The Communion

"...I have all the answers." The woman at the bar pulled the strange necklace off of her chest. Helen looked at the hypnotic little thing and asked again, "So what's the story with it?"

Sarah had begun to coax the memory out of the deepest recesses of Helen's mind, Helen sat with her back against the headboard and listened to Sarah's retelling.

"You were out at Rock Bottom -- that bar just down the road from campus -- and you were there with a friend or something. I think he was your friend -- anyhow the two of you were celebrating something.

Helen corrected her, "I was congratulating him on finding a good job at a law firm. Henry was looking for months to find something that would pay him right, and we felt like it merited a celebration."

"Mhmm," Sarah nodded, "but neither of you were really drinking at all -- like you both got something as a trophy, but no more."

Helen confirmed that, "Yeah, I don't drink that much really."

"Regardless, I approached you two and said that I recognized you from a class you two were in. I told you two that I was a T.A."

Helen's eyes widened, "That's right! That's right, that's right! I didn't really remember you, but Henry did, and we started chatting about that, you offered to buy us something, we didn't want that, and then the conversation started to turn to that class."

Sarah continued, "Lucky me, we happened to all three be in the same field. So I kept up a good bit of conversation, and eventually your friend left, but you wanted to stay and chat with me."

Helen looked at the woman by her in bed and asked, "You didn't do anything to me?"

Sarah picked up on the implication, pulled herself back and said, "What?! No! No no no no, babe I would never have done that to anyone. You just wanted to talk to me!"

"I don't know if I can believe that." Helen let her vision lose focus as she tried to remember.

"Helen, please understand, what you've remembered is not the full picture yet. I know that if all you've got is amnesia and a brief memory of our communion... well I wouldn't be surprised if you thought we kidnapped and drugged and assaulted you."

Helen sighed, "I still can't just trust you... and how did you get in here!? How did you get into the bathroom without a key?"

"Oh, she gives us certain blessings." Sarah grinned wide and toothy, "some doors just might as well not be there if she would prefer them not to be." Helen gripped the blankets a little tighter at this alarming display of Sarah's more unhinged side.

"Let's get back to where we were -- Rock Bottom. The bar by campus." Sarah paused and continued, "The subject eventually got to me asking about your minor, and coincidentally you said anthropology, specifically focusing on the anthropology of religion. And that... that was the perfect coincidence, because I happened to have been in my university's anthropology department before all this." Helen opened her mouth to ask a question, but Sarah shushed her with a finger, "Before all this I was a graduate student at Bamford, and I studied anthropology, linguistics, and archaeology. We started to share all the fun things we learned. You told me you just finished up your third year of studies, that you'd be graduating in just one more semester. I told you a little about my first field work abroad -- and you started asking me all about it."

Helen looked down the bed at Sarah, noticing the same necklace as she'd been wearing that night at the bar. "Is that where you found that..."

"This little thing?" Sarah interrupted her and held the amulet up, "Yes. I was doing an exchange program in London, and the department asked for help on this excavation and research on a recently unearthed Roman settlement north of Leeds."

She unclipped the necklace and looked closely at the malachite gemstone in its center. The Romans had found a place there, celebrated by the locals as a shrine to one of their deities. The Romans didn't care -- they cut into the mountain and dug deep below it for its rich silver. While the others were concerned with the little settlement around the site, they sent me and two others to start mapping out the tunnels.

She grinned and put the necklace back, "The air was pure. The air there was so pure. We found her at the deepest point. Some Romans were still there with her, writhing amid her pleasures. She had been so alone, locked deep in the Earth. They were all tangled together, locked in a cycle of breeding and birth. That's exactly what the goddess desired from them, nearly two-thousand years of unending pleasure. They were eternally youthful, free from disease, free from pain, coddled in the goddess's embrace forever. That's where I found the amulet, a Celtic woman in the pit gave it to me, with a vial of the goddess's milk, and told me to go with it, go and spread her goodness. Somehow the chamber was lit up -- green crystal lights coming through the walls, along with vines and roots holding little lanterns above. I saw all of it, smelled all of it, felt all of it. I could have left and ran. The others could have too. They joined in the pile of flesh, and they remain there. I stayed for a brief while, then I left. I warned everyone there was a cave in, and left for London. I took the amulet, the vial, and came here, back home. And ever since I have followed the commands of the goddess."

Helen paused. "So you were drugged. The air poisoned you and you saw something that should have made anyone leave..."

Sarah shook her head. "Not drugged, no. Something else sweetheart. Something better than that. Drugs are something external to you -- something inhuman coming in and briefly addling you. She is all human. She changed me forever, just like how she changed you. But she was always there, always a part of us. It's the difference between flipping a switch inside a house and cutting off the power. All she did was turn the lights off in one room and turn them on in another."

Helen asked, "You didn't just tell me all that at the bar did you??"

Sarah shook her head, "No, you would have thought I was crazy... I just told you what I told everyone else. The excavation team were the victims of a catastrophic cave in, I was lucky to escape, but that I couldn't help them find the way back inside. I was debriefed by the university, but after that nothing else significant came of it. I just went back to Bamford and focused more on my work as a TA to destress after the experience."

"So why did I go with you, what did I do with you? Who is the goddess even? Why can't I remember everything?"

Sarah nodded, "Right, I couldn't remember everything about the cave for a long while. It was blocked out... most humans have something like that. I'm not a psychologist, but it's like a reflex to pull our hands from the fire. Society has rejected her, and perhaps because we fear the social pain that her embrace entails, we forget the encounters we have. We block it out, until inevitably we witness her again, and then it all comes back for a while. Then again, then again, then again, until it's all here forever."

Sarah had gotten lost in her own words, but Helen insisted, "Sarah, how did you get me to go with you?"

"I didn't. You didn't go with me that night. You went back to your place, but I asked if you'd be down to grab coffee or something sometime. You wanted to, and so a couple days later we met again." Sarah stepped up to grab a glass of water from the bedstand, and took a sip before continuing, "We met again, and you told me about a strange dream you'd had the night before. It was beautiful... you had spoken to the goddess in your slumbering mind, if only briefly. Something about my necklace, something about you -- it was like you were a magnet for her attention."

Helen was beginning to remember the morning meeting in the mall. The whole world had seemed more colorful, like everything popped more.

"I think I was actually coming onto you then... I was afraid to say anything because you were a grad student and all, but something about you just pulled me closer."

Sarah leaned in and kissed Helen on the cheek, eliciting a blush from her, "I could tell. You couldn't have hidden it from me. Even if she hadn't been helping, I would have known. Do you remember, I asked if you would be interested in meeting again after that. And that was when I offered it to you."

"When you what?"

"You came to my apartment, and we chatted deep into the night about all our studies, all our interests, and eventually the subject came back to that misadventure in England. And you had been having dreams about the place, a single recurring dream of holding my hand as I pulled you deeper into the mines, showing you the truth behind the cave-in. You didn't know what you were looking at, you couldn't see beyond the rocks. But you knew there was something back there."

Helen took the information calmly, "So then what happened."

"I told you a little bit more of the truth. I told you that we had found a Roman bathhouse inside the caves, and that, I, alongside the others, had enjoyed ourselves there. I feigned guilt at knowing I left them behind while the rocks fell, shutting the room off forever. I had offered you a secret, something closer to the truth. But I wasn't ready to let you in yet. So we talked more. Eventually I took you back to my room, and you held me while I cried about my lost friends. You pushed a little, tried to console me more, and eventually a stray hand of yours found its way under my shirt. I welcomed it, and returned by brushing my hand through your hair, shifting my weight to accommodate your advances."

Helen's mouth dropped at this, "So I went forward on you?"

Sarah nodded again, "Yes. And I loved it -- you walked right into my life and showed me that you were the one I needed."

"What do you mean?"

"The goddess asked me to find one other like me. She insisted that two were necessary. She never said whether it would be a man, or a woman, or anyone really. Just that I would know when I felt them. And when you arrived to embrace me like that... when you told me about your dreams... when I smelled your hair... I knew it was right. You were sent to me by her. And so as we laid there together, tangled for a while, fucking like bunnies, I offered you my breast. You hadn't really sucked on one before -- not in your brief time. You hesitated, then licked, and then suckled."

Helen looked down at Sarah's robed chest. The garment tried its best, but could not adequately hide the massive orbs behind it, "They were full, Sarah, weren't they?"

Sarah sighed with joy at the reverie, "Yesss, they were so full and aching to be drained into the mouth of another. You didn't realize it until the first droplets hit your tongue, but the potent taste drew you in. You were obsessed with me for the next few days. You couldn't get enough of me, and I let you stay in my presence every second I could. That milk addled your mind, yes, but not in a way unnatural to it. It was exactly what you had always wanted, what you were destined to want. You laid there with me and kissed me a thousand times, and I held your hair while you nursed and told you the truth. The real truth. You embraced it. You were ready for it. You were ready to become one. Every passing night, I told you more about us. How I had worked for months to find you, how I had converted dozens into the true way, how I had found our place of worship, long abandoned. How I had kept the one vial ready for when you would arrive.

"The night of your communion, you sipped it, and were instantly put in contact with her. I can never know what you saw first, but you called to her, we all called her forth, and she came down to visit you, to join us. You, me, her, in one triad -- a perfect circle, ready to propagate, to fuck, to breed. To continue the cycle."

Helen leaned against the headboard. She couldn't believe what she was hearing, she couldn't believe what had happened. "Sarah, how come you didn't forget everything, how come it's just me that's forgetting it?"

She paused for a second, unsure, "Helen I don't rightly know, I suppose I couldn't remember the specifics of the cave by Leeds for about a month after, but the mission was in my mind. Maybe you didn't remember everything, but the mission it put in your head stayed the same. What did you do, first thing when you woke up?"

Helen explained, "I lazed around in bed for a few minutes and went to start my daily routine, eventually the feeling that something was wrong took over -- like when I saw myself in the mirror. I noticed I was a little off. Then it dawned on me I couldn't remember yesterday, or really any of last week. And then I panicked, grabbed a knife from the kitchen, then I locked myself in there, and took a bath."

Sarah shrugged, "do you usually take baths?"

Helen looked back to the bathroom, "Actually, I don't. Really, almost never."

Sarah nodded slowly, "A way of being one with her is through bathing. The deepest part of your mind pulled you there, to remind you of what you were to be doing."

With that Helen felt that most of her questions were answered -- it was all starting to come together, starting to make more and more sense, but one more thing lingered, and she reached down to her waist, where she felt more of the black pigment, eliciting a shiver while she pulled a gob of it up with two fingers.

"So, what is this exactly?" A string of it stretched between her leg and her finger, "I thought I washed all this off, where does it keep..." The realization dawned on her as Sarah's amorous eyes met hers. She licked her fingers and sucked the substance off of them, moaning a little as she pulled her mouth off.

"When you accepted her, she changed you. While you incubate our young, you will produce this rich, dark nectar."

"Right, but what is it?"

"It is a potent aphrodisiac, it's there to encourage you to fuck more. But more than that, it starts a positive feedback loop, just like everything else she gives us." Sarah moved closer to Helen as she continued, "The milk, the nectar, the soft juices, and how we'll both feel as we fill even more... it's going to fill our little heads with so many thoughts, so many sexy little thoughts -- Helen we won't be able to stop, we'll never ever want to."

Helen looked at Sarah's dark eyes -- the absence of pupils and irises and the glazed over look they gave let her know just how emptied out Sarah already was. Deep inside her, Helen felt a conflict between fear and arousal -- she didn't want to just succumb, to become a breeding cow for some alien god forever, she had a whole lifetime ahead of her, a career, family, and her own autonomy.

And yet, the empty, eternal pleasure beckoned her closer. She looked up at Sarah's face, looked into those soft eyes, those full lips, that gleeful smile. Even deeper than the combat between fear and arousal was the panging of her heart pulling her in. She was not a vessel for empty pleasure, she wasn't merely some human livestock. She was loved. She was loved by Sarah, she was loved by her -- whatever her real name was and she had a family with them. She had a family and a career brewing within her, growing -- tiny for now, but soon they would be ready to take care of her. And then she would do it again, and again, and again, and each time she would enjoy it more. Crying with tears of ecstasy. Her eyes glazed over at the thought, just as empty as the fantasizing eyes gazing back down at her.

The two stood there, lost in their respective imaginations, lost in worlds of bliss isolated from the other. It was only when Helen felt a drop of Sarah's spittle come onto her chest that she leaped up and began to make out with Sarah. Sarah pushed back and held Helen against the headboard, pushing her lips firmly against Helen's, biting hard on her lower lip. Helen gasped at the sensation and Sarah inhaled before kissing down her neck, leaving suction marks with each rapid contact. She wrapped one arm behind Helen and licked a long stroke up her neck, all the way up to the earlobe, biting it, sucking on it, and whispering into her ear.

"We are one."

Helen moaned and grabbed the back of Sarah's head, pulling their faces together in a strong, messy embrace. Their hair tangled together, and with one free hand, Helen started to pull Sarah's robe off. Sarah pulled herself back and let it fall off her shoulders and onto the bed, revealing her perfect frame. Helen had always felt for both men and women, but never for someone quite like Sarah. Her body had been adapted by her service to the goddess, the black nectar dripped like rain from her crotch, and wormed its way across her body as veins forming scenes of sexual debauchery across her belly and thighs -- Helen was reminded of Henna tattoos, made to look as enticing as one could imagine. Sarah was on her knees, and her wide thighs beckoned Helen, but before Helen could move in, Sarah lunged forward back to meet her with a long kiss on the lips.

Helen felt Sarah's tongue breach her lips and begin to tangle with her own, she looked into those starry eyes facing her and the understanding of what awaited her grew more palpable. This was her forever now. She was invited formally into a world of pleasures beyond the Earthly desires she could have known before, and there was no escape. There was no desire to escape. All she would ever have to do is sit back and let the feelings wash over her, then reciprocate when she was needed. This was her forever, and Helen was ready for it. She pushed Sarah onto her back and hungrily kissed down her body. Taking extra care to laze her tongue around her breasts, picking up on the scent of milk ready to leak from her nipples. The anticipation of what awaited her was too much, and she kissed down Sarah's plush belly and down to her mound. She pulled back Sarah's outer lips and went straight for her nub, rolling her tongue up to gently rub the swollen bit with the underside. Sarah wrapped her legs around Helen's head and moaned loudly as more of the slick black nectar coated Helen's mouth. It's taste was rich, sweet, and enticing.

Helen raised her right hand up to play with Sarah's left nipple, eliciting even more moans and groans out of her lover. With her left she gently started to massage herself. Her hands were both greeted by fluid pouring out, asking for more. As she grinded her tongue against Sarah, she felt two hands tangling in her hair, pushing her head down in a rhythmic motion. Sarah was panting already, the nectar made everything far more intense for her, and while Helen tasted it, she felt connected to Sarah, like the two shared a body-mind, she could feel her just like how she felt her the night of her impregnation.

"Helennnn!!!" Sarah groaned out, pulling her head up and tilting down to meet Helen's gaze upwards. Helen could see the glistening light of tears rolling down her cheeks -- the sensation of feeling both their bodies had pushed her to the point of desperation, and she gripped Helen's hair, pulling her off and kissing her, licking up the sweet black nectar, then pushing Helen's mouth against her breast, commanding simply, "Drink me, fuck me with your fingers. Grind on me, enjoy me."

Helen obeyed and wrapped her legs around Sarah's thick right leg and slid her slick crotch up and down, enjoying the perfectly smooth feeling of Sarah's warm skin. She wrapped her sopping wet mouth around the nipple offered, and pulled, immediately being greeted by droplets of that intoxicating white milk. Her body almost went numb, but Sarah again commanded her, "fuck me, cow." Minutes ago, Helen would have been outraged at the comment, but now she simply groaned with pleasure and slid two fingers into Sarah's beckoning slit. She pushed in a little, searching for where to begin massaging, her fingertips finding purchase just a couple inches in. She curled them up and started pushing in and out slowly, letting the motions of Sarah's hips guide her. As Sarah's own moans grew louder, Helen realized that the command wasn't in English, nor for that matter were her exclamations now. Yet she knew them, understood them. The thought that her mind had been so easily adapted to the service of her lover made her sigh with feverish desire to please Sarah more. She started to grind her fingers faster, pushing in and out and in and out quicker and quicker. She let her lips break free of Sarah's breast, letting a trail of spittle and milk connect the tip of it and her plush lips as she moved up to her ear.