I. Thunderstorm.

Tuesday, December 9th 1986.

Elodie de Monteclair gazed pensively out of the window. The huge panes of old, hand-made glass were streaked with rain, but the distant view was still clear enough for her to observe banks of ominous black cloud - a storm, being propelled inexorably towards her by a gradually freshening breeze. She watched, trying to ignore the chatter behind her. But, before long, the storm was close enough to the chateau for her to experience lightning and thunder, blindingly, loudly and in rapid succession.

She glanced down at the chateau's elegantly curving horseshoe-shaped stairs and saw a trio of the staff ascending rapidly to escape the rain. As it was Tuesday, the Château de Fontainebleau was closed to the public, allowing for special projects to be undertaken. At last, he glanced behind her where her party of technicians and sound engineers were clustered around producer Sébastien Letellier, her boss. Sébastien spoke to them in measured tones, but she could see by the furrows on his brow that all was not well.

Beyond the production crew sat four beautiful young women: a violinist, an oboe player, a cellist and a keyboard player whose ornately painted harpsichord had been Elodie's special responsibility that morning. A glance at her watch told her it was 1 pm, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that production had come to a complete halt. She turned back to the window and saw that the rain was now much heavier. Lightning flashed, momentarily illuminating Fontainebleau's expansive lake before a peel of cacophonous thunder rattled the stately, ancient building.

"There, you see, that is going to ruin the recording," announced Sébastien, pointing a steady finger towards the windows and glancing in turn at each face in the silently attentive knot of his staff. He then turned to the quartet of talented beauties who, of all the people present that day, seemed least concerned by the state of the weather.

"I'm sorry, girls, we're going to have to wait this...storm out. Maybe kill some time by practising or improvising, you know."

He was answered by the violinist, a tall, statuesque blonde of no more than twenty, whose name, Elodie believed, was Cecille.

"Not a problem, Monsieur Letellier, we're very happy with what we've done so far. The first three movements were fine, especially the poco andante."

Elodie noted the obvious pride and deference in the girl's voice. It was almost as great an honour to be playing amidst the magnificence of Fontainebleau as it was to be produced by the eminent and highly sought-after Sébastien Letellier. Sébastien was tall and slim, in his early thirties, with a shock of curly, shoulder-length chestnut-brown hair. Lately, he sported a moustache and goatee, which, Elodie thought, gave him a distinctly 1970s look. She was 21, slim, red-haired and attractive and had been working with him for three years. Officially, she was an assistant producer, but in reality, she performed any task that Sébastien asked of her.

"Right!" Sébastien announced to the room, "Let's break for lunch, and don't wander far. I want everyone back here in exactly one hour."

With his usual flamboyant stride, he headed towards the doors, then paused and, without turning, called out, "Elodie."

"Yes, chief," muttered Elodie as she rushed to his side.

He took her rapidly down a long corridor, then down two curving flights of stairs before he finally spoke.

"I want to show you a room I found the last time I was here."

A few minutes later, they stopped at a relatively simple door located below one of the chateau's lesser staircases. Sébastien had somehow procured the key to this room. He quickly opened the door, ushered Elodie inside, entered and locked the door. He then immediately surveyed the room, as though he had some grandiose plan for it. Elodie ignored him; she was well acquainted with his eccentric idiosyncrasies. Moreover, she knew exactly why he had brought her here.

The room was modestly proportioned, long and narrow, with an unremarkable view. There was a stack of ornate picture frames in one corner and a comfortable-looking 19th-century cast-iron bed against the far wall. She followed Sébastien to the bed, who looked at it silently for a few minutes, then swung around, grinning and announced,

"You know, Django Reinhardt slept here before the war."

Elodie laughed and reflexively reached back to pull the large, plastic clip from her hair. No sooner had she done so than Sébastien gripped her shoulders and kissed her. She reciprocated by cradling his face and devouring his lips, demonstrating that his new beard and moustache did not impede her passion. Busily, he removed her clothes until only her pink lace panties remained. Then he pushed her with feigned roughness onto the bed. The old piece of furniture groaned, but its protestations were lost amidst Elodie's giggles. She watched Sébastien fussily undress himself, a process that always caused her much amusement.

A further groan from the bed's ancient frame, and he was next to her, disposing of her panties and grasping her buttocks with his cold hands. He kissed her again while her hands travelled down to grip his already hardening shaft. He found her nipples and breasts a feast, as he had often told her, so she meekly offered each one to him in turn. He then reciprocated by parting her thighs and combing her mound with his fingers. As soon as they had become lovers, he had asked her never to shave her pussy, and now a luxuriant red flame rose from between her long, lithe legs.

She guided his fingers to her slit, where the dew of her arousal anointed them. Keeping his hand there, she ground her pussy against it, eventually working the moisture into her clit. She sighed and regarded him with hooded eyes and clenched teeth. She loved to see his reaction, knowing that he believed himself to be the consummate lover. Now she found the base of his shaft and pumped it hard while pressing against his loose, fleshy balls. She knew exactly when he was ready from the incoherent half-syllables that he invariably produced. When these sounds reached her ears, she said.

"Fuck me."

And she spread her legs in yet another token of submission. Sébastien swiftly entered her, propping himself up on his arms from which vantage point, eagle-like, he could survey his conquest. Elodie smiled up at him sweetly and held his shoulders,

"Fuck my flaming pussy hard, lover!" she whispered harshly, yet quietly enough to reassure him that he was in charge.

He emitted a low growl and slipped his hands under her shoulders. Slow, deep thrusts found her pussy amply prepared for his considerable girth. Soon, he quickened his pace, and Elodie reciprocated by arching her back and pushing forward to meet him. In this way, she achieved her unspoken objectives of feeling his balls slap against her ass and of accommodating the curve of his cock within the tingling walls of her pussy. She rolled her eyes back, smacked her lips and let her tongue loll out of the corner of her mouth. Sébastien observed all of this with silent approval and concentrated his thrusts, grinding his hips against where he imagined her clit was located. Luckily for Elodie, he was close to the mark, and she began to moan softly with his every stroke.

She then gripped his neck in what he took to be an attempt to sit up. He responded by grasping both of her arms and throwing them back roughly. Elodie's knuckles rapped hard against the wall, and she began to feel the unmistakable signs of her approaching orgasm. Banishing all other thoughts from her mind, she whispered,

"Fuck me, use me."

Her breathing rose with her arousal, as did the intensity of the creaks and squeaks produced by the bed. But the lovers were wholly oblivious to these until stranger sounds began to divert Elodie's attention.

"Did...you...hear that?" she asked with difficulty.

Although Sébastien had his head pressed against her shoulder, he still managed to reply.

"What?"

"Whirring... and clicking...like gears..."

"No."

"I'm...sure I heard... something... mechanical?"

He licked his lips as he slipped his hand under her butt-cheek.

"It's probably just the storm...you know what... these old palaces are like.

"Then make me come, lover."

He doubled and tripled his efforts, bringing everything he had down upon the flame-crowned cunt that he secretly loved so much. Elodie cried out as golden ripples of sensation radiated from her innermost core. She relished this delicious awakening of her higher senses and the deep satisfaction that soon dwelt in the pit of her stomach.

Sébastien, considerate enough to let her enjoy these sweetest of moments, paused and beheld the expression of angelic bliss upon her face, congratulating himself for being its sole cause.

Elodie looked deep into his eyes and gave him a smile that signalled his turn. As he fucked her, she relaxed and closed her eyes again, but before long, she recalled the strange, mechanical grinding that she had heard. Something about it unsettled her. She opened her eyes and looked out into the room. What she saw would haunt her for the next forty years.

A rectangular section of the far wall had changed and darkened considerably, somehow giving the room a new and disturbing perspective. But most shocking of all was the appearance, at the apex of the dark area, of a giant horned and bearded face, leering sardonically with piercing hooded eyes. Eyes fixed on the very spot that the lovers now occupied.

Elodie gasped, managing only to utter a reflexive "Mon Dieu," before she froze out of sheer terror. A moment later, her view of the apparition was totally obscured by Sébastien's face as he kissed and nibbled her ear. For several minutes, she tried to cling to him for safety, unconsciously digging her nails into his shoulders. This caused him to launch three more deep thrusts into her before he came. She was reassured momentarily by his incoherent mutters, then he rolled off her, resting his arms on his chest. She shot up, just as a bolt of lightning illuminated the room. The far wall was as it had originally been - blank and featureless.

Jaw clenched tight, she darted a look at Sébastien, whose contented smile and firmly closed eyelids offered her not the slightest consolation. She glanced back at the wall, but still saw nothing. Then, Sébastien uttered the words that heralded the return of banal, comforting reality,

"What's for lunch?"

* * * *

II. Darkness.

Tuesday, January 23rd 1996.

It was a beach, but unlike any she had ever seen. Rugged cliffs of opalescent hue and an expanse of jewelled sand stretched as far as the eye could see. A sullen sea of rolling breakers crashed in spume and spray, whipped and driven by a spectral breeze.

Although she stood back from its watery immensity, she still felt trapped by the sea's primal, mindless violence, so her instinct was to climb and, in so doing, gain some insight into the unknown world in which she found herself.

But the crystalline cliffs were steep and treacherous, reminding her of the face of an iceberg rather than of a place of refuge and a path to deliverance. Although she found a dearth of safe footholds, she eventually made her way to the top and pulled herself up painfully, coming to rest face down and exhausted.

Here, the roaring of the breakers was barely discernible, but she was soon confronted by another bizarre and violent scene.

Standing up, she saw a naked woman armed with a birch rod beating a dark figure that seemed to be lashed to a tree. She approached slowly and heard the woman laughing maniacally as she beat a man who seemed to be dressed from the waist down in thick, dark, bluish-purple fur. She approached tentatively and tried to speak to them. The woman ignored her, and she was horrified by the appearance of the man; goat-horned, heavily bearded, with long pointed ears and an aquiline nose - a satyr. He smiled lasciviously at her, and she then noticed that his bonds were not fastening his limbs. Furthermore, he had a fully erect cock whose pink, tapering shaft and sizable head curved. serpent-like up at her.

He suddenly lunged forward, took the birch from the woman and proceeded to beat her about the shoulders and breasts. She emitted a bestial growl before impaling herself on his considerable length. The satyr fucked her roughly and hard while continuing to beat her back and buttocks. Over the next hour, the intensity and volume of their revels quickly escalated, leaving their unwitting companion increasingly perplexed and angry.

Finally, the woman screamed as she came, causing the satyr to clasp her tightly and fuck her even harder. After a few more frenzied minutes, he released her. She jumped down from his lap and gripped his glistening shaft with both hands. She put the head in her mouth and was immediately inundated by a torrent of thick, white come. Both she and the satyr laughed. But their witness's patience was at an end. She rushed up to them and yelled,

Where the fuck am I !?

They did not look at her, nor did they reply. Instead, with downcast eyes and strange, solemn expressions, they pointed inland, into the distance.

There, in awe, she beheld the vast ruin of Fontainebleau, as though it had been abandoned for ten thousand years.

Mademoiselle de Monteclair...

Elodie awoke with a start.

"Forgive me, Mademoiselle, but we've just heard from the electricians. It was a lightning strike. Power should be back in about an hour... Are you okay?"

"Yes, yes...I just had a very, very strange dream."

"Oh?"

Elodie sighed deeply, staring at the cosy fire in the grate, then she stretched her shoulders and settled back into the voluminous armchair. These were the luxuries and consolations of Fontainebleau.

"Show me the recording schedule."

Her assistant handed her a folder, illuminating it with her phone's torch. Elodie swore under her breath.

"Correct the composer's name. It's Joseph-Nicholas-Pancrace Royer. Royer was his surname," then she smiled, "Apart from that, we're fine."

When her assistant had left, Elodie took out an old gilt iron key from her pocket. She had stolen it from Sébastien ten years ago, and if the room whose door it opened had not been packed, floor to ceiling with heavy crates, she might have put it to some use.

* * * *

III. Porphyry

Tuesday, February 3rd 2026.

Over the next thirty years, Elodie visited Fontainebleau numerous times, always passing by the room and discreetly opening its door whenever the opportunity arose. Invariably, she found it crammed with crates and unused furniture. But finally, a day arrived when the room was empty.

At sixty, she was a highly successful music producer. Her hair, now a stately steel-grey, her body still slim, lithe and glowing with health. Above all, she was happy. But the enigma of that room continued to perplex her. So, over several years, she had microanalysed everything that had occurred within those walls on that winter's day in 1986. Crucially, she distinctly remembered her knuckles hitting the wall's wooden panelling at a point about a metre above the floor.

Now, she miraculously found the exact spot and saw a slim slat that had never been stuccoed over. She tapped it hard, and immediately she heard the whirring, grinding and clicking of some hidden mechanism. Turning rapidly to the far wall, she gasped as a door-sized panel slid aside to reveal a dark passageway with the grinning, grotesque mask of a satyr set above it. In clear light, she could see that the face was intricately carved and beautifully painted.

She activated her phone's torch and cautiously peered into the darkness. Steep stone steps led down, and before long, she entered a spacious and ornately decorated grotto. Water flowed from urns set into the walls, then into a stream that surrounded a low central plinth. Most notably, the room was strangely warm.

At the centre of the plinth sat the life-sized statue of a satyr. Awestruck, Elodie walked all the way around it, admiring its artistry, then she climbed up to look at its face. It was breathtaking work, carved of a rich purplish-red stone and highly polished.

"Porphyry," she whispered.

Glancing down, she saw that the artist had not neglected to endow his creation with a magnificent erect cock. She set her phone down in the crook of the satyr's elbow, where the torchlight eerily illuminated his face. She then shed her clothes and untied her hair. Wanton and willing, she rubbed her labia upon the stone head of the statue's cock and found it surprisingly warm. Staring at the statue's hooded eyes and sly smile, she found the strangeness and novelty of the experience hugely arousing. Her pussy soon responded, dripped with nectar onto the veined, purple stone cock. Elodie leant forward and swiftly eased the entire curving shaft deep into her pussy. The fit was perfect and the sensation immensely satisfying.

As the satyr looked on, she fucked his adamantine shaft with growing lust and delirious abandon. Vaguely, she realised that the hidden door had closed, but she didn't care. Time faded away from her until her pussy tingled, pulsed and raged. She came with a primal, bestial growl that took her completely by surprise. After that, she rested for a long while with the stone cock still deep inside her, before finally raising her body. She looked again at the statue's face and decided that she had not quite paid him homage enough, so she knelt and licked his glistening purple cock with loving reverence. It tasted of her own ambrosia, but she was also reminded of thrilling thunderstorms and nourishing rains, of cosy fires on winter nights and, above all, of the mystery and magnificence of Fontainebleu.