My tattered dress hung from my shoulders across my breasts and down my dirt-stained thighs. I thought of my failed marriage to a man who couldn't give but only knew his own needs. I thought of the children I gave birth to and how they probably wondered what happened to mama that she would disappear leaving them not even a letter to remember her by. I had been off my lithium for two weeks now. Long enough to feel the strange tides of raging emotions coursing through my mind and body leaving me lost in a torrent of confusion and despair.
By the darkening bank of the Menai Strait, separating Anglesey from the mainland, I found bliss in a bottle of whiskey, pouring out my sorrows to a blind beggar. His body was misshapen, grotesque. With hollow eyes, he stared out at me from the depths of his pain. My bottle being empty, as well as my soul, he offered me a shot of his elixir, promising it will wipe away the sorrows of yesterday and days before without end. I sipped and sunk into the depths of my mind into a swirling vortex into which I sunk deeper and deeper until only numbness remained.
When I awoke, a fire burned brightly, its smoke twisting into the star-filled sky like an angry serpent. Men, painted blue, danced around the fire, chanting in a language from beyond the veil separating civilization from the ancient Druids. The island of Anglesey in northwestern Wales had been the last refuge of the Druids. These rituals were from even farther back, before the Druids into a time of magic and mystery.
Standing like a specter, the wicker man stood ready for the torch. Unknown to me, I was to be sacrificed to the Goddess. My white lily tattoo substituted for a proper hymen inspection giving a false sign of me as a virgin. The lights of a jet plane blinked overhead as I was prepared for the ceremony. I lay on a cushion of pine branches in my white skirt with my bare breasts.
Two maidens, the attendants, painted my face and breasts with dark red ochre as I lay drugged awaiting my fate. The maidens helped me up and I stumbled toward the wicker man, in a daze. The maidens pushed me through an opening in the man and I found myself enclosed. The drugs began to wear off and I realized, with shock, where I was and what was about to happen. I had been traveling from London on vacation when I had been abducted in the forest of the ancient island. I had read of the rituals and knew what fate awaited me.
The two maidens lit torches and set fire to the wicker man. The flames leaped around me, angry tongues of fire ready to consume me. Suddenly I heard a cracking sound behind me. A tall slender woman was tearing the wicker man apart, plunging into the flames, seemingly immune to burning. She grabbed me, the sacrifice, around the waist rolling me over and over through the grass, snuffing out the flames.
The participants in this macabre ritual had long since vanished, in fear of this dark angel of the night, who had been known to steal the souls of villagers. The sacrificial victim, who was me, said "Thank God!! My name's Helen. You don't know how glad I am to see you!"
The strange rescuer repeated my name stumbling over it with her tongue "Helun." Then she pulled me, known to her as "Helun," down into the grass caressing me shaking body and covering me with kisses. My body that of Helen, shook with fear and pleasure until the dark stranger locked lips with me and blew champagne bubbles, whose origins were as mysterious as this dark lady, to fizz in my lungs. The sooty air from the burning man was purged by her breath scented like the air after a thunderstorm.
My memory slipped into the dark warm depths and I recited my name, Helen, to keep from forgetting it. I felt my heart throb in unison with the strangers like synchronized drums in this purgative courtship being sewn to the dark stranger's mind like a seamless quilt.
Awakening from a deep sleep, I was in a dark catacomb lying naked on a cold wet slab of rock. I smelled the dank air sweetened by the smell of burning sage. Flames from torches protruding from the wall illuminated the tall statuesque female form staring down at me. She wore a charcoal black evening gown, the gossamer clinging to her body in a symphony of soft curves. Her long flowing black hair hung down to her waist and her predatory eyes gazed at me glowing with an insatiable hunger. My body trembled in fear as she caressed the length of my torso, my breasts, and my sex. I thought of the lost years and the deep throbbing pain in the core of my being. I felt a strange peace settle over me, as though I was finally letting go of all the wounded years with him.
As she leaned down parting her ruby lips I knew I was to become one with her. My heartfelt fragile, like a tiny sparrow, while she leaned over me gently kissing me on the lips. She loosened her dress letting if fall as though she could read my thoughts.
Suddenly a vision of a brilliant red flower bursting into bloom flashed before my eyes. I felt as though I was afloat in a warm salty ocean of my own tears. I was a child again, reborn into a world beyond fear or death. Apocalyptic visions unfolded in my mind. I was floating in a dark sea of silence. The earth shimmered before me, a green and blue island of life in the pelagic ocean of stars. As I gazed on my natal world I saw darkness fall upon the seas. Cities glowed like spider webs in sunlight, glittering across the vast continents. With frightening suddenness, sparks flashed across the dark orb. The planet erupted in showers of fire, engulfing the whole sphere. The orb turned hideous red, signifying the end of the family of man and my own dear children, Claire and David.
Screams tore through my throat as my mistress lay down next to me on the slab. The warmth of her body coaxed me to relax. She pressed me to her breast, the scent of her warm fragrant breath filling my lungs as she kissed me. She whispered, "Don't fear child. No harm will come to us."
I held my head wailing as she caressed my bare breasts, licking my nipples. I threw my arms about flailing them and she wrapped her arms around me rocking me gently, her hips pressed against my pelvis. I yelled, "But what about my children?!!"
She grasped my face and stared into my eyes with an intense gaze that obliterated any resistance and I quieted. She spoke with an unyielding tone as I listened, my heart ablaze with terror. Her voice was soft but determined as she spoke the words which would wipe clean my life, birthing me into a new world. She said, "All those people you remember are simply phantoms from a former life. They will soon be dead."
In terror, I began to rise from the cold slab, but her grip was insistent. She placed her index finger on the folds of my sex, on my clit. I felt a flood of heat fill my body with the deepest craving. I began to squirm with the most overwhelming pleasure as she stroked my clit with her index finger with the delicateness of butterfly wings flapping. My thighs pressed together, compressing her hand against my sex as I writhed. She whispered, "Now you will know the power I can give you. Once you have tasted of it, you will never deny me anything."
I felt the throbbing of my sex grow in strength. My body surged with delicious pleasure until my orchid simmered with sweet tingling. Rapidly I felt a craving take over my conscious mind. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. I was consumed with a lust for her. Her body was luscious in the flickering torchlight. Her long dark hair cascaded across the slab. She offered herself to me.
She knelt bestride me offering her treasure to me in our sultry sacrament. I licked her fire feeling my fears fuel my hunger, fanning the flames of my desire. My fear for my life was transformed into a carnal desire which I could no longer resist. Making love to her was such a beautifully instinctual experience that my resistance to her gentle persuasion vanished. In its place was a feeling of tranquility. Even lithium never brought me such peace as I knew in her arms. No drug could replace the ecstasy of body and mind I felt with her touch. I was hers.
I pulled back gazing at her enraptured face. She looked saintly, so as the image of the Madonna at church. She laid next to me her head tilted back, her lips parted as her eyes glazed in trance-like ecstasy. She looked up at me running her fingers feather soft through my curls. She gazed up at me wistfully her eyes glowing with such deep affection for me, I felt overwhelmed by love for her.
I felt an electric shock of awareness as the tremors of orgasm subsided. A cataclysmic shock quaked through my body as I realized my children and husband's life would be extinguished. My heart pounded in my chest as I realized there was a way to save them. With a trembling voice, I asked, "What must I do to save my loved one's mistress?"
