Temple of Hathor

The glassy smooth lake water reflected her cocoa-colored face and the wide white sunhat as Jumana leaned over the side of the small boat. She turned her head and looked back at the boatman who lazily plied the tiller and imagined him wearing only the white linen skirt of ancient Egypt and herself as a priestess being conveyed to her designated temple. She closed her eyes and listened intently as if she could already hear the jangling music and the low-voiced chants of her sister priestesses echoing faintly over the water. A shiver ran across her bare shoulders, down through her thin ivory-toned sundress, and centered between her sun-warmed thighs. "Hathor," she whispered aloud, "goddess of love and desire, I am coming at last."

It had been a long and difficult journey, she reflected, as the boat engine purred softly in the background. A frown creased her mouth as she remembered scenes from the struggling days and the painful lonely nights. The nights! Even enfolded in the sweaty embraces of old and dissolute men -- all right, clients, no, escort renters -- she had felt the cold fingers of loneliness creep up her legs and probe at her pussy. Even as their lips sought her, as their hands groped her soft, trembling body, as their meaty cocks thrust inside her lips, even then she was alone. From her inner city childhood -- cast up like some poor marooned princess on an island of debris and the dregs of wasted lives -- she had always been alone, on her own, ignored and tossed aside.

Back then, books had been her only real solace and comfort. She would huddle in dim corners of the project apartments with her small cache of books from the library and pour over them like a miser does his gold coins. They would take her away from the constant yelling, beating, rapes, drugs, yes, even murder around her to exotic places where history and fairy tale and legend merged and became more real than reality. And even then, she mused, it was the stories of Venus, Aphrodite, Hathor, goddesses of love and desire that most moved and resonated within her. She smiled at the thought -- gliding now toward the restored temple on an island in the Nile, in Nubia! -- that even as a frightened and sad little girl, she had been consecrated to this magnificent goddess and guide.

She wrinkled her forehead and brushed a stray lock of breeze-blown hair back beneath her hat as she mentally oiled and pampered her bare-skinned pussy. The mound -- mound of Venus it was called - still retained its dark, smooth-skinned beauty of course. Despite the years -- how many had it been now? -- of abuse and pounding and insult and occasional disinterest, still the folds stayed petal-like and opened to bloom. Her small-lipped clitoral hood, opening to reveal the out-sized clitoris -- did not even her very name Jumana mean "large pearl" -- had been too often ignored by her...by the men who rented it by the night -- her...well, she had to call them benefactors in a way. It was their money which had -- carefully saved -- paid for this very journey to the land of her sisters, to the land of Nubia her ancestors, to the temple of her goddess.

Her pussy had suffered that she might easily pay the boatman to rent the entire boat so that she could be the sole passenger, borne like a princess-priestess in the proper way. Her breasts had been sacrificed to the pawing and rough handling so that she could be here now. She had given up love for Love, capital L, and now she would reap the rich harvest bestowed with blessing from the very goddess of Love herself. She trailed fingers in the slow ripples of the boat's passage through the water and felt a delicious -- almost pre-orgasmic -- shudder.

As the boat neared the stone jetty, the memory of men faded from her mind replaced with the future dream of tender caresses, softer lips upon her own, the knowing lick of passionate tongue that would burn straight to her spirit with a flame she knew would consume and -- like the mythical phoenix -- she would rise reborn, renewed, re-cast as a daughter and sister of Love.

She gasped to see the two figures awaiting her. The old and wrinkled watchman of the jetty, his maroon fez atilt on his bald head, and his white shirt moving steadily in the lake breeze, she dismissed immediately. But beside him -- that vision -- stood a tall, pale woman in a deep blue dress or robe, face like a statue, body, framed as if by a sculptor, perfect in every curve. Oh, my heart, Jumana, sighed, and felt as if she had indeed been pierced by an arrow composed of desire, hunger, want, climax, and lingering satisfaction forever.

The jetty watchman reached a gnarled hand to steady her as she stepped off the boat and with a sad face placed Jumana's hand in the outstretched fingers of the woman in blue. The touch was more than lightning, more than simply sensual and erotic. It was Life...and Love...and Lust beyond measure all at once.

The woman in blue's eyes looked deeply into Jumana's hazel gaze and smiled gently, almost shyly, bringing their entwined hands up to her mouth and nuzzling the back of Jumana's hand as if...as if it were both breast and pussy somehow transmogrified together into one small patch of brown skin.

Had she let herself go, not suddenly stiffened her knees and lifted her head, Jumana knew she would had orgasmed right then, right there. She took a deep breath, sighed loudly, and nodded at the woman. "Hathor." she whispered in her mind, "I am here."

The woman led her up the newly restored stone stairway and through a gate and passageway lined with statues of women, some dressed in the ancient linen chemises of Egypt and Greece, others wrapped in what seemed transparent dresses of Roman design, still more -- as they progressed deeper -- naked and in poses that mimicked sex. Jumana's eyes were transfixed, looking left and right, and feeling herself grow wetter until she almost thought her nectar flowed down her bare thighs beneath the short sundress to feel cool as splashed water, yet hot as fluid lava.

Guided, the woman still holding her hand lightly, they took a detour to the left and entered a small room. Jumana's breath stopped, her heart beating wildly, as she looked at the ancient murals upon the stone walls. Here naked women worshipped each other's bodies. There they ravished each other's breasts and erect nipples with lips and tongue. Here, women's opened thighs were pressed tightly against other's women's open thighs. Here women with artificial cocks fucked lustily other women whose faces bore the expression of ecstasy.

She turned to the woman in blue. "Here?" she whispered softly.

The woman's reply was silence and a shaking of her head. She took her hand away from Jumana's and pointed to a small closed wooden door across the room. Jumana felt her heart stop, pause, beat again more strongly and stepped toward the door. The woman did not follow and Jumana looked at her in puzzlement. The woman in blue smiled briefly, pointing at herself and shaking her head, then pointed again toward the door. Jumana realized she must enter the next room alone.

Her fingers trembled as she opened the door latch and stepped within. The door closed firmly behind her and the solid sound of it startled her a moment. As she turned slowly in a circle to view the room, she thought she recognized it. Golden ornaments were everywhere, idols of women, richly-carved furniture, exotic and erotic paintings on the walls, a scarlet veiled bed raised upon carved and gilded lioness heads and paws. It was like a scene in a book or her dreams or her reveries, only brought to life before her.

A silhouetted figure arose from a languid pose on the bed, pulling aside the red transparencies, and stepping into the shadowed and flickering candlelight. Jumana almost fainted from the sight.

It was she. It was Venus and Aphrodite and Hathor in one. And she is as dark-skinned as I am, Jumana saw. Tall, elegant, glistening with scented oil, the woman came closer and the rich perfume of her nearly made Jumana swoon. It was like incense, musky, earthy, and yet jasmine-light with a hint of lake flower and the hot aroma of cinnamon and honey.

The woman was within reach and she reached. Automatically, Jumana's fingers matched the woman's gesture. She thought their fingers touched briefly and then the woman's strong -- goddess strong! -- grip was in Jumana's hair, pulling her to her knees. Jumana could stop her gaping gasps, mouth wide, tongue almost lolling and drool dripping down over her lips to her chin at the forceful grasp. A small cry broke from deep in her throat just before the woman's mouth fastened tightly over her lips and drowned it out. The dance of their tongues was slow and suffocating.

Jumana wanted to close her eyes and simply reel in the over-powering feeling, but she could not. The woman before her -- or goddess, she did not now know -- lifted a leg over Jumana's shoulder and began to rub her oiled, scented, blazingly hot pussy over Jumana's mouth.

Stars and heavens exploded in Jumana's mind. She trembled from head to toes, her tongue lapping at the offered brown lips, licking their sides and petals, darting between the folds to graze the side of her tongue within. Her mind was swirling with a single nearly incoherent word: Yes!

The woman or goddess began a quickly paced rhythm of swayed hips -- side to side -- then back and forth. Jumana noisily slurped at the flowing nectar there and then felt again that impossibly strong grip on her hair. She allowed herself to be guided upward slightly until her lips were centered over the woman's -- or goddess's -- clitoris. Jumana circled it with a light sucking motion and the hardened tip of her tongue danced on the swollen pearl within. With an inward smile, she felt the clitoris swell even larger, until it seemed to fill her mouth and offer her tongue a vast globe to lick and tease and toy upon.

Jumana was barely aware of her own genitals and yet -- when she paused just a moment -- they seemed awash with wetness as if her own pussy were a cataract of the Nile she has traversed, flooding and gushing without end. She had lost count -- if ever she had begun to -- of the orgasms wracking her body...and was only aware of how much she wanted to draw even one from the woman -- or goddess- who now rode her mouth.

At long last -- had it been minutes or hours or decades or centuries? -- there came a small hesitant tremble in the pussy Jumana worshipped. Like a dim nova in the distance it grew brighter and more powerful as it neared. Jumana wanted it all to stop right there. To savor and keep it forever as it approached, but that was not to be. Like a fiery comet the woman -- or goddess's -- climax came closer, inescapable, not that Jumana wanted to turn aside but rather be consumed in its crash.

Seeming to float or hover in the air, Jumana felt the woman -- or goddess surely now -- raise both legs to lock around Jumana's back and shoulders as she spasmed and cried out -- was it ancient Egyptian? -- in an incoherent babble that thundered through the room and nearly knocked Jumana across the floor.

After a blinding instant, the woman stood, hands on hips, looking down as the prostrate Jumana and smiling enigmatically at her.

"Priestess, servant, slave," Jumana heard the words in her mind. "I accept you."

Jumana awoke sprawled in her white sundress, her wide white hat barely out of reach. Groggy and weak, she shifted herself to her knees and looked around in wonder at the now empty and dusty room. Arising, on weak legs, she walked to the old wooden door and opened it. The woman in blue started as if from a nap and took Jumana by the hand. As before, but in reverse, she led Jumana along the rooms and passages of the temple, back to the stone jetty where the old watchman looked up and tossed his cigarette into a large open tin can.

The boatman helped Jumana aboard and she sat -- exhausted almost collapsing really -- on the scarred wooden bench, feeling the sunlit heat of it penetrate upwards until it filled her. Idly, she let her fingertips trail in the slick water's surface and never once looked back at the temple or the island.