Salome: Tears of the Goddess
Chapter 1
by
Albertina
Teaser: This is a Logan comicverse story, more or less, that doesn't fit into continuity. It just has some characters in it that I wanted to have skulking around the X-mansion so I put them in there.
Some of the highlights include: Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Gambit, and Wolvie go to a mutant strip club; Logan does his impression of a chicken; X-men throw a b'day party for Logan; and lots of sexual tension between Logan and an original female character. Oh-yeah- also some butt-kicking action. My first attempt at it. Feedback would be much appreciated.
Note: The best lines in this story are taken from the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament.
Gambit, Wolverine, Cyclops, and Nightcrawler made the mistake of letting Logan drive to the club, and in a rental car.
"Logan," Cyclops says, one hand white-knuckled to the "oh, shit" handle. "Did it ever occur to you that we're trying not to draw attention to ourselves?"
"Yup. I'm just trying to keep up with these other drivers."
"It would effectively abort this mission if we got pulled over."
"Why's that?"
"Hello? We're mutants."
"I'm thinking we look normal enough right now. 'Crawler can always duck into the shadows or bamf outta here. We're all right."
The four X-men are in New York City, or rather its seedy outskirts. They've been sent by a troublesome reading that Charles Xavier had detected the exact nature of which was hard to determine. Being a carful of men, they have, of course, not stopped to ask for directions. As a result, they have been driving around the back streets aimlessly for over an hour.
"I can think of nothing less appealing than a carful of the stench of sulphur. That shit smells worse than your cigar, Logan," Cyclops adds. "Take a right, here, Logan...not here, the next right. The next right!!"
"I think we already been this way. 'Dis looks familiar," Gambit says.
"What's this place called again? House of Ball? House of Butt?" Logan asks.
"House of Baal, my friend. It was a pagan god of fertility worshipped in the Old Testament days. Fertility cults devoted to this god were quite popular," Nightcrawler adds helpfully.
"Sounds like a really classy establishment," Cyclops says. "Jean is going to be thrilled about this one. I wonder why we all had to come for this mission? Jean was actually going to cook tonight. I would rather have stayed home."
"That right there is reason enough, Cyke. Don't you remember Jeannie's lasagna? Worst stuff I ever tasted."
"She forgot to cook the noodles. They were real crunchy."
Logan brings the car to a screeching halt.
"This is it, boys."
He's more relieved to have finally arrived than he's willing to admit. Cyclops was the worst backseat driver he'd ever encountered and it was starting to wear on his nerves.
Logan leans on the car and lights another cigar.
"Who woulda thought that Chuck would send us to a gentleman's club, boys? This is a real first, " he says. "This joint's full of women, definitely," he notes as the open door wafts the scent of its interior onto the street. "I'm smelling a lot of skin."
Gambit pounds his pockets for his pack of cigarettes. He's anxious to get inside, despite himself. Cyclops looks distinctly uncomfortable. He clears his throat and adjusts his sunglasses. Even Nightcrawler is a little antsy. His tail switches like that of an aggravated cat.
The street is filthy, nearly abandoned. The X-men are surprised when they're ushered inside and its interior is dark, warm, and inviting. They are led to an alcove of sorts by a woman wearing little more than large green leaves over her breasts and thighs. Gambit notices that the girl's eyes are without pupils, a solid stretch of black on black.
"A strip joint where mutants provide 'de entertainment," he muses. "isn't the first place like 'dis I ever heard of."
She leaves them standing in front of a small black table just to the right of a large stage that looks to be made of obsidian. The walls and the ceiling are overgrown with vines, studded with leaves that gleam like marble. They are starred with luminous spheres, glowing at the core with a silvery light, each in the shape of an apple. It gives the men the impression that they have entered a cave composed of vegetation, hung with a hundred gleaming moons.
They would seat themselves at a table but it doesn't appear as if there is anywhere to sit. A small, low table is surrounded by what looks like large lilies, four feet high, covered in a sumptuous purple velvet. But when they take a step forward, the enormous velvet lilies bloom and spread before them. The velvet petals suddenly curl and unfold to reveal a small mauve-colored pillow at its core. The implications are outrageous and undeniable. The four men seat themselves cautiously. They're startled when from behind the small pillow, a black phallic-shaped tendril winds itself around the backs of each X-man and settles itself to the left side of each chair. The four men stare at their respective stamens, confused. With a whirr and a click the little pod at its end plops open into a cup-shaped container.
"Oh, I get it," Logan says.
He flicks the ashes from his cigar into it, and puts it back into his mouth, leaning back into his seat.
"I can't wait to see what's comin' next, boys," he says, slapping Cyclops on the back. "This chair is damn near purring at me."
"I feel as if I'm sitting in a Georgia O'Keefe painting," Nightcrawler says, a little uneasily.
"I never seen noting like 'dis, my friends, not even back home in Nahleans."
Cyclops is sitting as if his spine has been replaced by an iron rod.
"I think this chair is throbbing," he says to no one in particular.
From the corners of the large room, four silver urns begin to pour gray streams of incense. Soon, the entire room is suffused with the scent of amber and musk.
Gambit looks around the room. It has filled quickly. This is like no other gentleman's club he's ever seen. The other patrons are hushed and expectant. There is no drunken howling, no sloshing of beer. It's as if the entire club is filled with, well, gentlemen. They are all dressed expensively and elegantly, some in three piece suits.
Logan is looking around as well. The whole room is dripping with the smell of money, he thinks, the smell of dirty money, of corruption. He wrinkles his nose and scowls.
"Where's the wait staff?" he asks. "I'd like a beer. Where did that little girl run off to? She doesn't seem to be."
He's interrupted by a dimming of the lights. On the walls, the hundred moons are eclipsed, as if a hundred eyelids have closed over them.
From somewhere a voice booms through the room. It seems to be pumped through the fabric of the chairs themselves, having no determinable source.
"Good evening, gentlemen. Welcome to the Garden of Eden, risen again in all its glory. From its cruel tree, taste the forbidden fruit once again, hear the hiss of the serpent, eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Here, gentlemen, in our den of iniquity, you will fall. . .again."
Logan snorts. The whole thing strikes him as absurd.
From behind the stage the sound of drums being played strangely, savagely. It has grown completely dark. A woman appears at the back of the stage. She is tall, dressed in something fit for a pharoah's concubine. Her skin glows with the pallid light of a nocturnal animal, one that by necessity has become its own source of light. Her long hair is braided and coiled tightly to her splendid head. Into each braid is woven a gold cord that writhes and coils through each braid as if her whole head is alive with snakes.
The drums pulse and she begins to move her body in time to their rhythm. Her midriff is bare. Her breasts shift underneath the sheer glittering fabric of her Indian choli. She raises her arms and tilts her head back to reveal a neck as graceful and as long as the head of Nefertiti herself. She takes a step forward and her hips dip and slide into a shimmy, each movement accompanied by a flash from her jewelled navel. With a spin, the veils that descend from her waist to the floor flow around her.
Her dance is extraordinary. The body of a Western woman wouldn't attempt the same sort of gymnastics but for her each movement is fluid and graceful. The drums begin their crescendo and she abandons herself to them. She arches her back wildly, her eyes closed in rapture, and collapses to the floor. Before her veils can settle around her she pulls herself up from the floor to her feet, undulating like a serpent.
"Have you seen him whom my soul loves?" she says in a voice as cool as silver, as heavy as mercury. "I arose to open to him my beloved."
She turns and looks around her. Her eyes flutter toward the four X-men, who look back at her in horror and fascination. The cords that bind her hair begin to glow and seethe inside her hair. Her gaze locks on the four men and the cords crawl free of her hair and slide down her arms to the floor. They slither off the stage and travel across the floor toward the bodies of everyone present. Gambit cries out as one crawls up his arm, over his shoulder, and disappears. It leaves in its wake a tingling sensation like he's just been brushed with a feather.
"Ah, your life force is strong"
She holds her arms up over her head, a veil flutters behind her as she descends from the stage. In a moment, she stands before the four men who suddenly find themselves unable to move.
"Bend your will to me."
In a swift movement of her arms she throws the silvery veil into the air over their heads. It is suspended there for a moment. It ripples like a veil made of water, like a mirage, and descends over them.
The four men convulse when the veil breaks over them. The room disappears; they are no longer aware of where they are, not even of the presence of their companions. They are wrapped in the obscurity of her veil, in the oblivion of a rapturous sexuality that is as alien to them as it is familiar. They have been penetrated by the avatar of the feminine, by the essence of the woman before them who shines like the gold of an Egyptian tomb, and in whose wake glitters the ecstasy of orgasm.
When Logan opens his eyes, she is standing before him. Her hair falls down around him as she bends over his body. He looks back at her, wide-eyed. Her eyes have the color and clarity of the most precious amber.
"It's you. Your will is so strong. Your surrender must have been delicious."
She touches the sides of his face and kisses him.
"Logan...Logan...wake up, man," Cyclops says. "We've got to get out of here. She's gone. Let's go."
"I don't think I can walk. My legs feel like jelly."
"We know. We all feel 'de same way, but 'dey're kicking us out. We been trying to wake you for twenty minutes...come on," Gambit says.
They stumble outside onto the street, reeling from the experience. They stand there for a few minutes, not speaking.
Finally, Cyclops punches Gambit in the arm.
"Give me a cigarette, Remy."
"Scott, you don't smoke."
"I do now."
Nightcrawler asks Gambit for one also and the three of them stand there puffing absently at their cigarettes.
"What the hell was that?" Logan asks no one in particular.
"I don' know, my friend. I just don't know."
"Has anyone ever seen anything like that Medusa chick?" Logan says.
"No," they all say in unison, shaking their heads.
Scott clears his throat.
"I don't think I'm going to tell Jeannie about this."
"Nope. We better just tell Chuck and leave it at that. Let's get out of here."
"Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?" Nightcrawler says to himself.
No one says anything for a long while. It's a fairly long drive home. The four men still look a little stunned and wide-eyed.
"She must have been a psi," Nightcrawler says. "She's obviously a talented one."
"Do you think that she's under some sort of coercion?" Cyclops says. "She's not doing anything illegal, technically. Although it sure felt illegal."
"I don't know, Cyke," Logan says. "But I intend to find out."
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