The White Stag (4 page)

As I reached the far side of the pool, she dropped down off the bench and padded down a path bordered by ground-level lighting that twisted off between the trees. I followed her, glancing back at the lights of the house and the muffled sounds of laughter and music before plunging into the semi-darkness.

The path twisted back and forth through the trees, taking me gently but inexorably closer to the edge of the prairie. The hooting cries of an owl and a sudden thundering of wings above me startled me.

“Samantha?” I whispered. “Where the hell are you?”

I stopped walking and stood looking around me, the forest now completely obscuring my view of the house. I shivered, telling myself it was the cool Florida night rather than my growing apprehension.

The cat ambled back toward me down the path, appearing from the semi-darkness in response to my call. The low lighting shimmered off her coat as she circled my feet twice then meandered back the way she had come. I followed her deeper into the woods.

We walked a dozen yards farther, and the path suddenly turned to the right, ending abruptly in a small clearing dominated by a tall stone structure. It was part fountain and part altar, a broad basin filled with water, abutted on the opposite side by a broad shelf and a pair of intertwined forms carved of smooth white stone. Clustered around the base of the statues were heaps of white and red roses, pine cones, holly, bowls of cranberries and pecans and a profusion of tiny flickering votives. Floating candles flickered in the dark water of the basin.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?”

The voice startled me so badly I leapt off the ground, my body shaking.

“Oh,
Jesus
, Jude, you scared me to death,” I said, voice still trembling.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said, his lips close to my neck, his arms wrapping around me to pull me close against him. I immediately felt the fragrant warmth of him, the rock hard press of his erection against the small of my back, the soft touch of his fingers rubbing lightly along my sides.

“The statue is supposed to be Apollo and Athena in a passionate embrace.”

“Weren’t they brother and sister?” I asked.

I felt his tongue run along the length of my neck. “Sometimes forbidden fruit is the sweetest,” he said.

I turned in his arms and kissed him so hard I tasted blood. We pulled each other apart trying to get our clothes off, and when we both stood there completely naked in the glow of the candles, I felt the earth pull me down onto my knees in the cold wet leaves front of him.

I slid my mouth over his cock, pulling him all the way in, pushing so hard against him I choked, but still wanting more of him inside me. I grabbed his ass with both hands, pushing him fiercely into me, my fingers prying his asshole open, then sliding into the heat of him. I heard him gasp and felt my own cock bouncing angrily between my legs.

I slid his cock in and out of my mouth, letting two then three fingers probe the heat of his asshole. I could feel his body tensing, groans escaping him between ragged breaths.

I worked his cock, sliding him back until his cock pounded the back of my throat, and I still could not get enough. He fucked my face harder and harder, his hands pushing against me, gagging me, then pulling back, then gagging me again.

His voice suddenly jumped half an octave and I heard the sharp intake of breath. “I’m gonna come,” he panted, pushing me back from him, but I held him close, letting his cock slide deep, feeling the pulse of come against my lips and along the length of my tongue. I felt the heat of him shooting down my throat, his body sweating and convulsing over me.

When he was finally done, I held him close, not letting him pull out until his cock had begun to soften in exhausted retreat. When he pulled all the way out, I looked down and realized that in my excitement, I had come all over my stomach and Jude’s feet.

I looked up at Jude, his face shimmering and pale in the candlelight, beautiful and saintly, so still and serene in the semi-darkness. I adored this man, could not live another moment without him. I cursed myself for wasted months and felt tears in my eyes, my emotion rising to choke off the air in my windpipe.

I wavered, vertigo holding me in place.

And then I leaned down and licked the warm come from Jude’s feet, sliding my tongue over the toes, then the arch and the ankles of one foot, then the other. When I had licked him clean, I looked up at him, still kneeling.

I felt dizzy suddenly, as if the vast power of the planet spinning beneath me was rising through my knees and my toes and surging through my body, singing through me with the electric force of the universe. I shivered, feeling both hot and cold simultaneously.

 “Look,” Jude said suddenly, pointing behind me.

My heart plunged at the prospect of our discovery. I whipped my head around and stopped stone still and silent, a wash of cold air raising goose pimples across my legs, my chest, my cheeks. The hair on my neck stood on end, and a cold chill flashed across the inside of my forehead.

There at the edge of the clearing, its great snout rooting through the bowl of cranberries nestled at the feet of Apollo, stood a towering eight-point buck whose coat glowed undeniably, brilliantly white against the dark foliage. Huge planes of muscle shifted and rippled beneath the stark white pelt.

As if sensing the weight of our gaze, the great animal looked up, his muzzle flecked with saliva and bits of red berries. His eyes were gentle and dark, like deep silent pools of stillness.

He looked at me first, blinking and letting out a raspy snuffle. And then his gaze turned to Jude. He stared at Jude for a long time, his ear twitching absently, and then he bowed, lowering himself slowly on his muscular front legs. He lowered his head, his great horns dropping in front of him, and stood like that for a moment before rising back to his full height. He stood watching Jude for a moment longer and then turned his attention back to the bowl of cranberries.

I sat back on my knees, and Jude knelt naked beside me, taking my hand in his and gently kissing my palm.

“Believe,” he whispered, raising his cool eyes to mine.

*  *  *

Epilogue

Jude
says we imagine barriers to our own happiness. We look for all the ways life has elected to punish us but never quite see the bounty laid at our feet. I suspect he’s right about this. I resisted him for a long time, telling myself that our divergent beliefs were an insurmountable barrier. I suppose that was me living out the final remnants of my parents’ unhappy, intractable religious legacy.

I didn’t tell Jude this, but the night before the party, I lay in bed and I prayed for a sign: some supernatural recognition that it was okay to be with this amazing, iconoclastic man. Since September 11, my prayers have transformed from direct theistic entreaties to rambling pleas for intercession by the spirit of my beloved sister. This would surely have given my mother a heart attack, or at least, thrown her into a histrionic riff on the theme of idolatry, but it seemed natural to me then. I would have sought Dana’s support, maybe even her permission, in life. How different is it to lay in bed and pray for some sign of her otherworldly approval?

And then to see the white stag step out of the forest at the moment our souls were most surely intertwined… it was breathtaking. A sign from Dana? A sign from the universe? Are they not one and the same now?

Jude says the world around us offers us living sacraments if we can somehow manage to let down the barriers, open our hearts, and believe.

I believe he’s right.

Got
Mistletoe Madness
?

The Dreamspinner Press 2009 Advent Calendar is available at http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com.

About the Author

Jamie Freeman
is a north Florida native who works a day job to finance his nighttime passions for writing, reading, and watching old movies. He has collected a personal library that already threatens the structural integrity of his spare bedroom but continues to grow unfettered. He’s an avid trail runner who spends mile after mile spinning dreams into fiction. He has published a children’s book and a string of short stories and is always working on several new projects. An anthology that included one of his short stories won a 2009 Lambda Literary Award.

Visit his blog at http://nickdreamsong.blogspot.com/.

Copyright

The White Stag ©Copyright Jamie Freeman, 2009

Published by

Dreamspinner Press

4760 Preston Road

Suite 244-149

Frisco, TX 75034

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Art by Paul Richmond   http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com

Cover Design by Mara McKennen

This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at: 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

Released in the United States of America

December 2009

eBook Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-61581-329-2