That Old Black Magic

That Old Black Magic
 
     My tattered priestly robe hangs from my shoulders across my chest and down my dirt stained thighs. I think of my failed marriage to a woman with whom I only knew my own needs. I think of the children she gave birth to and how they probably wonder what happened to daddy that he would disappear leaving them not even a letter to remember him by. Being a Russian Orthodox priest in a city of Catholics makes me feel like a stranger among foreigners. But never have I felt more alone than now.  
     I have been off my lithium for two weeks now, long enough to feel the strange tides of raging emotions course through my mind and body leaving me lost in a torrent of confusion and despair.  
     By the darkening bank of the cold black Seine, I find bliss in a bottle of whiskey, pouring out my sorrows to a blind beggar. His body is misshapen and grotesque. With hollow eyes he stares out at me from the depths of his pain. My bottle being empty, as well as my soul, he offers me a shot of his elixir, promising it will wipe away the sorrows of yesterday and days before without end. I sip and sink into the depths of my mind, into a swirling vortex into which I sink deeper and deeper until only numbness remains.  
      Awakening I am in a dark cavern lying naked on a cold wet slab of rock. I smell the dank air sweetened by the smell of burning sage. Flames from torches, which protrude from the wall, illuminate the tall statuesque female form who stares down at me. She wears a charcoal black evening gown. The gossamer clings to her body in a symphony of soft curves. Her long flowing black hair hangs down to her waist and her predatory eyes gaze at me glowing with an insatiable hunger.  
     My body trembles in fear as she caresses the length of my torso, my chest, and my penis. I think of the lost years and the deep throbbing pain in the core of my being. I feel a strange peace settle over me, as though I am finally letting go of all the guilt-ridden years with with my wife.  
      She leans down parting her ruby lips. I know I am to become one with her. My heart feels fragile, like a tiny sparrow, while she leans over me and gently kisses me on the lips. She loosens her dress letting it fall as though she can read my thoughts.  
     I begin to rise from the cold slab, but her grip  
is insistent. She parts my thighs and pins me with a finger pinch upon my glans.      
     A vision of a brilliant red rose, bursting into bloom, flashes before my eyes. I feel as though I am afloat in a warm salty ocean of my own tears. I am a child again, reborn into a world beyond fear or death.  Apocalyptic visions unfold in my mind. I am afloat in a dark sea of silence. The earth shimmers before me, a green and blue island of life in the pelagic ocean of stars.  
     As I gaze on my natal world I see darkness fall upon the seas. Cities glow like spider webs in sunlight, glittering across the vast continents. With frightening suddenness sparks flash across the dark orb. The planet erupts in showers of fire, which engulf the whole sphere. The orb turns hideous red, signifying the end of the family of man and my own dear children, Claire and David.  
     My mistress lies down next to me on the slab. The warmth of her body coaxes me to relax. She presses me to her breast. The scent of her warm  
fragrant breath fills my lungs as she kisses me.            
     She whispers, “Don’t fear child. No harm will come to us.”  
      I wail as she caresses my bare chest and licks my nipples. I flail my arms. She wraps her arms around me rocking me gently with her hips pressed against my groin. I yell, “But what about my children?!!!”  
      She grasps my face and stares into my eyes with an intense gaze which obliterates any resistance and I quiet down. She speaks with an unyielding tone as I listen, my heart ablaze with terror. Her voice is soft but determined as she speaks the words which will wipe clean my life, birthing me into a new world. She says, “All those people you remember are simply phantoms from a former life. They will soon be dead.” Her fingers pump my penis till a flood of heat fills my body with deep craving.  
     I begin to squirm with overwhelming pleasure as she strokes my cock with her index finger with the delicateness of butterfly wings flapping. My hips writhe, pressing her hand against my dick. She whispers, “Now you will know the power I can give you. Once you have tasted of it, you will never deny me anything.”  
      I feel the throbbing of my pastoral staff grow in strength. My body surges with delicious pleasure till my balls simmer with sweet tingling. Rapidly I feel a craving take over my conscious mind. It is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I am consumed with lust for her. Her body is luscious in the flickering torch light. Her long dark hair cascades across the slab. She offers herself to me.  
      She kneels bestride me offering her treasure to me in our sultry sacrament. I lick her fire feeling my fears fuel my hunger. They fan the flames of my desire. My fear is transformed into carnal desire which I could no longer resist. Making love to her is such a beautifully instinctual experience that my resistance to her gentle persuasion vanishes. In its place, is a feeling of tranquility. Even lithium never brought me such peace as I know in her arms. No drug could replace the ecstasy of body and mind I feel with her touch. I am hers.  
      I pull back gazing at her enraptured face. She looks saintly, like the image of the Madonna at church I once pastored. She lies next to me with her head tilted back, and her lips parted as her eyes glaze in trance like ecstasy. She looks up at me while running her fingers feather soft through my pubic curls. She gazes up at me wistfully. Her eyes glow with deep affection for me. I feel overwhelmed by love for her. I feel an electric shock of awareness as the tremors of orgasm subside. My candle is slick with my male essence. A cataclysmic shock quakes through my body as I realize my children and wife’s life will be extinguished. My heart pounds in my chest as I realize there is a way to save them. With trembling voice I ask, “What must I do to save my loved ones mistress?”  
     Her eyes glow like coals as she looks into my soul. She says, “We will talk about these things in due time. There is still sufficient time left before the apocalypse.”  
      I feel animal fear grip me in the pit of my stomach. I beg her and she strokes me reassuringly. “Don’t fear my child. I will tell you soon enough. Now is not the time to discuss this. You have come back to the fold. First we must restore your memory. Long ago you began your life as one of us. When you remember who you really are then you will realize that you don’t belong with your mortal family. This life you were born into is not your true place. You have always been part of the fold.”  
      I convulse into tears. She grips my face in her long slender fingers and pierces me with her gaze. The light fades and I am immersed in darkness. I float in this sea of darkness feeling coldness creep across my body.  
     Then a brilliant flash illuminates the darkness. The radiant light bathes me in warmth. Memories take shape in my mind. At first fleeting and hazy they slowly become vivid. Like a puzzle being pieced together fragments of memory interlock till a complete picture emerges with brilliant clarity. I visualize the story of my former life as the ancient identity takes form deep in my soul. I feel the fusing of my current life with my past life as the events unfold before me.  
     I remember the purple dusk over the vineyard. We lie on the moist earth breathing in each other’s fragrance. Her estrogen scent gave me a contact high.  
     She can see my thoughts. She says, “You trembled under my roaming hands. My fingers traced your testicles sending you into deep trance. Your twin sun spheres swelled, bathed by my touches.”    
     My words tumble in reply, “I could feel your love for me like a quilt against the cold. No frost could bite me within the embrace of your arms.”    
     My dark mistress takes the lead in our dance of words. “Your breath against my cheek was a heady essence of the masculine. I dropped your trousers to taste your naked divinity. My lips followed the pilgrim path of your solar plexus into your tree of life. ”  
     She continues eliciting notes in my song of awakening. She says, “The twinkle in your eyes was like the morning star whose sea green glow wrapped around my heart. Birds sang in the grapy twilight till stars winked on in the ethereal heavens as the sky became our blanket of stars. We awaited sunrise with our bodies entwined like grapevines under the Pegasus constellation. I kissed you. Your burgundy stained lips tasted sweet as sacramental wine.”  
     Realization crystallizes in my mind that my vineyard lover is my very captor who stands above me. She is an ancient Sorceress.  My beloved has returned at last to claim me. Her name is revealed. Medea. I am stunned. But the next sequence of memories takes me over the edge.  
     Moonlight sifted through the pines making ghostly shadows in the night forest. The sound of  
chanting floated down from the monastery on the hilltop. I stood in my tattered acolyte robe considering where I would sleep that night. I followed the stream as it danced and shimmied across egg shaped rocks till I found its source. The oval pool reflected the moonlight in rippled circle patterns as the night breeze blew cold and damp.  
      I heard a rustling in the bushes and felt cold fear course down my spine. But it was only the restless wind. I lay down to take my rest but couldn’t sleep. My mind wandered back to distant memories which faded into blurred images the farther I traveled back in time. I remembered my first girlfriend. She was a gypsy whose race was considered corrupt in the eyes of God. The village elders considered it an unnatural love. What made my crime against nature worse was their fear that I practiced the occult.  
      My parents thought I was insane and for a while I lived in the sanatorium. After that I suppressed my attraction to the gypsy woman and lived the life of the proper husband, with a wife and children. Why oh why on that fateful night did I break my vow of abstinence and make love to the gypsy woman? I couldn’t fathom why I surrendered to my animal hunger and forfeited my marriage and children and perhaps my life itself.  
      I gazed up at the monastery on the hill and the heavenly music filled my heart with longing. If only I could turn back the hands of time. If only I could be snuggling against my wife’s chest in the warmth of my bed, my quilt wrapped around me and her warm kisses covering my body.  
     Thinking these things was too painful. My mind was shocked into paralysis. I knew the door to that world was shut forever. Then in the darkness of the forest I saw a line of torches moving like ants toward my wooded sanctuary. I leapt up and ran like a stallion dashing through the forest. I tripped and fell and heard the sound of baying hounds approaching. Looking up I saw my woman, my love. Her skin glowed in the haunted night as she looked down at me. She grasped my hand and led me to a small opening in a hillside. She led me through the opening into a dark maze of cata-combs. She held me and kissed me lightly on the cheek. She whispered softly in my ear, “Welcome home child.”  
     I feel her release me from her hypnotic gaze, as I wake from the trance.  Once again I lie on the slab with Medea’s warm body pressed against me. All the reference markers with which I had navigated through the sea of life have disappeared. The security of being a husband, a father, and being a patriarch of a flock of worshipers are gone forever.  
     As Medea gazes into my eyes with deep compassion I feel something come apart within me. I am now part of her world, but still love my family more than life itself. I ask her, “What happened to me?”  
      Medea says, “You eventually went back to your wife. Your emotional ties to her were stronger than your bond with us. The villagers out of superstition and ignorance murdered you and her. Your soul, eventually, transmigrated into this body.” Her words sear into me like hot iron on my skin. I catch fleeting glimpses in my mind’s eye of being surrounded by angry people in a clearing. Flames leap all about me as I writhe in agony. “Don’t go there child! Not now!” I tear my mind away from those memories and back to the present. Medea can read my thoughts. We have an intimate psychic connection. She is to be my midnight bride in our marriage of souls.  
     However, I feel the deep rumbling of fear for my family well in my chest once more. I grasp her hips and pull her against me pressing my cock into the softness of her pudenda. I look pleadingly into her eyes. As I stroke her dark mane of velvety hair I ask, “How can my family be saved?”  
     She clasps my shaft between her labia.  She reveals to me that she had a vision in which mankind is redeemed. There would be no apocalypse. The Goddess has mercifully saved humans from themselves. Through divine intervention she has awakened humankind to their impending doom. The holocaust has been miraculously averted.  
      I find myself drawn to Medea like a magnet. My dark mistress guides me through the labyrinth. I ask her where she is taking me. She says, “You have only known me but we are many. Though a multitude, we are one being. You must be initiated into the fold. You will know the ecstasy of union with the colony.” We began descending stairs into a cavern. As we descend I feel her hand grasping mine, pulling me onward toward my destiny.