Fan Fiction Obsession of the Week: Bound and Gagged

"Bound and Gagged" by Caroline, a.k.a. BlackHoleCastiel.  That is the Destiel fan fiction I've been obsessed with this week. Hear me out on this:

1) In this fictional universe, Dean (he has no last name in this short chapter) is a god. He's sort of a Greek-style god, a male version of Artemis, only not so much with the chastity. But he's the god of wild things, with a large collection of hunters who serve him. He has sons; their number is not specified.

2) To appease him, his mortals have to offer him an annual human sacrifice, who is supposed to be a willing volunteer. This volunteer is taken to Dean's temple, where the god appears bodily to claim his sacrifice, in front of the entire congregation.

And get this: the high priest's name is Azazel. Apparently Azazel appears as a character on Supernatural? But Caroline describes him as a "mean old drunk," so I doubt he's the dazzling beauty of a fallen angel* we explored in Cover Him With Darkness.

3) A boy named Castiel - for the sake of not being creepy and gross, let us assume "boy" here refers to a man between the ages of 18 and 21 - is most emphatically NOT a volunteer. He's being sold by his parents to pay their rather hefty bar tab!

4) But do not worry, because Dean has no intention of killing his not-so-willing sacrifice. He has another kind of claiming in mind. Ancient Greek-style sex ensues. Yes, in front of everyone.

This is supposedly only the first chapter. Castiel now has the honor of being promoted from "temple boy" (I'm imagining something like a Roman Catholic church's altar server) to god's consort.

Some thoughts:

It's a nice twist to have Cas be the bewildered mortal and Dean the powerful supernatural being. It's the opposite of both the TV show and what I tried to do in the Cupid & Psyche fic.

Despite the title, it doesn't seem that Cas is actually gagged. He keeps screaming, so I'm imagining he's just tied up and allowed to scream at will.

Dean threatens to eat Cas, causing Cas to flinch away from his beautiful but intimidating god. However, Dean means this in a sexual rather than carnivorous way, and that is an adorable little detail.

Personally, I can't imagine young!Castiel being as attractive as present Castiel. This is Misha Collins in his early 20s.

He's skinny, his hair is a lighter color, and it looks as if he borrowed that suit from a larger person - Jared Padalecki, perhaps. Like Laura Prepon, Misha Collins gets better with age and with darker hair. He is much prettier at age 40 than he was at 24-ish.

So if I were writing this story, I would have a much older Castiel tied to the altar. And gagged. I mean, if we're going to play around with a light bondage paradigm, then let's do the thing.

Also, I would have played up the "I'm going to eat you"/oral angle A LOT more before getting to the actual intercourse. That's more of a personal preference than a literary criticism, of course.

The writer is very young (14, if her Tumblr page is accurate) and I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from writing, ever, but this is a literary criticism: This fic commits the big guy-guy erotica sin of omitting lube. Kids, when we write anal, we write in some lube, k? It's true that ancient cultures didn't have AstroGlide, but they at least had olive oil, which was better than nothing.

I think I would have made the setting private, too. I think in the fic, god!Dean likes the naughtiness of scandalizing his mortals by "consuming" his sacrifice in front of their eyes. But if Castiel and god!Dean are going to end up having actual feelings for each other - and it's not guaranteed that they are - their first time together would be much more romantic in private. Maybe Dean appears to Azazel to accept the sacrifice, but then tells the priest to leave the temple. Azazel leaves the temple thinking Castiel is going to be literally eaten as a snack, clueless that god!Dean is much more horny than hungry. But again, that's more of a stylistic preference than a literary criticism.

I look forward to a second chapter.

*Speaking of fallen angels, I forgot to mention in my Crouching Tiger, Forbidden Vampire review that Lucifer is described in that book as being indescribably, almost painfully beautiful, but with utterly dead eyes.

Mark Pellegrino is Supernatural's Lucifer. I added his monologue from John Milton's Paradise Lost, because literary.

'Cover Him With Darkness' by Janine Ashbless Is Beautifully Written

Cover Him With Darkness by Janine Ashbless

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book has received praise from a number of erotica authors and editors whose work I enjoy and respect: Kate Douglas, Violet Blue, D.L. King, Saskia Walker, Shanna Germain, and Portia da Costa:

"Janine Ashbless has long been a master at conjuring the erotic in myths and legends. Now she's taking on religion and all I can say is wow. Just wow! What is evil? What is good? Can the faithful have completely missed the point? Sexy food for thought: Cover Him With Darkness is an intensely wild ride."
—D.L. King, editor of Seductress and The Sweetest Kiss

"One of the hands-down masters; Janine Ashbless showed me that erotica can be literature."
— Violet Blue, editor of Lust: Erotic Fantasies for Women and Girls on Top: Explicit Erotica for Women

"One of the most talented, original and brave authors in the erotica field"
—Shanna Germain

"The best erotic fairytale writer around."
—Saskia Walker

"Vivid and tempestuous and dangerous, and bursting with sacrifice, death and love."
—Portia Da Costa

How could I resist giving it a chance? I couldn't, and my will to resist its charms was annihilated utterly by Janine Ashbless's spellbinding prose. This book is simply magical, proving once again that good erotic writing is good writing, period.

The heroine is Milja. The daughter of a village priest in rural Montenegro, Milja has grown up with her family's momentous secret: they are the guardians of an ancient, immortal prisoner. He is Azazel, a fallen angel. When Milja impulsively releases him from his bonds, she unknowingly puts her life and lives of her family in terrible danger. The Church will go to any length to see that Azazel is once again bound.

You may remember the angel/demon Azazel from Can't Teach an Old Demon New Tricks by Cara Lockwood. In that book, Azazel is a very dangerous demon feared by Satan because of his determination to take over Hell, as well as the father of several monstrous, giant children by innocent human women. The Jewish Encyclopedia mentions that the name is used three times in the Hebrew Bible, although its meaning is unclear. It seems to come from the ancient Hebrew words for "a strong mountain," perhaps referring to the cliff from which the scapegoat was sacrificed in the ancient, pre-Temple Day of Atonement ritual. In later Jewish folklore, the name seems to have become associated with a demon or evil spirit of the wilderness, like a jinn, an ifrit, or a fearsome desert creature like Pazuzu. Only the Book of Enoch uses Azazel as the name of a rebellious angel who taught forbidden knowledge to humankind.

If one reads the King James Bible, then Leviticus 16:26 says, "And he that let go the goat for the scapegoat shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward come into the camp." In some translations, however, the same passage reads, "The one who sets the goat free for Azazel shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward may come into the camp" (New Revised Standard Version, used in the Roman Catholic Church).

If the word is so old that even the rabbis don't quite understand what it means, then it is a very old word indeed, possibly left over from before Jews and Arabs were separate cultures from our ancient Mesopotamian forebears. Ashbless - an artist, of course, and thus completely free to take all the artistic license she wants - seems to be drawing primarily on the Book of Enoch for her version of Azazel.

Ashbless's tale is darkly romantic, a dizzying balancing act between heavenly pleasures and depths of pain. Milja finds herself in a love triangle of cosmic proportions. Can she ever truly love a creature as inhuman and powerful as a fallen angel? Or will she find love with Egan Kansky, an American transplant originally from Ireland, even though Egan seems to be hiding a secret of his own?

"Cover Him With Darkness" began as a short story published in Red Velvet and Absinthe. I never read that anthology, but I'm glad the novel developed from it. Both the beautifully written prose and the compelling narrative make the novel a real page-turner.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my review, which represents my own honest opinion.