Subject: Holy Blood, Holy Pain Date: 30 Oct 92 05:56:18 GMT Well, here it is - my first, hmmm, say 10% fiction. In the sense that, each single component of this posting has REALLY happened, within the last few days, but I have rearranged their chronological sequence and compressed them all into one scene for, I hope, best narrative effect. Did I manage to achieve some? You all judge, and please let me know! Yesterday evening the kids were exhausted, and they asked for an early dinner, then they fell asleep in their armchairs before 8.30 p.m. I had a little flu and my muscles were aching, but I was in my blissful state of consciousness more than ever. I was in the kitchen, cutting vegetables for our dinner. Alex was working at our computer. I felt very tired, very happy and extremely sensitive. I was cutting vegetable marrows with my left hand - I'm a little ambidextrous and I want to improve this skill - when suddendly the knife slipped and cut my right hand, at the base of my index. It was only a short cutting, but quite deep. A short cutting, indeed, but blood began to come out, staining my hand and the cloth under. I looked intensely at it, fascinated and almost in trance. My blood, my living blood: endorphins immediately went in circle in my body, and I had a rush of joy so overwhelming that I almost cried. With my left hand I pressed open the cutting, trying to make spill more blood. I succeeded. Then I tasted it, smearing my lips during the operation. I was not in my kitchen anymore, but in an open space, green and silver, of incredible beauty and wildness. The fog was as a precious stone lace, wolves were howling, and I saw a dark tumulus towering not far away. I walked towards it and I stopped one meter before reaching its right end. I inhaled deeply and I tried to advance, but an invisible force blocked me. I clearly heard a voice behind me: "More blood, sister." I didn't turn, and I tried instead to open more the edges of my cutting, to spill more blood. During this attempt I badly scratched my hand, but after few seconds I completed my task. Some drops of newly offered blood fell on the ground near the tumulus. I saw a green light of unutterable splendour and I moved my leg to do one step more, always tormenting my right hand... I was so happy, so happy! I felt that near me was a friend I didn't see for eons, and that soon I would have embraced hir... "Laylah, what are you doing? My God, what's all this blood? Laylah, you should have called me!" I saw Alex between a curtain of tears of happiness. "Forgive me, Master. I was preparing vegetables for dinner, and I cut myself. Isn't this cutting beautiful?" Alex examined my right hand. "The cutting is short, but you have enlarged it, you masochist slut! And without calling me!" "Please, Master, please! I had a wonderful vision, please... are you in the mood of doing something, something..." "Yes - my Lord answered - but it has nothing to do with cutting... come with me.... " I followed him in our bedroom. Alex circled my neck with his belt, and began to clench... "Open your eyes" my love said. I tried to keep my eyes open, but very soon tears started to stream down my face. Alex then released the pressure on the belt, but at once he closed my nose and my mouth with his hand. I didn't fight the sensation, instead I accepted it completely, crossing my unbound wrists behind the small of by back, I offered myself, I offered my breath to my Master, as before I have offered my blood to an unknown god... I blessed the fog that re-embraced me, as a lover never forgotten, I blessed the green light on the tumulus, that began to dance around my body, and I blessed the red earth under my feet... Why was the earth so red? I bent to examined it, but a voice stopped me: "No more, sister. You must return to your time, now." I begged: "My Goddess, my Goddess, there is no time, there is only love. Please, let me stay a moment more.. Let me adore you..." "You adore best me when you do my will. We are one. But now you must return to your time, now!" Immediately I made a sign to Alex, with my right hand. At once he freed my mouth and nose. The new found breath went down as fire in my trembling body, and I sobbed and chocked. "Laylah, you were wonderful! And this time you safeworded exactly at the right moment, although I was about to stop anyway, as, while there is no bluish tinge on your hands, and your pulse is still normal, you DO have a fever, you know!" I embraced my Master, wordlessly, caressing his tattoo. Then I went to stand before our Buddha statue, and I grasped the hilt of the sword I had bought at Assisi last July, and which always lies at its feet now. My Goddess, why, why have you chosen me? Domina, non sum digna... I'm full of defects and imperfections... Why, why me? I caressed the blade with my bruised finger, and I remembered, and I cried, and I knew Who I was... "My Lord - I asked Alex - my Lord did you know it?" "I knew - he answered me - the first moment I saw you, sixteen years ago". "Master, Master how can I thank you?" "I would have an idea - my Master replied - you are the Universe, gods speak with you, you are All... but I don't want you to have it go to your head!" - at which, his hands darted suddenly under my T-shirt, and his fingers grasped my nipples and areolas, HARD!, *terribly* hard... never in my life had my breast been as brutally mistreated. The sudden, unexpected surge of searing pain shook me to the marrow. I screamed of pain and surprise, and fell to my knees. As I adjusted to the terrible pain, to the deep bruises that were covering my areolas, at the same time, suddenly high again on endorphins, I was avidly drinking the dizzy waves of light and pain that were fast spreading towards my heart's power center. I was lost in a warm cave of pleasure and the joy was so deep that it fluidly slipped into unity and dissolution. Sweet Goddess, Alex was me, I was Alex, his heart became my heart, his blood flowed together with mine, into my own blood - I hardly noticed when he pulled me up standing again, always by the nipples and areolas... when I was standing he stopped, I breather heavily, slowly, then I kissed his hands. He caressed my flank... "I can feel, without looking, the A I carved with the razorblades, near where the M will also go, and all the burnings and the brand... I love you so much, Laylah, you are mine forever - we'll have a life full of love and peace..." "Love, peace, and fight, my Lord." "What?" - Alex looked at me, almost with awe... "Yes, remember? ``I didn't come here to bring the peace, but the sword''... I accept my task, my Lord, and completely. Since now I'm ready to fight, and with you at my side Maya will be rejected in his darkness!" "Hey don't knock Him too hard either - joked (?) my Master - He's you, too, remember?" My right hand was sore. I resisted the impulse to stretch the cutting again... "Thank you, my Lord, thank you, for all." "Thanks to you, my Lady." And he knelt in front of me... Bless you all, dear friends of the net, Laylah -- Immensity so vast my thought is drowned // and sweet it is to sink into this sea Laylah Martelli (lela@am.sublink.org; or, wi.5292@n7kbt.rain.com)