation was a test, and the objective the man had in mind prompted him to pass.
The lady curled into a crouch as her brow furrowed into a frame of frustration. "You want to break my heart, Scott," said the scorned ex-Psylocke as she shucked out her psychic knife reflexively from her place next to the bed.
She then thrust it in fully, into the side of the sea-shimmering sleep support.
"I'M GOING TO GO AND BREAK YOUR BOLLOCKS!"
In a blinding burst the whitish watery contents of the waterbed were ejected from the interior of the mattress, causing a tiny tidal torrent in the bedroom upon which Scott was just so much flotsam, with Betsy's former psyche-copilot as the jetsam. The two were whirled all around, to and fro by wild waves, Kwannon way ahead of Scott as the latter held on tightly to an erect wooden bedpost in a vain attempt to moor himself, while the former laughingly allowed her delicate form to flow into the adjoining bathroom. Seconds later, Scott's hands shimmied off the shaky stick at the head of the bed, and he found himself following his mattressmate headlong into the loo.
He spun around and around before the doorway, like a sock in a laundry cycle, the sound of Kwannon's lovely laughter flooding his ears even more than the moisture mobbing his body had flooded his skin. He could swear, too, though he could not see it in the haze of the waves, that there issued the sound of shower knobs squeaking on…then, as he was thrown one last time towards the bathroom proper, those same knobs squeaking abruptly off.
This wacky world of wetness had fogged up the man's garnet glasses something fierce. He struggled to smear them clear…but then found that his arms were pinned, by something ever so soft. And then he felt the warmest sensation pressed up, hard against his legs, stomach, chest.
As was the case in Russia all those years back, here too Scott had encountered the purple psi-lady in the bathroom, she here as then wrapped in nothing but a towel.
Only this time, he was wrapped in the same with her.
"Oh, my," purred the lady, the faded fabric clapped around herself and the man, Kwannon herself clapped around Scott, just as his own arms had involuntary circled around hers. "We are in quite the fine snit now…aren't we.
"Did I mention…" she went on, her palms rubbing passionately against the hairs on the man's back, her full breasts pressing ever tighter against his chest, "that beyond swimming and snuggling, that showering is my third favorite thing to do? After all, they all involve so much…moisture…"
Her soft, smooth belly planted itself ever more firmly against his own stomach, the warmth radiating from Kwannon's center beyond anything remotely as pleasurable. The planes of flesh parted a minute later only by way of the erectitude that was admittedly, to Scott's shame, emerging as of now in spite of all his resistance.
The man tried as hard as he could to break the embrace of all that held him, but neither the towel nor the temptress would give a single centimeter.
"All you have to do, to be released from this predicament…
"…is kiss me, Scott."
Kwannon then closed her violet eyes, opened her mouth wide; it looked, though, as if the latter were shunted more widely ajar to scarf Scott down rather than to smooch him.
He was certain that giving into the lady entirely in this way was not the path to Madelyne—the woman whose warmth had outshined the hollowness of the hug that had him right now. Maybe for Matsu'o the clutches of Kwannon yielded kindness and true love…but for Scott, this was nothing more than a literal booby trap.
Scott had to act quickly. Just as the lady arched in, her mouth looking to clamp down upon his own…
…Cyke thrust his face slightly forward, but at a downward angle, allowing the woman's lips, then her teeth, to catch on the edge of one of his lenses. Startled, Kwannon reared back…
…to find that she was clasping the infamous Summers spectacles between her cherished choppers.
"Try to kiss me again," said Scott, his eyes shut tightly but optic energy essences pulsating from behind them, "and you'll find you will not have 'made out' as well as you'd have liked."
Kwannon broke the embrace slightly so as to try and maneuver the man's shades back upon his eyes. At that instant, Scott tore himself from her.
"Show me the way out of here, now!" He still had his irradiating eyes closed at the moment, but was ready to let them fly open at any instant. Naively for a second he believed that Kwannon would just guide him, under threat of being blasted, to the exit from this Circle.
Oh, she showed him to the exit, alright. But not in the manner that the man had expected.
Positioning herself appropriately, Kwannon backed herself up against Scott and executed a shoulder throw that landed him up and over her and directly into the bathtub against the wall. A second later Cyke found himself splashing around in a three-foot-deep well full of scalding hot water.
"You spurn my advances…you'll pay the price," the lady hissed, hurling the man's glasses so that they struck him in the chest. "You can go to Hell for all I care.
"Or, I guess…farther into Hell."
With that, Kwannon spun on her heel, Scott throwing on his shades and receiving one last glimpse of the woman's wondrous ass as she pumped away from the tub in a huff. The bottom underneath him started then to give way, and the man knew, as he proceeded to sink, that he was passing through to the next Circle. Though stiff still in the nether regions, Cyke was serene in the psyche, with the knowledge that he was progressing toward the one embrace that incited his passions more than anyone else.
TO BE CONTINUED