A Promise Made, A Promise to Keep

I used to love Halloween, but it has a whole new meaning for me now. You see, Halloween is when the love of my life was killed in a car wreck two years ago. She was hit head on by a drunken driver. She was hurrying home from work so that we could take the kids out trick or treating. She truly loved "All Hollow's Eve" ... it was like her Christmas and New Years Eve rolled into one. She gave us each gifts of sweets for us share with the spirits. She would tell us about the Halloween observance originating with the Celtic Druids around 700 B.C. The Druids believed that the souls of the dead returned to inhabit the bodies of the living on October 31st. Villagers donned masks and costumes and paraded to the outskirts of their towns to trick roving spirits into leaving.

When we had carved the pumpkins with the kids a couple of days earlier she told us that the Jack-o-lantern custom comes from Irish folklore which she recounted: "As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree. According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer."

That is the way she left it with the kids; but for me it was continued with readings from the likes of the works of Mike Nichols that she had carefully selected for her Pagan Library One passage goes: "Samhain. All Hallows. All Hallow's Eve. Hallow E'en. Halloween. The most magical night of the year. Exactly opposite Beltane on the wheel of the year, Halloween is Beltane's dark twin. A night of glowing jack-o-lanterns, bobbing for apples, tricks or treats, and dressing in costume. A night of ghost stories and seances, tarot card readings and scrying with mirrors. A night of power, when the veil that separates our world from the Otherworld is at its thinnest. A 'spirit night', as they say in Wales.

All Hallow's Eve is the eve of All Hallow's Day (November 1st). And for once, even popular tradition remembers that the Eve is more important than the Day itself, the traditional celebration focusing on October 31st, beginning at sundown. And this seems only fitting for the great Celtic New Year's festival. Not that the holiday was Celtic only. In fact, it is startling how many ancient and unconnected cultures (the Egyptians and pre-Spanish Mexicans, for example) celebrated this as a festival of the dead. But the majority of our modern traditions can be traced to the British Isles.

The Celts called it Samhain, which means 'summer's end', according to their ancient two-fold division of the year, when summer ran from Beltane to Samhain and winter ran from Samhain to Beltane. (Some modern Covens echo this structure by letting the High Priest 'rule' the Coven beginning on Samhain, with rulership returned to the High Priestess at Beltane.)"

Mike Nichols' writing goes on to say: "As a feast of the dead, it was believed the dead could, if they wished, return to the land of the living for this one night, to celebrate with their family, tribe, or clan. And so the great burial mounds of Ireland (sidh mounds) were opened up, with lighted torches lining the walls, so the dead could find their way. Extra places were set at the table and food set out for any who had died that year. And there are many stories that tell of Irish heroes making raids on the Underworld while the gates of faery stood open, though all must return to their appointed places by cock-crow."

That is why I am here tonight.

Her grave is over there (pointing toward the dark North West corner of the cemetery under the large oak tree.) The kids have had their remembrance of their mom with a repeating of her stories and the trick or treating and the sitter is with them. I have returned to where I spent the last Samhain. I had come last year to mark the day she died and to bring her a gift of sweets.

What I experienced is hard to share with anyone, but here goes.

The moon was obscured, on and off, by puffy white clouds, just as it is tonight. Virtually naked branches of the trees were casting their eerily irregular shadows on the ground, just as they are tonight. I felt a chill more severe than the cold night's air should have given me. I was on a mission the keep a promise I had made to her as they lowered her casket into the ground. "I will see you on Samhain," I had said aloud. As the people who were congregated at the grave site turned to look at me they observed my tears and said nothing to me.

Promise made, Samhain promise to be kept, I walked from my car to toward the grave site. There was a dim glow of a Jack-o-lantern visible under the old oak. As I got closer I could see what looked like another person who had gotten there before me. As I continued to approach the grave site, the person stood and turned toward me. "I thought you would never get here," the person said.

It was her! As if she had never left, her soft brown hair below her shoulders, her full lips just waiting to be kissed, and her brown eyes seemed deeper as I was lost staring into them. She opened her arms as if to pull me forward. And forward I went.

The chill was gone and the warmth that I had felt in her arms before returned. She asked, "Have you been true to me?" Completely overcome in the moment I whispered, "Yes." "Good," was the reply, "make love to me, I have missed having sex with you so very much."

I was already half hard with the thought. She was rubbing her self against me. I was kissing her lips, her neck, and behind her ear. I was kissing downward from her shoulder headed for her lovely breasts as I had done so many times before. She did not seem to have clothes on, but I could not feel her soft warm skin. I could feel her radiating warmth. My senses were confused.

Suddenly she was attacking me. She was ripping off my clothes as the buttons of my shirt flew into the darkness. Naked in front of her, she beckoned me forward. Once again I was drawn into her arms. This time I could feel all of the familiar feelings of her nipples hardening, soft smooth skin, and the aroma of her sex that was filling my nostrils. I reached down to touch her sex as she kissed me probing my mouth with her tongue. Her tongue felt as if on fire. Her touch was as a flame. I was dripping wet with perspiration. Her kisses did not stop as she pulled me to the ground.

She had thrown me down on the grass on my back and mounted me to ride me harder than I had ever been ridden before. She began an orgasm almost immediately. Her vagina put a death grip on my cock and I began to cum in what felt like a never ending stream. She began to ejaculate too and soon I was drenched with her cum. Female ejaculation was something I had only read about. It was wonderfully warm and aromatically sweet smelling as it covered my groin. I ran one of my fingers through it. It tasted sweet, too. Our mutual cum seemed to go on forever. I thought I had heard wolves howling to the moon. As her orgasm subsided, she asked me if I was empty.

Empty! I felt as if my balls had just left me and now resided in her. What should have hurt made me feel better than I had ever felt before. In the throes of the ecstasy, I had bitten her nipples hard enough to make them bleed, but there was no blood. She smiled and kissed me deeply again. She stood and announced that it was time for her to leave. "That should hold you until next year, will you come?" Though my voice was hoarse, as if from screaming, I managed a whispered "Yes."

So, here I am again this year and there is the glow from the pumpkin.