American Goth

by J. D. Glass

  Elizabeth didn’t answer that as she took a tray and I another to follow her back out of the kitchen. “Just remember,” she said, stopping to face me as we stood before the landing. Her very being almost vibrated with her intent as she searched my face. “There is more to you than the sword and the Light. You…your very self, are a living soul, and you too are meant to find the happiness you can, as much as any other.”

  *

  It turned out that we were all encouraged to eat as much as we wanted since the next day would be a fast day until after the Rite.

  “We have to do this starving on every level,” Fran joked and I agreed. But we were well behaved, as well behaved as we’d been for the prior six long nights even as we lay skin to skin in a careful embrace that satisfied only the most surface need to touch and nothing else.

  “You don’t have to go through this with me, you know,” Fran had said one night when the connect and the skin and the kiss had left us both with a longing that was a physical ache.

  “You could let me just…” And she skimmed her hand along my side, over my hip, and I caught it in mine.

  “No,” I countered as I linked my fingers through hers, “if you have to, I have to.” That just didn’t seem fair, and besides, once she touched me, I had to touch her, not for any other reason than I needed to, I wanted to, I simply had to. The compulsion was as irresistible as it was undeniable.

  “I love you,” she sighed as she kissed me and we pulled each other closer, let our legs tangle together.

  “And I love you.” I kissed her nose and we lay together, simply staring into one another’s eyes, reading the world in them, the world that was us, letting the energy and intensity grow and build.

  “Turn around, let me hold you,” she asked quietly. “We’re never going to sleep like this.”

  “If I do that,” I whispered back, “you have roving hands and we still won’t sleep.”

  “Guilty as charged,” she allowed with a tiny smirk, “but we’ll feel better.”

  I smiled back at her. “Close your eyes. We’ll sleep fine, I think.” I did as I suggested.

  “Are you asleep?” I asked less than a minute later.

  I knew the answer, though, even before I opened my eyes to find hers still on me, and I chuckled.

  “You giggle?” she teased. “Can you do that again?”

  “Don’t tickle me,” I warned, “things might happen.” Her fingertips played up and down my arms anyway.

  “Oh yeah? What sort of things?” God, the way she spoke was so sensual even as she teased me.

  “This!” I surged against her, pressed her beneath me, and she welcomed my tongue between her lips.

  “So…” I said almost breathlessly as I stared down at her. I held her hands over her head in mine. “No tickling.”

  “You’re evil.”

  I thought about that for a moment as I released one of her hands and her legs slid against mine. “I might be,” I agreed and circled her nipple with my thumb. It was so beautifully hard and Fran sighed under me.

  “Okay, you’ve made your…point,” she said, glancing down at my hand and I stopped, only to kiss her again, but this really had to stop before we couldn’t, and we fit around each other, her back curved against my belly, my hand firmly on hers.

  “You owe me,” she said into the almost-sleep silence.

  “Hmm?”

  “When all of this is done, I’m gonna tickle you.”

  “Ha. I’ll remember that,” I promised as I tightened my arm around her waist and tucked my head behind hers.

  “No, you won’t,” she teased, “and then? I’ll get you, you’ll see.”

  “Uh-huh, sure, if that’s the first thing you want to do when you can,” I teased back.

  She turned in my arms and I could see the slow, sexy smile she gave me in the near dark. “That’s not the only thing I want to do.”

  “Really?” I asked, the words soft and muted as I spoke them so close to her lips. “What else do you have in mind?”

  I kissed her and the ardent return of her lips gave me the answer even as she eased her leg between mine and she slipped a hand down to my hip to clutch me to her.

  I knew what she wanted to do, and I wanted her to do it. The quiet, sensual little moan that escaped when I felt her breasts against mine—wehavetostop, wehavetostop, wehavetostop—“What makes you think,” I gasped out raggedly against the pounding in my head and chest, the feel of her heart wild against mine, the muscles of her back under my fingertips and the desperate way hers dug into my hip, “that I’m gonna let you?”

  She gave a small chuckle, and I knew she recognized my tactic for the diversion it was. “Because,” she said and kissed the sensitive skin just under my ear, “you like the way I do it.”

  Of course I did—and we both knew it. “I don’t,” I said anyway, just to play.

  “Really? You don’t?” she drawled, knowing I was playing as I drew my fingers up her back, along her shoulders, then up her neck until I could catch her face in my hands.

  “You know I don’t like it,” I said softly as I gazed into eyes that gleamed at me in the intermittent light from the window and drew my thumb against her cheek. “I love it,” I told her and kissed her gently, “I love you, love what you do.”

  The urgent need hadn’t abated, but the frantic pull eased back to a manageable sensuality. “Love you too,” she murmured against my lips, “love what you do.”

  Entwined as closely as if we’d just made love (and maybe we had in a way), we once more settled in. “Shh now. Sleep,” I whispered.

  “You’re still gonna owe me,” she whispered back, then kissed my neck.

  I did, and knew I always would. She gave me everything and I owed her everything—and the only way I had right now of paying her back was to do everything I could to keep her safe.

  *

  That rode through my mind as we separately took the long drive, me with Cort, Fran with Elizabeth, to wherever it was that this whole thing was supposed to take place. With almost every suburb ending in “ham” or “shire,” they tended to blur in my mind, in much the same way that the three different versions of Compton had when we first got to London, and I was not as surprised as I’d thought I’d be to discover that most of the ceremony would happen outdoors.

  “Won’t everyone get cold?” I asked Cort.

  He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Between the ritual, the fires, and the energy, no one will notice. You’ll see.”

  As we walked along a side path that led to the yard, the carefully tended shrubs gave way to vines, all obviously painstakingly trained to grow along a canopy so that at the far end, a scene from ages past was set in a yard that seemed to roll on until it met yet another field bounded by a stonework fence, that yawed from there to a mountain.

  I didn’t know what I’d expected, but this… People, perhaps sixty or more, some in regular dress while others were in robes, all rushed about in an organized chaos, moving tables, setting torches along a set path, groups clustered to light not one, not two, but four well-contained fires that were about six feet or so in diameter and were maintained to a height of about two feet.

  “They’re getting ready to meet the first star of the evening,” Cort said into my ear as I gaped about.

  Someone pressed a mug into my hand, glazed warm clay that was smooth under my fingers. “It’s okay, you know—it’s part of the whole Rite,” he told me after he sipped from his own mug.

  I took a tentative sip. It was sweet, almost overwhelmingly so, and the taste made me think of pears.

  The sense of excitement and expectation grew, was a palpable haze in the neoprimitive scene that blossomed before my eyes.

  “C’mon,” Graham said, appearing at my shoulder out of seemingly nowhere, “we have to wait here.” His eyes danced with reflected flame, with his own energy. His outline hazed, shifted and glowed, and I glanced over to Cort, who nodded.

  “Go on,” he said and grinne
d at me, “go join the other young bucks.”

  I glanced at Graham, who smiled widely. “It’s a traditional…test,” he said. “C’mon!” and he pulled on my elbow.

  “Good luck!” Cort called and waved at me.

  Bemused, I walked with Graham, careful not to spill my drink as we crossed the yard, and he took me downfield where a knot of people gathered. “Here,” he said, “we wait here. Have another sip,” he said kindly. “You’ll see.”

  I hesitated a moment as I looked about me, the energy thick as it swirled around us with the heavy, edgy bite of expectation. “You feel it already,” Graham said quietly into my ear, “because you walk between worlds. This,” and he hefted the drink he carried in his own hand, “is to help open the gates, and you,” he examined me closely, “well, you’re already walking through them, aren’t you.”

  Following his example, I lifted the mug to drink. The sweet taste of herbs and pears flowed past my lips, my tongue, was a soothing, syrupy river down my throat. A gong sounded deep and clear, ringing in a tone that seemed to echo across the Worlds.

  Voices called from different corners, the Convocation, the formation of the Circle, the welcome of the Elements and their respective directions. The air shimmered as they were called and came, and the Circle grew almost visible, a gauzy light curtain I could see so long as I didn’t look at it directly.

  From behind us came the answering call that rang with its own crystalline purity as the note hung, swelled. It filled the Circle as they came, the procession.

  A woman led them, her carriage strong, proud, and graceful, her hair a glow of white as they entered the cleared center. They were six in all, dressed in white that flowed with the currents of air and fire, flowed with the grace of water, meeting the earth only to flow back up, the cycle over and over and over.

  Elizabeth, it was Elizabeth, I realized even as I sipped again, and when she stopped, a new, smaller, Circle formed: one stood within and she without.

  It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t hear the words spoken from the inside, nor the responses the crowd made, so much as I couldn’t translate them, but it didn’t matter; I understood them in a deep way. This was familiar, this was something I’d done a thousand times. This was the way home.

  “What’s the test?” I asked Graham quietly as the excitement I’d felt before grew in the hearts that surrounded me and in my own, an impatient wilding surge of energy that powered my limbs, sharpened my senses, made my chest beat with the same pounding rhythm that echoed through the Circle.

  Graham’s fingers tapped with nervous energy on my hand and when I glanced at him, his smile seemed to grow. I knew him, recognized his soul clearly, and put my arm around his shoulders in welcome. I kissed his cheek. He was my brother, my friend, my kith and kin, and his fingers drummed on mine in return.

  “Who will be the Champion for the Goddess,” he whispered and held me closer. “Consort, defender, willing sacrifice—all of it. As above, so below.”

  The shuffle and the mutter grew around us, an agitated jostle of bodies, the restive twitch and flex of muscle. We were waiting, waiting…oxen caged and penned, dogs given scent straining against the leash, a pack, an army about to charge, the arrow nocked against the bow, waiting on the word, waiting for—

  “No worries, my brother,” Graham said into my ear and I couldn’t help but notice his lips were soft along its edge, “you’ll win, I know it.”

  Brother. Yes, we were, had always been…

  My blood sang, sang a fiery high praise through me as it rose with the stars, with the voices that called all around us, my body flowed with the rhythm of the tide, filled with the strength of the earth that pounded with the drums beneath my feet, the scent of smoke and herbs and cut grasses the counterpoint that swirled around my head and…

  She was out there, in the center of that smaller Circle, shining like ice, like fire, like crystal, the nimbus around Her the borealis, a flame into the sky.

  The question blew out into the Circle, the clear call of challenge that I moved forward to answer, forging my way through the bodies that blocked me, the impeding arms and legs, Graham encouraging and solid at my back. No one else had the right, not the way I did, and I knew it as I pushed and wrestled through, using my shoulders to advance, to open my path. I could feel them around me, the ones who struggled through as well, saw them with my peripheral vision as the very physical challenge continued, the gauntlet we struggled through. There were five, then four, then two. This was my place and I knew it, knew that I was the one to do it—no one else had the right, or the claim, I had. Then my forward progress was arrested as someone solidly stopped me.

  Completely halted, I looked at the large bare chest before me, the arms that bulged with muscle and strength ending in firm large fists that curled on hips perched over solidly planted legs. He. Was. Huge.

  His head was shaved and the firelight glistened on the light sheen of sweat that covered his face, his shoulders, highlighting the muscles in his chest. “Let the Champion be tested,” called the Guardian of the Goddess. “By what right would you defend?” His lip curled at me with scorn.

  His eyes caught the bonfire, blazing with contempt as everyone seemed to fall back and away, Graham too, after a reassuring press on my shoulder. They left us to stand alone, the Guardian between me and my goal. I could feel Her eyes on me from behind him as I squared my shoulders, felt the line of force flow through my spine as it straightened.

  The energies became intersecting lines, the Elementals jumped and jigged about me as my bones, my blood, my soul remembered the answer, then spoke it for me.

  “I claim by right of blood,” I said as he swung at me, his feet planted in the earth as I floated away like air. “I claim in the face of death.” He burned, moved with living flame, and I flowed around him like water. “I claim it for life.” The leg came up for the aerial move and I hit the ground, let it sweep, a sharp gust over me and I saw it as I straightened, the opening in the nexus of force and I reached out to tap his chest with my finger as my own fire burned within. “I claim it with love.” He overbalanced and fell hard, and the earth gnomes danced around him as the salamanders of fire lit my way.

  She was the Goddess before me and I fell as the rain to my knees. “I claim it for you,” I whispered. Undines sang and the sylphs brushed my hair away from my face as She took my hand in Hers. She raised me to stand before Her as the world shifted and shook, the Light that surrounded Her almost blinding as the voices sang in my ears, “Isis, Astarte, Diana—Hecate, Demeter, Kali—Inanna!” loud enough to match the heart I suddenly felt beat within me, the painful lurch of life.

  “And I lay claim to you,” the Goddess said, and She crowned me as Consort with Her kiss.

  “The Challenge has been answered,” the voice of the man I’d just seen fall to earth cried. “The Goddess will be served!”

  “Isis, Astarte, Diana—Hecate, Demeter, Kali—Inanna!”

  Elizabeth stood before us when the kiss ended and I saw her as she held the chalice before me. I took it from her hands and pulled deeply, the words she spoke a buzz in my ears as the syrupy mix raced under my skin, her meaning clear as the inner Circle closed around us. Quick, careful hands stripped me, then covered us both with a soft blanket.

  It was impossible to tell if we were guided or carried to the pavilion-tent-grove-room— whatever it was—because Her skin played against me, wrapped under that smooth cloth and around each other as we moved. Fingers fed me as hands stroked my hips, my ribs, the catch of my body on Hers. I don’t know what I ate, only that there was the taste of grapes and the soft lips perfect on mine. Somehow we lay together, and everything everywhere was the touch of silk, of satin, soft and cushioned against my back with my nerves alive and tingling.

  “Isis, Astarte, Diana—Hecate, Demeter, Kali—Inanna!”

  The chorus sang over and over, the call and cry of strength, of triumph, to the beat of blood and drums, a pulse of life and love and lust th
at the rhythmic pound focused in me, and even as I hardened and swelled, my vision splintered further, now the world, now the energies that intersected it, and She towered above me, “Isis, Astarte, Diana—Hecate, Demeter, Kali—Inanna!” the Great Huntress and Healer, the Mother and Reaver, the essential primitive perfect warrior, the consummate nurturer. Golden fingertips placed a ruby of fire between my lips that I sucked and swallowed.

  The elements and energies swirled and coiled, focused, filling the air, thick enough to swim through. “Isis, Astarte, Diana—Hecate, Demeter, Kali—Inanna!” She smiled down at me even as She rose again to part Herself, Her body, to receive mine.

  I was Her Champion, by right, by contest, by choice—I was Her chosen Consort. “Isis, Astarte, Diana—Hecate, Demeter, Kali—Inanna!” I gasped at the connect through it all, the snap of the intense physical that married us on every level as She claimed Her prize.

  *

  “I so rarely get to see you like this,” Fran’s voice tickled against my ear as her fingertip traced a light path along my face.

  “Hmm? Like what?” I asked as I stretched, enjoying the strength I could feel in my own body, the warmth of the sun that shone in through the window on us, and the completing and satisfying pressure of Fran next to me.

  We had two days, two whole days to do nothing but enjoy one another before we were back to our routines, the lectures and studies, the research, and of course, rehearsals for me, but for now…we had one another and the time to relax. I supposed everyone needed to recover from the Rite.

  “Like this,” she said and slid over me. She caught my hands in hers then spread her palms against mine, and I looked up into eyes that still hadn’t lost the extra spark they’d carried since she was the Goddess before me. “Warm and relaxed.” She smiled, then kissed me softly. “Soft…open…peaceful.” She kissed me again between each word.

  “Do you have anything in mind for today?” I asked quietly. “We haven’t gone to Ronnie Scott’s yet, and there’s…mph.” Her lips had found the sensitive spot of my throat and tugged gently.