Esmellinda

When mortals see me they are startled.

Maybe it's my nudity

or my head-to-toe hairlessness

or my large breasts,

which seem to fascinate men

and more than a few women

(I prefer the women),

or my slight other-worldly glow.

Most likely it's all of the above.

I am a goddess,

a goddess of instinct

to be exact.

My name is Esmellinda.

I am naked because gods and goddesses are always naked.

Clothing on us is a fiction mortals made up

to prevent anyone from being offended by our nudity.

In reality we never wear anything.

I have no hair anywhere because I find it uncomfortable,

always getting in my way.

Centuries ago I removed it all permanently.

I have a sister, Ishara,

who many in Mesopotamia had worshipped at one time.

She too is a goddess of instinct, as well as of sex and creativity and love.

Instinct, love, sex, creativity: they're not that distinct from each other.

I have jurisdiction over all of it, as well,

including taste, touch, smell, and many other things.

Ishara had many followers

and you may have heard of her.

I, on the other hand,

lived in her shadow

and had practically no followers,

which is probably why you've never heard of me.

When I came of age,

I left home and eventually drifted into the ocean.

which is mainly where I've lived ever since.

Yes, I can breathe underwater,

and I can also fly without wings.

I'm pretty good at walking and running too.

Another thing about gods and goddesses:

the great intensity of the life force,

as it constantly rages through us,

makes us super horny.

Why do you think mythology has all those bawdy tales

of Zeus and Dionysus and the maenads and all the rest?

*****

As for me, my body is always vibrating,

always one touch away from orgasm.

My vagina is always soaked, my fluids constantly dripping

down my thighs and onto the ground.

Sometimes I collect my fluids in bottles

and then rub them into my skin like body lotion.

Or I sit in an empty tub making myself squirt over and over

until my clear fragrant liquid fills up the tub and then I bathe in it.

My clit is always hard and exceptionally large.

You can see it distinctly even from a distance.

I'm essentially having constant sex just by existing, and I love it.

I love the smell of my arousal,

and that arousal, especially when I smell it,

generates the energy I need.

So, I create instincts for everything that lives.

Many appreciate what I do for them, but some don't.

For example, whenever I give instincts to bees, I get stung.

Whenever I do the same for skunks, they stink me up with their spray.

I just recently got stunk up by my pet skunk who I never named.

Maybe not having named her is why she never seemed to like me very much.

Caterpillars don't seem to appreciate me either.

Whenever I do something for them

they cover me in the secretions they use on plants.

Other creatures, though,

such as pigs, horses, dogs, cats, sheep, and cows,

are nice to me. I also give instincts to plants.

They appreciate me the most, and many of them give me flowers

which give me beautiful colors and smells.

*****

You may be wondering where I live.

It's not in some heaven or on Mount Olympus,

places which likely don't even exist if you ask me.

I pretty much live everywhere.

I live in caves, in fields, in swamps, in deserts, on beaches, in savannas,

any kind of region you can think of is where I live,

even the polar regions. But mainly I live in the sea.

I like the languid darkness of the deep ocean.

And like plants, I'm on good terms with

most of the fish and other sea life.

Even jellyfish don't sting me very often, nor do stingrays.

So now you have a good idea of who I am,

but I have so much more to tell you.

*****

When I turned eighteen I left home

and wandered through deserts as bare as I am.

Nothing, not a single thing growing as far as I could see.

Fortunately, I don't require food or even water,

although I do enjoy those things when they're available.

I don't need sleep either, though I enjoy that too sometimes.

But not needing to eat, drink or sleep expedited my journey.

I crossed miles and miles of emptiness in just a few weeks.

Oh, I could have used my power to fly instead, which I love to do,

I feel so free with the wind caressing every inch of me

and nothing solid anywhere around me so the bottoms

of my feet are feeling the air as well.

Oh, I love it, but no, I didn't fly.

I just walked and took my time.

Remember, I was looking for a new place to live

and I had never ventured away from home before,

so I wanted to see, feel, taste, touch, and smell

everything I could as I wandered.

And that I did.

Well, after days of walking with no changes in the scenery,

I started thinking I was walking in circles, but then, there it was. The ocean.

I had never been to an ocean before

and I ran towards it as if rushing toward a long-lost lover.

The sand was incredible,

warm and soothing, caressing my feet even better than the wind.

I found a sand dune and lay down on it. I closed my eyes

and let the warm sun lull me into a beautiful sleep.

When I awoke, the sun was sinking into the sea,

enticing me to join it.

So I did, but only after kneeling on the wet sand near the water

and watching the sky turn different shades of pink,

as if blushing from my admiration of it.

When the sun finally rested on the water,

and was just starting to sink into it,

I followed suit and walked toward the churning waves

that were now coming up to welcome me.

So that's how I came to live in my new home.

The sea took some getting used to, however.

I wasn't expecting it to be so dingy

as if a heavy fog had settled everywhere.

But the water felt nice after my long walk,

and I welcomed it as it welcomed me.

*****

As I sank deeper, a calm took over and the sound of the waves

became a distant hum.

The sludge started to dissipate

and then I saw the most incredible sight.

The ocean was full of life, all these swimming creatures,

darting like flashes of light with their

vibrant colors and shapes and patterns.

And plants as well with all their special shapes and colors,

as if in a contest with the fish.

When I lived with my sister I was a nobody,

but now I would be loved and revered by these creatures and this foliage,

all in need of the instincts I would make for them.

Life fell into a wonderful rhythm;

afternoons and nights in the water

and mornings on the beach where I never saw a soul.

After that first day, I started exploring

and noticed all the seashells that had washed ashore.

I had never seen those before so I was curious.

Would they need instincts too?

I started collecting them and found a small cave

where I stored them.

After awhile they started to smell,

and I could see that little animals had been living in them.

What a wondrous place this was.

I enjoyed the slight spray when the wind blew over the water

as well as the vast scene before me as I gazed across to the horizon,

like a liquid version of the desert I had crossed.

I loved the salty smell and damp feel of the beach in the morning,

and the cool pull of the sea at night. I knew this would always be my home.

I did miss Ishara, though, as much as I hated being obscured by her notoriety.

Sometimes I wished she could be here with me and we could start over,

but I knew we would instead be in competition

and I would again be a second class goddess.

During my time in the ocean, I would often sleep,

and soon my dreams and waking life started to overlap.

There was an electricity soaring through all the communities of sea life

and I started to understand the languages being wordlessly spoken.

I was very busy, though, creating instincts for all these living things.

Many of the fish were great poets,

and the sharks and dolphins were great magicians.

The poetry cannot be translated, though,

and the magic can only be perceived

by those who dwell in the sea.

*****

I soon discovered another power,

one, I suppose, that had been waiting

for the right time to manifest.

While standing on the beach one morning

I noticed a fine mist beginning to surround me,

and when it cleared

I had to blink several times.

I was staring at myself standing in front of me.

I was so amazed,

I couldn't think of anything to say,

but no words were needed.

She was me, and we were both mesmerized by the sight of each other.

I could smell my body on hers,

and like Narcissus,

we both fell for what amounted to our reflections.

We both took a step forward at the same time,

and then we were in each other's arms,

kissing hotly and ravishingly,

and together we melted

onto the cool wet sand.

Our movements matched exactly

as we raked our fingernails slowly and ever so lightly

across each other's breasts, tummy, buttocks, inner thighs, perineum,

and then traced each other's outer labia

until finally we tapped one fingernail on each other's clit

and then dropped over the edge as wave after wave

rose inside us, each one bigger than the last,

finally rushing out of our bodies as if to meet the waves of the sea.

For a long time we lay in the afterglow,

wrapped in each other's arms, dozing off

and enjoying the feel of each other.

After a long time I felt my skin absorbing her skin as she slowly reentered me.

She wordlessly asked that I call her out again whenever I wanted her,

and then she was back deep inside of me.

*****

The days became indistinct

and I hardly noticed as one day faded into another.

Gradually, though, I sensed a change coming.

I could smell it through the water.

The fish seemed jittery now

and the flora, somewhat gray.

Then one afternoon after my morning on the beach,

I returned to the water to find ...

Nothing. The ocean was empty. No fish, no flora, no life whatsoever.

Literally overnight (or over morning),

everything in the sea became extinct.

I swam around for awhile, but saw nothing,

so finally I swam back to the beach and sat down on the sand.

Fishing boats were arriving at the far end of the shore

with their crews disembarking, but then they, too, began to vanish,

leaving their empty boats to fend for themselves.

As they faded, I heard their distressed chatter, and then in my head I heard

my inner twin telling me to start with the instincts and then build from there.

And so I did. I walked back into the water

with my eyes closed and conjured up the instincts of each creature

and each plant that had lived in the sea,

I perfectly visualized each one,

and from there I went on to reconstruct each organism in every species.

For centuries, I imagined all of them back,

and one by one they returned fully intact.

But then I thought about birds and trees and squirrels and humans

and everything else that lived or had lived on land and in the sky.

Had they too gone extinct?

I willed myself into the sky and looked down at the desert,

although I didn't expect to see anything living there.

But I looked up and around myself as well,

flying in wide circles and seeing nothing.

Not a single bird, not a single bug,

and I knew there was not a single plant or animal anywhere

on the land or in the sky.

So I closed my eyes again and for the next millennium

hovered over the exact edge

of the land and the sea,

and again I conjured all the instincts of all that had lived,

and again I conjured every individual organism of every

sky and land species,

and eventually they all returned to the places

where they had each lived before.

And then my twin reappeared beside me

and we made love, soaring together over land and sea.

And yet there was much more to do.