Maman Brigette

Maman Brigette knelt over me, curls of red hair brushing against my face. "The slaves will come with me. They have decided to join me. They have accepted that they must make themselves a sacrifice to me to release themselves and their fellows from their possession. They have come over to me willingly. But then, their choice is easier perhaps. The pain and suffering they have suffered at my hands is just the same as it will be for you and your Captain but what is their alternative? - A life time under the whip of a cruel plantation owner. Look, they have already received my brand and will soon be released to become my followers, half way between the real world and the spirit world." I look across at one of the slaves, who has a raw burn mark on his arm in an elaborate pattern. I must have missed all this whilst I had passed out. Soon your Captain will have to decide, and then it will be your choice. How will you choose? Will you seek atonement for the dark deeds of your life's journey?" I felt the pain of the raw chilli permeate my whole body. "I will leave you to suffer for a while longer whilst you make your choice."

I watched her as she walked over to Captain Dugarry. She reached up and held his face between the palms of her dark skinned hands. "Are you ready?" she asked. Dugarry nodded. "There are more tests for you before you can pass. You must complete them for me without question or hesitation if you truly want to serve." She pulled the chilli that had been inserted into his cock and looked the Captain in the eye. "Now eat it for me," she ordered. She held it up to his mouth and he took a bite from it and slowly chewed, keeping his eyes fixed on her as he did. Then she took the second half of the chilli from out of his arse and repeated the order. Once again, Dugarry received the hot chilli in his mouth, took a bite and chewed slowly before swallowing. I could not believe my eyes. What power had Maman Brigette now got over the Captain that he would do such a thing for her. Part of me was repulsed, but another part of me was strangely drawn and attracted.

She got a knife from within the folds of her dress and reached up to put a gentle slit in the palm of his hand. Droplets of blood leaked from him. Maman Brigette took up some of the blood into her hands and rubbed a smeared red cross on his chest. She looked up at him, stretched out on the cross. The once proud and callous Captain of a slave ship now sucked into a world completely out of his control. "You must know that I never desired gold and riches from you. I collect souls and the darker the souls the better." Her laugh echoed hauntingly around the cemetery. "Now you must consummate your pact with me." I wanted to scream out, "No" to Dugarry, "don't do it." Had he any idea what he was doing? But I could see that he had no senses left. He had set himself on a path that he could never turn back from and had to accept the consequences, whatever they were.

Maman Brigette cut the twines that held him to the cross and helped Dugarry down. He was unsteady on his feet but gradually recovered his balance. Maman Brigette lay down on one of the grave mounds, she hitched up the folds of her crimson dress and showed herself to him. She flaunted her feminine power over him and taunted him. "Enter me and consummate our union." Did he realise what he was doing? It was the point of no return for the Captain; I sensed that if he entered her he would be embraced into her spirit world never to return. I wanted to call out a warning but I could not force any words from my lips.

He approached, his cock erect at the sight of her cunt offered up to him. He knelt before her. In the flickering light of the candle-lit graves with the white skulls gazing on he entered her. His body was smothered in the billowing crimson gown as if it had been swallowed up by her. The Captain warmed to his task now, thrusting himself into her vigorously. She welcomed him in, holding onto his naked body and pulling him into her so he became enveloped in crimson material and curly flame red hair. His fires of ardour and submission were being met and consumed. Maman Brigette herself moaned in ecstasy and received his cock deep into her.

The physical and sensual side of her spirit needed satisfaction but there was more. "You have surrendered yourself to me. You belong to me now." She was a taker of souls and her lust was to take them, play with them for her own needs, and then offer them up to the spirit world. She would suck his seed out of him and leave him an empty shell fit only for serving Maman Brigette until she decided to release him to the spirit world. I watched Captain Dugarry's body writhing as he finally climaxed. The deed had been done, the pact consummated and I knew in my heart that Dugarry had crossed into the twilight world half way between man and spirit. The two bodies entwined until Mamam Brigette pulled herself away and let out a blood curdling howl of laughter and triumph.

She stepped back to a fire that was burning on one of the grave mounds and pulled out a branding iron, the same one that she must have used on the slaves. It had an intricate pattern interweaving a cross with a heart and a triangle, no doubt symbolising the crossroads between the human world and the spirit world. She pushed it down onto the flesh on Captain Dugarry's arm. I could hear the hissing of the hot metal on skin and then the agonised scream of the Captain as he received Maman Brigette's mark of servitude on his body.

I laid there silently in fearful anticipation, knowing that Maman Brigette would now turn her attention to me; that it was time to make my choice. She walked back over to me, leaving the Captain curled into a broken ball on the graveyard sobbing. She stood over me and hitched up her skirt. She was tempting me, showing me what might be offered if I came over. The powerful scent of her body overwhelmed me. I could see Dugarry's cum oozing out of Maman Brigette's cunt. "Now it is time for you to make your choice Monsieur. Will you follow your friend into my domain?" I nodded my head in denial.

She leant back and pulled the chilli out of my throbbing arse and held it in front of my mouth. "Take it. The choice is yours. I will not force you, you must take it willingly." I grunted my rejection. It wasn't even disgust at the act or fear of the fiery taste of the chilli, my reluctance was because I understood the symbolism of the act. I knew that, like Captain Dugarry, if I received the chilli into my mouth it would be an act that signalled I had surrendered control and had given myself up to her. Was my journey going to end here, in the hands of perpetual torment by this demon?

Maman Brigette questioned me. "Are you sure you are making the right choice?" She asked. "You are at the crossroad between two worlds and the chance to atone for all the foul acts in your life. I will receive any soul, even the darkest, like your Captain;s there. I looked across at the blank glazed expressions of the two slaves and Dugarry. Old Pierre had been right; their souls had been sucked out. I nodded my head in denial. "So be it, if that is your choice." She reached out for her skull mounted staff, shook it at the sky and then pointed it at me, "then I release you back into your world." These were her final words to me before I must have passed out.

Port-au-Prince, 20th May 1785

I finally recovered consciousness two days later. When we had not returned that night a search party was sent out to find us the day after. They found my prostrate body and carried it back to Port-au-Prince. When I first came round I was still in a delirium. I tried to piece something of my story together. But, when they went back to search there was no sign of Captain Bernard Dugarry or the two slaves. There was no cemetery or hovel or Maman Brigette. No sign of anything that had happened on that fateful day; only a deranged, grizzled middle aged sailor who had lost his mind.

Epilogue

Douarnenez, Britanny, 2 February 1790

I had been out of the sanatorium for a couple of years now. I had retired to Britanny. I had lost the desire I once had to be at sea but it did give me comfort to be near it and from my cottage in this fishing village in Britanny I could gaze at the Atlantic and exchange banter with the fishermen. I had plenty of tales to tell about my life but I never passed on the one about Maman Brigette. Perhaps I thought that nobody would believe me or maybe I just thought it was best locked away in my journal.

The 2nd February was always a difficult day for me. It brought back memories of the date that I set off on that final strange voyage from La Rochelle with Captain Bernard Dugarry. I have learned that, not only is this the day of the Catholic St Bridget, but also that this date was originally celebrated as the special day of the Celtic Pagan Goddess Bridget. I recalled what Maman Brigette had said about her origins and her Irish descent.

I still had nightmares, though they had receded a little in time, but this day always brought them back. I think I recognised the source of my madness. I often wonder if I made the right choice, that actually Captain Dugarry was right to surrender himself to Maman Brigette. I came to believe that my nightmares and my madness were because I had made the decision not to give myself up to her spirit world. In a strange kind of way I envied Captain Dugarry as I had come to learn that he had made the right choice and my madness was a sense of loss and that I yearned to be with him and Maman Brigette in her spirit world in the mountains of St Domingue.