What Happens After One Breaks Free
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Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay
The Power of the F*ck
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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
As wonderful as it was to grow up without shame, the lack of it had its annoying consequences.
Ordinary people thought us a bunch of whores.
It grew tedious to be stared at through narrowed eyes and whispered about from prim lips.
Except for me, of course. I was pointed at for other reasons. But I’ll get to that in due time.
The good-looking rogue didn’t prove he was a Pan by shapeshifting. I think Mamie had always been disappointed by that.
Perhaps he wanted to stay handsome as he f*cked Mamie.
Shapeshifting into a half goat would have distorted his face enough to wipe it clean of beauty.
Or perhaps Great-Aunt Dottie was right that he was second or third generation Pan, and thus less likely or less able to shapeshift.
As Pans always did, whoever seduced my grandmother left her after a full night of the raucous, unrestrained F*ck.
Mamie tried desperately to stay awake to make the night last as long as possible. But eventually, the F*ck exhausted her and she passed out.
As was the usual way, she woke up to an aching c***, shaking limbs, and very alone beside the riverbank where she had enthusiastically given up her maidenhead.
But Mamie never got over her night with the maybe Pan.
Most women didn’t.
Pans were notorious for the siren call of animal lust they awakened in women, as well as their ability to satiate the hunger hidden between a woman’s legs.
No woman who ever crossed their paths was able to resist the sudden urge to f*ck and be f*cked senseless.
The only problem was that stirred up a lifelong craving. For the women would never know such carnal satisfaction again.
They only got to have that one night.
I was sixteen years old the first time I met a Pan.
I was also a virgin at the start of that adventure, and I wasn’t by its end.
But things didn’t go as they usually did, maybe because the Pan was in the middle of the F*ck when I came across him.
I saw him in the oldest parts of the forest. Of course, that’s where I found him.
Most of the stories about Pans took place in the natural wild – in the woods, near rocks and cliffs, beside rivers and creeks, and even under waterfalls.
Where else could Pans feel most comfortable shedding their human forms, to don their animal selves, and let the horny half goat live, breathe, and f*ck?
I was in the woods hiking with the girl I considered my best friend at the time.
Adele was a pretty girl, who I both loved and hated in equal measure.
I always yearned for more of her, more of her time, more of her attention than she was willing to give.
My treacherous best friend liked the shape of triangles, especially of the human variety. I rarely had the pleasure of enjoying Adele to myself. There was always another best friend or her boyfriend joining us.
On this particular day, we had gotten an early start to go hiking.
Her new best friend of the moment – and my least favorite – was with us. Adele insisted Lise was necessary, for she was the one who had a license and a car, and could take us to the oldest part of the woods.
Reluctantly, I agreed.
I found her personality close to unbearable, and I didn’t understand what Adele saw in Lise, with her simpering smirks, and a grating voice with an insipid tone that worked on my last nerve.
But Adele had a taste for malice, and girls like Lise were made for that kind of poisonous indulgence.
Since triangles are always two sides against one, it was hardly surprising I was on the outs that morning.
Adele and Lise walked arm in arm, either in front of me or behind me, whispering secrets in each other’s ears, and giggling.
I fumed, which is exactly what they wanted. I even realized that at the time, which made my impotent wrath even more palpable.
The forest saved me that day.
To keep from losing my temper and my dignity, I forced my attention on the beauty around me.
The woods were particularly exquisite.
It was the middle of spring, right after the rainy season. The moss covering the trees and ground was resplendent and heavy with ample moisture.
The powerful softness of morning light highlighted the forest canopy of dark green, yellow green, bright green, the colors most vivid right after the rains.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply through my nostrils.
The aroma of the last rainfall permeated the earth below, and fed the leaves and budding blossoms, the hint of spice in the air around me.
I also heard the creek in the distance. The sound of riotous peace of a waterbed streaming fat with fresh, luscious water brought me back to myself.
As the great-great-granddaughter of a water nymph, this was my favorite element.
Water was my savior that gave me strength and power during times of stress.
I opened my eyes again. I could finally notice the flurry of squirrels, the wing-flap and songs of the birds.
Everything pulsed with life and my heart beat strong inside my breast.
I turned around and faced the ugly nasty of Adele and Lise, sniggering at my expense. The malice gleaming from their eyes was undeniable.
Suddenly, I knew I was played for a fool to accept the role they gave me.
It’s incredible how quickly love-hate can dissolve in an instant.
Adele caught on to my indifference immediately. The vicious glee in her face disappeared and her brow furrowed.
If I had possessed less inborn composure, I probably would have laughed out loud.
Adele and Lise seemed so dull and ordinary in that moment.
Really, what was I doing with these silly girls? I’m descended from the magic of nymphs.
“I’m done,” I said.
“What are you talking about, Dusky?”
“I don’t want to hike with you and Lise anymore. I’m going my own way.”
“Are you nuts?” protested Lise. “We’re more than an hour’s drive from town.”
“Then I’ll be home by nightfall.”
I took off at a violent run.
I became giddy with each stride that took me away from them.
The delirious freedom borne from liberating myself from invisible shackles that rendered me powerless only because I had allowed it to be so.
Adele and Lise didn’t bother chasing after me, because what’s the point of futility?
My father was tall and lean, with far more physical power in his physique than his appearance implied.
I took after my father in that way. I was several inches taller than Adele, with longer, stronger limbs. There was no way either she or Lise could keep up, much less catch me.
They shrieked after my departing back.
I didn’t hear all of what Adele said, something innocuous like calling her when I got home.
The euphoria of freedom kept me running hard for nearly twenty minutes.
The forest was a blur of green, while leaping over rocks, cracking twigs, and the earthy spice in the air.
Then I hurled through the trees to the creek bed where I intruded on the Pan in the F*ck.
That stopped me in my tracks.
The Sons of Pan and the Daughters of Nymph
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Image by Pablo Elices from Pixabay
Pans were the sons of the God Pan, His Profane Holiness of the F*ck.
So long as Pan followed the rules of the gods, and kept his c*ck for the c*nt of nymphs, balance was maintained. Those demigoddesses had enough magic to copulate endlessly without Pan’s seed fattening their bellies with child.
Most nymphs chose eternal maidenhood, savoring the delicious pleasure found in their lithe, nubile forms and the nectar of their sweet juices.
Every once in a while, there would be an exception.
A nymph would grow bored of the endless revelry of giggles and romps. Then they allowed Pan’s seed to plant as they willingly passed into the phase of the Mother and brought to life more gods into the heavens.
Or so it went most of the time.
Every so often, things happened a little differently.
According to my grandmother, her grandmother - my great-great-grandmother Nonny - had been a water nymph until the day she met a hunter, and unexpectedly and inextricably fell in love with him.
Nonny was even more deviant than the other nymphs.
Instead of the God Pan, she chose a mortal man to wife her down and begat upon her womb the mortal children of humanity. With her husband, Nonny birthed many babies. My grandmother’s father was the tenth of Nonny’s eleven children.
I have memories of her.
Nonny was the one who gave me my name.
I was born in that evening hour after the sun drops below the horizon, when the fire of evening sky gives way to the deep lavender of twilight before night falls and darkness rises.
“Dusky,” Nonny declared, as soon as she saw me. “No other name will do.”
My mother had wanted to name me Rose.
But she didn’t dare argue with her great-grandmother. Nonny was a true matriarch, and her word was law.
Even though Nonny gave up immortality, she had enough left that she long outlived her husband. I never knew my great-great grandfather. Nobody ever knew Nonny’s true age, but she didn’t leave this world until she was well past a century.
She joyfully embodied the phase of the Crone. Her face wrinkled and wizened from decades of joy and suffering, triumphs and defeats, births and deaths.
Until the day she died, her faded eyes gleamed with mischief as if Nonny had enjoyed the grandest joke on us all.
Perhaps she had.
There was not a vestige left of the maiden nymph she had once been; yet there was not a sliver of regret in her.
But to get back to Pan and his nymphs. Even the most lascivious nymph needed a rest from time to time.
And that left enough empty spaces for Pan and his voracious lust to break the rules of the gods, and seduce mere mortal women like me.
Well, not exactly like me. But I’ll get to that soon enough.
As His Profane Holiness of the F*ck, how could he not break the rules, not want to spread his seed in many kinds of soil?
And human women, we’ve always been so easily caught off guard and so limited in our options to protect our wombs from inconvenient progeny.
So His Profane Holiness of the F*ck spread his seed far and wide, and thus, the mortal Pans were born.
They took after their father, lotharios of the f*ck and duck.
Although mostly human, the mortal Pans could still shapeshift to horny half goats with furry haunches, hooved feet, hirsute faces, and horns protruding from their skulls.
Their transformation was happenstance, however. Sometimes their forms shifted before the F*ck or during the F*ck, but never after.
I had heard stories about them all my life. My grandmother, Mamie, was obsessed with the Pans, and collected tales of their intrigues and seductions.
She had quite the collection too.
Mamie swears she gave her maidenhead to a Pan.
Mamie was never one to take unnecessary risks if the lost gamble would cost too much. She took pennyroyal to prevent pregnancy from the virile seed planted in her. In case the pennyroyal didn’t work, Mamie married my grandfather.
It was absurdly easy for Mamie to find a husband. As the descendants of a water nymph, the women in my family are very alluring, and thus have no trouble attracting suitors and ardent devotion.
I spent a lot of time with Mamie when I grew up, to the point that I pretty much lived with her. I felt more at ease with her than with my parents.
My parents had an easy-going, mild-mannered style of love that I would later come to realize was extremely rare. They allowed me to stay where I wished without a fuss. I appreciated that about them. In the long run, they made my life so much easier.
Mamie lived with her older sister, my Great-Aunt Dottie. For some mysterious reason that was never explained, Great-Aunt Dottie never married, and Mamie moved in with her after my grandfather died.
Mamie told me the story of her seduction many times as I grew up. The older I became, the more explicit her descriptions. By the time I was fourteen, I knew every detail of how she had been seduced.
Many people thought that somewhat odd and quite perverse, but we’ve always been very open about the F*ck in my family.
Great-Aunt Dottie always shook her head and rolled her eyes whenever she overheard Mamie’s stories about her night with the Pan.
“He wasn’t a Pan,” she drawled. “You didn’t get pregnant.”
“I took pennyroyal!” Mamie protested. “Pans can’t resist women descended from nymphs, you know that!”
“Pans can’t resist women, period. He was too slick and good-looking to be a Pan. He was just a rogue.”
This was a long-standing argument between them. Good natured bickering like this often occurred in our family. But there was never any judgment. We embraced the Power of the F*ck.
Writer's Block in a Sex Scene? How to Open Up and Break Through
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Writer’s block hits in so many different ways.
Technically, right now, I’m not “blocked” per the usual meaning, because I’m writing regularly.
Even if I’m in a slack phase in my writing, I am making progress on the crucial second draft of “The Shepherd and the Courtesan” (working title only), and I have to keep up on the blog.
Since I was blocked in the truest sense of the phrase for years in that I didn’t write at all, what’s holding me up now is not that much of a big deal.
But I do find it interesting.
There’s one scene that’s holding me up – the first sex scene between the Shepherd and the Courtesan. This scene does not happen right away in this novel.
In fact, it doesn’t happen until the second half of the novel, and there are several sex scenes before the reader even gets to them - sex scenes that are juicier, more transgressive, and more exciting.
Before we get to this, we have the psychological BDSM sex scenes between the Patron’s Daughter and the Brute – neither of them main characters – while the main character, Addie, who will later become the Courtesan, acts as voyeur.
We get to Addie’s flight to the Capital City, and none of the sex scenes are with her as a Courtesan for the sake of pacing.
But we do get the first sex scene between the Shepherd and the Woman who would become Ella Bandita; and the first sex scene between the Shepherd and the Courtesan is right after that.
But the difference between all the other sex scenes and this one is that this sex scene between the Shepherd and the Courtesan is much more vulnerable.
This scene is rooted in tenderness, whereas the others have some element of drama, hedonism, and intrigue.
Also in the scene between these characters, I’m writing about those who are not the usual players in an erotic scene, mainly because of age and ageism.
The Shepherd is 50, and the Courtesan is 60. They are still true to the usual standard of romantic fantasy in that both characters are exceptionally attractive.
In an erotic scene, the Courtesan suspends disbelief because she’s been very sexual for more than 40 years; and any woman who stays highly sexually active keeps her juice much longer than those women who don’t.
The Shepherd, however, has been mostly solitary and without a mate for 25 years. There is a lot of vulnerability there. I’m resistant to write about that, and I wonder why.
I wasn’t resistant to writing about the psychological and physical violence between the Brute and the Patron’s Daughter.
For the record, that’s not how I approach sexuality in my personal life. I’m not into BDSM, although I have a lot of friends who are and they are fascinating people. Perhaps that’s why. I’m emotionally detached.
So maybe I can’t be emotionally detached at the thought of a character who had embraced his solitude, and was now suddenly confronted with emotional and sexual intimacy, along with the fears that would entail.
That hits closer to the home of my experience.
Then I arrive at the logistics of impotence.
Erectile dysfunction is reasonable to expect in a middle-aged man who has not had sex in a quarter century.
That likelihood cannot be ignored because it would render the scene ridiculous, even in a “fantasy.”
Oh, and then there’s the logistics of being a woman writing a sex scene from the POV of a man.
I’ve done it before with the Wanderer in the previous novel, but it adds a whole new level of awkwardness to writing it.
Since Viagra is not an option for a story set in pre-Industrial fairy tale times, I consulted with my Tantra teacher on natural methods to induce a solid hard-on for the good Shepherd.
She shared the finger-in-anus-to-massage-the-prostrate technique that she claims would raise an erection in a dead man. (Ok, I exaggerate.)
Although that information is very pragmatic, I couldn’t figure out a graceful, poetic way to introduce it in the scene.
And the sensitive Shepherd, who has long been celibate, is more likely to be scared off with a move like that. Maybe I’ll use it later in the story once they get better acquainted.
Another tantra teacher suggested that the Shepherd start waking up with erections, getting back in touch with his sense of arousal before they ever get together.
Now that, I can use.
For their first time, so far, I went with tender loving care, encouragement, tantric breathing, and palpating the perineum.
Although there’s no guarantee those gentler methods would be effective in real life, who is to say that’s impossible? It only has to be in the realm of possibility, and that is good enough for me.
As far as insights and how-to advice, I think I led by example.
You can write a blog or a Facebook Note, and open up to strangers. Writing this post gave relief to my shyness. I've never used Facebook Live or Instagram Live, but I bet that would lead to some pretty out there input, and there’s always something useful.
If you prefer a more intimate place to get feedback on your sex scenes - in fiction and in life ;-) - I recommend talking about it with people face-to-face.
Discuss the sex scenes with close friends or your writers’ group. I will need to do this eventually for that masculine perspective on those sex scenes told from the man’s experience.
But even without that, other perspectives can be very helpful in fleshing out a challenging what ifs and snafus. And talking about it in person is likely to break you out of your reticence and embarrassment.
Oh, and there’s always masturbation. With a fantasy going on inside your head, maybe even the sex scene you’re stuck on.
My golden rule when it comes to writing about sex: If what I’m writing doesn’t turn me on, how can I expect that to stimulate the reader?
I’m ready to take on that sex scene now. How do you handle being shy about writing a descriptive sex scene?
For anybody who’d like a nibble - and this is only a nibble - because sex is part of the background, not the main event in the scene, click here to view this excerpt out of my work-in-progress, “The Shepherd and the Courtesan.”
Beyond Her Wildest Dreams - Adrianna's First Apartment in the Capital City
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Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
The Sorcerer practically handed me to my future.
Although he was thorough as he explained to me the nature of the bohemian part of town I was to go, I didn’t understand the cause and effect of living amongst the libertines of the Capital City.
I’m sure the Sorcerer did.
We become the people we surround ourselves with. I’m sure you understand that, Shepherd.
Anyway, I did exactly as the Sorcerer told me to, and everything went precisely as he said it would.
He had prepared me well for getting set up in a place of my own.
My palms tingled when my landlady handed me those copper keys.
One for the street door and one for my apartment, none of it seemed real until I opened the door for the first time.
Moving in was easy, since all I had was what I had carried when I fled for the carriage that would take me to the Capital City.
I loved that apartment.
In some ways, I loved it even more than my glorious Casa.
By the time I moved in here I was at ease with riches, and the luxury wealth afforded.
But in the beginning of this Life, my apartment was beyond my wildest dreams.
How incredible that I had remained inscrutable the first time I walked through those rooms!
The spaciousness was too wonderful. The landlady brought me there in the late morning, and the light made me fall in love with the place.
I didn’t even pay attention as she boasted about the elegant rooms – the entry, drawing room, kitchen, servant’s quarters, boudoir, bedroom, and my toilette room.
As soon as I walked in, I knew I had to live there. My first minute in that apartment gave me my first taste of freedom, real freedom.
The windows faced east, and stretched more than half the height between floor and ceiling. The sun beamed through those tall windows, and the radiance was so brilliant I almost believed I had just entered the gates of heaven.
The landlady was exactly as the Sorcerer had described, a stout matron with a tight mouth and beady eyes that darted from side to side. She clearly loved money, especially when it flowed to her easily.
On that first morning, when I showed her a generous pile of copper coins and asked for a week’s lodging in her boarding house, she didn’t even ask my name.
She simply took the money and brought me to my room.
If she had been more observant as she guided me on a tour of her best apartments, she could have cheated me with an exorbitant rent.
I wanted that heavenly apartment so much it hurt. However, I played it casual enough that she didn’t pick up on my insatiable desire for that place.
I managed to talk the rent down to nearly half of what the landlady declared as the proper value for it.
Of course, offering six months rent immediately with a gold coin put the negotiation in my favor.
The landlady stared at me as if I had just said I was born on the moon.
Then she gushed and promised to be at my service if there was anything more that I needed, anything at all.
After I got to know the Capital City, I found that there were many apartments of a similar style and spacious layout, even with brilliant morning light.
But to me, that apartment has always been the most beautiful place in the world.
The elegant building I moved into was divided into four identical apartments between two floors.
Mine was upstairs with a southeastern exposure. My neighbors across the hall and below me were courtesans, and a con man lived in the downstairs northwestern apartment.
I was more than a little shocked that the landlady told me that straightaway, but later I would learn that nobody in the bohemian neighborhood attempted pretense at respectability.
I didn’t take much notice of them right away. That was a mistake, which could have had terrible consequences.
But I had been in the Capital City for less than a week when I moved in, and I was so overwhelmed with this strange and wonderful new place I couldn’t attend to specific people just yet.
My apartment alone was an exotic adventure to explore.
Any one room there was bigger than the cabin I grew up in with my parents, except for the kitchen and toilette room.
The toilette room was a marvel to me, for I’d never seen one before.
It was at the very end of my apartment, as far from the social rooms as possible. It wasn’t elegant by any means.
Besides the chamber pot with basin and pitcher, the toilette room had a round iron tub that was just big enough for me to sit in and stretch my legs out.
The spout of the water barrel was right over the tub.
I was amazed that the toilette room had its own water barrel, as did the kitchen.
Fortunately, the bathroom barrel was half full when I moved in because I forgot about the water sellers every day for the first week.
That water sellers even existed was so peculiar to me because I had always gathered water from the river when my family needed it.
In the Capital City, I had to get my water from the sellers who roamed the streets every day, shouting “fresh water!”
This was convenient, because going to the fountain at the Avenue of the Theaters was not.
The cesspool for my waste was not close to my apartment. I found it both pleasant and unfortunate that the neighborhood dumping-pit was in an alley behind brothel row, several blocks away from me.
My first days in that apartment, I wandered from room to room, looking up the blank walls that stretched so high.
I had no furniture for weeks because I had no idea what to get or even how to get it.
I didn’t mind having nothing in my new home.
I saw endless possibility in the vast emptiness of the rooms.
Purging the Loss of Love
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“What direction were you heading, Shepherd?”
“Southeast until I reached the middle of the country.”
“Perfect. We can stay hidden in the trees until we are outside the village.”
I kept my flock close with my calls as the girl cantered her giant stallion across the Abandoned Valley until it ended with a younger forest of trees.
The birds were already singing their morning melodies, which made a sharp contrast to the silence and absence of life in the Abandoned Valley and Ancient Grove.
A tension I didn’t know I held dissolved as soon as we were there.
We got inside the trees just in time.
The sun beneath the horizon began to lighten the sky, and already the sounds of men and women starting their work in the fields echoed through the air.
After a few more minutes, we came upon the manor that stood on the highest hill.
Even from the trees, there was enough light that I could see a splendid garden growing around this big white house gleaming in the light of dawn.
Although we were at the back of the estate where there were no paths leading to it, I saw the house overlooked the fields and orchards that gave this village its bounty.
The stranger girl paused as the manor came into view. There was pure anguish in her face as she stared at it.
So I had been right. She was the daughter of a Patron.
“Do you live there?” I asked cautiously.
“Not anymore,” she muttered.
The stranger girl clicked her tongue and the stallion took off at a run that was too much for the sheep.
She didn’t slow the horse down, but was conscious enough to circle round to the back of the flock and run them forward a few times.
I gripped her waist and held on by squeezing the flanks of the powerful animal. As fast as we went, I didn’t have to exert too much effort for the ride was smooth.
I sensed a powerful bond between the stranger girl and this magnificent equine. The beast really did whatever the stranger girl wanted, and I wondered if they could read each other’s minds.
By the time the sun came fully up, we were beyond the village and the manor where she grew up.
The stranger girl relaxed and slowed the horse down to an easy canter.
We traveled for the better part of the day until we came to a river with a gentler flow in the afternoon.
So that was how I met Woman, Adrianna.
Did you like the stories as much as you appreciated the drawings behind them?
****
The ethereal tones from the flute lingered through the air as I finished.
Adrianna had chosen a gentle instrument for my first night sharing some of my story of Woman.
The memory of the first twenty-four hours I knew her came out of me with ease, the angelic trills carrying me as I relived that night and the next day.
I couldn’t believe how easy it was to talk about Woman.
Adrianna had a genuine gift for spotting talent.
As were all the musicians who had played on our nights on the back patio, the flautist was one of her creative charges who lived in the dormitories.
She too had come from the orphanage. In her late teens, she had been at the Casa for four years; she was petite with a helmet of glossy hair and an earnest expression.
Unlike most of the creatives, Adrianna had originally intended to mentor her as a courtesan before she realized the girl suffered from remarkable shyness.
At the same time, Adrianna found the girl had a natural talent for the flute, and relaxed inside her skin as soon as she started to play. The girl closed her eyes and swooned back and forth as she played, losing herself inside the music, possibly more than her audience.
We leaned back in our seats, enjoying the heavenly pitch soaring the heights of the back patio and resonating all around us.
“Thank you, Shepherd, for opening up so much about Ella Bandita. You were much more descriptive and eloquent than I’d expected. I like surprises like that.”
Adrianna sat up in her chaise. Her large eyes held a gentleness I hadn’t expected.
I sensed she understood exactly how I felt in that moment. I nodded, too overcome to speak.
My story hadn’t taken so long to tell.
The fire still blazed in the stately fireplace of the back patio, and the two chimineas at our backs gave a welcome heat.
The snow had melted and spring was coming. But it was early in the new season and the night had a chilly sting to it.
Yet the stewards tended to our comfort very well, while the maids were bright-eyed, and the plates had been taken away as soon as the courses were eaten.
The night was in the early hours, and I was restless, having grown accustomed to Adrianna’s tales that took most, if not all, of the night to tell.
“Are you all right, Shepherd?”
I nodded.
Indeed, I was better than okay.
You were right, Wanderer.
I had been holding on to Woman by refusing to talk about her. Opening up my memories of Woman had not been as painful as I had expected.
I was unsettled and even edgy because talking about that night took me back there. But the sensations were not unpleasant.
My chest expanded in a way that made me realize how contracted I had been for so long.
I couldn’t remember any time when I wasn’t holding on and holding in. I became much lighter after I released a burden I hadn’t known I’d been carrying for too long.
“Adrianna, I haven’t thought about that night in so long, yet all that might have happened yesterday.”
“What a vivid memory, Shepherd. That night was more than thirty years ago.”
“It was.”
“How do you feel now that you’ve finally talked about Ella Bandita, Shepherd?”
“I’m surprised to say I feel very well.”
Adrianna smiled knowingly and gathered the half dozen sketches I had drawn of that night and used to tell her the story.
“Would you say you feel cleansed?”
“I feel lighter. Is that an effect of cleansing?”
“I believe so. Is that all?”
“To be honest, I feel restless.”
Stranger Girl in the Moonlight
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Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
She was at the river.
Her ruined gown and undergarments were crumpled in a heap next to her. She made these strange, muffled sounds, and it was a few minutes before I realized she wept.
Her shoulders shook hard and that betrayed her emotion.
The river water must have been freezing, but she bathed herself vigorously, her hands rubbing the water over her face and down her chest.
Eventually, her suppressed sobbing stopped and her shoulders grew still. She curled herself into a ball with her arms wrapped around her knees and her head tucked; then she rocked back and forth and her breathing grew labored.
When she unwrapped herself, she still held her face in her hands. Finally, she leaned back and the tension in her back released as she rested at the river’s edge.
I had no idea what to do.
The depth of her grief made my heart ache, and I could feel her pain. I wanted to comfort her, but this was a private moment and she had no clothes on.
I tried to will myself to look away, but I simply couldn’t do it.
She was so beautiful in the moonlight.
The lines of her back were exquisite. Her shoulders and arms were graceful, the subtle curve of her sides turning in at her waist and veering gently into hips, and the column in the middle holding it all together. I’ve always remembered the rolling bumps of her spine from her neck to the triangle resting at the base.
She seemed both fragile and resilient at once, and there was strength and suppleness in her form.
I could hardly breathe looking at her.
In that moment, I understood why so many artists savored the beauty of the female body, and the creation of music and poetry born from the feminine mystique.
The memories of that first night were so vivid I made several drawings of that time. I’ve always been the most proud of the picture I sketched of her lovely back as she sat at the river.
Here it is.
Take another look if you like, Adrianna, for these drawings stir my memories and help me tell you this story. The next drawing was right after she caught me staring at her.
Her posture shifted subtly.
She must have sensed me watching her when her back straightened and became more rigid.
Finally, she turned.
Tears stained her face, but she didn’t brush them off. Rather than turning back, she held my gaze. Her expression was impassive, which I found rather odd.
After what seemed many minutes, the stranger girl turned back to the river and splashed her head a few times. Then she folded her knees to the right, leaned on one hand, and came upright in an elegant swoop.
The maneuver was harmonious, and she was even lovelier when she stood up. Her long legs were lean and shaped from muscle, rather than flesh.
She brushed the earth off her rump with a few casual swipes before she turned around.
Then the stranger girl walked towards me, without a trace of shame or embarrassment.
I had never seen a naked woman before that night.
I had also never witnessed a murder.
But any lingering memory from that scene in the Ancient Grove couldn’t have been further from my mind as this stranger girl came to me.
Washed clean of the blood on her face and hands, I finally got a good look at her.
Years later, when I would hear Ella Bandita described as the ugly seductress no man could resist, I couldn’t fully believe that this legendary destroyer could have been my Woman.
On that night, the stranger girl was the loveliest being I had ever seen, and I couldn’t ever imagine anybody perceiving her as ugly.
She certainly wasn’t conventional with her blunt, primitive features. Nor was she fluffily voluptuous with her long waist, sinewy belly, and small breasts that stood high on her chest.
But I loved the muscular strength of her underneath the feminine silhouette, and she moved with a devastating, animal grace that I’d never seen in girls before.
With her head high and shoulders back, her long stride gait showed she was more at ease naked than I was with clothes on. I almost passed out before she stopped a few paces away.
“Do you have anything I can wear, Shepherd?”
“What? I don’t have any lady’s clothes.”
“I don’t care. Anything will do.”
“I have another pair of pants and two shirts, but they’ll be too big for you.”
“I’ll make it work,” she muttered, and held out a hand. “Please.”
Using the Sorcerer's Magic Against Him
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Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay
Adrianna, please understand that Woman who I loved was never Ella Bandita.
As I told you at the beginning, she didn’t become that monster until later.
Over the years, I’ve wondered what my life would have been like if I had made different choices on that fateful night.
Here, Adrianna, you’ve already asked me about this sketch of Woman with blood on her face and holding my littlest lamb.
That is the first of many I drew of her, of us, and of that time in my life.
But what might have been if I had chosen to move on through the night once I realized where I was, in the Abandoned Valley and Ancient Grove of the Sorcerer of the Caverns?
What if I had left rather than stay the night with my flock after I knew I was in dangerous territory? And what if I had stayed frozen when I woke up in the middle of that night to a young woman screaming from deep inside the Ancient Grove?
Or even if I had chosen to ignore that raging despair, rather than follow the wailing into the trees where I saw her for the first time?
But I didn’t make any of those choices. And the choices I made that night cast my fate for the rest of my life.
Everything about that scene was bizarre.
A highborn young lady, dressed in elegant finery, pounding her fists against a large granite boulder and screaming for the Sorcerer, as blood covered the lower half of her face and stained her beaded, pale blue gown.
She was so caught up in her anguish, she didn’t notice the Sorcerer floating across the clearing from the trees opposite me until he turned her around and slapped her face.
I did not grow up amongst violent people. I was so shocked I flinched.
But the girl with the bloody face spat at the Sorcerer.
Their ensuing argument made no sense to me at the time, yet I could tell that something between them had gone horribly wrong.
“Why did you bring my father into this?” the girl shouted.
“Because I can’t bring it back to life!” the Sorcerer snarled.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your heart. Don’t you remember the request you made about your heart?”
The bloody girl froze. Her fury suddenly gone as confusion shifted to understanding, and finally dismay.
“If you can bring my heart back to life, then you must, Sorcerer. Please! I’m begging you.”
Her pleading fell on deaf ears.
The Sorcerer of the Caverns laughed as he shook her off and turned his back.
But he had finally met his match in this one.
After centuries of preying on the hearts and dreams of young girls and virgin women so he would never die, the Sorcerer’s last conquest was this girl. I was there to witness his fall when she destroyed him.
The Sorcerer waved his hand over the giant boulder the girl had been pounding, which finally moved to reveal the entry to his underground Caverns.
The girl with the bloody face stood still, her expression eerily calm. Her hand slowly reached in her pocket, from which she pulled a small satchel.
Her bloody smile was grim when she looked to her hand.
She only needed a pinch of dust from that pouch.
“Slug!”
Thus the girl used the Sorcerer’s magic against him. The fearsome old man of legend disappeared, reduced to a common garden slug.
The girl didn’t hesitate. She stomped the Sorcerer of the Caverns to death.
I’ve wondered for many years what my life would have been if I had not seen any of that.
Would I have fallen in love with a robust, country girl with rosy cheeks and a cheerful laugh?
Would I have given up the roaming ways of a Shepherd and settled down to the hard-working farmer’s life?
Would I have had children?
Would I have been happy?
That night, I tried to flee the scene without being detected, but it was no use.
The girl with the bloody face heard me running through the trees, and followed. She caught up with me easily because my small flock had scattered during the night, and I lost precious time gathering them.
I tried to pass myself off as a Shepherd coming through on an overnight run, one who hadn’t seen anything extraordinary.
Of course, she didn’t believe me.
I could feel the tremor of fright in my throat every time I spoke, and my attempts to act casual failed pitifully. The sketch of her holding my lamb by the throat was the moment she accused me of lying.
I was only nineteen years old that night, still in the limbo between youth and manhood.
I couldn’t believe it when this girl, a stranger, grabbed me by the shirt, pulled me to her, and rested her head against my chest.
That was the first time I had ever been held by a woman. Her warmth and softness knocked the breath out of me.
Suddenly, this stranger girl with the bloody face was intoxicating.
Even though I knew I was in the most frightening peril of my life, I had never felt more alive.
The Call to Go Home
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The Wanderer didn’t recognize where he was until he saw the ship.
He blinked and had to look again.
The vessel was just like the one he had been on five and a half years before, except for the name on the stern. When the horn blew, he started, suddenly aware he was on the wharf, immersed in a mass of people swarming around him.
The crowd blew kisses to the passengers on deck, while they leaned over the railings, waving to the loved ones sending them off as the crew hoisted ropes from the dock.
His heart squeezed from the joy and sadness around him.
But the sight of an old man crying and shouting good-bye to a youth on the ship stopped him in his tracks.
In that moment, he saw his grandfather as he had been on the day he’d left. Their Patron and Patroness had stood on either side of him. The gnarled hand had been at the level of his heart and the Bard had never stopped waving, growing smaller from the Wanderer sailing away.
But he had remained on the deck, waving back long after his grandfather was gone.
A surge rose from the depths of his belly and returned the Wanderer to the day he knew his grandfather had passed, that moment the Bard’s soul passed through him.
His vision flooded from the tears streaming down his cheeks, making him blind to the stranger drawing him close.
There was warmth and strength in that embrace, and he sobbed into the unknown shoulder. After a time, the other pulled back and the Wanderer looked into the whiskey brown eyes of the old man he saw waving good-bye to his grandson setting sail for his grand adventure.
“Son,” he said. “It always hurts to lose someone. But the pain is worse if you hold on when it’s time to let go.”
Before the Wanderer could say anything, the horn bleated farewell. The old man touched his face and slipped away.
The Wanderer watched as the old man turned back to the boy on deck of the departing ship, waving with one hand and blowing kisses with the other. The youth’s face was filled with the bittersweet of excitement and sorrow, just as he had been five years before.
The Wanderer couldn’t stop crying.
He left the crowd behind for a lone stump down the wharf. There he faced the sea and surrendered to mourning.
His heart throbbed in the same manner whenever the girl from No Man’s Land had angered him. But this time, he was thinking of the last time he saw his grandfather.
Shocked, the Wanderer tried to push it away, but the sentiment wouldn’t be denied. Breathing deeply, smoke from the ship’s furnace mingled with the salt of the ocean, both acrid and refreshing at once. His tears dried up and he wanted to curse at the sky. His limbs were taut with the urge to run and make his escape.
But he didn’t.
The Wanderer finally admitted he was angry with the Bard for insisting he leave, and with himself for going when his heart told him to stay.
He remembered his first sight of the boat and the blinding white of its sails. He felt again that rush of guilt when he knew he wanted to get on board more than anything in his life, even while his grandfather was dying.
He couldn’t breathe when he thought of how alone he had been since the Bard passed on. Loneliness was the one thing in life he found unbearable.
Then the memory of his parents’ murder rushed in and the tears came again, a torrent of sobs wrenching him apart.
But this time, the Wanderer didn’t fight it.
He allowed the terror to consume him, just as it had that night.
He flinched when he remembered the intruder who had come to his room. Then he saw himself, suddenly overcome with tenderness for the terrified child he had been. He finally recognized the shame he had carried all his life for surviving an ordeal his parents didn’t.
Something lifted from the Wanderer. The relief made him giddy, so much he almost fell over.
Then he continued through his memories of those early years with his grandfather when he was trapped in a world of terror and helpless rage. That prison disappeared in the onslaught of love showered on him for the rest of his childhood.
Then the Wanderer had nothing but a deep gratitude for the grandfather who had saved him from the abyss of darkness that could have consumed him for the rest of his life.
He could still see the Bard’s face, with its deep lines and black eyes filled with the wisdom of life well lived.
And the Wanderer wept again until no tears were left.
Alpenglow streamed across the sky once he was done.
He felt empty after the storm of grief that he’d surrendered to. But the sensation was not unpleasant.
The Wanderer turned around and saw that the crowd had long dispersed, and the ship was tiny at the edge of the horizon. He smiled at the last glimpse of the vessel before it disappeared into the eastern mists.
He felt as if he were a shade above the ground when he stood up, the buoyancy like nothing he’d ever known in his life.
“Go home.”
The voice was soft, but the Wanderer saw nobody when he turned around.
“It’s time to go home.”
Then he realized the murmur came from inside him, the voice of his heart echoing through him.
Suddenly the Wanderer yearned for the village, for his friends and neighbors.
Then the Bard’s cabin came to mind. Instead of cold darkness, the windows and door were lit up from within because of course, a fire blazed in the hearth on his return.
He saw himself enter, and savored the aroma of wood burning, the heat warming him to the bone.
Everybody was inside to welcome him home, voices tinged with affection.
The image was so vivid he almost believed he was there until the call of the fishermen pulled him back to the wharf.
The smell of fish made him grimace and the Wanderer listened to the salt rough voices of seamen shouting to one another how well they fared.
But when he looked around, the Wanderer recognized the changing hour when the day people came to their finish and the night people to their start.
Fishermen hauled nets, their muscular necks straining while the ladies of night sauntered along the dock, their rolling hips an exaggeration of availability.
Dusk was forgiving of these women, lending the illusion of bloom over their defeated faces. They loitered near the boats and ignored the disapproving glares of passersby, their eyes narrowed slits fishing for the men looking for them.
The Wanderer smiled at the furtive couples he passed as they made on their way to the bordellos.
Life after dark was the same all over the world. But here the night people struck a deeper note inside him. They were a part of him, citizens and outcasts of the same country. Listening to them speak in his native tongue, the Wanderer finally knew he had come home.
Then he saw her.
Hostility and Lust
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Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Her hostility was relentless.
The next morning, the Wanderer was relieved to find his tent undisturbed when he woke up.
He heard the girl moving around the site, but doubted she was in a better humor. He lay inside his tent until the grating of metal on metal irritated him enough to get up. Her dagger blinded him when he came out, the blade catching rays of light as the girl swept it along a rod.
She must have gotten up earlier to hunt; two slain rabbits were draped across her lap. Finally, the edge was sharp.
He watched the girl carve meat from bone, mesmerized by the sure strokes of her dagger. Then he looked up and saw her stare riveted on him.
The hairs prickled on the back of his neck and he averted his gaze. Ignoring her as well as he could, he went to the fire pit, surprised to find some acknowledgement of his presence in the camp.
The girl had staked two forked branches on either side, leaving the iron weave for him to cook upon. By the time he got the fire going, she was ready.
Pieces of rabbit were impaled along a spit she’d carved from a thick branch, which she set between the prongs.
Without thinking, the Wanderer put his hash beneath the meat to catch the drippings of fat.
But the girl glared and pulled her spit away until he moved his skillet to the side of the fire.
Hoping for a trade, he ignored the slight and offered his food when they were done.
“Do you want try some of mine? It’d go well with the rabbit.”
The girl flicked her eyes between him and the skillet, then walked away and settled down at the base of a large tree.
Then she started to eat.
She took her time with the rabbits, tearing through meat with her thick teeth and chewing slowly, even licking her fingers when she was done.
The girl didn’t glance his way once, but the Wanderer suspected this was a performance meant for him.
Her piece of theatre angered him enough he had to wait until she left before he could eat. By then, his hash had gone cold.
Days became weeks.
The Wanderer tried to ease the tension between them, but any questions went unanswered, his attempts at conversation ignored.
She never spoke to him.
Nor did she pretend he wasn’t there.
While she dressed her kills and sliced through animal flesh, the girl always stared at him, those cold blue eyes tracking his every move.
He found himself avoiding her, often waiting until she was gone before he left his tent in the morning.
But they cooked next to each other every night.
His stomach rumbled every time he watched the precious drops of fat go to waste in the fire. The Wanderer knew they’d both eat better if they only shared.
Yet he never offered his food to her again.
The Wanderer spent his days foraging, always gathering in the woods south of their camp.
Once he tried to venture north on his mare. But the girl appeared out of nowhere, glaring at him with more ferocity than usual and turning her massive steed to block him.
He took the hint she’d claimed that part of the woods and never went that way again. He didn’t mind too much. The border patrol was to the north and he didn’t wish to attract the law.
The Wanderer came to love the woods of No Man’s Land.
When the forest wasn’t quiet, the trees whispered from the motion of animals, the song of birds, and breezes ruffling the leaves releasing scents spicy and sweet.
Immersing himself made him forget everything and he found something new every day. Nuts, berries, leaves, and edible flowers added taste to his hash, while fresh varieties of mushrooms sprouted after each rain.
Although he foraged enough for breakfast and supper, his appetite was barely sated and he was losing weight. The Wanderer had to admit his craving for meat and fat had grown past the point of pain.
He suspected the girl found his cooking more appealing, especially on the day he returned with a stalk of rosemary and sprigs of thyme.
He thought he saw her nostrils quivering while he cut the herbs to bits, the aroma irresistible from the heat of the fire.
It was almost enough to distract him from the roasting partridges, but he still wanted to reach his skillet under her spit.
He was glad he resisted the urge when he saw her glance away.
“I caught you looking this time,” he said.
She scowled and turned from him.
His animosity for her grew as hers did for him.
His ill will made him uneasy, for the Wanderer never disliked anybody in his life, and to his embarrassment, his body had become a traitor to him. As much as he’d come to dislike his neighbor, he still wanted her.
His lust transformed into a physical yearning that was terrifying, his desire increasing with his antipathy.
No woman had ever affected him like this.
He couldn’t be comfortable in his skin when she was near. His limbs would go rigid as the Wanderer fought the animal urges pushing him beyond his reason.
To make matters worse, the girl knew the effect she had on him. The glint in her eyes and her vicious smile were a daily humiliation.
And the tingling along his flesh made the Wanderer loathe himself.
Summer finally gave in to autumn, the leaves started turning to gold, and the Wanderer realized that staying where he knew he wasn’t wanted made the worst kind of loneliness.
After a month, his obstinacy seemed foolish. Every night, he was determined to pack up and leave the next morning, a surrender that brought him much relief.
Then he fell asleep and floated into the dreamtime.
The Shepherd's Lone Wolf
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Image by Allauddin Yousafzai from Pixabay
