Message-ID: <14393eli$9808151837@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Archived-At: From: "chrutli patrona" Subject: island1(cons snuff) Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Path: qz!not-for-mail Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Approved: X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded X-Story-Submission: X-Original-Message-ID: <19980806192104.29567.qmail@hotmail.com> Disclaimer: This is a rather grisly fantasy about secret druid rites on an isolated North Sea Island. Don't read it. If you must read it, neither the author nor the poster takes any responsibility for your having done so; legal and moral repercussions are yours alone. Live well and love gently- Chrutli ( M/f; cons snuff; other stuff) Our Island Chrutli 1 Our island is isolated in the harsh North Sea. Indeed, it doesn't appear at all on most maps. We are nominally a bit of England, but geographically closer to Norway; both countries rather ignore us. That, more than anything, is why the ancient customs here have persisted. We are isolated from radio and television. Though with the satellite dishes now, television is a possibility, few on our island can afford the luxury. What radio signals we can receive are Norwegian, and we listen mostly for the music; we are, after all, english-speaking British subjects. Farming, sheep and fishing sustain us. We have relatively few visitors. I had come to the island to assume the practice of Dr. Thomas Stewart, who was retiring. It was Dr. Stewart who initiated me into the circle. I was a worldly and sophisticated man then; I can admire in retrospect his skill and insight regarding me. I know more now, and less. I have regrets, but they are not those you might expect. My wife was the first, my dark-eyed Robin. Robin was a lovely woman, black-haired, olive-skinned, tall; on the slender side of voluptuous, the beauty of the Mediterranean, though she was British. She had been reserved and a bit prudish when I met her. She had been an indifferent lover as well when I married her, but her physical beauty compensated. I loved her breasts, and I know that she was proud of them, of the effect her beauty had on me, and on other men. She was prudish, yes, but not foolish; she enjoyed being so desirable. They birth of our little girl neither compromised her beauty, nor melted her reserve. I was, despite her passionless nature, quite in love with her. Dr. Stewart was a lean, vigorous man in his middling sixties. He was retiring from practice, though he was staying on the island. It was perhaps unusual for me, a young doctor, to chose such an isolated place to take up practice, but the very isolation appealed to me. Robin was less enthusiastic, but she was a good mother and satisfied with her role of housekeeper; as the islanders warmed to her, she grew happy and content. Stewart was retiring; I took up the practice with him, and matters seemed unremarkable until the day he took me off to the bluffs for a chat. Stewart had an extensive library on primitive religions and ritual sacrifice. I recall we discussed pagan beliefs and druids over a bottle of greek wine; the christian eucharist, and then the sacrifice of nubile young women. I argued broadly and naively that such a thing could add to the strength and vitality of a community; one woman chosen from a community, honored, then slain and perhaps even communally devoured, I said, might well provide a sort of soul and focus for a primitive society. Stewart seemed amused. "Suppose it was your own wife, or your daughter about to be slain. Would you feel the same?" It gave me a chill; I sensed he meant more than he said. "I love Robin and Katherine with my all," I said a bit indignantly. "Hypothetically, of course. If your wife was naked on some pagan altar, and you were handed a ceremonial knife. For the good of all, could you do it then? For the good of the community?" "It's a hateful notion," I protested. But somehow I could picture it; Robin, the darkness, the knife descending into the olive skin of her naked breast, the welling of hot blood. It was curiously and shamefully arousing. "It needn't be hateful," Stewart said reasonably. "Mostly certainly erotic, though, don't you think? Powerfully, darkly erotic. And yet it may be loving as well." Dr. Stewart shrugged and laughed, dismissing the topic. "Quite a discussion, don't you think? Here in the very soul of druid country?" He dropped it; I was grateful. I did indeed find it arousing. We discussed other things, and eventually returned to our homes, a pleasant afternoon away from the demands of the surgery. I liked Stewart. He was eccentric, but a gentle sort. His patients were devoted to him. When I let him off at his cottage, he touched my wrist. "Do this. The next time you're with your wife. Between the fifth and six rib, say, a deep cut from the side to the sternum. That will open her chest adequately. Then her heart; you know the anatomy." "You're a filthy perverted bastard," I said, laughing dismissively. My face grew hot. He laughed himself as he got out. "I am at that. You'll have to come see my library sometime. Well then, I'll see you in the morning." I thought nothing of it the next morning when Dr. Stewart saw Robin as a patient. Such things are a professional courtesy; one generally doesn't treat family members. It was busy in the surgery, as it always is. Robin left again before I had a chance to say hello. After lunch, Stewart and I walked to the square; he lit his pipe as we sat on a bench. "Let me see. You took off her pyjamas under the pretext of fondling her, you discovered that to get to her heart properly, you'd have to more or less cut through the mass of her breast. The idea inflamed you, and you made love to her a bit aggressively, yes? Pinned her arms over her head, bit her breasts perhaps?" I flushed deeply. "That is indecent, Stewart," I gasped. I had in fact more or less done what he said. Robin's breasts were large, full and elegantly firm; they would have gotten in the way of any incision. And the secret exploration had aroused me. "Yes, but accurate? And she surprised you, didn't she? She rather liked the truculence, multiple orgasms and all that." That too was true; a first for Robin, who often had no orgasm at all. "Robin told you this?" I demanded. "I know you saw her this morning." Stewart laughed heartily. "No. She did not. You told me yourself, Jon; it's not so much that you're transparent, but the simple fact that most men have that dark impulse. A small handful of women find it terribly arousing. If one is observant, he can recognise these women. Robin is such a woman. I'm sure of it." "Stewart, damn you, what are you getting at?" He looked at me shrewdly. "You'll see. In good time, you'll understand me. You're a bit muddled by civilisation, that's all. We're past the edge of civilisation on our lonely little island. You'll see soon enough." "Riddles, Stewart?" I was more muddled than upset; the shameful notion had been exciting, but I wanted to drop the subject altogether. "I've a one o'clock. Shouldn't we get back?" That was all he said. I had been aroused, and a bit rough with Robin, handling her a bit, pinching and forcing her. She had responded with astonishing, violent orgasms. After, she had been resentful; I was apologetic. But she had had orgasms, not a simple, hard- won orgasm, as was often her response. It wasn't, at any extent, something I wanted to discuss with a colleague. Stewart showed me a bookcase in his office before we left for the day; dozens of books on paganism, sacrificial rites, and the like. "So you're a filthy, perverted scholar?" I asked. He laughed. "I'll have you and your wife to my cottage some evening. That's where most of my collection is. I have some remarkable artifacts as well. You see, it is more than a hobby with me. Your premise of the other day may well have validity, you know." "My premise?" "That sacrificial rites can be a benefit for a society." "So much blather, Stewart," I said impatiently. "You didn't tell me you were an authority." "You didn't ask," Stewart smiled without disdain. He offered me several books on Druid practices; I took them, a bit embarrassed at my presumptuous pronouncements of the earlier afternoon. He distressed me, but I quite forgot about the exchange by the time I got home, and spent a pleasant evening with my young daughter and my lovely Robin. Kat had made cakes that afternoon with Robin's help; she was quite proud of herself. After dinner the two of them read story books on the porch swing. It was a vision of happy domesticity, and I was indeed happy. I perused the books Stewart had given me. I was mildly surprised to discover two of them were written by Stewart himself; one on the Druid faith, and the other on Druidic sacrificial rites. Stewart wrote at length on the social and moral implications of the practice. He saw such it as positive and sustainable in the fabric of a society, and his arguments were quite compelling. The other book gave a more general description of Druid beliefs, and I was surprised to discover that the tenets of that faith were good and wholesome, the sacrifice of women notwithstanding. I read until Robin put Kat to bed, and then my thoughts turned to my lovely wife and her passion of the previous night. Robin was curiously reluctant when we retired. I tried to remove her pyjama; she fussed and protested. I was a bit aggressive; she had responded to that the night before. I actually tore buttons, and thus exposed what she had been trying to conceal. There were grey marks on her chest; I recognised them immediately. They'd been done with a surgical marker, black lines to delineate an incision on the skin. They were faded from much washing and scrubbing, but still apparent. One line described the shape of her heart where it lay beneath her breastbone. Another started beneath her armpit, curved under her breast where her breast met her ribs and traveled upward to her breastbone, above her heart. A third line started the same, but traversed her breast, crossing her generous, bulbous nipple, ending again above her heart. "What is this?" I demanded, furious. "What the devil is this?" I knew: her heart, and prospective incisions to reach it. Stewart had done this. "Jon, don't be angry. Thomas was naughty, that was all. I encouraged him. It wasn't anything." "Then what the devil is this? Explain it to me." "It's my fault. I was curious. Dr. Stewart studies pagan rites, you see. And I. I asked him." "You asked him to draw on your chest?" Robin lay back, her eyes dark. "There used to be Druids here, you know. On this island. And they sacrificed young women. So I asked him, how did they do it? And I- well, he's an old man anyway, and he can be charming. He was rather playful. So I took my blouse and brassiere off and he showed me. He drew my heart where it lay in my chest. Then he said my breast was in the way, and they might have to cut it away. That was the first mark-" she guided my hand under her breast, following the line along her ribs, curving up to her sternum- "said he'd have to take my breast away to expose the ribs, then cut between my ribs." Robin swallowed, watching me. "He was so cheerful, chatting me up. He rather fondled me a bit- I should have stopped it, I know, but he's old and I saw no harm. Then he said the other way was to cut through my breast, and he pushed it around on my chest so his knife- his marker went directly through my breast, through my nipple-" she guided my hand across her flesh- "And that would be a bit quicker. Then he told me how they would open my chest, reach in and cut this and that, quickly, and that if it was done properly I could see my own heart quivering alive. Before I passed on." Robin swallowed, shivering. "It was my fault; I shouldn't have let him, and I should have stopped him. I tried to wash it off, but-" she smiled weakly and shrugged. "He'd already done a breast exam, that and a Pap smear. He'd already touched me intimately. I'd put my clothes back on. It really was my fault." "I'll rip his bloody heart out. He had no blasted right-" "No. Don't. Please. You'll only embarrass me. Please?" Robin touched me, kissed and caressed me urgently. "Please?" "I'll have words with him, you can be assured-" She kissed me. "No. Don't speak of it. Please? Don't. Not at all. It was my fault. I was wicked. Don't blame him." Robin lifted her breasts to me, a wanton gesture foreign to her. "You like my breasts, my tennis-ball nipples. It shouldn't surprise you that other men admire them." "Other men don't draw on my wife's breasts." My anger was giving way to lust; Her nipples were erect and her eyes dark. 'Tennis balls' she called them, pips of nipples amidst aureolas that swelled prodigiously, darkly pigmented, brownish-red and smooth. I didn't love Robin for her breasts, but I certainly loved her breasts. I was aroused, and she knew it. A line across her breast, ending above her heart. I touched her breast; it would be perhaps easier to push it aside to make the incision; more truculent to cut straight through, and then into the pectoral muscle. I was aroused. I kissed her deeply. "Like last night?" she whispered, her lips trembling. I'm not a cruel man, but the hunger and outrage provoked by Stewart's meddling in our intimate life drove me almost to excess. Robin responded as she had the previous night; it was a revelation that crude rutting excited her more than tender considerations. Afterward, she watched me tenderly, as I cleaned and dressed her left breast were my teeth had broken the tender skin. "I do love you, Jonathon. You know that, don't you?" "I suppose I do." "You'll not mention this to Stewart? Please?" "Why? Why would you want to protect him?" My anger was spent, but I was still indignant. "Did he seduce you? Did he try to seduce you?" "No. Not that. Of course not that." She swallowed, looking away. "It excited me, laying beneath him like that. Imagining how it would feel. And it- I don't know, it frightened me to feel that way. I won't see him again, all right? I feel foolish. I want to put it behind me. Please?" I was determined not to apologise for injuring her breast; her nipple was swollen and discolored as well as bleeding. "I'll let it be," I said, a small act of contrition for having hurt her. Had Stewart seduced her? She said not. Robin had never lied to me before, so I dismissed my suspicions. "Thank you," she said. She curled against me to sleep; I was aroused again, but my feelings shamed me; I turned away from her and slept myself. I slept well; despite Stewart's horrid behaviour, I felt terribly virile. I could excite Robin. The dark beast in me had awaken, and he hungered. The next morning, Stewart himself made apologies. He was delicate, sincere, abject and humble. He was almost an embarrassment in his excess; he sent Robin a case of good French wine with a note asking forgiveness. I accepted his apology with reluctance. The matter passed eventually; Robin's breast healed; we resumed more temperate lovemaking, and I began reading Stewart's library more widely. He was pleased at my interest. I was surprised to discover that the last public sacrifice on our island was done in 1934, practically in modern times; in the text there was no mention of prosecution, nor any repercussions at all, simply that that had been the last public sacrifices, a young woman noted for her beauty and her gentle ways. The ritual had been conducted on a bluff at the east end of the island. I went there one grey afternoon, and discovered a slab of limestone set up on a rise, weathered and overgrown, but clearly where the deed had been done. My fascination with the rite was neither scholarly nor innocent; Stewart had encouraged me cheerfully, both in the study of Druid faith and in the dark practices of that ancient religion. Standing on the bluff, under that grey sky, I could imagine the event, the naked body, the knife, and the blood welling. I could well imagine the young woman struggling, screaming; the text, though said she'd given herself "gently and willingly, as was befitting." Later, I asked Stewart about the slab on the bluff; he confirmed that it had been the altar. He mentioned quite casually that Robin had discovered a small medallion near the altar, silver and badly corroded, but nonetheless a Druid artifact. "Robin was there?" "I took her myself, just last week." "You took her there?" I asked. I was distressed; I hadn't known Robin was interested as well; nor had I known she'd been with him. "She didn't tell you? She found it all rather fascinating." "No. She didn't." "An oversight, perhaps. Jonathon, I'm prepared to turn my practice over to you. Perhaps we ought to discuss arrangements. I'm eager to have my own time, you see." I let him change the subject. We discussed arrangements. I didn't ask, but I wondered. Why had Robin been with him and said nothing? Why had the two of them gone there, of all places? Had she, out of curiosity or Stewart's persuasion, lain on that ancient altar? And if she had, what then? The questions were endless and distressing; I tried to ignore the matter, and to dismiss my own misgivings. Robin was her own woman, certainly, but I had the distressing sense of concealment and betrayal. Robin had recently come by a small medallion; she wore it on a chain between her breasts, the silver too weathered to be recognisable. She told me she bought it. I did not, later, ask Robin about the business on the bluff. It distressed me, but I didn't dare ask. I felt vaguely guilty as well; if I pictured Robin on the bluff, laid out on the ancient altar, she was always naked, and the palpebral image was erotic. Looking back, I must say I was meant to suspect her; that was Stewart's intention. Robin was a pawn. However, I knew none of that at the time. A short time after we were invited to Stewart's home for a small dinner party to celebrate his full retirement. The guests, besides Robin and myself, were Eric, a black man who was the butcher in the village, and a young woman named Wendy, who was apparently a simple clerk at the druggist's. Curious company, perhaps, but each was unique. Eric was a handsome, muscular man. He was a butcher, yes, but educated, erudite, and charming, though rather blunt and forward. He took to Robin immediately, and Robin, curiously, returned his interest. I found something oddly cold about him. Wendy, the other guest, was blonde, slender, a golden Nordic sort with a face that was cute rather than beautiful. She was in her early twenties, and spoke little, though she was quite engaged with the conversation. She had a poise, almost a serenity about her that was unusual for such a young woman. It appealed to me, though I admit I showed interest in her as much because Eric and Robin were so taken with each other. The evening went along quite pleasantly, really, until Stewart suggested we look at the artifacts he had in his study, Druid artifacts and oddities from the middle ages. Wendy demurred and asked me to accompany her to the garden. I rather wanted to see Stewart's collection, but followed her, to Robin's unspoken amusement. There was nothing remarkable about Wendy; she wasn't educated, nor witty, nor sexual, though there was a sensuality about her. Just the same, there was a glow, a serenity, a goodness about her that I fairly warmed myself on. We admired his garden and chatted lightly. It was she, finally, who suggested we go back inside. In the study, Robin was on her back in a sort of stock, fastened around her neck and wrists. It was low, no more than two feet from the floor, and she was kneeling, bent backwards in the stock, her back arched sharply. Eric was resting a massive curving sword on her throat. Robin's eyes were fastened shut, her full lips parted. "Eric, please. Stop this at once," Wendy said mildly. "You like this truculent business far too much." Robin opened her eyes and looked at me distantly; she saw my anger. Eric lifted the sword, looking at me darkly, as if I'd interrupted something. "An unusual way to treat a man's wife, don't you think?" I asked coldly. Eric nodded a bland apology. I knelt and unfastened the stock. With her back arched so severely, Robin's breasts had stretched her blouse; the shape of them, and the shape of her erect nipples was quite apparent against the taut fabric. "It's all right, Jon, really it is," Robin protested as I extracted her and helped her to her feet. She was trembling, but perhaps that was only from the strain. "It's all right. There's no harm done." "Nor any intended, of course," Eric said coolly. Wendy scolded him; Stewart tried to smooth matters over; Robin tried to catch her breath and her composure. I was far too angry for any of that, and we left before I made matters worse. We didn't speak for most of the way home. Finally, Robin said, "It really was all right. He wouldn't have hurt me." "Right. You laid yourself in that device and let yourself be bound tight." "No, that is, Eric insisted. I let him lock me up, but he was quite- well, he insisted." "And Stewart? He didn't try to stop it?" "He-he made light of it; he found a cushion for my knees. He tried to ease my discomfort." "You were quite helpless, fastened on your back like that. And Eric might have hurt you with that sword." "He didn't. Mostly, the two of them discussed how they would skin and dress my body once I was properly beheaded; Eric is a butcher, you know. Eric said my breasts would be waste, and that was a bloody shame, but that my hams would be delicious. He said my breasts were mostly fat; I suggested he put them inside my chest to tenderise everything when I baked. He was quite intrigued at the notion." Robin smiled at me timidly and ingenuously, as if it had all been harmless fun. "It's all depraved, Robin. It's not at all healthy." "Wicked," she laughed, kissing me, growing amourous as I drove. "Deliciously wicked." All the dark hungers I'd been harbouring over the weeks boiled to the surface. I wasn't cruel to her once we arrived home. I was aggressive, uncompromising and completely domineering, though. I used my necktie to bind her hands, and proceeded from there, ravishing her greedily. The dark beast was back, and ravening with hunger. Robin responded with the same feverish passion as before. And then she surprised me; she took me in her mouth. She had never done that before. And then, equally shocking and arousing, her mouth slid to my pubes and her throat embraced me. It was a whore's trick. In our years of marriage she had kissed my penis only a few times, and then after much urging. I used her mouth, and then took her again, with less restraint than before. She cried out twice, but she didn't protest my aggression. She cried a bit when we were both finished, but she curled against me to do so. I had bruised and scratched her body, but something dark and bitter remained in my thoughts, and I didn't dress her mild injuries, nor offer her more comfort than holding her as she cried. Though the night had been sexually gratifying, the events of the evening put something of a barrier between us; we barely spoke the next morning. Passions and peculiar events had driven something between us, something neither of us was willing to discuss. My suspicions of her and my cruelty were of the same fabric. That she enjoyed the cruelty, though; did that confirm my suspicions, or prove her love for me? Perhaps a week later Wendy rang up the surgery and asked to talk to me. She asked me to come by my flat that morning; the matter was urgent. She wouldn't say more. I cancelled appointments reluctantly and went. When I arrived, she was quite naked but for a filmy peasant blouse. She smiled at me openly, drew me to a divan, and we sat. I wasn't sure if she intended and examination or a seduction; she was quite lovely, tanned and lean, her blonde hair about her shoulders. "I'm glad you came. It's time you learned a bit about our customs." "Your customs? Have you asked me here to seduce me?" Wendy laughed delightedly. "Perhaps. I have some things you must know. Please listen, and don't get in a snit. Hear me out, all right?" I nodded. "Well." She took a breath that made her barely concealed breasts jostle. "We have a fair every summer solstice, Midsummers day. A woman is chosen then; chosen is what she is called, and its a very great honor. She is given to the Druid god- well, I won't go into that. She is revered. Women seek her blessing; men honor her and desire her. For the year that she is chosen, she can do much good; she is unique and holy among us. This has all been concealed from you; we wanted to learn what sort of man you are." She took another breath. "Midsummer next, the chosen is cleansed and prepared ritually. She lays herself on a stone altar, and one among the elders takes her heart from her body." She glanced at me; I gaped, shocked. She continued. "Her body is taken to the butcher shop, where its dressed and roasted, so that each may share her flesh. After, of course, another young woman is chosen." She took my hand and pressed it between her breasts. "Jon, in a few days it will be my heart, and my body. I am chosen." I sputtered and barely found my voice. "This is horrid. You want me to help you stop it-" "My god, no!" she said. "No. Dr. Stewart will do for me; I shall be his last. I must admit, I have moments when- but no. I don't want you to stop it." "What then?" I was stunned; I was horrified; I was, shamefully, aroused. Wendy took both my hands, kissed them and squeezed them. "If you hadn't guessed already, Stewart is stepping down from his duties as an elder as well. He wants you to take up the mantle. He asked me to ask you. Will you do this?" "You want me to slaughter you?" I asked. "No. You weren't listening. Stewart will do for me. After that, you will be the one to-" she giggled- "to slaughter the chosen, as you put it." "No. This is ghastly. It has to stop. It must." Wendy sat closer to me, and gazed with those disturbing blue eyes. "We tried one year, you know. Dr. Stewart was foremost in his opposition. I had barely been born then, but I heard about it. Our good doctor persuaded the elders to forgo the sacrifice; they offered up grains and wine instead." She paused, shook her head. "There was a drought, first off. A drought, in the midst of the North Sea! Many good families lost their crop. Then a disease among the sheep. People became distrustful and hateful. A woman was murdered. That has never happened here, never before nor since." "Except once every year," I said bitterly. "No. That's a loving thing. Murder is hateful." She sighed, and looked out the windows at the afternoon. "I'm afraid, sometimes. Terrified, really. Sometimes I wish it was another woman. But there is honor, and worthiness. There is-" she gave an odd laugh- "There is an exaltation. Can you understand that? My time grows short, but my life is richer for it, and I can give that wealth to the people I love." Wendy smiled serenely. "The year that Dr. Stewart tried to stop the ritual- that was the year his wife was chosen. She insisted, don't you know. She insisted that she be slain; she insisted her husband do it. He did, finally, poor wretched man, but he did. He understands now." I began to understand other things for my part; that was why Stewart was tempting me with my own loving wife, as a sort of revenge. He wanted me to consider slaying the woman I loved, the easier to slay women I didn't know. "I doubt that I can do this. Even if you've resigned yourself to your fate, it's a cruel, fiendish thing." "Resigned?" Wendy laughed with delight. "I embrace it. You can't understand how eager I am for-" she stopped, and sighed- "But you really don't understand, do you? I do; and sometimes I can see how a man would feel, given the duty that Thomas has. That we wish you to assume." Wendy slipped to my feet, kneeling, smiling at me radiantly. "Jon, you have an erection." She tossed her head. "A rather handsome fellow, too. He's been standing at attention nearly since you came. Is that because I'm nearly naked? Or do you like the notion of a pretty girl naked and helpless before you? Naked and waiting for you to do her?" My face went hot. "They ought to find someone else," I said. "I'd be a monster. I-" I shook my head. I couldn't continue. Wendy touched my erection; I was ashamed. "That someone else would be Eric, did you know that? Eric is a brute and a sadist. He's a cruel lover; I know. He would be even more so with the chosen. He wouldn't trouble himself over it as you're doing; he is already a monster. You like women, Jonathon. You've a caring heart. I can see how difficult it is for you; more so perhaps than for me. But we need a gentle monster. Eric would cause so much needless pain. You really must accept this role." "I can't. No. I can't. I really don't believe I can." I was confused, embarrassed by my erection, and by this woman's insistence, a woman who herself would be such a victim. "That is why you must. Thomas chose well. You would be perfect, a monster with a conscience, with quick and gentle hands to slay lovingly." She sat back on her ankles and slipped off the gauzy blouse. "I hoped you'd make love to me when I asked you here. You will, won't you? We'll talk about slaying young, pretty women, and feed your dark desires." She started on my clothing; I was fiercely aroused and afraid to touch her. Wendy smiled gently. "Imagine it will be your hands that take my life. Then touch me. Tell me how you're going to do it. Tell how you're going to slay me." I groaned; but I didn't protest. I did as she said. She was passionate and radiant; I was hungry and cruel, at least in words. I throttled her, impaled her. Beheading, flaying, disembowelment, the most grisly things I could think of. Wendy encouraged and elaborated the dark fantasies; the love-making, though, was tender and intense. She would be dead on a dark altar in a few days, and we both knew that. That was enough, that and my words, a torrent of cruel descriptions as we made love. I went back to my surgery after; I was sexually sated and horrified at what I'd learned. What troubled me most was not the sacrifice, but that some compelling part of me wanted to participate. I had taken Wendy, wishing to ravish and murder her, for no purpose more than a horrid sexual hunger. She understood that and welcomed it. I was troubled at the sacrifice; but I was horrified at my own hunger for sexual murder. It was nothing else. The rite, perhaps, benefited the community; the Druid faith had much to commend it. Still the rite came down to one man murdering one young woman, and they wanted me to be that man. I wanted it, as well, but it was monstrous. I rang up Stewart. He took rather long to pick up, but he knew immediately why I had called. I spoke to him frankly; there seemed no reason to do otherwise. I did not want to be a monster. I would refuse. He acknowledged quite readily that it was a terrible obligation, and urged me to reconsider. I hesitated- and then consented to that, at least. I would give it thought; I would reconsider. As we talked, I heard a harsh voice off the line- it was undoubtedly Eric- and then a woman cry out. "Eric is here, yes," Stewart said. "And the woman?" "There is no woman here, Jon. You will consider this, won't you? I didn't chose you casually. It is quite important." "Some secret society of Druids murdering women; this is important?" "There is no secret, Jon. Ask anyone. This isn't some secret cabal bent on slaying young women. You've been kept in the dark by everyone. Ask anyone on the island. We are all a part of this." That took me back. "I'll consider it," I said, "No more than that." "Don't be too long about it. I really must go. I've company, you know." After I got off with Stewart, I called Robin at home; the neighbor girl answered. Robin had gone into the village. That meant she would drop round, and I did not want to see my wife in the state I was in. I closed the surgery and went for a stroll in the village. A pretty blonde woman sat on a bench in the commons, two small children playing at her feet. Ask anyone, Stewart had said. I steeled myself, sat, and introduced myself to her. Her name was Fran. "You're the new doctor. I hope you're nicer than Stewart," she said, smiling and shaking my hand. "What's wrong with Stewart?" "Oh, nothing really. He's a good doctor, but a bit randy. He likes to grope a bit when he examines me. It's rude, though I suppose its harmless. You're handsome enough, though; perhaps a grope might not be unwelcome." "I'm married," I said, perhaps a bit indignantly. Fran laughed. "Forgive me; so am I. I can't help being a bit of a flirt." The little boy ran up to her, and she tied his shoe for him. "Fran, I wanted to ask you-" I paused, unsure how to frame the question. It sounded absurd to me, asking a young mother on a bench in the afternoon sun about sacrificial rites. "Midsummer day, the chosen. I wanted to ask you-" Fran caught her breath, startled, and then flushed. "Am I to be chosen next?" she asked quietly. "No. No, not that I'm aware of. I know very little, though. I've been asked- that is, Dr. Stewart asked me to step in to- to assume his duties." "I see." Fran looked at me oddly, then laughed nervously. "I'm sorry." She straightened her shoulders and laughed again. "Well. You gave me a fright." "This business frightens you, then?" "Yes, of course. Well, I saw you walk up, and my heart stopped for a moment. I know who you are, of course, Dr. Stewart's protege. I thought- well, I know who you are-" she laughed again. "I thought I'd been chosen." I shook my head vigourously. "I think it's a brutal, barbaric practice," I said vigourously. "I think it ought to stop." Fran looked shocked. "Why?" she asked simply. "This sort of thing doesn't happen in the civilised world. It needn't. It appalls me." Fran was oddly distressed, and growing more so as I went on, expressing my outrage. "You could leave the island, you know," I concluded. "You'd be safe then." "Perhaps we oughtn't speak of this." Fran gave me an anxious smile. I apologised, drew a deep breath, calmed myself and approached it differently. I explained myself as well as I could, leaving the outrage out of it. It was a peculiar thing, to be discussing paganism and sacrifice on a sunny afternoon with an attractive young mother whose children played at our feet. Everything was commonplace except the conversation. I succeed in reassuring Fran, at least; I convinced her I was simply naive and distressed by the custom, rather than indignant and horrified. The conversation turned commonplace, or nearly so. "There are demons and goddesses on our island," she said, when I'd finished explaining what Stewart expected of me. "If we killed off the demons, there would be no goddesses." She smiled at me, her cheeks dimpling. "Forgive me. I'm being poetic. I could run off to London, certainly. Then I'd have to worry about being run over by a lorry, or catching some terrible disease. I could be mugged, and murdered, or worse. I'm not a sophisticated girl, you know. There are things in that modern world of yours that would frighten me badly, and that you would take in stride. We have our chosen; you mustn't let it trouble you so." Fran paused and laughed again. "The prospect is frightening, yes. But it is a bit remote. Frank- he's my husband- tries to keep me pregnant, the dear. The chosen dare not be with child, not when she's first chosen. But I fool the lovely man and use the pill; I'm not a brood mare, and besides-" She stopped and shook her head, wetting her lips. "Besides what?" "You've met the chosen?" "Yes." "She knows something. She's filled with light, with spirit. I don't know; I'm not saying it well. She's profoundly at peace, and sometimes I think it might be worth it, to know what she knows, to taste her serenity." She looked at me frankly and openly. "Perhaps there could be a chosen without the bloody part," I suggested. Fran laughed delightedly. "You're so delicate about it. Sacrifice. Slaying. Bloody frigging murder. But that would make it all trivial, wouldn't it? A beauty queen cutting the ribbon on the new building society. No. No, that wouldn't do. Demons and goddesses, you know? Not politicians and beauty queens. Our lives are already thoroughly commonplace. We need a goddess; therefore, we need a demon." "Suppose you were chosen? Would you accept?" Fran looked at her children, then at me, her face dark and open, as a woman might look at a lover. "Yes," she said softly. "I rather think I would. Not that I'd have a choice," she added quickly. "The chosen never does. But I'm prepared. I hope I'm worthy. The chosen can have at any man on the island; that rather appeals to me as well, naughty girl that I am." She stood abruptly, perhaps embarrassed. "Well, I've got to get home. Brandy, Richard, come along. We've got to prepare dinner for your father." Before she left, though, she turned back to me. "Does that make my chances less remote? Telling you that?" "Perhaps. I can't say." She nodded, her eyes on mine, intimate and intense. "You would be the one, wouldn't you? The one to take my heart?" I didn't answer. I felt as though she was going to propose a tryst; there was that about her, erotic promise, dark desire. She laughed again. "You've got me all bothered, doctor. I rather think Frank will get lucky tonight. Isn't that funny? He thinks its because I want another baby." She drew a breath and straightened her shoulders. "Forgive me, I'm being much too bold. Please don't tell Frank on me, will you? He'd take it badly if I was chosen. Goodbye, Doctor. I'm pleased to meet you." We shook hands and she left, her children trailing her. Sitting in the bench in the commons with the sun on my shoulders I admitted that I could do this thing. It was the first time I accepted that it was more than a dark, hidden fantasy, that I could be a good doctor and a good husband and still slay nubile young women. It was a horrid thing, but I could do it, and live with myself. Better I than Eric, I thought. A benefit for the village, I thought, sitting on the bench in the sun. I thought many such things, rationalisations and justifications, but finally realised that beneath the arguments I was at ease with myself. My outrage was simple hypocrisy. I would make peace with the beast in me by feeding it. Robin was not yet home when I arrived; I paid the neighbor girl for watching Kat and sent her home. I rang up Stewart and told him my decision; he sounded surprised, though pleased; he advised me to read up on the beliefs and the rituals. He asked me if I'd witness the ritual with Wendy; I said I'd be honored. Robin arrived shortly and began dinner; she seemed a bit distracted, so I took Kat outside to play. Sooner or later I would have to tell Robin; not now, though, and I dreaded the prospect. I could be a good husband and father; for the moment, that was all I was. The ritual was six days off; in that time, I met the elders- there are eight, none of whom need be mentioned, except, of course, Dr. Stewart and Eric. I was initiated into the faith, a thankfully brief ceremony. Stewart showed me the ceremonial knife; it was all of iron, perhaps a foot long including the handle, curved slightly, two-edged and exquisitely sharp. "It's reforged every year," he said. "The blood of countless young women has been hammered into the blade." I hefted it once before returning it to its case; it was massive. The next few days, Robin spent a great deal of time in the village, helping to prepare the midsummer fair. She refused my advances at night, protesting tiredness. I didn't press her; we were still somewhat at odds, distant from one another, and there was Wendy. In the afternoon, after surgery, Wendy was receptive. Receptive? She was eager, passionate, insatiable. "You're nicer than Stewart," she told me. "He's so bloody big, it hurts. You're much bigger than Eric, though, and not so horribly cruel." "Stewart has had you?" I asked. "Oh, yes. Lots of times." Something bothered me about that, but I couldn't place it, not with Wendy's eager mouth doing what it was doing. The evening before Midsummer day, the six young men who would participate went to Wendy's flat. They spent the night, comforting her, talking to her, making love with her. Well before dawn, she was washed, anointed with oil, and then two elders came, blessed her, and asked her for her heart and body. They proceeded to the Anglican church. The ritual was indeed no longer public; the Druid altar had been established in a deep cellar beneath the church. If the chosen refused, the six young men would have taken her there just the same. Wendy walked herself to the church, wearing a white linen robe proudly. I saw her coming down the steps to the dark altar; she was nervous and radiant. Words were spoken, Wendy's robe taken from her shoulders, and then she laid her slim golden body on the stone altar, her glistening body lit by flickering candles. More words were spoken, celtic invocations. Six pairs of hand grasped her; one man at each hand and foot, two at her hips. Her arms were drawn sharply over her head, forcing her back to arch, as Stewart approached her with the large, gleaming blade. Then silence, silence except for the sound of Wendy's light panting. We were waiting for dawn; one minute, then another. Stewart grasped her oiled breast and fondled her nipple erect; Wendy smiled at him crookedly. "It is time," one of the elders said finally. Stewart flattened her breast in his hand and presented the blade to her nipple. Once, twice, sawing, and then he'd split her firm little breast down to the ribs. Wendy gasped and shuddered. When Stewart cut between her ribs, he threw his shoulder into it, cutting everything; skin, muscle, lung. Wendy cried out once, then her mouth filled with blood. He sawed quickly, and her side opened, raw and red. She squirmed and thrashed convulsively. Knife tip and left hand slipped into her chest, and emerged in a moment. Stewart held her small, trembling heart up, then placed it on her chest. Wendy shuddered, her eyes wild; Stewart, mercifully, placed the tip of the blade under her chin and drove it up through her palate into her brain. Her gleaming body convulsed, once, then lay still. It was done. Her body was wrapped in her linen robe and taken off to Eric's shop. An elder took her heart; it would be burnt later, on the altar on the bluff. Stewart left by himself, and went back to his house. I went home as well, but Robin had already gone to the fair, taking Kat with her. I took a nap, showered, and then puttered about the garden, bemused and a bit sad. In those moments before Wendy's death, I believe every man there had wanted her terribly; her sex and her death both. Wendy had told me one afternoon that Eric would likely have sex with her body before he flayed her; she found it amusing and erotic. I was sad that she was gone; yet I would have slain her myself, had it been me, and not Stewart. Robin came home early in the afternoon, distraught, her eyes red. "I left Katherine with the neighbors. We have to talk." Robin led me to the garden bench, sat me down, then knelt before me as if in supplication. "Please hear me out before you say anything, Jonathon. I've a confession. Everything has changed, and you must know about it. I do love you. Remember that, if you can. What I must say can only hurt you." I nodded for her to continue. I dreaded what she was about to say, but I wasn't going to guess at it. "I've been dishonest with you. And unfaithful. Ever since the day Stewart drew on my chest. It- well, it aroused me. And he had the largest manhood, long and thick. He wasn't cruel, but it hurt, he was so big, and that aroused me too. It hurt when he rutted in me, and I had cramps after." Robin drew a breath; I said nothing. My heart sank. "Then there was Eric. He took me in the back of his shop on a pretext one day; we flirted mildly and then he playfully suggested how my body might be butchered. And it made me feel- well, he had me too. Cruel and handsome and-" She stopped. "They've both had me. Many times, in every way imaginable. Don't hate me, Jonathon." "Don't hate you?" I asked quietly. She was anguished, as was I. "It was animal rutting, crude and savage. They seduced me, yes, both of them, but I kept returning. It was my fault. It was only sex." I might have known; I should have. I recalled things over the past weeks that should have roused suspicion. "A few days ago, you were at Stewart's? You were home late." "Both of them. Stewart asked me over. They put me in the stock and used me." He had her at the altar on the bluff, and many other times, as well, I supposed. I was heartsick and filled with a terrible desire. "Why have you told me this, Robin? Do you want a divorce? Is it over between us?" "No!" Robin cried, "No! I love you. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter anymore." Tears welled in her eyes. I took a handkerchief and wiped them away tenderly. It didn't matter; I had already realised that. "Then what?" Robin gained her composure somewhat. "The girl, Wendy- at Stewart's dinner party? You were taken with her?" I nodded. "She was someone called "the chosen." She was slain this morning in some Druid ritual. I saw her body in Eric's shop. He was butchering her. Butchering her, for meat. Every year, there is another girl, another chosen, another slain woman." Robin paused and drew a breath. "Eric, I have been chosen. Next year, it will be me." I could not have described the feelings raging in me at that moment, though I'd known what she was going to say. Stewart had seduced me as skillfully as he'd seduced Robin. I should have hated him, and hated Eric, for what they'd done to my wife. They hadn't told her of me, either, and that was artful as well. Now I knew how Stewart felt so many years ago, when his own wife was chosen. In that moment, I loved her and wanted her as passionately as ever a man wanted a woman. At the same time, I could see her naked body before me, feel the knife bite her hot skin, feel her lovely body shudder and writhe. "Jonathon?" she asked softly, "Do you understand?" "Yes," I said, just as softly. "Have you consented to this?" Robin swallowed, nodded, then said, "Yes. I have, yes." "Robin," I said, "Stewart has retired. I'll be taking over for him" I traced a finger across her breast, across her nipple as she knelt at my feet. "I'm the one who'll be cutting your heart out next midsummer morning." Her mouth dropped open, lips trembling. She gave a little sigh, and lowered her face to my lap. We said nothing more; I took her inside and we spent the afternoon making love. I was as tender and solicitous as I was ever; I didn't need to revenge my pride and my honor. I would do that soon enough; I would have her heart in my gentle hands. Tenderness was my revenge; Robin knew that, and responded with more passion than I had ever dreamed of. Stewart rang up that evening; Robin answered. "He wants me to come over. Druid things; I'm to be cleansed and blessed." "And fucked, too?" I asked a bit sharply. Robin flushed, then nodded. "Yes. If he'll have me." She waited for my anger, but I had none. "You'll come home after? I'd rather you didn't spend the night with him." Robin nodded, smiling timidly. "I shall. I do love you. And I'm glad its you. I'm so very glad its you." Robin lived in a quiet frenzy of sexual activity that lasted until spring. Stewart, Eric, myself, of course, and many others. Then she grew more temperate in her passions, quieter, more introspective. Although she still had lovers, she stopped seeing Eric; he was indeed cruel, the more so because he no longer needed to conceal his tortures to Robin's body from me. Robin took up with his son, Patrick, though, a pleasant young man as handsome and muscular as Eric. Sometimes she brought him home, and they made love before the fireplace in the study. Patrick was different than his father, and I rather liked him. Sometimes I watched them, and he was tender with my wife. "I want to gentle him," she told me. "He needn't be like his father." I believe she was successful. At one point, before she and Patrick went to the study to make love, she brought us together, and made us both swear that Patrick, and not Eric, would butcher her body, and that I would witness it. She didn't want Eric touching her again. Eventually Robin introduced Patrick to Shayla, a pretty little black girl in the village, daughter of a fisherman. Robin was chosen; she was working her own odd magic on us. Her days, of course, were spent counseling and dispensing her blessings; she did have much to give, and she was loved and honored for it. Evenings when she returned from a tryst or a ritual, we talked about what was happening and how she felt; sometimes she was terrified, other times resigned, and yet other times caught up in a terrible ecstasy. Ironically, we grew closer than we'd ever been. It was with Robin that I learned the secret places in a woman's heart, the places where desire and death mingled wantonly, as dark as the blood that welled from her chest the day I cut her heart from her body. Robin was the first; despite my knowledge of anatomy, I was clumsy and slow about it; her oiled breast slipped from my grasp and shifted back and forth as I cut. It took far too long. She watched me ardently, but writhed and shuddered as I cut and fumbled. I cut into her ribs, across, and a red gap opened in her chest. Once in her chest, I found her heart, small in my hand, pulsing strongly. Robin gasped, her face pale, and I cut quickly, pulling the organ from the raw gash. She watched me in horror and exaltation, and I watched her until the light faded in her eyes. I touched her right breast, her nipple still drawn up erect, and then stood back as the young men lifted her lifeless body from the altar, to be wrapped in linen and carried to Eric's butcher shop. One of the elders bowed and took her heart from my hand. I left the knife in her blood, pooled on the altar, and went out into the sunlight. "It will be easier next year," one the elders said, squeezing my shoulder. I went to Eric's shop then, and stood by quietly as Patrick worked on my wife's body. She hung by meat hooks in her armpits. He'd already removed hands and feet, and gutted her; he was washing out her body cavity when I arrived. Neither of us spoke; I helped him as he began flaying her. She stared sightlessly at the ceiling as we worked the skin off her body. Her breasts were still warm as we peeled them away from her chest. Once that was finished, I left the village. At home, Robin had left a note on my desk, something she'd written months earlier. I read it in the garden. "I am the rain when it falls, refreshing the black earth. I am the sunlight on your shoulder, rich with strength and promise. My voice is the breeze, and the breeze is the sound of my voice. This isn't merely poesy, or fancy, or some sad hope. This is my experience, now, of the richness of life. That you may not understand or believe it does not make it less true. "You will do this. I consent; I insist. It is because of this, because of what you want and what I've consented to, that I am exalted. You presume to some social or ritual necessity; a terrible hunger is the simpler truth, selfish, raw and dark as blood. Because of this I an exalted. Had you proposed simple desire my body would nourish a child. That would have been enough. It is no longer. You wanted more, a black desire, and now I am exalted. Now, my body will nourish all of reality. "You don't understand, do you? I do. The rain, the sunlight, the black of night all sing together; your consuming desire and my exaltation are a part of it all. You have your desire; because of this I am exalted. You will not deny me my exaltation by refusing your terrible, ghoulish desire. I wait for it more eagerly than you, more impatiently than you can ever understand. You shall do this." It would, I suppposed, be easier the next year. -- +----------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `--------------+ | | | | Archive site +----------------------+--------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ | ----