[: Relating to “Dark Of Light”, a sexy romance novel :]
Your attention please. Thank you.
.. This blog post was edited from the text starting…
.. .. “Of course she’d ordered special treatment for Phillipus”
.. .. .. at center of paperback page 166.
.. And ending at the text…
.. .. “SHE WAS WAITING FOR PHILLIPUS NAKED.”
.. .. .. at very end of paperback page 173.
.. .. .. .. {Open.Pdf.File}
Well a lot happens in those pages.
[::: And they do contain some lyrically exquisite EROTIC PROSE VERSE, as will see in a moment, .. which came out satisfactorily, I’ll think you’ll think, .. in a coupling you will probably NOT approve of however, .. but in a deep place of mystically profound Love, .. definitely NOT YET any love-making intercourse of Priestess Victory and Doofus King Phillipus. .. BECAUSE at this point he, as you will see in the blog post after this .. .. in the disappointing happenings just after this “she was waiting for him naked”, .. .. her unchanged demands, in that later scene, will reveal to us Doofus still obstinately swears he is The Conqueror. Oh well. :::]
AT LAST ! TEXT FROM THE PAPERBACK FOLLOWS:
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But still, it was a demanding task to instantly catalog each person’s state of being by their aura and body stance and tone of voice and words into the one paragraph of her memorized instruction sheet where they best belonged, then turn that tap to let the best response flow out. And even then it was not over; she should observe the impact of her words and gestures and strive to learn from the experience. This was her duty.
Of course she’d ordered special treatment for Phillipus.
When they’d first arrived, when her staff had finished rushing round to put the final touches on costumery and other gear, while they were all washing off their dusty hands and faces round a big tub in a hidden corner, she had pulled herself back to this Earthly sphere from trance and told them this:
“Do not seek him from the yard.” But let him come up for admittance as his will or chance would have it. Then delay him at the Basket Mystery, with some lecture on the sacred bits of this and that perhaps, or such, until the aspirant before is conducted out the exit. (The one behind also has to wait until he’s gone.)
Some one rushes to her with news he’s next. The one who guides him would then speak no word and give no sign except to try to slow his passage through the chambers to a stately pace. That is, delay him.
Finally, before lifting back the purple cloth, his guide tries to fix the conqueror’s gaze with theirs and then, with a final dramatic look and thought when it’s open, would turn his gaze toward her. The guide must not betray surprise regardless how she’s posed herself.
Then the two of them would be alone until she either called or clapped her hands three times.
But this was stagecraft frippery. This was not a plan. She asked herself.. What would she do?
He had approached her several times along the march so far but did not speak, like a lone wounded wolf who finds a fire lit camp and smells the hunters’ meat then limps round and round the circling darkness in fear.
Within the loose folds of his shirt his manly part had stood up more and more and so, being Sister Kore then, she had felt herself staring at the thing, murmuring charms to it like coaxing a snake, coaxing at that piece of flesh to draw him in. An hour at that? Two?
But then arriving here and coming to herself again, she had asked Our Sister what was next but got no answer, only that she must accept the holy presence on herself very fully when that one appeared. She would obey as best she might – and, to tell the truth, she might enjoy a bit, a bit, an autumn sunny afternoon like this oh yes, yes, oh tomorrow or some other time yes yes
– but what if sexual relations were right there and then on Mother’s Throne or hoisted on her Apple Tree? Yes? No? Could she do it? She’s out of practice!
Or could she do a homicide in this peaceful place? Her walking costume has a long knife. What if she must do both? She did not know.
And then two hours of ministering to the holy tramps; the passing minutes drew her more and more into the Earthly sphere.
She began to find herself in a very physical yet nearly timeless moment with each one, truly gazing in the heavy cares and fears and heartfelt yearnings of this world. The next would flash into her presence.
At least the dappled shade was cool on her hands and face and feet. And her fine spun silver woolen gown was comfortably warm and loose. At least Our Mother stood behind her in the woody substance of the tree and through its rustlings advised her clearly what to say and do or sometimes, when her growing weariness led to wandering thoughts, Our Mother would take pity and would simply directly shape her breath and throat and tongue and gestures.
Where was Phillipus? Would he come at all?
Outside the courtyard wall, he was sitting alone back behind the others, and all of them have already been in, now meditating till the march takes off again.
But Phillipus is submerged deep in tortured thought, awaiting what he did not know. Perhaps awaiting hope.
At last a shadow came and stood beside his lonely bench. Awakened, he looked up.
There stood Matron of Agrai Temple, she whose Sacred Precinct this was.
Standing there with folded arms across her previously violated breasts, her breasts still burning with his despicably forced kisses of the afternoon before, and she scarcely taller than his height though he is he was sitting on a bench.
And Diotoma spoke to him between clinched teeth with winter in her breath;
“King, they’re closing shop.”
“What?”
“Have you come to buy or just to look?”
“Ma’am . . .” he said. And then he said; “I must apologize for what I did.”
Icy stony silence.
“Ma’am;” he said; “I dishonored myself yesterday.” He waited, looking in her face, hoping for the mercy of some reply. He finally added; “I fondly pray that I did not dishonor you.”
And so she answered; “King, as far as I’m concerned you may as well eat donkey shit and die. .. I’d like to see you hung up by the thumbs and flayed with whips. .. I really would. .. I’d love to watch; .. I’d pay to see the show. .. Someday maybe I shall hear that you have died in slavery. .. Know what I’d do? .. I would go to my altar and give thanks for revenge. .. But still, I live by My Temple’s Book and in that book it says.. You are a monster free to make this march if you can find the juice in your liver to do it.”
“Ma’am . . . I do apologize. I do.”
“Go fuck your asshole.”
“Ahh . . .” he sighed, looking at his empty hands.
She demanded; “Are you going in there to try the oath?
I’m Hostess here so I’ve got to ask, I guess.
You’re the last one.
Every other thief and whore and half-wit, and cripple, here
has done it. And every one of them has passed.”
“Honored Matron;” he replied; “please, may I show you something?”
She paused. What, of all possible things, was this? Finally .. said; “What?”
He fumbled in his purse and found the note.
He unfolded it and held it up for her to see.
She took the little square of parchment in her hand and read it.
A moment’s wait, Phillipus said; “Mistress Elfesinia sent it to me this morning. You can see, it’s a very special challenge.”
“Mmm;” she answered; “yes.”
Her friend had sent it to this man? .. And the jumbled letters shone with holy light; .. directly written by Our Sister’s hand apparently, .. an invitation to her hot and hard embrace. .. That was repugnant and the reasons for it did escape her, but who was she to judge? .. Some high affair of gods and states. .. And yes, the shapes of the writing did perhaps look like a map to Elfesis startlingly similar to the one she herself had seen take shape in the midnight sky.
So she asked; “What do you want from me?”
“I don’t know. Guidance.”
“Not from me.” She folded it shut and gave it back. “You want advice, go in there and kneel and beg for it, you ass. You ask me forgiveness?” And then she could not help but add, with a sharp tone of vengeance: “If she wants to fuck you, do it.”
He shuddered visibly.
She said, suddenly with a clear indication of her own strong preference: “Either that or else turn back now. Anyway, it’s time to choose. They’re packing up and moving on.”
And so Phillipus looked up at the little door in the courtyard wall.
And as he looked his courage rose. It seemed to beckon though it was shut. And as his courage rose he took his rude peasant’s kind of crutch, and with the sturdy stick braced between the bench and ground, pulled himself up to his feet. He hobbled quickly as he could among the silent folk till there he stood knocking at the door.
Then three times he struck his fist against the wood, each time louder.
The peephole in the door slid open. The sun burnt captain of the pulling crew looked out.
“Sir;” Phillipus said; “may I come in? I think I’m ready for the oath.”
The fellow shot back, an utterly plain and simple tone knowing who this was;
“Why are you here?”
He found himself shaking his head in bafflement while words came tumbling from his lips;
“I do not know. Honestly. All I know is that I have to go as far as I can.”
The captain nodded, slowly weighing it carefully. “Well” he finally spoke, “Yes.” He opened the door and helped Phillipus in.
Victory was by now quite thankful that the stream of human shapes had slowed down. Sufficient space had come between each one to lean back in the cushions of the ornate chair and let her gaze idly caress the knotty intertwining branches of the tree above, to catch her breath and try to trace the branches in between the trembling leaves despite the blurring in her eyes.
There had come a crippled woman leaning on her son; to speak she’d stood alone as best she could. Our Mother gave the finest blessings to them both.
A rest.
There came a man with sunken cheeks who darted looks about; the Lady understood he was a thief in fear of justice snapping at his heels and yet the man gazed deep into Our Mother’s eyes through hers and let his love come pouring through; “Oh, I do swear.” She gave him merciful benediction number eight.
A longer rest. She seemed to doze. She thought perhaps all this had been a dream. Perhaps she was the tall girl now again.
Someone came and spoke to her. She did not understand but smiled and nodded as Our Mother said to do and gestured thankful acceptance number one.
A shimmering reflection in the branches caught her eye, something golden in a cloud of leaves. Was this just a trick of light or could it be an apple which she had not seen till now? What delight! What joy there would be in here to touch its warm smoothness and leave it hanging there in secret from the human race, to let that single one be given to whatever spirits rightly came to make a claim.
She rose, feeling as she stood that this was indeed one of those weary dreams where you can scarcely find the strength to drag your feet despite the way you are somehow invisibly supported; she made her steps one by one and came at last and stood close by the trunk as she must do to reach up toward the glimmering.
It was too high and yet she felt herself relaxing as she leaned to let her Mother’s strength take up her weight. The sun was glittering down from it into her eyes so that in truth there was no up nor down nor left nor right.
All of the stress of these last hours and the morning and the restless night and day before and all these months – the stress of all her life – seemed to quite dissolve into dark fluids and flow down into Earth.
Her bare toes dug like roots and new brightly colored fluids rose fresh from the living ground to fill her up again. The growing grass was tickling at her feet like wavelets as you walk beside a moonlit sea.
The rough old bark was somehow very pleasant on her skin. How like is flesh to flesh? Oh, very like; all flesh is one. The sunlight and the dark and land and sea; human folk and beasts and finny fish and meadow flowers and thorns and snow and rain, all these are one. The thieves and worthy sons, the girls and priestesses; all these are one. She could not find a thought to speak the loveliness in this sensation so she lay full length upon the leaning trunk.
What is the greatest passion? Love. And what is love? Justice. And what is justice? Truth. And what is truth? Reality.
This delicious roughness of the bark where she rubbed her naked calf and thigh was full of Earth’s coarse real sensuality, as full of sensuality itself as lilac on an early summer’s breeze or fir trees’ scent in the cold still hush of upland winter forest where the only sound is snow.
And then she realized: this sort of potency made it absolutely clear that Demeter had changed herself to Sister Kore. And by the glittering that took shape in her eyes, Kore seemed to smile at her very ardently. Like a woman who desires.
So, obedient to the holy will, she stretched to mold her thigh and hip into the curve. She gently twined and twisted as she stretched and rather climbed so that her naked belly then each swollen teat and then beneath each round firm breast and then her throat and cheek each rubbed as she turned and stretched; each felt in turn the lingering caress.
Where were these things? She could not count these things about herself and found a pride and wonder in it. But now she found that thus to climb she’d wrapped one leg about and felt in this a very weird polarity. She’d never thought of this before, not even once. What were these colors in the air?
And yet she could not help but let her sister’s body force her thighs a little more apart so that her tender parts were now parted open by her sister’s sure demanding touch and she felt pressed there by her weight as though now pressed between a firm hand on the small of her back and the penetrating fingers of a very knowledgeable lover’s hand. And yet a very gentle breath of breeze came softly tickling in the hair behind her neck. And with that breath a leaf came down to gently press her cheek so that she laid her ear down to the branch and to her ear perhaps there came a strong woman’s voice;
“My love, my sister, shall I teach thee all of pleasure?”
She must answer. She pressed her lips against the woody flesh to whisper “yes” but found them lingering in the texture there. And yet her other mouth was feeling texture too and it was answering. Passion in a great surprise; she pressed out hard; a rippling tremble and a flash.
Ah, reality is life and life is pleasure, pleasure love, so all is one.
And love came flowing from her tenderness through all her being.
And then from out this well of love there came a sigh of deep release which pulled the strings from there to all her other parts and drew all remaining fear and weakness from her out through that place.
And then into this tenderness and love and strength and courage came from all the world around awareness of all life and death, awareness that suffering and pleasure are alike and both are lesser powers than the pure desire which ever makes all things of every kind. With that wisdom in her inmost privacy came flowing peace.
So then, with all the dreamy strength of a lover gone to dreams of swimming in the streams of bliss, her arms reached out. Each arm stretched out strongly twining along a spreading branch. Her fingers stretched out far to hold the leaves into the sun.
In this dream she looked down on a lovely well shaped woman’s breast which lay against the curving trunk and gleaming golden in the sun, green light on the flesh around, so like an apple on a leafy twig. This was a thing of beauty far past knowing.
Here was the juice of life. Here was the fountain of Our Mother’s love. Here was the nourishment of generations. Who might come and dare to touch?
Finally, into her human consciousness there rose a shock that she was waiting for Phillipus naked. The precious gown of finest thin spun silver wool lay down there on the grassy Earth where it had fallen like a ring of tender downy mushrooms in the shade. A little fingerprint of awesome forces?
But this thought soon dissolved into her trust.
[::: The very next episode after this starts exactly where this thread leaves us, but shifts us just a few feet away.
.. That blog post will be called “At The Altar Of This And That”, because, as you will see, at this very instant PHILLIPUS HAS ENTERED THE LABYRINTH,
.. and in hypnotic stupor he is standing in their canvas labyrinth’s tiny entrance, standing at their folding portable altar,
.. with Mother Demeter’s whole universe that she’s created, .. for a moment ago he became honestly a Seeker, .. and for this moment he is even a Temporary Priest,
.. yes, the ex-conqueror at this same instant Our Priestess has relaxed into Our Sister’s apple tree flesh, .. at that moment he is rapturously dumbstruck at an altar generously spread with ancient little trinkets gathered from Our Mother’s whole world by many pious hands.:::]
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{- End Of “Final Touches On Costumery” -}
{-Creds.. This is stolen, borrowed, enlightened, reformed, and often
.. reconstructed, by me, from my book.. “Dark Of Light”
.. .. Its overview page .. {-Here-} -}
Stone Riley Druid Classroom 
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