Daremo Shiranai (Nobody Knows)

Alone in the house on a sunny midsummer afternoon, Odette lay listlessly atop the blue patchwork quilt on her twin bed, which she made every day at her mother's insistence. Even when lying perfectly still, she was the very epitome of restless late adolescence.

Attempting to stem the outpouring of boredom that seemed to seep from her very pores, she entertained a variety of notions about engaging herself in some activity or other.

She could take a walk across the dirt road down to the lake and have a swim, but that too seemed a little lonely without the company of her neighbor cousins, who were spending the weekend at a schoolmate's. She could head down to the basement and dance, but she didn't feel in much of a mood for that despite the inviting coolness of the cellar air. There were always books, her constant companions when there were no others to be had. She did not feel like reading either.

To look at her, it was something of a wonder as to why a petite, lithe, well-proportioned eighteen-year-old girl with ample assets should be alone at all, why there had never really been a luststruck boy or several close at hand to allay her increasingly persistent ennui.

Her straight medium-length auburn hair splayed haphazardly across the pillow where she rested her head, and the greenish-gold of her eyes took in the length of her body. Under a white cotton tank top, the mounds of her full c-cup breasts rose and fell with each even breath she took. Her small hands with their long wine-colored lacquered nails were folded neatly across her flat stomach. Beyond the denim of her shorts, her legs tapered from her toned thighs down to finely-muscled calves. Although the healthy honeyed cast of her skin indicated some time spent in the summer sunshine, Odette was always disappointed that she never tanned as darkly as her cousins did. Unable to sustain a posture of complete repose, she wriggled her toes with their pink-painted nails as her mind wandered.

She thought about calling her best friend Jenn to see if she wanted to watch a movie, but for Odette it was almost inexplicably difficult to make the effort to reach out to another human, even a close friend.She was afraid that she might seem too needy, and so rarely initiated interactions completely spontaneously, lest her requests be construed as social avarice.

She had been staring blankly at the contents of her closet through the half-open louvered doors. Thinking of Jenn, Odette realized she was looking at her Ouija board, or rather the clean, neat box which contained it.

She and Jenn had started using the board a few months ago, usually during visits to Jenn's parents' camp, but sometimes at Jenn's house in town too.

Neither of their parents openly approved of the board, though it was not something they tried to hide from them. Their parents seemed to also be smart enough to know that if they attempted to actively prevent the girls from using it, or if they even made their disapproval of it overly vocal, they would simply be fueling the girls' interest in the esoteric object.

Sometimes one of their mothers would make a "tsk" sound when they would go off to use the board, but that seemed to be the extent of the parental interference.

They had received some directives concerning its use from other friends before they'd started, and had dutifully respected them. The most significant of these was that the board should not be used alone.

Using the board alone, friends had told them, made it very easy for the spirits to manipulate your mind, facilitating undesirable scenarios like demonic possession.

Friends had also described to them how people had guardian spirits, and that the Ouija board could be used to discover more about these spirits. These same friends had also made it clear that spirits were frequently prevaricators about their identities. So, you had to ask them questions very firmly, sometimes repeating the same question several times to ensure the answer you received was authentic.

They had discovered and spoken with Jenn's guardian spirit, a deceased Southern gentlewoman named Rena, who was benignly charming.

Odette's guardian spirit, on the other hand, did not claim to be a spirit at all, but rather a minor demon, who identified himself as Daremo.

The girls researched the name at length only to learn it was the Japanese word for "nobody." It did not strike them at all as unusual that Odette's guardian should have a Japanese name, given her ardent affection for Asian things including arts both martial and non. It did not really strike them as unusual either that her guardian spirit was a demon, considering the quiet ferocity of Odette's personality.

Odette began thinking about Daremo.

Though he was a demon, she did not have any fear of him. But she was smart enough to realize he could be dangerous.

She had tried to picture what he might look like, but had been unable to visualize his countenance or form with any real clarity. Her impression of him was as an invisible male force, dark and powerful, that hovered ever near her. Now, Odette wondered if his unseen presence was a deterrent against other male attention, and suddenly felt as though she had stumbled upon precisely the reason she had been ignored by boys for so long. The thought made her very angry.

She wanted to conjure Daremo, call him to her, and confront him with the idea, to accuse him really.

For a brief moment she debated about pulling the Ouija board from the closet and using it by herself, but her ire had not completely clouded her judgement.

She reasoned that since he was her guardian, always close to her, that she herself should be a sufficient conduit through which to contact him. While she understood on some level that what she was about to do was dangerous, she felt bolstered by her anger, and was certain that she would be able to hold her own against him.

Rising from her bed, Odette made her determined way to the kitchen drawer where her perpetually disaster-prepared mother religiously kept some candles, for largely unromantic purposes like power outages. She rummaged through and selected the darkest one of the jumbled bunch, a short but healthy fat stump with a wick blackened by prior burning. The color of the candle's wax was indeterminate. It could have been a dusty black or a very dark blue or purple or even a deep green. She also grabbed a pack of matches conveniently kept in the same drawer, and a nondescript white saucer from a puritanically orderly cupboard.

Returning to her bedroom, Odette set the small saucer on the wooden headboard of her bed, and placed the candle on it. She ripped one of the matches, struck it by scraping it between the folded-back matchbook cover and the strip, and touched it to the wick, smiling satisfied when it flamed to life. She shook the match to extinguish it and dropped it on the saucer next to the candle.

She sat cross-legged in the center of her bed, facing the headboard and focusing her gaze on the flicker of the candle flame. Resting her wrists on the points of her knees, Odette began to breathe deeply to clear her mind of all but the thought of her guardian demon.

When she was certain that he alone occupied her thoughts, she closed her eyes and softly but firmly called his name aloud, "Daremo."

Inspired by a flash of intuition, she repeated it two more times, a little firmer and a little louder each time.

In the quiet seconds that followed, she sensed something large forming behind her, bristling the hairs on the back of her neck and sending a shiver down her spine. Eyes still closed, Odette could not bring herself to open them until she heard her name.

"Odette."

Her eyes flew open and though she wanted to turn around and face whatever was behind her, felt held fast to her seated position. She could only gaze at the candle in front of her, trying to steady herself against the rising fear that she had been dreadfully successful at her first conjuration.

She heard her name said two more times, mimicking her simple spell, but could not tell if the voice was in her head or not. Though there was no breeze in the room, something lightly touched the back of her hair. There was no question about who it was.

"Why have you called me here, girl? demanded the disembodied voice, though she felt he knew her response as soon as he'd asked the question.

She immediately realized she did not know how to verbalize her accusation of him, and was disconcerted by the way he called her "girl."

"Hmm?" he prompted in a softer tone, and she felt something touch her hair again.

Suppressing her anxieties with sheer willpower, she managed to ask, in a voice that was much weaker-sounding than she had wanted it to be, "Do you keep boys away from me?"

The energy of the entity behind her seemed to swell briefly, then unexpectedly expelled a burst of what felt like laughter. His voice was playful and noncommittal when he replied, "Maybe."

"Why?" she asked, her petulant inner child surfacing. "It's not fair."

The aura of laughter changed quickly into one of stern control. "Not fair? You should be grateful for my protection, little one. Boys can hurt you, you know."

Having never been touched by one, let alone loved, Odette did not know. She only knew that she was hungry beyond measure for the touch of a masculine hand, and when she thought of that hunger the force behind her emanated a subtle wave of sympathy.

"You are still mine for now," Daremo said matter-of-factly.

She said nothing in response, but thought for a moment that perhaps she did not want to be "his."

He heard her thought and said again, "Mine."

Her hands, which somehow now did not seem to be hers, moved from their relaxed positions on her knees and began to suggestively, roughly rub against the skin of her thighs that was exposed below her denim shorts.

"I don't understand," Odette managed to say, staring at the way her hands were moving.

"You will," Daremo assured.

"Get a scarf," he ordered, knowing exactly the one that he wanted her to get, and broadcasting its image in her mind.

Where she had been unable to move before, she now was compelled to rise and go to her dresser, pulling open one of its drawers and extracting a long, transparent black scarf. She still wanted to turn to face him, but his incredibly forceful energy seemed to be preventing her from doing anything that he did not want her to do.

For the next part, he did not tell her what to do, but showed her in her mind a picture of her tying the scarf at the back of her head so that it covered her eyes like a blindfold.

Odette did not willfully comply with the image, so Daremo again effortlessly used his energy to overtake her hands and do as he wished.

When the scarf was firmly knotted, he had her sit on the edge of her bed. Though blindfolded, she did not grope about for the bed, but felt herself firmly guided there, and, now that her eyesight had been taken away from her, she felt Daremo's presence even more strongly.

At this, Odette was nearly overtaken by panic, and she struggled to fend off the seductive energy that stole through her limbs.

"Yes," Daremo said in a stinging hiss, "it would be delicious if you fought a bit."

She did not know what he meant, but felt a mysterious easing of his control, though he was still very near. Her right hand, which did not seem to be under her power, brazenly tugged the hem of her thin white tank top from her shorts.

He had relinquished control of her left hand, which she now used to grab her right wrist to stop that hand from its unknown doings. But her right hand felt much stronger, and wrenching itself effortlessly from her grip, made its way very deliberately beneath her tank top to the clasp of her bra, which it undid deftly.

Her right hand came around and now harshly grabbed a handful of teenage tit and squeezed.

"Mine!" Daremo repeated.

She hated her breasts, and though she masturbated with some frequency, never touched herself like this. The alien sensation was strange, but to her surprise, not entirely unpleasant. Still she struggled, trying with her left hand to push her right away, pulling somewhat desperately on the wrist, but instead of loosening its grasp on her, the fingers of her right hand pinched cruelly at her hardening nipple.

Unsatisfied with his power over only a single hand, Daremo usurped her left as well, bringing it to her other breast and mirroring the actions of her right.

She was blindfolded, but this was no barrier to the images he could send her psychically. And he sent her one, clear as a pornographic Polaroid, of her as she was in this moment. Sitting on the edge of her bed, her eyes were covered by the black blindfold, and the long ends coming out of the knot hanging down her back hung straight as her auburn hair. She had both hands beneath her shirt, a firm hard-nippled tit gripped tightly in each.

Her hands then relinquished their hold, only to pull her shirt over her head and discard her bra. Topless, her hands resumed their business of rudely kneading her tits, pulling, pinching and rolling her nipples.

"Please," Odette whimpered, not understanding herself whether she was pleading for him to stop or to go further.

He did not stop, but said, "You poor starved thing," and removed a hand from her tits to unbutton and unzip her shorts.

She drew in a breath as the hand reached into her pants. Under Daremo's control, her fingers slipped quickly into the folds of her very wet pussy. Odette was distressed at the unmistakable evidence of her own desire. As abruptly as the hand had been inserted, it was removed, and the fingers held to her mouth. She was assaulted with the scent of her arousal.

"Taste yourself!" Daremo instructed.

Her mouth seemed to open not of her volition but his, and her tongue snaked through her parted lips to lick at the wetness on her fingertips.

Daremo thought the licking, while undoubtedly a little nasty, too chaste and tentative, and forced her to stick her fingers deeper into her mouth.

"Suck them," he prompted, and was pleased when she closed her mouth around them and worked her tongue against them. Odette did not realize, but he had given up just a little control to see what she would do, and a good deal of her mouth's actions were actually her own.

After a few moments of appreciating the lascivious sight of her with her own fingers in her mouth, he stood her up, and used her hands to push down her shorts and panties.

She stepped out of them of her own accord, oblivious and obliging.

One of the reasons he allowed her so much freedom with her mouth was to be able to hear her cries. He was impressed that until this point she had really made no noise at all but the few words she'd spoken.

His devilish mind had an idea that he was sure would elicit one. He shoved her onto the bed, calculating the force needed to be slightly less than enough to disturb the candle on the headboard, whose flame still burned with a steady ardor. In flinging her backward, he pinned her wrists just above her head. Though hell is not a watery place, it would be accurate to say it made her wetter than hell.

Aroused by roughness of the act, Odette emitted an amazing and exquisite sound, just as Daremo had intended. It was simultaneously a whimper of defenselessness and a moan of deepest need.

"Mine," he said again, pooling his force so she felt it heavy above her on the bed, unceremoniously pushing her legs apart.

Sure that the sound she'd made came from her starved soul, he decided to give her just a bit more control, and was rewarded as she arched her back.

Keeping her left hand motionless above her head, he sent her right straight down to her slippery clit.

Usually when she touched herself she did it with two hands, placing a forefinger along either side of her clit and rubbing them together, getting herself off rather rapidly in a direct Prussian get-down-to-business fashion. Instead, Daremo ground her fingers all together against her hard wet clit in slow circles. It was mere seconds before her bare ass started squirming against the bed, and a small cry of pleasure she could not stifle stole from her mouth.

As soon as her lips parted, Daremo was on the brink of thrusting the fingers of her left hand into her mouth, but his fiendish psyche lit upon an alternate act that inflamed him. He forced her left hand to grab a good handful of tit, pushing it up toward her mouth so that her erect nipple was crushed against her lips.

"Lick it," he commanded, almost unnecessarily. Even before he'd said anything she'd stuck her tongue out and started lapping eagerly at the rigid nub.

"Suck on it," he said, his voice delectably brusque with lust, and her hand pushed her tit closer so she could close her mouth around the peak.

Pleased with her compliance, which seemed to be growing posthaste into full-fledged sexual submission, he made the hand between her legs rub a little faster and harder.

At the increase in speed and pressure, Odette made a muffled sound, her mouth still closed obediently around her nipple and its surrounding flesh.

Though Daremo did not speak, she felt he was tacitly instructing her on how to administer her oral affections. She felt how wet her mouth was, as if she were salivating during a scrumptious meal. Inside her mouth, her tongue hotly swabbed the tip of her tit. Her cheeks hollowed and lips pursed when she started to suck earnestly at it.

Although the sucking sensation at her tit and the persistent circular stroking of her clit would certainly have made her come, Daremo wanted more. He ground her fingers against her clit with increased pressure, and flashed her the idea to start using her teeth.

She began to gnaw tentatively at the nipple in her mouth, grazing it with her teeth and lightly biting at it. When she bit down a bit more, Odette's orgasm crashed headlong through her body.

Daremo laughed, releasing her completely from his control while she came. Though he was not manipulating it, her right hand continued throughout her climax to rub hard and fast against her clit, though her tit slipped from her mouth so she could gasp and moan exquisitely.

Her orgasm subsided, and as the pleasure passed she became horrified at what Daremo had done to her, angry at herself now for having been so naively conceited about being able to control what she conjured, and disappointed in her own weakness.

Realizing that she had been released, she tried to push herself up off the bed, but he had anticipated her reaction and easily resumed control of her limbs once more.

"Not finished," Daremo said, and it sounded like a warning.

His energy flipped her over on the bed, he reached with her right hand for a pillow and slid it lengthwise beneath her. He positioned her so she was kneeling but leaned over toward the pillow slightly, her hands planted on its cushion and straddling it with her legs.

Then, he transferred his energy so that it emanated from below her, where the pillow was. He knew that she sometimes masturbated by pressing a pillow between her legs and humping at it, and she understood that this was his imperious way of mocking her loneliness in those moments.

He loosed his invisible grip on her hips so they were back under her control. Though she had come only moments ago she started to needily grind her sopping crotch against the pillow, making a lewd wet spot on the light-colored linen pillowcase.

Daremo did not plan to waste her copious moisture on the bedclothes, and long before the friction with the fabric absorbed too much of it, he held her hips still again and pushed her upward a bit to put some distance between her pussy and the pillow.

She mewled softly at the severance of contact, and breathed an extremely keen "Please" that she hoped would induce him to provide her some kind of relief.