Smoking Mirrors
Copyright© 2025 by Snekguy
Chapter 2: Ball Game
Supernatural Sex Story: Chapter 2: Ball Game - When a hapless museum archivist damages an ancient obsidian mirror, he releases the trapped spirit of an Aztec war Goddess. Given no choice but to attach herself to him, the deity takes up residence in his life, whether either of them likes it or not. If the pair can learn to stop bickering, they might be able to secure both a crucial promotion and the deity’s continued existence.
Caution: This Supernatural Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Romantic Heterosexual Fiction Historical Horror Workplace Paranormal Furry Magic Demons Oral Sex Petting Size Slow
Charles awoke feeling refreshed. He’d had no more strange dreams, and as he brushed his teeth in front of the bathroom mirror warily, he saw no sign of any smoky jaguars lurking in the shadows. As he walked downstairs and into the living room, finding the couch cover still sitting in a heap beneath the TV, he wondered whether he could just forget the events of the prior night. Maybe he should just write it off as a strange psychotic episode and try to move forward – pretend it had never happened at all.
However he decided to deal with it, he needed to get out of the house today – stretch his legs and get some exercise. He was still all pent up, the adrenaline lingering in his veins, his stress hormones keeping him tense.
He fetched his gym bag and filled it with a change of clothes, along with a large water bottle, picking up his racket cover in the hallway and slinging it over his shoulder on its strap. As he turned the door handle, he paused, the weight of the phone in his pocket reminding him of what the jaguar woman had promised.
After a few moments of hesitation, he determined that there was no harm in humoring a figment of his imagination. He set down his gear and made his way up to the bedroom again, rummaging through the drawer of his bedside table. He found the lanyard that had come with his phone case and attached it to the little plastic loop, feeling a little strange as he draped it around his neck.
Was there a reason that he couldn’t just keep the phone in his pocket? Maybe the jaguar needed to see, or maybe it was more symbolic than practical. During his research, he had come across images of Aztec priests who wore ornate obsidian pendants around their necks. Was she symbolically making him her priest?
With his phone dangling around his neck, he returned to the hallway and picked up his gear, walking out to his car. It was a brisk autumn morning, further contrasting the strange heat and humidity he had felt in the jaguar’s presence. He was soon out on the road, checking his rear-view mirror, half expecting to see the phantom woman waiting for him in the back seat. Trying to push it from his mind, he focused on driving, eventually pulling into a sports center in the city. There was a gym here, swimming pools, tennis and basketball courts – anything one might need to blow off steam and work up a sweat.
The parking lot was pretty empty, as it was early on a weekday, meaning that the center would be similarly sparsely populated. He walked into the lobby and checked in to get his locker key, then headed to the changing room and donned his gear. Breathable shorts, a shirt, tennis shoes, and a sweatband.
In what little free time Charles had outside of his museum work, he liked to keep fit, and tennis was his go-to sport. Hopefully, he’d be able to find a partner to play with today.
He walked past the expansive gym area, seeing a few patrons using the machines, passing the basketball courts before arriving at his destination. He was pleased to see a few regulars already playing, the loud claps of tennis balls being smacked back and forth echoing through the space. With his racket in hand, he made his way over to a vacant court, waving to a stranger who was hitting his ball against a wall.
“Up for a game?” he asked.
“Sure,” the man replied, catching his ball on the rebound and moving to position on the opposite side of the net.
Charles briefly considered leaving the phone with his racket case on a nearby bench, but decided to leave it on. It wasn’t that unusual for someone to keep their valuables on their person, after all.
The stranger served, and a friendly game began, the two opponents participating more for exercise than to compete. Charles was feeling better already, his heart rate rising and sweat prickling his brow, each swing of his racket working out a little more of his pent-up stress. There was no antidepressant quite as effective as getting outside and moving. It was easy to focus on the game and forget his troubles for a while.
After a few sets, he and his sparring partner took a break to towel off and get a drink, Charles downing a mouthful of cool water from his bottle as he watched the other players for a few minutes. Curious, he lifted his phone and peered into its dark screen, seeing nothing but his own distorted reflection and the glow of the skylights in the ceiling above. No sign of his mysterious friend so far, but maybe that was for the best.
His partner signaled that he was ready to go again, so they resumed their game, Charles serving this time. With a gentle bat, he sent the tennis ball sailing over the net, his partner returning it with the same leisurely stroke as their shoes squeaked against the polished floor.
As they played, he felt a strange feeling begin to rise within him. Charles felt hotter, fresh sweat already dripping down his face, strands of his wet hair sticking to his brow. His skin was electric, the hairs on his arms and neck standing on end. A dull and pleasant burn was growing within his muscles, something like a runner’s high overcoming him. It felt good. Time almost seemed to slow, as though his senses were heightened, his pupils dilating as he tracked the ball that was arcing gently toward him. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, his heart racing – he’d never felt so alive!
Charles leapt higher than he knew he was capable of, his tennis shoes leaving the polished floor, hanging in the air for a lingering moment as he swung his racket overhead. He could see the mesh bend as he contacted the airborne ball with a vicious strike, spiking it down into his opponent’s side of the court. It hit the ground like a missile, bouncing up and away to strike the far wall. His partner didn’t even attempt to intercept it, lurching away as he watched Charles land, his expression one of alarm.
“Sorry,” Charles chuckled, jumping on the spot. He began to pace in front of the net, spinning the racket in his hand impatiently. “Guess I got a little carried away. Your serve.”
His partner shrugged and walked over to retrieve the ball, batting it his way again. The two resumed their back and forth, but Charles was feeling that strange surge of energy again – almost an aggression welling up within him. Hitting the ball harder felt good, his muscles swelling with the effort, the sight of his opponent struggling to keep pace filling him with an unfamiliar pride. He wanted to win – to defeat his enemy and see him humiliated.
Charles let out a grunt with each strike, swinging the bat like a weapon of war, his opponent having to reach out to catch the next ball. Charles spiked it in the opposite direction, making the man stumble and fall, letting out a triumphant yell.
“Slow down, man,” his partner replied with a scowl as he picked himself up. “It’s a friendly game. We’re not at fucking Roland-Garros.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Charles conceded. He felt the eyes of the other players on him, stopping their games to watch the strange display.
The grip of the bat in his hand felt right – it felt powerful. He imagined swinging it like a club, the sensation of impacts reverberating through it, sharp obsidian blades slicing through flesh and shattering bone...
He snapped back to reality as the incoming tennis ball hit his chest, his partner throwing up his hands in a gesture of exasperation.
“Uh, thanks for the game!” Charles called to him as he made a hasty retreat to the bench. “Just remembered I have to be somewhere!”
He left the building without even showering, throwing his sweaty tennis clothes into his gym bag and making a break for his car, pausing only to return the locker key on his way out. As soon as the door was safely closed and he was alone, he let out a long sigh, trying to calm his hammering heart as he gripped the wheel tightly.
“What the hell was that?” he hissed to himself. “What’s wrong with me?”
For a minute there, he’d been completely willing to turn a tennis match into a murder, and he had no idea why. Those emotions had felt so alien to him, as though they hadn’t even originated in his own head. It felt so similar to his dream, like reliving someone else’s memories. At this point, not checking himself into a hospital made him a danger to others as much as to himself – he was completely out of his mind.
He put the car into gear and prepared to back out of his parking spot, reaching up to adjust the rear-view mirror.
Charles let out a yelp of alarm as he saw a figure sitting in the back seat. It wasn’t the woman this time, it was the jaguar – the six-foot creature lounging across both seats like a giant dog sitting on a couch. It looked so real, its spotted coat shining in the sunlight, its tangible weight making the padding sag beneath it.
“Y-You!” he stammered. “What the hell are you doing in my car!? I thought you were gone!”
“I am not in your car,” the jaguar replied, exposing its sharp teeth and curling its tongue in a yawn. “I am in your mirror. That is why you brought it with you, no?”
“My phone, you mean,” he sighed as he sank into his chair. “So, was it you? Did you put those thoughts into my head?”
“I enjoy displays of athleticism,” she replied, her yellow eyes peering beyond the glass at passing cars. “What is sport if not the simulation of combat – a bloodless flower war? Two tribes fight. The strongest and most skilled prevail.”
“You’re not supposed to murder your opponent in a tennis match!” he protested.
“You would have won your match,” she insisted. “I imbued you with the strength and ferocity of one of my chosen warriors, just as I promised. For a moment, you were as the Shorn Ones – elite shock troopers who were first into battle. How did it feel?” she added with a rumbling growl. “Was the power and aggression not intoxicating?”
“Intoxicating,” Charles scoffed. “I’m talking to a magical jaguar sitting in the back seat of my car. A few minutes ago, I narrowly avoided assaulting a stranger with a tennis racket. I wish I was intoxicated right now. I’m going straight to the ER and getting myself a nice new jacket.”
“You are displeased,” the jaguar said.
“You think!?” Charles snapped, spinning in his seat to look back at her. “You know how you could really help me? By going away and leaving me alone. I just want things to go back to normal.”
“I would disappear,” she replied solemnly.
He paused, glancing back at her again.
“Like, you’d go away?”
“I would die,” she explained. “At least, our equivalent of death. I would fade into nothingness and cease to be. I sense that my time is already near...”
She looked out of the window wistfully, watching the cars pass by, perhaps not understanding what she was seeing.
“Okay – time for an explanation,” Charles said. “I’m going to hear you out, but this is your last chance. No more pomp and ceremony – give me the truth.”
“Your world is flesh and stone,” she began. “The realm of mortals is a tangible one. Sight, sound, touch – you are immersed in sensation. Your spirits are anchored to bodies that are born, live, and die. My realm is intangible. Imagine a vast ocean of minds, where thought and emotion are the only experience. There, we are blind, deaf, and dumb. There are no bodies – no individuals. Everything blends and becomes dissolute, like a droplet of blood in water. We are swept along by tides of love and hate, jealousy and contentment, our memories shared as easily as words. To return to that place without the strength to preserve one’s individuality is to be drowned – to lose oneself and cease to exist. It is oblivion.”
“You’re talking about some kind of spirit world?” Charles pressed. “The other side of the obsidian mirror?”
“Mortals are both our servants and midwives,” she continued. “The power of belief is strong – strong enough to create. When enough mortals believe, and when their emotions are sufficiently powerful, we are brought forth. They feed us with their worship. They give us power. The more mortals believe, the greater our strength becomes, and the more we can influence the material realm. The strongest of us are able to manifest and walk among them – to see, hear, and touch as you do.”
“I was right, then,” Charles mused as he mulled over her words. “What you’re describing isn’t mythology – it’s ecology. You feed on human emotion like a battery charging from an electrical source. That battery runs out, and you can’t stay manifest – you can’t keep yourself together.”
“Your fear gave me strength enough to leave the mirror,” she continued, a little of her former zeal returning with a growl. “Strength enough to manifest before you – to touch your mind.”
“It wasn’t much of a charge, was it?” he shot back. “You couldn’t physically touch me or interact with me in real life. You were like a ghost. I called you a hallucination, and that might not be far from the truth.”
“I was the first knife,” she hissed, the memory of better days seeming to fill her with vigor. “When man raised black stone from the jungle floor and learned that it could cut, I was brought forth. War, sacrifice, death – every moment of terror and triumph empowered me. Civilizations rose and fell, each one paying tribute to me. Before I was Tezcatlipoca, I was Ixchel, and I was known by many names before that.”
“Ixchel,” Charles mused, wracking his brain. “That’s a Mayan deity. Also jaguar-themed, if I remember right.”
“You know this, yet you know nothing of the immaterium?” she scoffed. “This is an ignorant time.”
“Why were you in the mirror in the first place?” he demanded, keeping her talking. “How can you even be inside a mirror?”
“My people were dying,” she lamented. “My warriors were slain and my temples were razed. The conquerors did not worship me or abide my priests.”
“The fall of the Aztecs,” Charles confirmed with a nod. “They destroyed your energy source.”
“With what power remained to me, I had my highest priests perform a ritual to bind me to the obsidian mirror. My essence – my spirit, became tied to it in much the same way yours is tied to your body. I would have no form, but I could see through it, and I had stored enough energy to wait out the crisis and one day return.”
“Or so you hoped,” he surmised. “There was no return. That religion – its belief system – never regained its foothold. You remained stuck in the mirror, able to see out of it, but not able to escape. That sounds like torture, being in darkness and isolation for so long...”
“Preferable to the chaos of the spirit realm,” she insisted.
“And when I happened upon the mirror in the archives, that was your chance to leave your state of hibernation.”
“I have used the last of my strength to appear before you,” she confirmed. “I had hoped to make you my chosen warrior. I would feed from your conquests and your triumphs. You would offer me captives in sacrifice, and I would be restored. I would become the lord of knives once more. What man could exist who does not desire to build an empire upon the skulls of his foes? But ... I do not understand this place,” she added, gazing out of the window again. “I do not understand you. Things are not as they were, and you reject my gifts. Perhaps fate mocks me. I no longer have strength enough to see what will become of me...”
“It’s not that I’m unsympathetic,” Charles began hesitantly. “I just can’t be the person you need me to be. I’m not going to hurt anyone. I’m not going to become some kind of warlord. This isn’t the world you knew, and believe me when I say that any would-be conqueror with an obsidian knife would soon find himself on the wrong end of Misters Smith and Wesson. To be perfectly frank, I don’t think you should be allowed to return to full strength.”
“You would stand in my way?” she demanded, staring at him with her predatory gaze. “You would make an enemy of Tezcatlipoca?”
“Can’t you become ... I don’t know, a vegetarian?” he suggested with a shrug. “Do you need to be eating fresh hearts, or is there some other way you can gain energy? If your food source is emotion, surely there are other, less destructive emotions that you can feed on?”
“What do you know of it?” she spat with a cruel laugh. “Tell me – is there an emotion more powerful or pure than the terror felt by a slave as they are led up the temple steps toward the sacrificial altar? Can there be a sensation more satisfying than to bask in the ruination of a sworn enemy – to see their city ablaze and to make trophies of their heads?”
“I’m sure those are all very potent emotions,” Charles replied with a grimace. “Potency isn’t really what you’re going for now, is it? Think smaller scale. You’re eating to survive now – you can’t be picky. A person dying of thirst can’t refuse a glass of water because they would prefer champagne.”
“You refuse to serve me?”
“I could be convinced to help you,” he reiterated. “But not in the way you want. If you expect my help, you’re going to have to do things my way.”
“Perhaps it would be more dignified to fade away than to beg a mortal for morsels of food like a stray dog,” she grumbled as she turned her jaguar head away from him in disdain.
“If that’s really what you believe, then there’s the door,” he replied as he hit a button and unlocked the passenger door with a clunk. She glanced at the door, then at him, tilting her head. “Figuratively,” he added. “You know what I mean – stop being difficult.”
“You are remarkably unafraid of me,” she replied with a low growl, baring her sharp teeth. “There was a time when the bravest warriors quaked at the mere mention of my name. Mortals threw themselves at my feet in terror and adulation when I deigned to walk their streets. Whether you are brave or stupid, I have not yet decided.”
“Trust me, the scariest part about interacting with you is the very real possibility that I’ve gone completely insane,” he chuckled. “You’re too weak to hurt me – that’s why we’re having this conversation. I’m assuming you can’t just jump to somebody else, or you wouldn’t still be here.”
“Very well,” she grumbled after a moment of contemplation. “A warrior must make do with the tools at their disposal, I suppose. If I must serve you like a lowly familiar until I regain my strength, then so be it. I accept your terms.”
“I have a million questions,” Charles said as he looked out over the dashboard at the parking lot beyond. “What you’ve just told me casts doubt on my entire conception of reality. Maybe spirits are real, and maybe there’s an afterlife. As much as I would love to ponder these deep, existential problems, I really just want to get home and have a shower.”
“I will return later,” the jaguar said, bowing her head and vanishing into a swirl of smoke.
Charles returned home and took his shower, washing off all the sweat from his tennis match. That done, he spent some time cooking a decent meal without anywhere to be, feeling the distinct sensation of being watched as he chopped vegetables on his cutting board.
“Are you back?” he wondered aloud. “It’s rude to spy on people, you know.”
“I never truly left,” she replied. He glanced around, trying to pinpoint where her voice was coming from, finding her reflection watching him from the bay windows. She was in her humanoid form now, her head framed by colorful feathers and flowers. It might have been beautiful, were it not for the prominent human skull that served as its centerpiece and the dark blades that jutted from it like thorns.
“I see – saving energy?” he asked as he returned to his cooking.
“Why are you alone?” she demanded.
“Kind of a personal question,” he muttered as he lifted the cutting board and scraped some diced carrots into a pot that was bubbling atop the stove.
“You have a grand house, but no servants to attend to you,” she continued. “No wife, no children, no family under your roof. Were they lost in war?”
“No, I’m just married to my job,” he replied as he stirred the stew. “I told you – we don’t have servants or slaves anymore. I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself, thank you very much.”
“What is that?” she asked. “Your blue fire.”
“It’s a gas stove,” he explained. “Think of it like fire on command,” he added, turning the knob to demonstrate. “The knife is steel, not obsidian. The lights are electric.”
“There is much that I do not understand,” she continued as she watched him cook. “The world has changed in my absence. It has become unfamiliar to me.”
“I could spend all day explaining it to you,” he replied. “But, I doubt that’s a good use of your energy. Maybe when you’re a little less drained.”
“I have been observing you.”
“Not while I was in the shower, I hope.”
“I cannot discern your purpose.”
“That’s a creative way of telling me that I’m boring.”
“What is it that you do? What are your goals? What ambitions drive you?”
“I told you, I’m an archivist,” he explained as he lifted the spoon to his lips and took a taste. “I work at a museum. My job is to procure, preserve, and catalog everything from dinosaur bones to ancient artifacts like your mirror.”
“A scholar?”
“I suppose you could call me a scholar,” he conceded as he returned the spoon to the pot. “Before you threw a wrench into my plans, I was collecting Mesoamerican pieces for a museum exhibit that’s supposed to open next month. I was hoping to impress the curator and maybe land a promotion. Now, I’m on leave because my boss thinks I’ve gone crackers. He’s probably right, too.”
“Ambition,” the jaguar growled, lifting her feline nose as if scenting the air. “What is it that you seek through this promotion? Is it wealth? Prestige?”
“It sounds very grandiose when you put it that way, but I’d be content just to keep the house.”
“Someone wishes to take your property from you?” the jaguar asked eagerly. “I can help you defend it.”
“As much as I would love to wage a bloody war against the bank, it unfortunately doesn’t work that way,” he replied as he began to chop an onion. “I owe them money, and I need a better-paying job to earn enough to settle my debts. Hang on,” he added, waving his spoon. “I need something to call you. If I’m going to be talking to a figment of my fractured psyche, it at least needs to have a name.”
“I am Tezcatlipoca,” she replied. “You know my name.”
“I’ll call you Tez,” he suggested. “I’m not saying the whole thing every time – it’s a mouthful.”
“You will not call me that,” she growled. “You will address me by my full title and afford me the proper respect.”
“Whatever you say, Tez.”
“If I were still at the height of my strength, I would have my priests flay you for my amusement.”
“Yeah, well you’re not in Kansas anymore, are you?”
“Cease your quibbling,” she grumbled, appearing pensive as she scratched her fuzzy chin with a curved claw. “Since you have refused all my offers of power and glory, perhaps this ambition of yours is something that can be stoked – something that can sustain me for a time...”
“You want to eat my ambition?” Charles asked, glancing back at her over his shoulder. “I could offer you a nice home-cooked meal instead, you know.”
“This will suffice,” she replied, wetting her lips as though anticipating a very non-metaphorical feast. “I have decided it. Through my power, you shall have your promotion, and your property will be secured. This will be our pact, as small of scope as it may be.”
“You’re going to help me?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and setting down his wooden spoon. “Really?”
His tone was more skeptical than surprised, and she picked up on it.
“I am helping myself.”
“By way of helping me.”
“If you insist upon framing it as charity, I suppose,” Tez sneered. “I simply require sustenance, and you are my only food source.”
“I guess I just wasn’t expecting that from you,” Charles continued as he returned to his work. “For the barely two days that I’ve known you, you’ve only talked about war and death and sacrifice. You made it sound like the only option was turning me into a serial killer.”
“I have had a great many associations in my time,” she replied, her reflection placing a hand on her chest proudly. “War and conquest are a font of power unmatched, this is true, but that is not all I am capable of. I am more complex than you understand.”
“Is that so?” he chuckled, prompting her to continue.
“To the Maya people, I was also renowned as a midwife,” she explained. “I protected expectant mothers and helped ease the coming of their children into this world. The Aztecs brought the sick to my temples and bath houses for healing with sacred incense. The highest echelons of their Empire chose me as their patron deity, and my name was synonymous with rulership. My domains were also those of sorcery, divination, beauty, and temptation,” she added with a laugh that came off as somehow sultry.
“Beauty and temptation?” Charles repeated.
“I may have once seduced the rain God Tlaloc’s wife and caused a drought,” she muttered.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, actually,” Charles began as he turned to face her. “A lot of Mayan depictions of you presented you in female form, while the Aztecs viewed you as a male deity. If you’re appearing before me in female form, does that mean our records from the Aztecs are wrong or else falsified?”
“I am the changer of shapes,” she replied, a wisp of dark smoke rising from her hand with a flourish. “Man, woman, animal – I can take whatever form I choose. I can be nothing but smoke and shadow if I so desire. As the Aztec turned more toward war and conflict in their later years, so too did their society become more chauvinistic, and I changed my appearance to better suit them.”
“I suppose that if your physical form is just an illusion, the distinction doesn’t matter that much,” Charles conceded. “They respected men, so you appeared as a man.”
“That which best adapts to its environment survives,” she replied.
“Can’t argue with that. Is this your chosen form, then?”
“This is the form I choose,” she confirmed, Charles watching her reflection gesture to itself proudly in the bay window. “Brute strength is one thing, but a true warrior should be precise in their violence – measured. A weapon is most dangerous when wielded skillfully and with restraint. When the jaguar stalks through the undergrowth, he does not do so loudly and gracelessly. He moves silently and deliberately, his every footstep carefully considered, becoming as one with the shadows around him. Like a stream flows through the forest, so does he, finding the path of least resistance. When the time comes to strike, he waits until the perfect moment, using all of his strength and agility to end the hunt in a single artful blow.”
“You have total control over how you appear, then?” Charles prompted as he looked her reflection up and down.
“Powerful,” she growled, flexing an admittedly impressive bicep. “Yet lithe,” she added, cocking her wide hips and sweeping a clawed hand down her svelte core. He could see her abdominal muscles flexing beneath her thin coat of spotted fur, as chiseled as any marble statue in the museum’s classical exhibits. “I like to be beautiful when I walk among mortals – to be desired and envied.”
Charles had been too afraid of her to really take in her appearance when she had first manifested in his living room. Now, without that element of fear, he was free to examine her. Tez’s figure was that of an unnaturally tall, athletic woman, her defined muscle tone reminiscent of a professional gymnast or maybe a swimmer. She was lean and wiry, yet there was a tangible softness to her, her fat seeming to settle only in the most ideal places.
Even in the hazy reflection, the way that her shining fur caught the light helped to accentuate her features. With her modesty preserved only by her flowing loincloth, her stout thighs were on display, thick and powerful enough to carry what looked like a decidedly heavy frame. Did she weigh anything at all, or was that also part of the illusion?
That ornate belt hung low from her broad hips, tapering into her slender midriff in a way that he had to concede was pleasing to the eye. Her sculpted belly almost seemed shrink-wrapped in that silky jaguar fur, the way that her coloration grew lighter there only drawing more attention to it. Higher still were breasts that were modest on her frame, but her stature made them far more impressive. With only golden jewelry to cover them, he couldn’t help but take in their flawless teardrop shape, paradoxically heavy and wonderfully firm at the same time. They shouldn’t behave that way without any support, but gravity might be a mere suggestion to her.
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