Lanyth: Beneath the Wood

 I lay in the moonlight, my fingers slowly tracing along the elegant curves of my body, stroking between my breasts, every sense heightened and feeling alive. I let my mind wander back to the day when I had first met with this exquisite pleasure. It was a summer's morning, one hour after sunrise; and as yet the sun itself, although its light filtered through the high treetops, had not thoroughly awakened from its slumbers within the sky. The air, too, still breathed with an unquiet dreaminess that seemed to set each tree and flower motionless, while their shadows upon the damp earth stood erect and rigid as though caught by the spell of some phantom dance wind.

The man in my dreams was with me again, if only in the recesses of my mind. His lips — that most wonderful part of his being — had caressed me in all the sweetest of ways. His arms, oh! What would they not have done to my soul? And we were alone together forevermore, lost in the wild regions of passion, with no fear or pain, but only that infinite happiness which can be felt only in the contemplation of pure love.

Yet, still, he remained so far away. For a few brief hours at noon I might feel him close beside me, and then it came over me suddenly that my senses had deceived me, and I grew sad once more. But there was something about the atmosphere of the forest that thrilled my spirit with the remembrance of him, and made me long for his return even in my sleep. As I lay thus musing, the faintest echo of sound reached my ears, and all at once I knew that it proceeded from my own throat. A low moan escaped me, and then another followed, until I found myself howling like a beast in the agony of the wilderness. Yet who shall say what infernal designs may lurk behind the music of the spheres?

There is something in the air of many a night-time wood — something dark and dank, yet not altogether evil — with characteristics of its own — something that seems to inspire awe — to make men shudder and women sigh. We are afraid to go near such places alone, and will run at full speed from any light within them — but why?

I have wandered into many a haunted wood and never went out again without having my imagination fired by strange thoughts.

Sensual ones.

Sexual ones.

What draws me into the deepest, darkest wood is my desire to mate, to breed, to be bred by a strong and willing male.

To take me.

To own my body and mind.

To possess my soul.

And I know that here, in this place where the shadows fall heavily, the echoes dwell long, and the trees turn their faces toward the moon — here I shall find that my desires are known to others — to the very creatures that haunt the region, and whose cries seem to rend the very atmosphere. The creatures who live in my mind, are just at the edges of consciousness and my perception of reality. The creatures of my dreams. The ones who live on the peripheries of my vision.

But I fear this man, this vision, the one I see in the mirror, this man is the image upon the surface of a pond disturbed. And I shall never see him again. A punishment for my inaction. I had waited too long to lean down and place my lips upon the reflection in the pool, and the dreams which lie under the surface shall never emerge, shall never come to be, and shall be lost to a place in my memories reserved for sadness and woe.

A cobweb kingdom of the what-ifs and could-have-been.

My soul is troubled and lonely now. He is gone. Gone. And I am angry with myself because I feel such fury in my heart. Anger and despair. For he has left me, and all my life must pass before I see him again. This is my punishment, and my curse, and my doom.

But I know that there is a reward for patience. There is always a price to pay, and he shall be mine. My lover. My friend. My king. The man who holds my heart. He who owns my soul.

I lay in the ruins of a forest manor I dreamed would be ours, in a special wood, a place to be together, now that I lie in only alone. I pull my dress from my body, praying my nakedness would attract the man who slipped from my fingers.

My eyes closed, are filled with visions of our past, and the darkness between my legs throbs with memories of his touch. I feel the heat of the candle flames flicker gently upon my skin, and I weep silently to myself, knowing that he is gone.

If only he would return, hold me again beneath the tree-tops, and whisper to me in the secret places of the wild. If only I could hear his voice once more, telling me of the things of which I dream and breathe the air that fills the lungs with the scent of eternity.

If only I could rest for a moment, and feel his lips upon my neck, and listen to his heart beating against my breast.

I would take him inside me in a moment, just to feel him close, in the special way a woman can wrap her lover inside her soul. The door opened. The hearth chamber filled. The warmth inside for us both to savor. But I cannot move. I am pinned to the bed by a thousand pins, and chained by the ties of passion. I can do nothing but wait, and wonder, and sigh.

As instead of his lips.

My fingers delver the darkness.

And explore the passions of my soul.

No replacement for him.

But alas, time is a memory. Painful yet sweet.

A loss.

But one I shall hold to my heart, forever.