Bad Penny (33 page)

I sat relaxed at the back of the mini-bus while they questioned her in hushed terms. There was a smile on my lips and I felt thoroughly happy as I thought of how jealous Amber would be when I told her. She'd undoubtedly spank me, both for making such a pig of myself and for being such a cynic. When she'd turned my bottom a dozen shades of purple, she'd make me tell her every single detail and then demand an orgasm. Her favourite technique was to sit on my face and masturbate while I licked her bottom-hole. ‘Queening' was the correct term for it, and it made me feel deliciously submissive, while a good measure of her pleasure came from making me pleasure her in such a dirty and humiliating way.

Thinking of Amber set me on a new train of thought. She worked with leather and moulding latex and could make just about anything in the way of erotic adjuncts. She had a thing about petite girls as well, particularly myself and, while she lacked my absolute disbelief, she also felt an affinity with the outdoors.

As we drove back through the night towards the city, a wicked plan began to develop in my mind. Delphinia came to sit next to me after a while, and cuddled up against me. She was quickly asleep, but my mind was still working when we got back.

I spent the summer living with Amber, and didn't see any of the girls until the following term. Hecate had graduated and moved to London, which deprived the coven of its most organised member. Ea was made a second-level initiate, but as I was older and, frankly, much more organised, Poppaea came increasingly to rely on my back-up.

I continued to keep my involvement with them pretty quiet, but I did go to bed with Poppaea, because I simply couldn't resist it. It actually happened on the first night I was back. I had spent the previous night in bed with Amber and was feeling lonely and badly in need of someone to cuddle. I ran into her in the Union refectory, her green hair being unmistakable. I went to sit with her, we went for a drink afterwards and, from that point, there was no doubt that we'd end up in bed.

Poppaea was a sweet lover, small and gentle and very obliging. She was also surprisingly forceful, and full of dreams of fully reestablishing pagan worship in the country. Although I didn't share her beliefs, I admired her honesty and determination, and was on the point of abandoning my wicked plan when I discovered a weakness in her faith that changed my mind.

She knew full well that the trance-like state she described as possession was only achieved through her own will, and that very few people could do it. Like innumerable mystics before her, what she wanted was some form of tangible proof of her beliefs yet, unlike so many mystics, she was not inclined to accept the comforting placebo of ‘faith'.

After some wrestling with my conscience, but not really that much, I decided to go ahead and give Poppaea what she wanted. The only difference was that I wouldn't ever tell her the truth. Fair enough, I'm a disgraceful, scheming little brat and I need my bottom smacked, but it has been a lot of times and it never makes any difference.

I set everything up beautifully, though I say so myself. When Poppaea was in one of her most energetic moods, I pointed out to her that when I had first heard about summonings I'd thought it meant producing an actual, physical being.

‘Well, it could,' she answered, ‘but think of the energy you'd need to focus. Everything would have to be perfect: the place, the time, everything, and even then, I doubt it would work.'

‘Couldn't we try?' I asked.

‘I have,' she answered despondently, ‘and we've never come close. Not even the Archmage can do it.'

‘If anybody can do it, you can,' I assured her.

‘It's extraordinarily hard to focus that much earth energy,' she replied. ‘I know how, in theory, and of course the first question is, who do we summon?'

‘I've been doing a bit of research on that,' I admitted. ‘I knew how badly you wanted it, so I've tried to work something out for you, from first principles, as it were.'

‘Yes?' she answered, immediately intrigued.

‘As I see it,' I said, taking the final plunge, ‘it's a question of facilitating whatever process is involved in the materialisation. As you say, it takes a lot of energy, whether from a physical or a metaphysical point of view. So, we ought to choose a deity closely linked to our own land and our own background. Then we select a place used by worshippers in the distant past: a stone row or circle for instance. Next, we choose a significant date and set up the ritual just so. Finally, and this is the clever bit, we offer one of our number as bait, a sort of exotic prey to draw in our intended target.'

‘A sacrifice?' Poppaea demanded in astonishment.

‘No,' I assured her, ‘well, not really, but sort of, yes, a sexual sacrifice, perhaps.'

‘How do you mean?' she queried.

‘Well, to put it bluntly, you would be tied to the top of the altar with your legs spread wide.'

‘To tempt the deity to enter me?'

‘Exactly.'

Poppaea went quiet, but I could see that she was thrilled by the idea and more than a little doubtful.

‘You're thinking of summoning Herne, aren't you?' she asked, after a long silence.

‘Yes,' I answered, impressed by the way she had reached a conclusion that I'd been expecting to have to lead her to and delighted by the way she'd taken the bait.

She shivered and pulled her knees up under her chin, a mannerism she always used when thinking hard.

‘Come on, Poppy,' I urged. ‘We can at least try.'

She nodded and I knew I had her. Whether she really believed we could do it I'm not sure, but I knew she was thinking of how it would feel to be spread out naked on that altar stone, waiting to be entered, and she knew full well that when nothing happened, there would still be an obliging tongue to make sure she didn't go entirely unfulfilled. It was then that she gave me an unexpected surprise.

‘I'd have to lead the ceremony,' she declared decisively. ‘Would you go on the altar?'

I nodded and immediately knew why she couldn't resist the idea.

Autumn equinox was a Sunday and the night of the new moon, which was perfect. We'd chosen a stone circle in north Wales, which was a bit of a drive but had the advantage of remoteness and being in the middle of a gigantic forestry plantation.

I signed the mini-bus out myself, which was an advantage I had as a lecturer, and drove down on the Sunday morning. We lunched at a convenient pub and then walked out to the site, finding it satisfyingly lonely and full of atmosphere. The pines were mature, a good forty feet tall. This created a dank, dim space beneath them, which was thick with the scent of pine resin and earth. The stone circle had been left clear, an area of rough, tussocky grass with thirteen weathered standing stones set around a central block. The air was warm and still, adding a drowsy element to everything else, and I knew from that moment that, come what may, the experience was going to be very deep indeed.

The idea was to evoke the very essence of the wildwood, for which autumn was the perfect time. Poppaea had made up incense from aromatic woods and woven garlands of flowers and leaves that were deliberately chaotic and free of symmetry. Everything we were to use was either stone, wood or some other natural product. Even the candles were beeswax and, when the time came to undress, we took off everything, right down to our jewellery.

They had covered the altar stone with a bed of ferns and circled it with hemp, to which I was to be fastened. For all my knowledge of what was really going to happen and my disbelief, it was impossible not to feel affected as Poppaea and Ea led me to the altar. I was trembling, but sat down and submitted myself to them, allowing my wrists and ankles to be fixed tightly to the ring of hemp so that I was spread-eagled on the altar. My arms were thrown back above my head and my legs pulled wide to leave my vagina easily accessible. My head was back so that, unless I made a deliberate effort to look forward, all I could see was the rich blue of the evening sky. Poppaea had decided that dusk was the correct time for the ritual, it being the hour at which most predators preferred to hunt. Most sightings of Herne the Hunter were also recorded from dusk or dawn as well.

Most of the sightings also involved not just Herne, but the Wish Hunt, a pack of demonic hounds, so it was just as well that I was so firm in my atheistic convictions. The others were the exact opposite, and every one of them was nervous. To me, it was play; to them, it was serious, and it amazed me that they were willing to subject themselves to the attentions of a being best known for hunting down benighted travellers. Poppaea's logic was that we would be safe both because we were worshippers and we were female and giving ourselves willingly. Actually, it was me who was being given willingly, but they'd be there too, and naked if not actually bound.

I relaxed on my bed of fern as the ritual began, listening to Poppaea's soft, insistent chanting and watching the candlelight flicker in their faces and the trees behind. They did look enchanting, and I couldn't deny the power of the ritual, nor the effect it was having on me. They then started to prepare me, Ea and Delphinia doing most of the work while the others chanted. Being anointed with cabbalistic symbols on my face, breasts and belly was both erotic and disturbing, and left my breathing deep and my nipples sticking up. Being licked by Ea to make my pussy swell and open was bliss yet unbearably frustrating. She did it by tickling my sex-lips with the very tip of her tongue, never quite touching my clit. She would tap her tongue gently over my vagina, then move up between my labia, flicking it from side to side until she was nearly at my clit, only to stop and repeat the process. All I could do was squirm in my bonds and whimper for more, which she denied me.

Only when I was screaming in frustration did she change her tactics and give me a good slurping lick, running her whole tongue up my pussy to wet me with her saliva. As she pressed against my clit, I was begging her to take me up to orgasm, but she didn't even reply, instead rising to her feet and slipping two fingers inside me to check that I was moist enough for entry. I was, and I was also in desperate need of my orgasm.

Their chanting rose in intensity as I squirmed and writhed on top of the alter. I was wishing desperately that it was all true because, at that moment, I really did want to be made an erotic sacrifice. The whole experience was just too much, and I would have taken anything with an open, yielding submission. They could have had a goat mount me and I wouldn't have cared – anything, just as long as I was thoroughly used.

Poppaea set fire to the scented oil that was in a wooden bowl on the rock between my legs. It burnt greenish-yellow and threw weird shadows around the clearing, the smell rich and heady in my nostrils. I could feel the heat on my thighs and pussy, warm and sensual. Then she was putting something to my mouth, a flask of mead, from which I drank deeply. I watched as she put the flask to her own lips, swallowing, then taking a mouthful and bending to let it run from her lips on to my pussy. Each girl in turn did this, until my belly and the ferns beneath my bottom were wet and sticky with mead. Delphinia kissed me on my clitoris, which sent a shock right through me. A little more and I'd have come, but she left to return to her place.

I was ready, and Poppaea began what I knew was the final chant, her voice loud, demanding and somehow hopeful. I lay back, feeling a terrible fraud but not in the least sorry I'd done it. Just for the state they'd put me in, I'd have done it a hundred times. Poppaea switched to Gaelic, her voice rising to a scream, imploring Herne to come and ravish me where I lay tied and helplessly ready.

Then it happened. The air went misty and I became aware of a strange scent, intensely animal yet also hot, like burning leaves mixed with sweat and dung. The chanting stopped abruptly and somebody screamed. I pulled my head up to see the girls fleeing pell-mell into the trees. Coming out of the mist directly in front of me was the reason.

The first thing I saw was the great antlers, backlit against the candle glow from the mist. They sprang from a head, a grotesque thing with burning red eyes and the mixed characteristics of human, goat and deer. Shaggy fur covered the broad, muscular shoulders, only to give way to two large and undoubtedly feminine breasts. There was nothing whatever feminine about what was below. His belly was muscular and hairy, and from the base of it sprouted the most enormous penis I had ever seen. It was blatantly erect, standing close to the vertical, while it must have been over a foot in length and was thicker around than my arms. A deep red-brown in colour, the shaft was heavily veined and gnarled, like a tree trunk. The head was round and taut, a shiny red-purple bulb already oozing something white and thick. A massive scrotum hung beneath it, bulging with testicles the size of tennis balls.

He was coming towards me, the monstrous cock proud and ready for my pussy as I lay helpless with my legs tied apart and my open, wet vagina offered for entry Everyone else had fled, leaving me to my fate. Then I realised that I was not quite alone as Poppaea came up beside me and sank to her knees next to the altar stone. I watched, unable to take my eyes away as he advanced, his erection threatening my vagina, which suddenly seemed very small and tight.

Poppaea said something in Gaelic and Herne turned, looked at her, grabbed her by the hair and thrust his penis into her mouth. She gaped, her cheeks bulging and then stretching with the effort of accommodating it. He thrust twice and then a great gush of white come exploded from around his shaft, dripping down Poppaea's chin and on to her breasts. As she sucked at him in obvious ecstasy, he turned and for a moment I saw his buttocks, which were hairless, round and as feminine as the breasts. Poppaea sucked eagerly, rubbing the sperm into her breasts and pussy as it dripped from her mouth. He finally pulled out and she put her head to the ground in utter submission as he swept the incense salver off the altar to clear his access to me.