MARGE:
I only entered the Santeria shop last year to look for a gag gift for my husband. He was so superstitious, and with Halloween coming up, I thought it would be a perfect prank to have a Voodoo doll or a shrunken head in our bed to really spook him. We were the perfect couple, Ben and Marge, so in love and full of fun. We often pranked each other, and Halloween was our favorite time. I was laughing as I approached the counter but stopped when I saw the unblinking stare of the owner. His lips were moving as he mumbled a phrase over and over. I couldn't hear it very well, but it sounded like French.
I felt compelled to finish my approach, but stood at the counter, dumbstruck.
The Voodoo man spoke, and I felt as if I was standing in a waterfall of his deep, melodious voice. I couldn't look away from his unblinking eyes, which grew to fill my vision, my world. The store faded...
I was screaming, and screaming, as I came back to consciousness. I screamed again as another orgasm ravished my body. The oungan ejaculated and rolled off me as I curled up in a post-climatic bliss that was almost painful.
As I recovered, I realized I was in a bedroom, surely that of the store owner, who was lying next to me, asleep. By the clock on the wall, I'd been there for over two hours. Two hours that hadn't been wasted. I felt wonderful all over, although somewhat exhausted and sore between my legs, everywhere between my legs. Somehow, cheating on my husband and losing my last virginity didn't upset the feeling of wellbeing that engulfed me. I spooned against my bedmate and breathed in his scent. Somehow it bonded me to him.
"You awake, mon esclave sexuelle. You be one sexual kitten, n'est pas?" His big grin and large white teeth seemed to awaken something in me, and I pulled my body against his and pulled his face down to mine for a passionate kiss.
"Not now, bebe. You come back, next Saturday, yes, and we do it all again." He had hopped out of bed before finishing his sentence and was pulling on his pants before I could respond. "Taute pis, mais even with Oshun's help, I am done. Too many times already you bring me off, yes?" His booming laugh followed him out of the room.
I thought, "Too many times? It couldn't be," but the stickiness and rush of fluids out of my vagina gave the lie to my thoughts. "Two hours?" But still, I wasn't upset at my apparent wantonness or infidelity. I was already looking forward to next Saturday.
As I came down from his apartment above his shop, my Voodoo master, whose name, weirdly, was unexpectantly Wayne Wimbley, handed me a package, which contained a doll made of straw. "You put his hair into the skull and close it. Then leave it in his bed." He smiled. "Then you'll be able to save up for next Saturday. Two o'clock, you hear?" Save up what, I wondered, but didn't ask.
When I got home, I pulled some hairs out of Ben's hairbrush, put them in the doll, and hung it from our headboard, above his pillow. I hadn't asked what it would do; I didn't worry about it at all. My Oungan had instructed me.
Life didn't change that week. Ben never commented on the doll. It was like he never saw it. Every night, he'd climb into bed, turn on his side and go right to sleep. I even wore my sexiest nighties but got no reaction from Ben. By Saturday at 1:30, I was outside the voodoo shop, checking my watch every two minutes as time crept by. I'd been dreaming all week of the sex we would have. God, I was so horny...
At 1:45, Wayne came to the door of the shop and told me I might as well come in. He closed the shop and took me upstairs to bed. I was fully conscious this time, except for several minutes when I passed out from ecstasy.
I don't think I've ever been so in tune with a lover, although I'd only had three before Ben, and none after, until now. It was like I knew exactly what he desired, and he knew exactly what I needed, where to touch me, how to touch me, when to touch me. By four o'clock, when we stopped, I was leaking from my rectum and my vagina and had been served several loads down my throat. The Yoruba Oshun is apparently much more effective than Viagra! My kind of goddess!
For the few months, that set the pattern. Our marriage was now non-sexual, but normal in every other way. Neither of us questioned that. I knew why Ben's libido was suppressed, but I never questioned why mine was. I just looked forward to Saturday.
As the months went by, I began to gravitate to the shop several times a week. Wayne and I would sometimes go upstairs, but quite often if the shop was busy, I'd help out and between customers, Wayne and I would talk. As time went on, I became less of l'esclave sexuelle, and more of le grand amour. I could see it in his eyes, and I felt it too. My feelings for Ben had all but disappeared.
I was in love with Wayne, and I had captured his heart.
That's when the troubles began. After we finished our sessions, he'd go to sleep as normal, but now would suddenly jerk awake, screaming. I'd hold him while he shivered and panicked, until he'd slowly calm down. When I questioned him, he'd not explain, saying only that he'd had a nightmare.
After the third time that happened, he admitted that he was now having the same nightmare every night, and whenever he fell asleep. He was losing weight and looked haggard and worn out. Worse, he barely managed to bring me to orgasm once. All my efforts to resurrect his previously constant erection failed.
It began to affect me. At the very least, I was horny as hell. Now not getting it at home or at the shop.
Then came the day when even one erection was beyond Wayne's ability. That day, he finally explained, "It's the curse. I didn't believe in the curse, but it's Mamam Laveau's curse.
He explained. "Marie Laveau was an 18th century witch known as the Voudou Queen of New Orleans. A powerful mambo, maybe the most powerful ever. She be one fearsome woman.
"She had one great love, Jacques Paris. When she be 18, they married, but within only two year he start going after a beautiful white woman. Laveau, she one jealous woman who cursed Jacques, anyone he loved, and anyone they loved, forever, one lover after another. If there is no love, curse would die. I believe curse would die with me -- I could get sex by spelling anyone I wanted, and I thought I never fall in love. Why would I? All I wanted was sex.
"Then you come, and you give more than just sex. You become mon amour, and now I have the dreams. My lover, Janette, from when I was 18, told me the story of Marie Laveau and Jacques Paris. I was her, what, boy toy? But then she likes me maybe too much and begins having the dreams. Her old lover, who died, comes to make love to her. Night after night, he comes. But he be a corpse and begins to rot. Soon the sexy dreams become cauchemars, nightmares, rapes by corpses, her lover and the ones before, back to Jacques. Night after night. Then one night, she not wake up.
"I swore I would never fall in love. I cast spells on women, so I don't need to know them, just maybe fuck a lot. But you, you keep coming and now Janette comes to me in my dreams and now others and soon, soon..." He swallowed hard and looked at me. "Promise me you'll not fall in love, when I die. Never again. Let this curse die." He pushed me away and ran from the house."
I never saw Wayne again. He died that night, screaming, according to his neighbor.
When Wayne died, it was like I came awake. His spell on me was gone. Suddenly, my love for Ben returned. I took the doll off our bed, removed his hair from it and burned it on our barbeque. When I went into the house, Ben rushed up to me and swept me off my feet. He took me to the bedroom, and we made love like we were on our honeymoon. All my love for him returned. How had I ever forgotten how much I loved this man?
I was in love. I didn't fall in love; I was fully, deeply, in love. Wayne's spell had made me forget. I never had a chance to end the curse.
That night, Wayne was waiting in my dreams. At first, it was wonderful. I had orgasm after orgasm, just like when we first met. Then, after a few days, he began to smell, his skin was sallow and sagging, and his eye lost their intelligence and focus. Worst, the older lovers down the line, back to Jacques, began to find their way into my dreams. Now corpses were coming towards me. Now the dreams were of corpses raping me. I awoke screaming. I would wake screaming forever afterwards, nightly raped by corpses.
[----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------]
BEN:
I found my wife's Marge's letter after she died. I thought she was writing a story. I knew there was never a doll hanging on our headboard, and I didn't remember a time when I didn't desire her with all my heart. And she would never cheat on me.
It's true that she was plagued by nightmares at the end, nightmares that had her whimpering and shivering all day, out of her mind. Doctors and psychiatrists couldn't seem to deal with those nightmares. She would pull me into bed every night (sometimes in the day) and make desperate love to me, but then she would banish me to another room in the hopes that her nightmares wouldn't disturb me. The doctors spoke of commitment, but my commitment to Marge wouldn't allow me to send her away.
I'd still awaken and come to her side whenever the screaming started. I would hold her and shake her or even slap her in an attempt to wake her from the grip of her dreams, but nothing I did was effective. She'd scream and scream until she finally awoke in her own timeframe, then she would clutch onto me and hold me while she sobbed in terror.
It broke my heart. It hurt even more when I awoke after a good night's sleep. It took only a moment to realize I hadn't been awakened by screams, so I rushed into my darling's bedroom, only to find her corpse with a look of abject terror frozen on her face.
[----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------]
When Marge died, my world died with her. I would drag myself out of bed in the morning, scarcely able to look at my face in the mirror when I shaved. I would dress and drive to work, hardly aware of the traffic or my surroundings. I managed to complete a day's work, although several times over the years my understanding boss has had to warn me that I would be regrettably fired if I couldn't focus on my job. In the end, my job became my only focus.
I would forget to go grocery shopping or forget to cook dinner or lunch or breakfast or forget about all three. I could go days without eating and barely remembered to drink. I was a zombie, or at least a good imitation of one. I would find myself sitting in the dark at home, having sat down when I came home from work. I would have been sitting for hours, unaware of the passage of time. When I realized the room was dark, I'd go to bed. The next day, it would all repeat.
It came to a head one day at work when I collapsed. One moment I was tallying figures and the next I was in an ambulance, breathing oxygen through a mask. At the hospital, I was diagnosed as severely malnourished and dehydrated. I ended up having a two week stay in the hospital.
