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The
Taking
By rory doulos
rory8535@hotmail.com
The tropical storm off the coast was
bringing in gale-force winds d temperatures in the 50's. While it wasn't
raining now, the ground was saturated. The trees were soaked and
dripping, flinging water when the winds tossed them. It was a very black
night. High, dense clouds moving fast, scudding across the stars, which
showed in dim little sparks now and again. The tops of the boundary
pines roared with the wind, and it whistled around corners and chattered
the wind chimes.
The dog looked at me askance as I slipped out the back door in my
terrycloth robe and tennis shoes, towel rolled up and tucked under one
arm. I stopped at the edge of the house, listening. I heard nothing but
the wind, and the chimes tinkling angrily in protest. The candle and
matches were in the robe's single pocket--I would use it, if it would
stay alight on this wild night. The hairs on the back of my neck felt
stiff from the cold, and not a little nervousness. I didn't want to be
here. I didn't want to perform this ritual.
I walked towards the rear of the property, skirting the first little
copse of trees. There was another one, further back. The ground
squelched under my feet and I shuddered. The wind whipped my robe back,
exposing my thighs to the cool, damp air. I let it go. I should probably
take the robe off, I was supposed to go naked. I didn't. I was already
shivering a bit, but I didn't try to hold the robe in place any longer.
A small compromise. I would be cold enough, before it was over.
I came to the little stand of trees and stood a moment, looking at the
sky. Lightning, off to the
north; it was far away. I walked in between the trees to give myself a
little cover. The ground wasn't much dryer underneath, but the trees
broke the wind some. I could hear the water dripping on the leaves. The
air was full of water, I was almost breathing it. The pine needles and
last season's dross made a bit of a carpet on the rocky ground.
I wedged the rolled towel between two branches of a crape myrtle.
Flinching a little, I took off my tennis shoes and placed them close to
the tree's base. The ground was cold and wet against my bare feet. The
candle and matches I placed in my shoes. The robe was last, draped over
the same branches that held the towel, hanging limp or flapping madly in
turns, depending on the wind. I turned my back to it, so as not to be
distracted, and then just stood a moment, breathing deeply of the wet
earth and pines and what the night wind carried.
my Lady was here.
There was no way to do it without getting wet and dirty. I gingerly went
down to my knees, then all fours, trying to clear my mind of everything
but my Lady. The wind shook water from the trees onto my bare skin,
causing me to flinch. I spread my knees a little further, then slid my
arms out together in front of me and pressed my face and shoulders down,
ass in the air, then further, deeper, shivering with cold. Looking for
that place I go, where my Lady waits, inside me. A spatter of water on
the small of my back. Beginning my mantra, first silently, then
whispering it softly, aloud, for comfort. Looking for the hole in my
world, where I fall out of it and into submission.
I don't know how long i spent that way, prostrated and open to my Lady. When
I knew it was time, I slowly brought myself back up to my knees,
brushing the wet dirt and leaves from my hands and forearms. I reached
behind me and took the candle and matches from my shoes and lit a match
with trembling fingers, still mumbling my mantra with lips and tongue
that felt swollen. I'd found the hole in the world, alright. I'd fallen
through.
The flame danced and flickered like a wild thing, and sometimes almost
guttered. I felt a bit wild myself. An ancient dryad, perhaps, with dead
leaves in her hair. A wood nymph kneeling in some long-ago wood,
lighting a candle in worship to her goddess. Just as I was doing now.
I knelt a while longer, my eyes on only the candle flame, my thoughts on
only my Lady; I don't know that I even shivered then. There was finally
wax enough, and I raised the candle and dripped it across my breasts,
whimpering a little when the hot wax hit my icy flesh. I dripped the wax
across both breasts and down my belly, then onto both thighs. Dribbling
the last of it onto my cunt, which felt hot and swollen in comparison to
the chilled rest of me, I cried out from the sudden sharp searing as a
drop splashed my clit.
With
trembling hands I carefully set the candle on the ground in front of me,
then lifted my arms and face to the sky, black and roiled with clouds,
and offered myself to my Lady. There was no need to search for her: she
was there, with a warm fingertip trailing up my spine, and hot breath on
the side of my throat.
And the taking was like liquid sucked through a straw--or blood drawn
from a vein into a tube.
After a while I could feel it was time to go, and went to put out the
candle--but it was out already. I stood slowly, my knees wobbly. Bracing
against the tree, I used the towel to clean away some of the dirt--and
the tears. I threw the robe over my shoulders, and placed the candle and
matches back in the pocket. Supporting myself once more against the
tree, I wiped and dried each foot before putting on each shoe. Then,
again shivering, and now blue-lipped with the cold, I wrapped myself
inside the robe, and slowly made my way back to the house.
Once inside I washed up a bit, too drained for more, and crawled into
bed. I pulled the covers up
to my chin, and just lay there, both floating, and as if pinned by a
heavy weight. The wind still howled around the corners of the house.
Rain spackled the windowpanes. Thunder rumbled, far off. But for a long
time before I fell into something like sleep, I lay thinking about that
drawing feeling... and the hunger that must have created it.
(c) rory doulos, 2003
Originally published in:
Consent, Issue #18,
Summer, 2003
~~~~~
Copyright 2003
This story is reprinted here with the explicit
permission of the author. If you would like to share it with others,
please link directly to this page or contact the author for permission.
It is a violation of copyright law to distribute or reprint this piece
without that permission, however you may include a short quote from it,
not more than 20% of the total text. Please respect the integrity of
this work.
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