New Skin for the Old Ceremony

They come to bring you from your chamber moments after the Handmaidens have left. You’re sitting in a fever dream of flower garlands, perfumed oils and spiced wine when the door opens and the Acolytes make their formal bows. As you process along the torchlit corridors, two of your attendants behind bearing the train of your long robe, the others leading, your mind wanders from what was to what is to come. You strain your ears for some sound, some breath of music or bidding drum but you can hear . . .nothing.

The Hall doors stand as high as two men, intricately carved with all manner of gods and serpents, hinged and bound in brass; your two leading attendants grasp the rings, reflected torchlight flickering in patterns on their gleaming skin: the doors swing open easily on well oiled hinges. With your head held proud and high you walk into the expectant warmth of the Long Hall.

Your people sit cross legged around the walls, bright eyes glittering in the smoky shadows, their lower bodies barely visible. Above them trophies and torches on walls which rise up to the great logged roof; the sturdy Atlas shoulders of its beams holding the night sky at bay. In the close, warm, humid silence; the only sound is your feet on the rush laid floor as your small party walks to the centre of the hall: towards the Ceremony Poles.

These posts; carved and painted, inlaid and jewelled stand three long mans strides apart in the middle of the waiting hemicircle of your audience, in the centre of the floor, some yards away from but directly before the raised dais and the enthroned idol of the Sitting Man. With your torchbearers before you and your robe bearers behind; you make your formal bows towards the idol and then turn your back. Amongst those watching, nothing moves but the smoke of an occasional maize cob pipe.

Following the time honoured ritual; you stand between the Poles and raise your arms. Together; your bearers slip the robe from your shoulders; with but a whisper of the sheer cloth on your anointed skin and the barest escaped breath from the watchers before you; your naked body is laid splendid and bare to the humid air of the Long Hall. Their torches scallioned and safe your second pair of bearers approach with ropes of flowering vines; first to bind your wrists to the heads of the Ceremony Poles and then your ankles to the feet. Your bonds are pulled tight, granting you little leave to move more than your head and neck, but still kept gentle against your skin. For moments; nothing passes, the Acolytes takes their places amongst the seated audience; your nude body is made the object of dozens of glittering stares. Silence hangs in the Long Hall like a banner without a breeze.

Then from somewhere invisible and unknown the first drum is struck; its note a rolling, profundo “Thoom”. It’s beat, repeated, advances in stately time until it awakes another; an urgent counterpoint, this rhythm four times the first, and then another and another until their massed chorus threatens to shake the hall roof from Atlas’ strong grasp.

Your audience rise to their feet; undulating, shaking their hips and dancing on the spot. Some raise the medicine branches in their hands and shake them in the air. From one dark throat comes the first ululating cry; the call and then the chorused response; around and between, both with and against, the wild pandemonium of the drums; their song rises, spreads its wings and takes flight into the smoky air of the Long Hall.

Bewitched and alive to the spirits of the dance; your people gather round, closing you completely in their circle. You have no idea who was first to break the circle; coming, as they did, from behind you, but you feel their medicine branch brush the length of your bare back, from your neck down to your behind. The air all around is alive with the rhythm of their bodies, their song and the drums.

As one comes before then the others follow; one at a time; they come to you medicine branches sweeping, brushing, stroking; across your belly and breasts, amongst your hair, between your legs. The circle spins about you in the giddy light, and, as one circle ends then another begins; as the last of your people runs her medicine branch down the length of your inner thigh; the first comes again and, this time, with his hands empty: cups your buttocks running one finger up your cleft before whirling back into his place.

Faster, almost, than eyes and thought can catch the others follow: laying their bare hands on your naked body; caressing, touching, stroking; running fingers through your hair, cupping, shaping,moulding your breasts; your nipples raised to hardness between any number of fingers and thumbs; others, more daring, reaching between your legs - held wide apart by your bonds - searching swiftly for the openness, the moistness there before departing to be replaced by other hands still touching. And all around the air is alive with the rhythm and the heat of their bodies, their song and the drums.

When all have taken their turn, they come again; this time with open mouths and tongues and teeth. One young girl, barking like a dog (but still in time to the music); throws herself onto her hands and knees between your spread legs: her tongue lapping your lips, your vulva with long, snaky, licks. Others kiss nipples, the soft skin of your inner thighs, your ears, your wrists, your feet. Some begin in the shadow of your throat and trail their way down your front over your breasts and belly; only to stop, tantalisingly, amongst the salty curls of your intimate hair. Then the next begins there and completes their journey at your toes. All around them the circle spins ; the air is alive with the rhythm, the heat, the moistness of their mouths, their song and the drums.

And how would you be feeling then; at each touch, each new mouth and willing tongue? Would you bare your teeth, head back, your dark hair spilling over naked shoulders, would your body move against your bonds, straining towards the next and the next and the ones who come after them? In the whirl of bodies and the glitter of eyes and teeth, would you follow their rhythm, their music; would you dance?

The dervish whirl of the dance finds yet more speed, the pounding tempo of drums and hearts rises to a maddening, hallucinogenic pace and they come with their medicine branches again; this time to break each one with swift, single strokes against your unprotected skin. Would you offer your body to the sharp kiss of the snapping bows which are cast, once broken, at your feet? Would you exult in each moment of sudden, stinging pain, raising weals; even drawing blood from your back, your belly, your buttocks and thighs? Would you greet each blow, mouth open; with wordless gasps; would you join their song?

Until the last blow is struck, the last branch broken the dance continues but then; suddenly, the song stops. Your audience gather loosely into a hemicircle before you again; alert, watching waiting. The drums fall silent and away, one by one until there remains only the first, a throbbing bass pulse, resonating throughout the hall. You can see nothing but their waiting eyes and bodies; gazes fixed on you and . . .behind you . . .the drum walks, a majestic marching beat .

The through the crowd, seemingly from nowhere ,in his headdress and paint; the High Priest appears. Spinning, turning pointing; tracing invisible patterns and symbols in the smoky air; his song alone in the hall speaks of high places, of elder gods and new dawns and ages when the world was young. Evocative, hypnotic, alchemic; it breathes mercury into blood, raises spirits and electricity in the still air, paints figures in the smoke. It conjures. And from behind you, your ears catch the sound of footsteps on the rush laid floor.

You feel his presence long before his hands reach your hanging body, before you feel the touch of his massive chest against your back, you can sense his need and ancient longing. The idol of the Sitting Man is awake and walking. Knowing what it was behind you would you turn your head, as far as your neck would allow, to catch a glimpse of his obsidian form out of the corner of your eye? Would fear clutch your throat or would excitement part your lips into a smile, a soft sigh of desire? To the rhythm of the marching drum he reaches you; his hands, under your raised arms, covering each breast whole, their palms rough against your nipples. Lowering, stroking your firm belly, your thighs, he is so close against you that, for the first time, you can feel the engorged length of him brush the soft skin of your inner thigh.

And what would you be feeling then ; when all you feel from him is need? In this alien embrace would you surrender to his unknowable, unguessable desire, this rock made flesh seeking your flesh? Would you struggle in your bonds as best you could or would you subside with a whimper, a mew, a purr a cats meow of submission and satisfaction as with one hand about your hip he draws your behind back - leaving you bent over a little against the pull of your ropes - and you feel the hard wholeness of the head of him against your secret lips.

He comes into you like a rocket from a bottle, with a single swift, merciless stroke; one hand on your hip to guide you to his rhythm - the rhythm of the marching drum - the other entwined amongst your hair, tugging, pulling, hauling your head back. Would you be smiling then, gasping, panting, screaming at the feel, the friction, the movement of the girth, the length, the heft of him inside you. Would you, could you love to be fucked like that?

The push, the pull, the give, the take, the in and out of him into you is relentless and enduring and ancient as stone. His skin feels rough where he touches you, he makes no sounds that you can hear above your own, you forget about your audience, closing your eyes the better to concentrate on the thrills and sensations, bright and fluid as mercury, rushing in the blood to and from your excited and engorged sex; swollen around the size of him, the electrifying movement of him, his swinging balls slapping gently against you as he moves into you - out of you: certain and steady as the north star, potent as nature, alive as spring. As the drum increases its pace, he does too ; every sixth or so stroke - you can’t keep count - he redoubles his force; pounding into you, the tops of his thighs bruising your buttocks. Could you, would you give a little scream at that, every time he enters you so hard it almost, but never quite, hurts?

You feel fingers on your cheek and open your eyes to see the High Priest, hand outstretched, stroking your face. For a moment you stare into his eyes - wild with excitement - then the Sitting Man comes against into you hard again and you close them - the better to feel yourself, stretching around the whole length of him. You scarcely notice when the High Priest unties your wrists until the Sitting Man, using a bare fraction of the unnatural strength in his hands and hips jerks you off your feet and onto your hands and knees - never missing a beat, a stroke, not ceasing for an instant in the incessant rhythm of his fucking. You open your eyes again when you feel the High Priest stroking your cheeks with his erect self.

And what would you do then? Would you close your eyes again the better to give yourself to your alchemical lover - this thrilling creature conjured into priapism and sex and arousal out of stone - moving, urgently now, thrillingly alive inside you both hands on your hips; his skin, strangely, warm against yours? Or would you greet your new suitors advances with a kiss on his ruby head, open willing lips around him and take him into your mouth? Would you lose thought of all else but these two cocks at play in you - one alien and strange holding your hips, your pussy in thrall to its slowly increasing pace - the other human and alive, the High Priest’s hands in your hair now, guiding the ministrations of your mouth, to suck and succour every inch of him - both of them keeping to, leading you in the rhythm of the drum growing steadily faster? Would feel as wild, as alive as you ever had as they fuck you, in your mouth and your pussy: pushing you, leading you, taking you to a new place; amongst the vine grown ruins, the fallen temples, the walls of Babel; to find again an elder self, a primal lust - a spirit howling at the horned moon.

For a moment you feel as though you’re floating out of yourself, amongst the rafters of the Long Hall; a birdseye view looking down at the bodies coupling, fucking on the floor beneath. Your pale back, the visible curve of your spine and the ebony shape poised at your ivory buttocks, spearing himself in between them. Your dark hair, loose over your shaking shoulders, the High Priest’s hands amongst it, pulling, tangling; his tumescent cock visible for instants before you take it all the way back into your mouth. You hang there for a long moment before the needs of your lust, your flesh, and the increasing urgency of your lovers movements call you back into your body, into the friction, the rub and the suck of your flesh, your lips around and against these two priapuses - their speed building, growing frantic - all the time, the drum keeping pace.

You feel a fire, an incandescence, burning, building in your lower belly, sparks flying to your thighs, your breasts free and shaking to the movements of your body and the cocks moving in you. There are lights, bright around the edges of your vision, the hall, the air seems to have caught the glow, the incandescence from your insides, your lust, The drum picks up its pace even more and you know, but could not explain how that the High Priest’s time is . . .moment is . . .issue is close . . .in that same moment you feel him slow, stop but the Sitting Man’s strength still pushes you against him, driving your mouth along his length, his agitated, jerking cock, frantic in your mouth for a second you can feel his explosion all the way to your thighs as he comes with a faucets force into your throat.

You balance yourself on one elbow so you can reach up to him with one hand and hold him steady - the pressure of your mouth, your lips drawing every last drop from him. Would you smile then, into his face, alive to the light of orgasm in his eyes while licking your lips, a stray trickle of his excess from the corner of your mouth.

Would you hold his gaze for a long, hot moment before the speeding piston of the Sitting Man’s cock in your pussy draws your attention away to the head of steam building there - his orgasm threatening to blow, to jet, to geyser - the action of his hips like a steam engine - for the first time you hear him - a steady, urgent exhalation, hissing breath with every every powerful stroke, his pressure building uncontrollably - your thighs are shaking, knees week - your lust is reaching boiling point, your sex a sleeve for his pounding piston, his breath, now, coming in hisses like a steam whistle - the pressure builds - the drum reaches new speeds, the heat of your bodies seems to condense fog out of the heavy air - pressure building - you’re shaking your head uncontrollably - steam rattles joints in the pipes of his building orgasm - the pressure builds - your arms collapse and you fall on your front to the floor - him crouching at your behind - you imagine his balls with copper boiler plates, steam rattling the rivets, looking to burst - the pressure builds and you wonder if this release will ever come and then . . .with one . . .last . . .slow . . .and sweetly gentle thrust . . .in and out and longingly, finally, ultimately . . .into you again . . .you orgasm together in a geyser of steam and lust and come and sweet, sweet release.

A little later, when you can raise your head from the floor again and look around you see him clearly for the first time - frozen in his moment of orgasm, one hand supporting himself against the floor, the other reaching out for where your body had been - waiting for another touch, another body to bring him to life again. And he is smiling. The Long Hall is empty of people except for your Acolytes waiting with your robe, to escort you back to your chamber. You touch yourself gently between your thighs - feeling the warmth, the moistness still there and sigh.