Death Comes to the Poet

When death came to the old poet, it came not as a pale horse or a scythe-bearing monk. She came on an August afternoon, after the angry sun had nestled behind the ancient fig tree outside his window. No breeze stirred, despite the open doors. The poet sipped ragged breaths from the still and humid air of the shadowed room as he lay on his daybed, dreaming of nymphs frolicking in ornate water features. But it was just the garden sprinkler turning on.

He knew something was afoot, because the water nymphs had taken a turn for the worse. They’d stopped splashing each other’s naked bodies and began gorging in a very uncivilized fashion on the family of golden koi in the ornamental fountain.  Their giggles had turned shrill and they opened their needle-toothed maws and took feral bites from the golden bellied fish. Blood and fish guts trailed down their ivory bodies. Moreover, the distinct and acrid tang of tobacco assailed him, even though his doctor had forbidden him to smoke anymore.

She came as a silver-haired succubus. This in itself was a paradox, he thought. Weren’t succubi supposed to be the epitome of sexual desirability? And yet she wasn’t a hag. Her dark eyes still held a sparkle, but a knowledgeable one that spoke of a benevolent familiarity with the obsessions of men. Unfortunately, inherent in that benevolence was the depressing reality of just how small most of those obsessions were. The sparkle wasn’t as pleasant as it might have been.

“It’s time, poet,” she whispered.

“But I’ve still got to fin…”

She pressed her withered lips to his and inhaled, stealing just one of his precious last breaths. “Don’t demean yourself. There is no finishing life, only leaving it undone,” she said, unzipping his trousers and freeing his cock.

The erection surprised him. It had been a decade at least since his tumescences had abandoned his flesh and taken up residence exclusively in his brain. He smiled like a child with a lost toy restored.

With a surprising flexibility that belied her age, she gathered up her skirts and straddled him in one graceful motion. Her cunt was scorching, ravenous and tight enough to make the poet’s eyes water.

Or perhaps it was the visions that made him cry. For each roll of her hips pushed gouts of memories to the fore. A slow and relentless tide of imagery flooded and receded. Some sweet, some painful, some proud and many filled with shame. The poet realized that, far from being a peaceful man of words, he’d broken many hearts. At the time, had been rather pleased by these accomplishments, but in reliving them, they came to him laden with all the anguish they had engendered.

“But I didn’t mean…”

“Oh, yes you did,” the succubus said, lust tainting her words a hot crimson. “And you loved it.”

At first death’s maiden had seemed light upon his hips, but with each downward plunge onto his cock, she became heavier. She bent over him, her silver hair draping his face, her hands cupping his head. She fucked him until she’d stolen every panting exhalation. Until the weight of his own poetic charms crushed his chest and he could take in no more air.

On a hot, still afternoon in August, the poet died, choking on the misery his words of love had inspired. Like so many poets before him, he kept faith with his tradition and did not go gently.