Call Of The Witch (37 page)

“
Passion?” I
said.

She rewarded me with a smile. “Yes. The
candles symbolize the heat of passion. You did your homework.”

“
Yes I did.”

She cast her eyes into the shadows. I
followed her lead and spotted a chalice sitting on the dresser
across the room. “Uh, yes,” I said, “the wine.” I stepped from the
circle, retrieved the chalice and returned it in cupped hands. “For
you, my love” I said, presenting the fermented nectar to Lilith as
a symbol of our maturity. “May this wine represent the flow of
life-blood spent through sacrifice now and always.”

“
Aye, `tis for thee I
live. Thine is a love what no heart doth take lightly.”

She took the chalice, raised it to her lips
and tipped her head back. As she drank, she let some of the wine
spill out the sides of the challis. It drizzled off her chin and
neck, down her chest where it funneled between her breasts, paraded
in single-file droplets passed her navel and pudendum and then onto
the floor.

I got down on my knees and pressed my lips
against her at the place where the wine last dripped off her body.
I then followed the wine trail, kissing it softly all the way back
to her mouth, thus representing love’s long trek to oneness.

She handed me the chalice next. I took it and
drank from it as she had, allowing the wine to spill at the corners
of my mouth. It ran a similar path down my neck, chest, stomach and
beyond. She knelt before me; her knees staining red in the puddles
of wine at my feet. I opened my stance. She pressed her warm lips
against me. My heart quickened. I felt a surge of blood give
movement to the area closest to her. She looked up at me and
smiled.

“
Not yet,
Tony.”

I smiled back. “Sorry. Reflex.”

She continued following the trail of wine up
the length of my body, over my chest, across my neck and back to my
lips. Then she kissed me, the hottest, sweetest kiss I had even
known.

“
Now,” she said. “I’ve got
to tie you up.”

“
I know. I’m
ready.”

She hiked her thumb up over her shoulder.
“Get in bed. Assume the Vitruvius pose.”

“
The what?”

“
Vitruvius. You know,
Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvius Man.” She spread her legs and held
her arms out by her side with her hands roughly level to the height
of her body. Yeah?”

“
Oh, like the sketch, of
course.”

I climbed into bed, laid on my back, set my
head on the pillow and assumed the Vitruvius pose. “Like this?”

She crossed her arms at her chest and shifted
her weight onto one hip. “Yeah, but relax a little. I’m not
strapping you to the rack.”

“
I’m sorry. I’m
nervous.”

“
What’s to be nervous
about? It’s not like I’m going to yank your teeth out. Besides,
this ritual is all about trust. We’re giving of each
other.”

“
Then why not let me tie
you to the bed.”

She shook her head and dismissed the idea
promptly. “No. I’ve never let anyone tie me up. I’m not about to
start now.”

“
Ha! Some trust
factor.”

“
Chill, will you? Here.
Hold these.”

She handed me three pieces of string, two
white and one black. A fourth piece, another black one, she used to
tie my left hand to the bed post. “What’s this? You’re tying me up
with string?”

“
Yes.”

“
You’re not using
rope?”

“
Rope? Tony, this isn’t
the Middle Ages. We stopped using ropes and chains years ago. It’s
archaic.”

“
But I can break the
string easily.”

“
Well, duh!”

I set my head back onto the pillow and smiled
like a fool. “This is going to be fun then, isn’t it?”

“
No, Tony. It’s a ball of
horror. What did you think a consummation ritual was going to be
like?”

“
I don’t know. I guess I
didn’t think.”

“
Huh, well by the time I’m
through redirecting the blood supply from your brain, you won’t be
doing much thinking at all. So just relax and let me do all the
driving. Got it?”

“
Sure. Lead
on.”

She took the next piece of black string and
tied my left ankle to the post at the foot of the bed. “I mentioned
that this ritual is all about trust,” she said. “And as you know
and demonstrated, it’s also about symbolism. Nothing symbolizes
trust more than allowing one’s self to be tied up. They say there’s
a yin and yang to all things in life. Same is true in
witchcraft.

“
I’m using black ties on
the left side of your body to symbolize the dark side of nature.
Fire and earth are the elements that represented turmoil, upheaval
and disruption through the inevitable cycles of change. These are
the elements that feed your fears and prevent you from obtaining
total awareness in your mortal state.”

“
I see.”

She finished tying me down with the black
strings and proceeded to the right side of the bed. “I use white
ties to symbolize the light side of nature,” she explained. “Air
and water are the elements that give us life, feed our souls and
foster a greater awareness that transcends mortal
consciousness.”

“
Oh?”

“
Yes, but like fire and
earth, air and water are still tangibles, all related, but removed
from the quintessential or fifth element.”

“
Love?”

“
Love.”

After tying my hands and feet securely,
Lilith crossed the room, retrieved a small wooden box from a
dresser drawer and returned it to the night stand. She opened the
lid, reached into the box, and removed a blindfold.

“
This is optional,” she
said. Do you want it?”

I shook my head. “No. To deny my eyes the
beauty that is you is to deny all pleasure in its utmost
entirety.”

“
Aw, that’s
sweet.”

“
Yeah?”

“
Yeah. Bullshit, but
sweet. Nice try. Two points for effort.”

She reached into the box again and removed a
single falcon’s feather and talon. “This is the fun part,” she
said, but in a whisper so soft I could barely hear.

She held the feather up in her left hand, the
talon in her right. Shadows on the wall behind her stood in cold
contrast to her beauty, her naked silhouette dancing in the nervous
flicker of candlelight, the same light that gave the front of her
body the warm glow of a breaking dawn.

“
You have demonstrated
your unwavering trust in our love by submitting yourself
unconditionally,” she said. Her eyes found a level plane, her smile
the thin stretch of a serpent’s grin.

I felt a tingle in my body that seemed to
itch all over, perhaps anticipating the work of the talon and
feather in portions only she could control.

She climbed up onto the bed and positioned
herself on her knees in the open space between my legs.

“
The feather represents
the tantalizing joys of love,” she said, teasing me with long soft
strokes of the feather around the areas below my stomach and
between my legs. I lurched upward involuntarily several times when
the feather brushed upon the most sensitive parts of that region,
arousing an interest that was obvious and noticeable. I lifted my
head off the pillow, sculpting a six-pack with my abs and coaxing a
smile on her face.

“
That’s cruel,” I said.
“You know I want you to take it.”

She shook her head and then showed me the
talon. “Cruel is a variable perception,” she said, and she began
slowly dragging the talon across the same familiar landscape. “The
talon represents love’s harsh grip, for it is said, none hath
matched the wicked deeds as that which love hath hatched in
scorn.”

“
What does that
mean?”

“
It means shut up. I’m
getting in the groove.”

She continued raking the talon across my
body, down my stomach, along the inside of my thighs and over the
erogenous areas of my sculpted anatomy. Again, my buttocks
tightened as I lurched upward in repeated involuntary thrusts. I
felt my heartbeat quickened. My breath grew heavy and deep. My
chest heaved.

“
Apart,” she said, “The
talon and feather are mighty opposites of love’s two sides. But
together, they symbolize love’s precarious volatility, the
excitement and energy needed to sustain an everlasting
relationship.”

She had me at full attention then, and with
alternating brushes of the two instruments in unequal,
unpredictable intervals, I was nearly ready to explode. I wanted so
much to snap the strings that bound me and take her under my own
terms, but imagining I couldn’t, only added to the insane
sensualism.

I finally couldn’t help myself. I said to
her, “Lilith, if you don’t speed this along, I might just finish
this without you.”

She tossed the talon and feather aside,
positioned herself accordingly, straddled her mark, directed the
alignment with a guiding hand and received me completely. We fell
into a rhythm that started slow, increased with the rapid beating
of our hearts and excelled to a pace uncontrollably wild.

I know of no words to describe the surreal
intimacy of the moment that we climaxed together; the shrieks, the
extreme muscle spasms and the exhausted last breath we expelled
simultaneously told me we had.

Later, when we both started breathing
normally again, Lilith reached into the nightstand and retrieved
the athame, a dagger-like instrument with a long, wavy blade,
crumpled like a piece of tin. Its hilt was carved of animal bone,
notched for each finger and topped with a pommel of polished teak.
It was the same blade we used the night before to call on the
Coven, and one I’m sure Lilith has used in countless other rituals
long before my time.

She used the blade to ceremoniously cut the
strings tying me to the bed, first the black ones and then the
white. Once done, she surrendered it to me so that I might,
theoretically, stab her to death with it. That being her symbolic
gesture of her trust and faith in me, I accepted it gladly. In
keeping with tradition, of course, I laid the blade upon my chest,
directly over my heart. She leaned forward, stretching her legs out
straight and pressing her chest to mine, sandwiching the blade
between us. Our bodies were still joined below the waists. I
wrapped my arms around her and cupped her cheeks.

We kissed.

“
Is that it?” I
asked.

She smiled at me. “That’s it. Thank you for
doing that. It meant a lot to me.”

“
Me, too, more than I
thought it would.”

“
That’s good.”

“
So now you’re pregnant,
huh?”

“
Excuse me?”

“
You’re pregnant. That’s
the whole idea of the consummation ritual, isn’t it?”

She smiled wickedly. “Are you serious?” She
rolled off me, got out of bed, positioned her hands on her hips in
that standoffish way of hers and proceeded to stare me down.

“
Yes. I
thought….”

“
No! You jerk! That’s not
the whole idea of the consummation ritual. The idea of the ritual
is to consummate our marriage in the tradition of the Coven. Where
did you ever get such a cockamamie idea? You know I don’t like
kids.”

“
I don’t know. I just
assumed since Dominic and Ursula got pregnant the first time
they––”

“
That’s stupid! Is that
why you’ve been so reluctant to do this with me? You though it was
a baby-making ritual.”

“
Well…yeah.”

“
Tony, there’s no such
thing. Witches make babies the same way everyone else makes babies.
They fuck.”

“
Well, I didn’t
know.”

She softened her stance considerably, taking
her hands off her hips, dropping her shoulders and leaning forward
to get a better look into my eyes. “You thought I wanted a baby,
and you didn’t want one, but you were willing to go through with
this anyway, just for me?”

“
Yes, of course. I’d do
anything for you, Lilith.”

“
Tony, that’s so sweet.”
She reached down on the floor beside the bed and picked up the
falcon’s feather and talon.

“
What are you doing with
those?” I asked.

“
Round two,” she said. She
handed them to me. “The first was for the call of tradition. This
one’s for the call of the witch. Now move over. You’re
driving.”