As I often do on Saturdays closest to the Full Moon, I've run to the grocery store up the road to get last-minute items we'll need for tonight's ritual and feast. Bread, fruit, wine and candles - a lot of candles. I suspect we witches must keep the candle makers of the world in business. Working magic by electric light just doesn't have the same impact. It's August and hot as hell, and I'm wishing as I do at least six months of the year that we lived some place like the mountains of Montana instead of the sweaty south. Thank the Goddess we have begun to move toward working skyclad, ritually nude. The latest novices are still shy, like all novices, and have been reluctant to adopt this ancient and practical tradition. But we're preparing for initiations, and no one wears robes for that.
You and I have been together over a decade – this lifetime – and follow the Old Religion, that fertility cult the Church has expended so much energy trying to erase for the past two thousand years. As Priest and Priestess we lead our small congregation in the New and Full Moon celebrations called Esbats, along with eight High Holy Days or Sabbats. Every year or so we take on a new class of students or novices, folks who commit themselves to the study of our Craft. Most drop out after a few months, overwhelmed by the challenges sincere study requires of them. But occasionally a few hang on, eventually undergoing the mysterious process that admits them to the inner ranks of our coven.
The anticipation surrounding initiations is always fraught with tension, for our students and for us as well. Of course the public has all sorts of ideas of what the rite involves, and the students always gossip between themselves, searching the landslide of current books on Witchcraft for some inkling of what they'll be required to undergo. We know these ancient rites which open candidates to the power of Magic, manifested through the God and Goddess, and prepare for the demands they make upon us by eating moderately, drinking lots of water, resting more and remaining chaste for the week preceding the rites (the hardest of all the traditional requirements, especially for the two of us.)
It's late afternoon and the air has the heavy expectant feeling I associate with a building thunderstorm. Having a knack for weather magic, I figure I can work the impending storm tonight for good effect. I pull up our steep driveway and turn off the van, then open the sliding side door and grabbing the bags of groceries. You usually come out to help me unload when you're home, but I assume that you must be on the computer blasting aliens or maybe even cleaning the temple in preparation for tonight's rite.
Being careful to keep the cats in, I open the front door and immediately hear the moans of sexual ecstasy coming from the room that serves us as both den and temple space. "You sneaky rat", I think, assuming that you've decided to pop a porn flick into the VCR while I'm out and jerk off. Maybe I can tip toe in and manage to watch you masturbating, something I've always fantasized about, but never been lucky enough to catch. I set the grocery bags ever so carefully on the floor by the front door and step out of my sandals, then slip into the kitchen. Must be a new movie; I don't recognize the sound track. No repetitious music, just the muted sound of a woman whimpering and the rhythmical low moans of a man lost in pleasure, punctuated by the wet slap of flesh on turgid flesh.
I move stealthily to the corner just outside the den, hoping to finally have a chance to see you pleasuring yourself unawares. "Uunhhh, uunnh, yeahhh…!" The realism of the sounds from the film I assume you're watching intrigues me since we both complain about the lousy sound tracks that so often accompany porn films. "Mmmh, aahhh…" Shifting so that I can peek around the door jam, I snag my foot on something and notice a pile of white on the floor in front of me. You dropped some laundry, I think, until I realize I'm looking at a woman's sleeveless cotton blouse. Odd, I think.
Then, on the dark oak floor just inside the doorway to the den, a crumpled pair of cut-offs and more white – a strip of a bra and the tiniest pair of lacey panties I've ever seen, tossed down beside your tan shorts, and glistening with dew. "What the hell?!"
My brain just doesn't compute until I look up to see you leaning back on the futon couch on the far side of the temple room, a curvaceous redhead straddling your thighs and impaled on your dong. First, shock that leaves me weak in the knees, then the rush of arousal as I take in the amazing image of your straining rod slamming up into the fiery novice you've been lusting after.
