The Archipelago

The isle is isolated in the harsh North Sea; it can be found on something like Google maps but you would be forgiven for having never heard of it ... few have. Danish for administrative purposes, the people there are culturally a loose stew of Scottish and Norwegian; and all three countries ignore us. That, more than anything, is why ancient customs and ways have persisted. There was no radio or television until satellite dishes brought it first a few decades ago, and few on the isle can afford the luxury. What radio signals we can receive are Norwegian, and we listen mostly for the music. Farming and sheep, fishing and a local distillery producing a small amount of single malt sustains the locals, there are relatively few visitors.

God's will and fate had brought me. The previous vicar had served the tiny parish for nearly 60 years. With his passing it still took the denomination the better part of 2 years to send a replacement. I was a worldly and sophisticated man then, possessing advanced education. The isle was home to a doctor, the practice of Dr. Thomas Stewart. There was also a lawyer who lived on the isle for 2 months each summer. It was Dr. Stewart who initiated me into the circle of things and I can admire in retrospect his skill and insight regarding me. I know more now, and less.

My wife is Lily. She was a lovely woman, black-haired, olive-skinned, diminutive; on the slender side of voluptuous, the beauty of the Mediterranean, though she was British. She was reserved and a bit prudish when I met her. She had been an indifferent lover as well when we married, but her physical beauty compensated. It wasn't that she was cold, rather it was like she was a flower that had yet to bloom, become with a pleasant melancholy loneliness that hued of romantic tragedy. I loved her breasts, and I know that she was proud of them, of the effect her beauty had on me, and even on other men. She was prudish, yes, but not wholly foolish; she enjoyed being so desirable in a modest naive way. I was, despite her reserved nature, quite in love with her.

We had only been married for 6 years. I was 32 and she was 10 years younger when we were wed. Truth be told, the draw to the little isle had called to me for all of that time and more. I had served a stint here as a student, covering for the late vicar during a convalescent period, and there was something solitary, beautiful, and enchanting about this far off place; much like Lily. Lily was less enthusiastic, she saw the move for what it was, a lonesome sojourn to a secluded place. During this, we had been endeavoring fruitlessly to start a family. Perhaps, the weight of that drove my fervent calling to this place as a way of coping, for Lily just the stress of it accentuated her lonely despair, the floundering to conceive taken as a personal failure.

Dr. Stewart was a lean, vigorous man in his middling sixties, entirely charming in a bookish yet extroverted way. His history with the island was long and personal, He had birthed children, treated the sick and injured, shepherded the old and infirm to death. The sheer history imbued within him of the people, the places, and the stories was riveting. Lily was less enthusiastic, but she was a good and proper minister's wife and satisfied with her role of housekeeper; as the islanders warmed to her, she found a fledgling happiness.

Stewart and I would walk. Sometimes in the highlands, sometimes along the shore. The matters seemed unremarkable until the day he took me off to the bluffs for a chat. Stewart had an extensive library on primitive religions, on the rituals and ceremonies found in native cultures. From the Vikings to the Amazon, the Celtic druids to the tribes of the high Andes; there was a particular fascination with the practices and methods of the Christian inquisitions and the ways that suffering intersected with desire. I recall we discussed these things over a bottle of greek wine; the Christian eucharist, and the mission of the Church. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross and how it had forged the temperament of the early Church. I mused openly that perhaps the sacrificial rites of others tried to borrow from this perhaps to add to the strength and vitality of the community. It was something toward invigorating, influenced by the wine, to consider the sacrifice of nubile young women; one woman chosen from a community, honored and defiled, then slain and perhaps even communally shared. I said, might well provide a sort of soul and focus for a primitive society.

Stewart seemed amused. "Suppose it was your own wife, How would you feel?"

It gave me a chill; I sensed he meant more than he said. "I love Lily, it's sacrilege to even think about it" I said a bit indignantly.

"Hypothetically, of course. If centuries ago, it was your Lily was naked on some pagan altar, and you were handed a ceremonial knife. For the good of all, could you do it then? For the good of the community?"

"It's a hateful notion," I protested. But somehow I could picture it; Robin, the darkness, the knife descending into the olive skin of her naked breast, the welling of hot blood. It was curiously and shamefully arousing.

"It needn't be hateful," Stewart said reasonably. "Mostly certainly erotic, though, don't you think? Powerfully, darkly erotic. And yet it may be loving as well." Dr. Stewart shrugged and laughed through the warmth of the wine, dismissing the topic. "Quite a discussion, don't you think? Here in the very soul of druid country?" He dropped it; I was grateful but I did indeed find it arousing.

We discussed other things, and eventually returned to our homes, a pleasant afternoon away from the demands of the surgery. I liked Stewart. He was eccentric, but a gentle sort. His patients were devoted to him. When I let him off at his cottage, he touched my wrist. "Do this. The next time you're with your wife. Between the fifth and six rib, say, a deep cut from the side to the sternum. That will open her chest adequately. Just think about it."

"You're a filthy perverted bastard," I said, laughing dismissively. My face grew hot.

He laughed himself as he got out. "I am at that. You'll have to come see my library sometime."

I thought nothing of it the next morning when Dr. Stewart saw Lily as a patient. After lunch, Stewart and I walked to the square; he lit his pipe as we sat on a bench. "Let me see. You took off her nightie under the pretext of fondling her, you discovered that to get to her properly, you'd have to more or less cut through the mass of her breast. The idea inflamed you, and you made love to her a bit aggressively, yes? Pinned her arms over her head, bit her breasts perhaps?"

I flushed deeply. "That is indecent, Stewart," I gasped ... but I had in fact more or less done what he said. Lily's breasts were large, full and elegantly firm; they would have gotten in the way of any incision. And the secret exploration had aroused me.

"Yes, but accurate? And she surprised you, didn't she? She rather liked the truculence, multiple orgasms and all that."

That too was true; a first for Lily, who often had no orgasm at all. "She told you this?" it was something between a demand and an exclamation. "I know you saw her this morning."

Stewart laughed heartily. "No, no no ... She didn't ... You told me yourself, Jon; it's not so much that you're transparent, but the simple fact that most men have that dark impulse. A rare handful of women find it terribly arousing. If one is observant, he can recognize these women. Lily is one such a woman. I'm sure of it."

"Stewart, damn you, what are you getting at?"

He looked at me shrewdly. "You'll see. In good time, you'll understand me. You're a bit muddled by civilization, that's all. We're past the edge of society on our lonely little island. You'll see

soon enough."

"Riddles, Stewart?" I was more muddled than upset; the shameful notion had been exciting, but I wanted to drop the subject altogether.

"I've a one o'clock at the surgery, so I should get back." was all he said.

I had been aroused, and a bit rough with Lily, handling her a bit, pinching and forcing her. She had responded with astonishing, violent orgasms. After, she had been resentful; I was apologetic. But she had had orgasms, not a simple, hard-won orgasm, as was seldom and sporadically her response. It wasn't, at any extent, something I wanted to discuss with a colleague.

Stewart showed me a bookcase in his office before we left for the day; Scores of books; on the history of the isles and archipelagos of the North Sea, on paganism, sacrificial rites, and the like. "So you're a filthy, perverted scholar?" I asked.

He laughed. "I'll have you and your wife to my cottage some evening. That's where most of my collection is. I have some remarkable artifacts and devices as well. You see, it is more than a hobby with me. Your musing of the other day may well have validity, you know."

"My musings?"

"That rituals can be a benefit for peoples and communities."

"So much blather, Stewart," I said with sheepish embarrassment. "You didn't tell me you were an authority."

"You didn't ask," Stewart smiled without disdain. He offered me several books on Druid practices; I took them, a bit embarrassed at my presumptuous pronouncements of the earlier afternoon.

He distressed me, but I quite forgot about the exchange by the time I got home, and spent a pleasant evening with my lovely Lily. It was a vision of tranquil domesticity, and I was indeed happy.

I perused the books Stewart had given me. I was mildly surprised to discover two of them were written by Stewart himself; one on the Druid faith, and the other on Pagan rituals. Stewart wrote at length on the social and moral implications of the practice, of how sexual behavior wove together with culture. He saw such it as positive and sustainable in the fabric of a society, and his arguments were quite compelling. The other book gave a more general description of Druid beliefs, and I was surprised to discover that the tenets of that faith were good and wholesome, the sacrifice of women notwithstanding. I read until Lily had finished with the chores of the household, and then my thoughts turned to my lovely wife and her passion of the previous night.

She was reluctant when we retired, and when I tried to remove her thin gown; she fussed and protested. I was a bit aggressive; she had responded to that the night before and I actually tore the fabric, and thus exposed what she had been trying to conceal. There were faint gray marks on her chest; the kind made with a surgical marker, black lines to delineate an incision on the skin. They were faded from much washing and scrubbing, but still apparent. One line described the shape of her heart where it lay beneath her breastbone. Another started beneath her armpit, curved under her breast where her breast met her ribs and traveled upward to her breastbone, above her heart. A third line started the same, but traversed her breast, crossing her bulbous nipple, ending again above her heart. "What is this?" I demanded, furious. "What the devil is this?" I knew: her heart, and prospective incisions to reach it. Stewart had done this.

"Jon, don't be angry, please, god please! Dr. Stewart was showing me was all. I didn't mean to encourage him, but we were talking about the history of the island and one thing led to another. It wasn't anything."

"Then what the devil is this? Explain it to me."

"It's my fault. I was curious. Dr. Stewart studies pagan rites, you see. And I. I asked him."

"You asked him to draw on your chest?"

She lay back, her eyes dark, far away and lonely. "There used to be Druids and Vikings here, you know. On this island. And they sacrificed young women. So I asked him, how did they do it? And I- well, he's an old man anyway, and he can be charming. He was rather playful. So I took my blouse and brassiere off and he showed me. He drew my heart where it lay in my chest. Then he said my breast was in the way, and they might have to cut it away. That was the first mark-" she guided my hand under her breast, following the line along her ribs, curving up to her sternum- "said he'd have to take my breast away to expose the ribs, then cut between my ribs."

Lily swallowed, watching me with guilty apprehension. "He was so cheerful, chatting me up. He rather fondled me a bit- I should have stopped it, I know, but he's ... i got carried away. Then he said the other way was to cut through my breast, and he pushed it around on my chest so his knife- his marker went directly through my breast, through my nipple-" she guided my hand across her flesh- "And that would be a bit quicker. Then he told me how they would open a woman's chest, reach in and cut this and that, quickly, and that if it was done properly she could see her own heart quivering alive. Before she passed on."

Lily swallowed, shivering. "It was my fault; I shouldn't have even asked, and I shouldn't have let him, and I should have stopped him. I tried to wash it off, but-" she smiled weakly and shrugged. "He'd already done a breast exam, that and a Pap smear. He'd already touched me intimately. I'd put my clothes back on. It really was my fault."

"I'll rip his bloody heart out. He had no blasted right-"

"No. Don't. Please. You'll only embarrass me. Please?" Lily touched me, kissed and caressed me urgently. "Please?"

"I'll have words with him, you can be assured-" She kissed me.

"No. Don't speak of it. Please? Don't. Not at all. It was my fault. I was wicked. Don't blame him." Robin lifted her breasts to me, a wanton gesture foreign to her. "You like my breasts, my tennis-ball nipples. It shouldn't surprise you that other men admire them."

"Other men don't draw on my wife's breasts." My anger was boiling its way to lust; Her nipples were erect and her eyes dark. 'Tennis balls' she called them, pips of nipples amidst areolas that swelled prodigiously, darkly pigmented, brownish-red and smooth. I didn't love Lily for her breasts, but I certainly loved her breasts. I was aroused, and she knew it. A line across her breast, ending above her heart. I touched her breast; it would be perhaps easier to push it aside to make the incision; more truculent to cut straight through, and then into the pectoral muscle. I was aroused. I kissed her deeply.

"Like last night?" she whispered, her lips trembling.

I'm not a cruel man, but the hunger and outrage provoked by Stewart's meddling in our intimate life drove me almost to excess. Lily responded as she had the previous night; it was a revelation that crude rutting excited her more than tender considerations.

Afterward, she watched me tenderly, as I cleaned and dressed her left breast were my teeth had broken the tender skin. "I do love you, Jonathon. You know that, don't you?"

"I suppose I do."

"Please don't mention this to Stewart? Please?"

"Why? Why would you want to protect him?" My anger was spent, it left turmoil, confusion, and guilt.

We lay in silence, sleep came fitfully to both of us. Later I was determined not to apologize for injuring her breast; her nipple was swollen and discolored as well as bleeding. "I'll let it be," I said, a small act of contrition for having hurt her. Had Stewart seduced her? She said not. Perhaps he couldn't even achieve an erection; perhaps that was why he resorted to fondling my wife in the surgery. She had never lied to me before, so I dismissed my suspicions.

"Thank you," she said. She curled against me to sleep; I was aroused again, but my feelings shamed me; I turned away from her and slept myself. I slept well; despite Stewart's horrid behavior, I felt terribly virile. I could excite her. The dark beast in me had awoken, and the beast hungered.

Lily's breast healed; and we both avoided the topic, choosing awkwardness of not confronting the emotions, we resumed more temperate lovemaking, and I began reading Stewart's library more widely. He was pleased at my interest. I was surprised to discover that the last public sacrifice the island was done in 1934, practically in modern times; in the text there was no mention of prosecution, nor any repercussions at all, simply that that had been the last public sacrifices, a young woman noted for her beauty and her gentle ways, savored and indulged in by the people here. The ritual had been conducted on a bluff at the east end of the island.

I went there one gray afternoon, and discovered a slab of limestone set up on a rise, weathered and overgrown, but clearly where the deed had been done. My fascination with the rite was neither scholarly nor innocent; Stewart had encouraged me cheerfully, both in the study of Druids and in the dark practices of ancient faiths. Standing on the bluff, under that grey sky, standing with my hips against the stone I could imagine the event, the naked body, the the men ... the "taking" of it. I could well imagine the young woman struggling, screaming; the text, though said she'd given herself "gently and willingly, as was befitting."

Later, I asked Stewart about the slab on the bluff; he confirmed that it had been the altar. He mentioned quite casually that Lily had discovered a small medallion near the altar, silver and badly corroded, but nonetheless a artifact of old beliefs.

"She was there???"

"I took her myself, just last week."

"You took her there?" I asked. I was distressed; I hadn't known Robin was interested as well; nor had I known she'd been with him.

"She didn't tell you? She found it all rather fascinating."

"No. She didn't."

I let him change the subject to other matters of idle concern to the community. I didn't ask, but I wondered. Why had Lily been with him and said nothing? Why had the two of them gone there, of all places? Had she, out of curiosity or Stewart's persuasion, lain on that ancient altar? And if she had, what then? The questions were endless and distressing; I tried to ignore the matter, and to dismiss my own misgivings. Lily was her own woman, certainly, but I had the distressing sense of concealment and betrayal. She had recently come by a small medallion and she wore it on a chain between her breasts, the silver too weathered to be recognizable. She told me she bought it. I did not, later, ask her about the business on the bluff. It distressed me, but I didn't dare ask. I felt vaguely guilty as well; for when I pictured Lily on the bluff, laid out on the ancient altar, she was always naked, and it was with strangers bearing themselves upon her ... and then thought aroused me hungrily.

A short time we were invited to Thomas's home for a small dinner party. The guests, besides Lily and myself, were Eric, a black man who was the butcher in the village. A Danish man named Lukas who was the local magistrate, and a young woman named Wendy, who was apparently a simple clerk at the druggist's. Curious company, perhaps, but each was unique. Eric was a handsome, muscular man. He was a butcher, yes, but educated, erudite, and charming, though rather blunt and forward. He took to Lily immediately, and she blushed in his interest. I found something oddly cold about him. Wendy, was blonde, slender, a golden Nordic sort with a face that was cute rather than beautiful. She was in her early twenties just a few years younger than Lily, and spoke little, though she was quite engaged with the conversation. She had a poise, almost a serenity about her that was unusual. It appealed to me, though I admit I showed interest in her as much because Eric was so taken with attention for Lily.

The evening went along quite pleasantly, he served a French filet of sole and a fine French burgundy. After, Thomas suggested we look at the artifacts he had in his study, Druid artifacts and oddities from the middle ages. There was a screw operated expanding "pear", a binding horse with a steep edge for the victim to sit upon. There was a low stock that was only about 2 feet off the ground. Wendy demurred and asked me to accompany her to the garden. I rather wanted to explore Thomas's collection, but followed her, to Lily's playful unspoken amusement. There was nothing remarkable about Wendy; she wasn't educated, nor witty, nor sexual, though there was a sensuality about her. Just the same, there was a glow, a serenity, a goodness about her that I fairly warmed myself on. We admired his garden and chatted lightly. It was she, finally, who suggested we go back inside.