The Choice

The night was haunting with its shades of dark shadows overlain with lacey patterns of moonlight filtering in through the ancient oak spread out like a canopy above me. Leaning against the rough trunk of the tree and feeling its hard scratchy surface against my back, I sat there, feeling the pulse of the Earth Mother beneath my hands I had pressed to her surface. Skin glowing creamy where the moon kissed it in dappled patterns I closed my eyes listening, straining for a sound that I was so desperate to hear. The light from the lantern I had brought with me flickered dimly.

Without realizing it I clenched tufts of grass, leaves and deadfall in my palms, my breath shallow and as silent as I could make it. I began praying in earnest for his safe arrival. These were dark and dangerous times for anyone to be out at this time of night and worse to be caught within the ancient Sacred Circle of Oaks. To be caught here carried with it the penalty of death for those not introduced to the circle. He had told me long ago that he had been introduced, I on the other hand had as of yet not. Some yet among us carried on the ways of the Old Ones.

He would come, I knew he would. How could he not? We had been meeting here for the past year now. Today would be the one-year anniversary of our weekly trysts here in the grove. No sound greeted my straining ears save for the chirping of crickets and an owl as it called out a greeting while passing over head in search of its supper. Opening my eyes I looked into the darkness above silently pleading. A chill kissed my skin as a breeze playfully passed over my naked body. I had chosen to honor this night and my lover in this manner, it seemed fitting. I had left my rough linen shift and kirtle just outside the circle where I had taken it off, folded it carefully and left it beneath an Ash tree.

Standing up and walking around the inner perimeter of the circle of gnarled, twisting Oaks, I knew each trees shape and form now from coming here each week for a year. I had marked in my mind their growth, the texture of their bark beneath my trailing hands. They knew me even if the circle had not been made aware of my presence according to the ways of the Old Ones. Oh yes, they knew me and perhaps better than anyone save for my secret lover, their view of me very intimate indeed. A cool mist began to reach with tender tentacles into the grove. Pausing I watched its wraith like undulations. It would be foggy by the time I went home. This fact didn't concern me half as bad as possibly getting caught; I knew my way home in complete darkness even.

A soft coughing sound behind me gave testament that he had arrived. Turning I watched him walk out of the gathering fog behind him, ropes of twisting pale mist yet clinging to him as he strode confidently into the grove. He had always reminded me of someone but I could never place who it was. It always gave me a start to see him, tall, very tall with a wild thatch of dark curling hair upon the most aristocratic and elegant face I had ever seen. He resembled me in so many ways, the same familiar dark Irish looks, piercing green eyes flecked with a bit of the Irish gold twinkled when the light was just right. Right now they did not twinkle so much as they glowed of some unearthly green smoky fires. I stepped towards him and stopped. He was a vision. My body so familiar with his touch was already responding just by the sight of him.

He was staring at me, my choice of coming without clothing achieved a startled look from him and I could see the lusty fire leap into his eyes. "Even after a year" he breathed.

"A year..." I echoed as he walked towards me, hands out before him, hands I knew so well, work worn, rough, tender. The fire in my body grew fanned by just the visage of him. Pulling me against him our bodies spooning neatly fit together as if one and not two. It felt so right to be here with him so normal.

His dark head bent down to reach mine upturned to his. We kissed each other in greeting, as if more than but a week had past, as if our lives now depended on it. Tongues thrusting urgently tasting, tangled together they wove their own passionate dance. Pressing myself closer I felt his back beneath my hands, hard and well muscled, I could feel beneath his rough garments.

Both of us were removing his garments not ceasing our kiss. They fell like discarded rags about our feet and then he was pulling me down to the mossy ground at the base of our tree. Neither of us speaking any words, only the language the most intimate of lovers know. His hands moved against my breast, teasing the puckered nipple, he was enjoying the feel of it rolling it back and forth beneath his thumb. Breaking our kiss and moving to the hollow of my throat he rained his kisses upon my skin, moving down lower slowly, his tongue like fire branding my skin. Squeezing my nipple elicited a gasp from me and a chuckle from him. I pushed my hips up towards his body showing my desperate need of him. He laughed slowly and squeezed again, harder this time. Gasping he chuckled, his other hand supporting him he looked down on me from where he lay upon me. "Hot... so hot you are my witch."

I traced my hand along his stomach, its little pooch there well known to me, lower across the path of hair that lead in a direct line to his throbbing swelling member. Grasping it in my hand it was my turn to be rewarded by a sigh and a small moan of anticipation. My other hand cupped his heavy balls and gently teased him. "Woman... you're the death of me"

He lowered himself slightly grasping my turgid nipple between his teeth and gently bit down grating his teeth against it softly at the same time his hand found my wet nectar between my legs. He rubbed against my clit with the side of a finger and then plunged one inside my slick wetness. Thrusting my hips up to meet him I wanted him to impale me.

"Not so fast dear one..." he stopped doing what he was doing, shifted his weight so he was on his knees. He parted my legs with one of his knees and then knelt between them. With one large hand he grasped my two and pinned them above my head. "My turn my little witch. My turn to play. He reached back to the pile of clothes there and felt for something. Finding it he brought it up for me to see, his belt. He smiled down on me. I looked at it then met his eyes. "Like I said, my turn." Pulling my hands he drug me to a sitting position. "Put them behind you my love." I hesitated only a moment and then complied. "There's a good girl then." He quickly strapped my hands behind my back at my waist.

With one hand behind my head he pushed against my chest gently. "Lie back, let me have my way with you..." I was laying upon my hands but I didn't mind. He was now bent over my dark moist slit his tongue gently probing, teasing my clit and my labia. His other hand was massaging and kneading my breast. Inserting first one, then two fingers into me vibrating them and twisting up and down I moved against his hand needing more, gods I needed more. He chuckled. "Not enough?" I shook my head. How could I convey how desperate my need was? No words could convey the ache that filled me so exquisitely with such sweet painful need.

Three then four fingers he pushed into me and I craved more, I wanted to be lost in this feeling forever. I ached, I yearned, and I burned in my need for something elusive that was always just out of reach. He pinched my nipple then hard between his finger and thumb and with his other hand he began pushing his entire hand within me. I yelped in pain, such sweet pain and arched my back totally unaware now of neither my hands beneath me nor the hard ground beneath me. Slowly he pushed in deeper while never letting up on his nipple torture, twisting, pulling, squeezing. I moaned loosing myself in the moment, completely surrendering myself to him. My body now just a mass of needing, quaking nerves and desire incomplete and unsatisfied. Something deep within me stirred again to life.

Slowly he curled his hand making a fist within me and started to move up and down twisting. Reaching down he bit my clit at the same time he pushed deeper into me and twisted my nipple while pulling it. I screamed my pain, my pleasure, and fell off the edge of something in my mind. Blackness filled me with only my body the only entity present, my mind had fled and all logical thought with it. Time had no meaning nothing did but his assault on my body and senses. I didn't want to go back to any sort of reality but wanted to stay here floating on this plane. Deeper he plunged into me harder his increasing tempo being met by my body thrusting upwards to meet his. I could no longer hear anything very clearly and I let go of anything holding me back and just became something that felt, that craved more, that would never ever again be satiated.

I didn't know when I became aware of it but there were now more hands on me. I opened my eyes and was rewarded with a hand slapped over my eyes. "Blindfold her" someone unknown spoke above me. Logan, my dear lover whispered "Keep your eyes tightly closed dear one, I've a special treat for you tonight as well." I didn't want to obey but I did. I felt the hand go and then return to tie a thick bit of material around my eyes. Someone else lifted my head and someone tied it behind my head tightly. I was now blinded but I could count, that made six hands, three people were now here.

"Shh... Trust me Nerissa. Enjoy my gift to you, to us, for our one-year anniversary." Logan began thrusting his hand into my pussy again and then returned to nibbling my clit. Someone else took over massaging my breasts, teasing and torturing both nipples at the same time. Someone else was pushing up my legs in the air and I gasped when I felt another person playing with the puckered hole of my ass. Four people were now here. Logan, someone torturing my breasts, someone holding both my legs up in the air and now someone pushing a finger against my asshole.

I shook my head back and forth and Logan whispered again... "Relax Rissa, tonight is about you, I want you to finally get your wish and find that elusive spot always out of reach for you. I have so often wanted to take you there myself but decided that many hands make light the work. You will experience all you have every craved this night. Tonight we can become one again." He crooned softly, his voice husky with his lust. "Surrender, give yourself over to me completely small one."

And then there were two fingers in my ass, stretching me wider, Logan was pumping my pussy with his fist, his fingers scraping the inside of the walls of my slick velvet tunnel softly as my breast were now being man handled masterfully. The pain became pleasure, the pleasure pain. It was getting mixed up and I couldn't think. Couldn't respond by any means other than moans and occasional yelps of pain. "Shh... relax pet, go deeper, feel... all you have to do is feel. Nothing else. Do not think, just... feel."

"Easy now Rissa... trust me." He crooned again. Someone else a fifth person I questioned but a moment began to drip a fiery hot liquid on my stomach. Wax, my mind was able to at least filter that. Three fingers plunged into my ass now working deeper into me the same time Logans' fist never ceased in driving deeper into me twisting softly. My breasts were being twisted and pulled, and squeezed harder. I let go then. There was nowhere else to go.

Giving myself over to the sensation I yielded every breath to him, he that was conquering me, my very soul. The person holding my legs pushed them further open stretching my slit wide open, I could feel the pulling sensation just short of tearing. I thrashed my head back and forth moaning softly. I didn't want this to end, wanted to stay right here forever. I wanted somehow, I craved more. What was wrong with me? The pain was intense, as too was the pleasure it wrought.

"Give me that." I heard Logan faintly say as he pulled his hand out from inside my honey drenched pussy. With one hand he separated my labia further and then I felt acute pain like I had never felt before. My body leapt off the ground and someone's hand pushed me back down keeping a hand on my quivering stomach so I could not move. Hot wax was dripping down on to my clit. I screamed and a hand clamped over my mouth. "Shh... someone could hear you!" I heard a man's voice say.

The fingers in my ass turned into a hand and were pushing up deeper in me, impaling me. My breasts were being bound by something that felt rough and scratchy, like rope. Tighter they were being tied. The pain was getting to be too much. "Let go Rissa! Let go... let it go..." Logan kept repeating. "Give in to me, surrender, let me have your pain, each of your tears, let me count them and hold them to my heart with joy." More wax spilled onto my bruised nipples and the searing pain was too much. I screamed into the hand. I felt a hand plunged back into my pussy alternating pace with the hand in my ass. I was being filled up and waves of pain and pleasure were alternating in my mind becoming one and the same, separate yet joined.

"Let go Rissa, now!" I did and then things changed somehow. Pain was no more, it was all pleasure and I was riding the crest of it as it washed over me. My back arched off the ground and my body shuddered as wave after wave of pleasure sent me spiraling into an orgasm that ripped from my body anything of what was and replaced it with only the now, only this one moment in time. It was his gift to me and I yielded to the force of it.

Orgasm rippled into orgasm. I couldn't think, couldn't respond, only my body could. It was responding to the hands that were guiding it from this plane to another. I forgot about my new husband at home, forgot about the witch hunt going on in our town and the eyes that glared at me suspiciously from behind each window as I walked by. There existed now only this moment. Now I surrendered to him and gave him all that was I, my final gift to him.

Slowly I pulled out of the fog, I could hear Logan talking to me softly, coaxing me back from the elsewhere that I had been. I had the oddest sensation and not for the first time either that this was not real, that this was of another time, another place. I struggled to come out of the deep fog that was clouding my brain, logic and illogical became twisted up. Slowly though awareness seeped in. I could hear Logan, the crickets. The blind fold was gone and so too the ropes that had bound my breasts so torturously. My hands were free and unbound as well. I struggled to sit up and he restrained me. "Easy my little witch... slowly... there is but a little bit of time left for us here."

I tried to comprehend what that meant and could only feel my used up body still tingling, still on fire, still bruised but so thoroughly ravished. I was spent but didn't want to return. I was able to see clearly now and Logans piercing green eyes looked at me in concern. "You okay my love?"

I nodded, my throat too parched to speak yet. I noticed another man standing behind Logan, a big man with dark sandy blonde hair, blue eyes that looked at me strangely. A chill crept over me. I had never seen him before but I suddenly felt alarmed. "Shh Rissa, he's a friend, so too were the others but they have left now. This is my friend Gable. Gab... meet Rissa."

The blonde man smiled a thin tight-lipped smile and bowed stiffly. I didn't like him. I had no cause but the way he was staring at me made me feel uncomfortable. "Gab and I go back a very... long way he and I, indeed, we all do." He looked pointedly at Gab and then at me.

"Where are..."

"The others?" I nodded. "They had to go back to where we come from. You don't know yet Rissa?"

I stared at him puzzled thinking I must still be in a fog and not comprehending. "Rissa?"

Looking up at him I waited for him to explain something that I knew I didn't want to hear. "Rissa... I am your astral lover you summoned a year ago. Don't you remember the spell you made, the one to rejoin you with a love of your past?"

"You... you... you're not..." I stammered half from lack of voice, half from a sudden dread that washed over me like ice water on a fainted drunk.

"Not real... yes and no. We are but we are not of your time. We are from a past, one of our pasts. We knew each other then as real as you and your husband Marcus do, we knew each other just as real Nerissa but we have not yet been able to join up at the same time again where we are both in the same plane. You summoned me, I came but now... now our time has ended. Our one-year and one day ends now. It became a year and a day after the high night hour. We can no longer meet like this. A time has come where you have to join me or remain here with your time, with your husband, your life. You will shortly be given a choice. With that he began to fade and so too did the portly man Gab. My vision of them wavered, flickering in and out and then Gab was gone entirely. Only Logan remained a slight shimmering image superimposed against the backdrop of trees.

"Don't go Logan..." I pleaded. "I... need you!"

"It can not be helped Nerissa, it has to be this way my love. Join me if you like or yet remain. Perhaps another time if you decide to stay. I will understand and always love you..." his voiced faded long after his body. I was now alone in the forest. I sat up fully now hugging my knees to my bruised body. I was sore, sore in a good way but heart sore now too. I didn't want him to go. I couldn't understand how all this could have been real. I bore testament to my body that it had been real. My pussy ached, my ass, my breasts. I closed my eyes and could feel a flutter in my stomach. I wanted more but was thoroughly satisfied. I wanted to feel Logan's arms around me again. Silent tears slid down my cheeks.

I sat there until I could feel the pulse of the Earth Mother once again beneath me. The chill of the night started to lie heavily upon my skin and I knew I could sit here no longer wondering, pondering, and trying to make any sense of it. Shakily I got up and walked out of the grove of trees slowly. I went to the place where my clothes were and laying upon it was heavy chain with a heavy oval medallion about the size of the span of a circle made with finger and thumb. In the center of it lay within heavy prongs a moonstone, the stone of female power. I put it on first above anything else of mine and felt its coldness between my breasts. I was sure it was a gift from my astral lover Logan. Who else would have left it there for me? I smiled and touched it feeling its weight heavy around my neck.

I put back on my shift and kirtle and slid my feet into my deer hide boots that a man had made for me in town and started to walk back home. The moon was yet bright enough for me to see my way back clearly. I judged it to be around 2 hours past the high night so I had plenty of time to get home, sneak in and drop into bed much as I had been doing for the past year. The fog had been only around the outside of the grove and had not seeped nearer to town unfortunately. It would have been nice to use it for cover.

As I neared town I became stealthier in my footsteps, more aware of where I put each foot. It would do me no good to be caught walking through the woods at this hour of the early morning. I had a choice now to make, go through town sticking to the shadows or cut across Murthy's home into our own back yard. I chose Murthy's land to cut across rather then risk being seen in town. Some of those women had nothing better to do at night then peer from their windows watching, waiting, and they called me a witch!

The land was easier to walk as it had been well tended. Old man Murthy grew most of the local produce through the year. I liked him well enough, but his wife was one viperous gossip. Cautiously I kept my eyes on their house ready to bolt back into the woods if it looked as if anyone were yet awake. The house was dark. I walked across the field and made it safely to my own home, Marcus' and mine. I sighed in relief audibly. The back door looked friendly after traversing the Murthy's place. Gently I opened the door, the house all dark. Walking across our kitchen I was careful to not bump into a chair and wake up Marcus. Then suddenly lights were lit from the living room. Marcus was standing there looking at me sadly, shaking his head.