Chapter 3

The Pornomancer loved mondays, making him a bit of an odd duck in the working world. But then, when most people were just starting their week, the Pornomancer was just ending his. More often than not, it meant that he got to enjoy his recreational plans in relative privacy. Museums, malls, national parks, didn’t matter. Monday was always the day everyone was the least busy.

But best of all was the local theater’s Monday Morning Madness special. Due to some odd quirk in the legalese that governed such things, the theater was allowed to count tickets sold on Monday as tickets sold on Sunday - but only if they were sold for a show that ended before the theater would have normally opened on Tuesday. Whoever had worked out that particular contractual stipulation had like been on some sort of mind-addling drug at the time, but the result was a weekly event where even shows that weren’t normally discounted went to half price and the concessions rolled their prices not seen since the Fifties. Normally, seeing a first run movie in IMAX 3D would have set the Pornomancer back enough to feed a family of six for a week, but on Mondays he could get the ticket, popcorn, and drink for a grand total of fifteen dollars.

Ah, the joys of working over night. Your social life was usually fucked, but you got to take advantage of some pretty sweet bargains!

The question, of course, was what to watch. It had been several hours since he had walked Astrid to class, and the spirits were once again clamoring for attention. One of the shows available was Nymphomaniac, which had been showing every morning since it had come out in the spring. The Pornomancer suspected that was so that the projectionist could get his morning wank on, and the spirits were insisting on that movie for pretty much the same reason. He, however, had other ideas. If he just wanted to watch people fucking, well, there was plenty of porn on the internet. Besides, a movie about nymphomania just seemed too much like a busman’s holiday. No, he wanted something with plot.

After a one sided argument, the Pornomancer decided on Horns. To the Pornomancer, it sounded like bad fanfiction come to life: Harry Potter turns into a demon seeking vengeance on those who murdered his girlfriend! But it was rated R for nudity and sexual content, so the spirits would at least be partially satisfied.

The theater’s lobby was predictably empty. The ticket booth and customer service counter had both been abandoned, leaving a single young woman to stand watch over the concessions. She was dressed in a maroon polo and a pair of black slacks, both so overly baggy as to render her body mostly formless. The polo’s top two buttons had been left open, exposing a deep V of pale skin which hinted at cleavage buried somewhere under all the extra fabric. A magnetic name tag clipped in place over her left breast read, “Dakota”, with the words “Assistant Manager” stitched onto the opposite side of the shirt. Despite the early hour, she greeted him with a warm and cheerful smile. “Good morning! What can I help you with today?”

The Pornomancer matched her smile with one of his own. “One for Horns, please.”

“Sure!” Dakota began tapping at the POS mounted in front of her. Her fingers must have been working on autopilot, as her forest green eyes never once glanced away from the Pornomancer. “Was there anything else I can get you?”

“Mmm.” The Pornomancer glanced up at the brightly lit board hanging over head. His stomach rumbled at the sight of greasy pizza and over fried nachos, reminding him that while spirits might have fed that morning, he still hadn’t. The popcorn probably wasn’t that old, but he wanted something a little fresher. “Double order of corn dog nuggets, and a large water.”

Dakota glanced behind her at the ovens, then at the clock on her station. “I can make them, but it is going to take them about ten minutes and your movie starts in five.”

The Pornomancer frowned and started to consider his other options when she held up her hand to forestall him. “Tell you what, you’re the only one here, and I’m supposed to lock the door in a few minutes anyway. You go grab a seat and I’ll bring them into you. How about that?”

“Sounds good to me,” the Pornomancer answered. A familiar tingle began dance along his spine as the spirits started to take notice. They weren’t being nearly as rowdy as they had been on the train. Instead they were eyeing the manager the same way a well fed man contemplates dessert. What would an extra little nibble hurt?

The Pornomancer let out a long suffering sigh and headed for his show. The theater proper was just as abandoned as the lobby. A faint smell of chemical cleaners made his nose twitch as he scanned the theater, looking for the perfect seat. The trick was to know the layout of theater in question. Unlike the airlines, which stacked their seats in neat little rows, most theaters went with a zigzag pattern that ostensibly let you see between the heads of the two people in front of you. At the same time, they wanted to cram as many seats into a fairly limited space, so the staggering wasn’t perfect. Factor in the height differences on the speakers, angle of the screen, and acoustic temperament of the walls, and there was most definitely a best seat in the house. One where the audio was centered exactly on the listener, one where the picture was equidistant on all sides, where everything was absolutely perfect. It was the sort of thing that would required a year and a half of a supercomputer crunching calculus equations to determine.

The Pornomancer just picked a seat close to the front, where there was a handy railing for him to put his feet up.

The movie started with a roar and the Dolby logo flashed across the screen. The trailers were a mishmash of indie flicks, “special event” operas, and third run kids movies. He took the opportunity to crack the seal on his bottle of water and to take a sip.

Part way through an ad for the latest Disney 3D misadventure, the theater doors swung open with a quiet squeak. Dakota’s footsteps were rather audible over the chitter of digital animals, and when she appeared she was carrying a tray loaded down with food and drinks. There was a jumbo sized bucket of popcorn, a triple helping of corn dog nuggets, and an iced coffee filling a half-gallon sized soda cop.

“I didn’t order all that,” the Pornomancer said as she passed over two third of the corn dogs. “Did I?”

“Nah,” Dakota replied as she collapsed into the seat next to him. “The smell of yours made me hungry, so I decided to get some for myself.”

“Not going to get in trouble for fraternizing with the customers, are you?”

Dakota shrugged and scooped up a handful of popcorn. “Who is going to tell? There’s no one in the building but us, and I locked doors.”

“What about... ?” The Pornomancer turned around and looked up at the projection booth. The light from the projector was blinding in the darkness, making it impossible to tell if there was someone in the booth.

“It’s all computerized,” Dakota answered around a mouthful of salted puffs. “On busy days we’ll keep someone up there in case of emergencies or for quality control, but right now everything is being run from the ground floor office. If anything goes wrong, I’ll just go ahead and issue a refund and some free movie tickets. We’ll be out what, five bucks?” She chuckled. “It’s different when it’s a packed house of two hundred seats at thirteen bucks a pop. Contracts say the money goes back to Hollywood regardless, so if that happens we’re out twice the money.”

“That’s got to suck,” the Pornomancer said with a nod.

Dakota shrugged. “As long as it’s not coming out of my paycheck. Thought if it happens often enough or makes the news, then corporate calls to chew us a new one.”

“Not much for company loyalty, are you?” the Pornomancer laughed.

Dakota threw her hands up in exasperation. “I’ve been working here since I was sixteen. Ten years later, I’m only assistant manager, but one day, far off in an already far flung future, I can maybe be manager, spending my days shepherding horny teenagers who would rather sneak their friends in for a quick fuck in the supply closet than scrape half melted gummy bears off the bottom of seats. Yeah, no, pass.”

“Have you ever... ?” The Pornomancer cocked an eyebrow.

“What, fucked one of my friends in the supply closet?” Dakota let out a derisive snort as the Pornomancer nodded. “Hell no. There’s not nearly enough room in there. If you tried to do it standing up, you’d end up banging your head into one of the shelves, and if you tried to get down doggy, then someone would just end up with hook wedged up their ass. Now, the projection booth on the other hand...”

The Pornomancer smiled as he shook his head. “Good to know!”

Daniel Radcliffe began to narrate the prologue as the theater lights dimmed down to mere shadows. Dead girlfriend plus amnesia added up to demon horns that revealed people’s darkest desires. Blah blah blah.

“You know what I don’t get?” Dakota asked roughly twenty minutes in.

“Hmmm?” The Pornomancer yawned and stretched, draping his arm over her chair as he leaned back. He wasn’t trying to be cute or cliche, he just really needed to spread out. If Dakota objected then he would move, otherwise he preferred to be comfortable.

Instead of objecting, though, Dakota continued down her train of thought. “Why do people in these things always have such boring secrets?”

The Pornomancer frowned. “Not sure what you mean.”

Dakota flipped up the armrest separating them, then twisted around in her seat so that she was laying down with her head in his lap, looking up at him. “Sure you do. Look at his mother. Her deepest, darkest secret is that she never really loved her son? Really? That’s it? You mean in fifty or so years she’s been alive, that’s the worst thing she’s ever done? She’s never had a wet dream about fucking her own father? Never looked at a dead family pet and wondered, ‘What if I cut it open? What would Rover’s heart look like? How would it feel in my hand?’ She’s never fantasized about gutting her boss with a rusty spoon? We’re supposed to believe that this woman has managed to go entire life without ever once questioning her humanity. Who the fuck is she, the Mother Mary?”

The Pornomancer chuckled. “I think the movie’s rating might be a little different if things were that dark.”

Dakota’s eyes narrowed as she glared up at him. “Are you really going to sit there and pretend that you don’t have that sort of secret?”

“Secrets are interesting things,” the Pornomancer answered neutrally. The spirits began to buzz as he began to stroke her hair with his left hand. “We like to tell ourselves that we’re keeping our secrets from the rest of society, but I find that ultimately, unless you make your living in the public eye, the rest of the world just doesn’t give that much of a fuck. Really, we’re just too afraid to go looking for others like us, partly because we don’t know how, but mostly because we aren’t sure what we’d do if we ever found them. Then if we do find them, we keep secrets to protect the us that we believe we’ve projected into their minds. Ultimately, you end up sacrificing the real you to protect the nonexistence of an imaginary being that you can never truly ever be sure even existed in the first place.”

Dakota’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “That was a very eloquent way of not answering my question.”

The Pornomancer grinned down at her. “Then I’ll be more blunt. I don’t give a damn what society thinks about me. I’m happy in my own skin. As far as keeping secrets goes, that requires knowing people that you wish to keep secrets from. That sounds like too much work to me, and anyone who needs to be protected from who and what I am is not someone I want in my life.”

Dakota sighed. “You make it all sound so simple.”

The Pornomancer shrugged. “I’ve had help reaching the point I’m at now, I won’t deny that. But that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to help you, either.”

The spirits were gathering more thickly, but their whispers had also grown oddly quiet. The Pornomancer found it a little unnerving. He had gotten used to their constant noise, judging their interest by their volume the same way a cat’s twitching tail gave away its intention to pounce. Now, though, the spirits were hovering silently around the pair like the crowd of extra gathered for the onscreen funeral. They were clearly present and observant, but unwilling to intrude upon the actors at the center of the drama.

“You really want me to believe that you don’t have any secrets?” Dakota rolled onto her side and reached up to stroke the bulge laying against the inside of his thigh. “None at all?”

“Humph.” The Pornomancer rolled his eyes. “I would hardly call that a secret.”

“You sure?” Dakota batted her eyes coquettishly.

The Pornomancer reached down and unzipped his pants.

Dakota sucked in her breath in surprise. The challenge was so direct, so blatant, that it caught her off guard. She had dealt with guys being forward before, but always when they were trying to make a grab for her. She’d never had someone just unzip before. The Pornomancer hadn’t even pulled his cock out, but just sat there with his pants open, leaving it to her to take the next step. The rational part of her mind was insulted. Did he really think she was that easy? That she would just reach into his pants, pull him out, and be awed by how majestic his dick was?

The more primal side of her brain, however, was more than eager to take up the challenge. She’d been running Nymphomaniac for months, hoping to come across anyone perverted enough or bold enough to whack in the front row. She had never known for sure what she would have actually done, if she ever did. Join them? Chase them off?

Now, as a long dormant fire sparked to life in the pit of her stomach, she knew what the answer would be.

‘I guess I really am that easy, ‘ Dakota mentally giggled. Slender fingers slipped between the fly of his pants to curl around the turgid shaft that lay inside. It was hard as an iron bar and throbbed against the palm of her hand. Thick veins snaked along the side, and the tips of her fingers brushed against stubble as she took his measure against the length of her hand.The tip had already begun to ooze precum, which smeared against the inside of her wrist.

The Pornomancer decided to make things a little easier for her. He lifted his hips and pushed down his pants, leaving them bunched up around his knees. Coarse fibers tickled his bare ass as he sank back against the seat. His cock stood proudly erect, the foreskin having to expose the dark purple head.

“Jesus Christ,” Dakota blurted as she realized just how huge he was. Feeling it in the dark, when it had been hidden from her sight, hadn’t given her nearly enough of an idea of the monster she was facing. Now that she could see it in its full glory, the flickering colors of the movie playing over his skin, all she could do was stare.

“I’m not quite that famous,” the Pornomancer answered lazily.

“I’m more worried about how you’re not unconscious,” Dakota muttered. She reached out with a cautious hand and gingerly wrapped her fingers around his shaft. The tip of her thumb didn’t quite make it to her forefinger. His skin was hot and slick with his fluids. A fresh, pearly drop rose from the tip when she squeezed his shaft. Dakota licked her lips, bent down, then licked up the creamy offering. He tasted thick, with an odd combination of salty and tangy that left her mouth watering for more.

So she went back for more. Dakota shifted in her seat so that she was kneeling directly above him and held his penis in a completely vertical position. Then she opened her mouth as wide as she could and lowered her face over the bullet shaped head of his cock. She managed to get her lips sealed around his glans before she stopped. His cock was vibrating against her tongue. It felt so strong, so powerful, like a wild beast in need of taming. She couldn’t resist the urge to tickle his frenulum with the tip of her tongue. The Pornomancer hissed as a bolt of pleasure stabbed through him, and Dakota would have grinned if her mouth hadn’t been so full.

But she wasn’t done, not yet. Dakota began to breathe hard through her nose, puffing out hot air over his sensitive skin as she filled her lungs with oxygen. It was the same technique divers used right before a really deep swim, and Dakota was doing it for much the same reason. The edges of her teeth grazed his shaft as she took him even deeper. There was a pause as he bumped against the entrance of her throat. Dakota closed her eyes and forced herself to relax. She knew she could do it, had done it before - admittedly on guys who were much more normal sized - and she was intent on doing it for the Pornomancer. In her mind it was the ultimate test of her womanhood. If she could conquer him, then she could conquer anyone.

As soon as her throat muscles were relaxed, she plunged forward.

The Pornomancer’s breath caught at the sound of Dakota choking around his cock. Other girls had tried, usually with much more alcohol in them, and always with far less success. Dakota, on the other hand, must have been half snake. She sucked down another inch, paused for another deep breath, then pressed on. She almost didn’t make it, freezing as she reached the last inch. Tears of struggled appeared at the corner of her eyes and her jaw started to ache from being so lewdly stretched. Summoning the last ounce of her willpower, she forced her head down until her lips were pressed wetly against his groin.

“Fuck!” The Pornomancer’s knuckles turned white where he was gripping the arm of his chair and his entire body was shaking as he fought not to move. Every instinct was screaming for him to thrust, to push impossibly deeper into the throat that was squeezing tight around his cock, but he knew that he couldn’t give in. Dakota had managed the impossible, and he was half convinced that if he pushed any deeper that he’d end up choking her for real, or worse. But God, did he want to! The pressure was incredible, the heat overwhelming. Her throat rippled around him as it tried to push out its tremendous invader, but to the Pornomancer it was the most erotic caress. Stars danced behind his eyes as his balls began to tighten, and even though never of them was moving he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer.