Kiss the Witch

by Dana E. Donovan

It was just getting dark when I thought I had better start home to Lilith and Ursula. Though I promised both I would take part in their witch’s coven ceremony, I have to admit I was not looking forward to it. Exactly why, I cannot say. It was not because I knew we would be getting naked together. Frankly, I am not that shy, and having seen Lilith naked a thousand times, one might argue I have seen Ursula naked a thousand times, as well. Although I would not put it just that way to Spinelli. And that Ursula had seen me in the buff on that stark occasion meant that we all could accept that aspect of the evening as no big deal.

  Boy was I wrong.

  I entered the house on a thread of trepidation. I suspect that happens when one comes home to a house lit entirely by candlelight. The sweet smell of jasmine and cinnamon hung in the air in thin wisps. In the background, a CD playing nature sounds mingled like forest whispers with the incense.

  Naturally, I assumed I was late and that the girls started without me. I expected at any moment I would hear Lilith cracking the relative peace with a righteous volley of pissing and moaning over my habitual tardiness. Instead, I heard a voice like an angel’s, speaking so softly I thought it was only in my head.

  “What?” I asked, needing to be sure.

  “Come and be welcomed worthy thane. Let our hearts be thy guide, our souls thy light.”

  “Ursula?” I stepped closer, and my eyes began adjusting to the dim light. I saw her sitting on the floor Indian style, naked, her palms flat upon her knees. But for her hair tied in a bun the way she likes to wear it, I would have thought it was Lilith. To see her completely nude, however, I could not be entirely sure it was not.

  I eased my shoes off and kicked them to the side. Her eyes followed them, first one shoe and then the other. I have always realized the striking resemblances between her and Lilith, yet I found myself utterly struck by the indistinguishable similarities now.

  Her skin, though blotched in shadows, found a warmth of genuine luminescence all its own. I have seen that in Lilith, but in Ursula, I had not the inkling before to notice it. That and her face, chiseled sharply, yet softened like polished ivory glowing in the light of candles as if sunlight fed their flames.

  I watch her eyes come to mine, and I let her see the path they took. Down her neck and upon her breasts. In my mind, again I contemplated the familiar. Surely, I had seen them before; felt them as Lilith’s own hands guided mine over them, across her nipples, soft yet firm. And with a teasing nip, did I not steal her breath away? Did she not shudder at my touch? I know she did. I felt her melting to the warmth of my lips upon her.

  Was it real? No. I knew it was not. I told myself to stop, to steer my thought and my eyes to the benign. This was Ursula, or was it? I was not entirely sure.

  A candle sputtered at her feet. Shadows of her toes danced in silhouette against her belly. It caught my eyes and I did not turn away. I looked lower still, where the difference between Lilith and Ursula came down to a matter of natural preference, down where her pudendal veil faded into a shadowy nook.

  “You’re Ursula,” I said.

  A teasing smile thinned her lips, and if not Ursula’s grin, my instincts might have misread it as an invitation.

  “You’re late,” said a voice behind me.

  I turned abruptly. A mirror image of the woman before me sat across the room in a halo of candlelight inexplicably bright. “Lilith?” I said, not meaning it to sound like a question. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Apparently,” she said. I knew that tone. She knew what I was thinking. Read my mind. I knew it.

  I crossed the floor to look at her. She sat Indian style, like Ursula, naked, but for a charm around her neck, which I recognized as her witch’s key. Her palms lay flat upon her knees, her posture impeccably straight, her long black hair off her shoulders, mimicking Ursula’s, gathered and tied in the back, exposing her neck to the nervous flicker of candlelight at her feet.

  She inhaled deeply, and my eyes took in her bare breasts. Firm and faultless they were, still she had nothing over Ursula. Her skin, like her sister’s, glistened in the highlights of her curves, mellowed like mocha in the shadows. Her belly, flat and tight, tapered in soft departure to a sweet retreat, clean, smooth and hairless.

  “I thought for a minute….” I turned and gestured toward Ursula. “I thought you were she and she–”

  “Forget it,” she said. “I don’t need you thinking with your penis tonight.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Meditating.”

  “In the nude? I thought that came later.”

  She rocked her head back and leveled her eyes at me the way she does when she does not want to explain, but knows she has to.

  “Tony. Understand this. We all have it in us.”

  “Have what?”

  “The energy.”

  “Energy?”

  “Yes. Energy. It is the power of life and the fuel behind magick. It is in us all. The most potential is a mix of static and kinetic compressed in layers and stored in neuron capacitors throughout our bodies.”

  “You mean like the static discharge you get when you rub your feet on carpet and touch a doorknob?”

  “Something like that, but that’s not all. It is just a small part of it. There is more to energy than the electrical equation. When we want to draw it out for a specific task, such as our coven ceremony, we must make sure we don’t introduce unnecessary filters or obstacles. And since we emit energy through every inch of our bodies, it is imperative we perform this ceremony completely nude and void of external interferences. Do you understand?”

  I gave her a half-ass shrug. “I guess so.”

  “All right then. Have you eaten?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, I thought I might–”

  “Good. You can eat when we’re done.”

  “Huh?”

  “I need you focused, Tony. I cannot have you burping and farting and whatever else you do after eating. Now go shower.”

  “I have to shower?”

  “Tony.” She planted her hands on her hips like she does when she’s standing. Only it looked funny now because she was sitting crossed-legged, buck-naked on the floor. “Do you have to give me such grief?”

  “No, I was just saying….”

  “Please shower. Use the soap in the dish on the sink. It is all-natural. Wash in the hottest water you can stand. It will open your pours. Then rinse thoroughly in the coldest water you can stand to close them up again. You hear?”

  “Yeah, I hear.” I started toward the bathroom.

  “And no shampoo. No cream rinse, no deodorant, cologne, nothing. Don’t even towel off. As soon as you finish showering, come straight out here. Okay?”

  “All right, I will. Sheesh.”

  I went into the bathroom and shut the door. Three yellow candles burned atop the vanity, but I found myself flipping the light switch out of habit just the same. The light did not come on. Lilith had thrown the main breaker in the basement. She is a stickler for ambiance you know.

  After getting the shower to just the right temperature, I stripped down and hopped into the tub with Lilith’s all-natural soap–the stinky damn thing. I don’t know where she got it, but I sure hoped she would pitch it after the night’s ceremony. It smelled like burnt rubber and peat moss. Worse yet, it lathered like old sea foam after a winter’s storm–fluffy but thin with bubbles rimmed in a brownish looking sludge. It made me glad I had not eaten after all.

  I washed myself well, making a point to clean especially good behind the ears, back of the neck, etc., expecting Lilith might want to check my work later.

  Once done, I set the shower valves to cold like Lilith said. I knew she would not ask me about it. She could hear me yelp, as the cold nearly stopped my heart and stole my breath away. I crawled out of the tub feeling like a frozen fish stick. Desperate, I reached for a towel and found that Lilith had surreptitiously removed them while I was showering.

  “Lilith!”

&nbs
p; She opened the door and came in. “You ready?”

  I crossed my arms at my chest and began to shiver. “I need a towel. I’m freezing.”

  “Nonsense. You’ll be fine. Come on. We have to get started.”

  She hooked my elbow and led me out into the living room. I saw Ursula there, standing by the bookcase, her posture casual, uninhibited by her nudity. It struck me odd how reserved she is in daily life, her dress markedly conservative compared to Lilith’s, her demeanor bashful. Yet her attitude for all manner of witchcraft proved undeniably open-minded. I would stake half of Carlos’ fortune and say that if it were not for the nature of what we were doing, Ursula would be mortified if I saw her without clothes.

  I still had my arms folded to my chest, but I gave her a wave with fluttering fingers and smiled at her reassuringly. “You okay?” I asked.

  She smiled back. “Aye.” She pointed curiously. “Art thou injured?”

  “What?”

  Lilith leaned into me and whispered. “I think she’s talking about your frightened turtle.”

  “My what?”

  She stepped back and looked down at my obviously very cold appendage. “Little Tony?”

  “Oh, God. Please, what the hell. I just took a freezing cold shower. Lilith, tell her.”

  “Forget it,” she said. “She’s marrying Spinelli. She’ll figure it out. Come on. Let’s get started.” She picked up a carafe-sized bottle of yellowish liquid and handed it to Ursula. “You do me,” she said.

  “Aye, `tis with pleasure, sister.”

  “Wait,” I said. “What is that?”

  “Olive oil,” Lilith answered. “It’s part of the cleansing ceremony.”

  “Is she going to drink it?”

  Both laughed at that. “No, silly. The anointment process is part of the cleansing ceremony. She’s going to dress me in it.”

  “Dress you?”

  “It’s all about the body, Tony. The energy needs free passage through the skin. That’s why we showered. The oil completes the skin prep. It is vital that we tap into nature and its purity. As a coven, we are one and the same. One with nature.”

  I said nothing to that. I didn’t know what to say. I stood back in curious fascination at what appeared a timeless ritual unfolding before me.

  It started with Lilith assuming the Goddess position, arms crossed below her breasts, shoulders back, legs spread twenty-four inches apart. Ursula kneeled before her, tipping the bottle and filling her cupped palm to the brim with oil. She set the bottle down, clasped her hands together and raised them to her lips.

  With oil running down her arms and onto the floor, she whispered, “Mothers of the coven hear our plea; grant to us the rite of thee.”

  She then drew a large circle on Lilith’s belly using her index finger–the top of the circle beginning just below Lilith’s folded arms, the bottom just above her pudenda.

  “Mothers of the east,” she said, pressing her finger to the east side of the circle. “Hear our plea.” And she leaned in and kissed Lilith’s belly at the point she designated east.

  Next, she pressed her finger to the bottom of the circle. “Mothers of the south, hear our plea.” Again, she kissed Lilith, this time at the south point of the circle.

  She repeated this for the west and for the north, each time kissing Lilith’s belly accordingly and bidding the mothers of the coven to hear our plea.

  She tipped the bottle once more, oiling her hands and drawing two opposing arcs in the center of the circle, right-to-left. I recognized the symbol immediately as the Eye of the Witch.

  Her words came back louder now. “Mothers of the coven hear our plea; grant to us the rite of thee.”

  A kiss in the center of the eye completed the task.

  Ursula rose. Lilith unfolded her arms and raised them at her side, assuming what police call the frisk position.

  Again, Ursula oiled her hands to the dripping point, pressing her thumbs to Lilith’s forehead, spreading outward to her temples. She repeated this across her cheeks, from eyes to chin and then down her nose.

  The ritual reminded me of warriors preparing for battle. Only here, oil replaced war paint and the warriors were women. Still, with the aspect of physical touch, I could see the bond between them strengthening.

  I watched the beads of oil drip lazily down Lilith’s neck like raindrops on a windowpane. They slid in silent stutter, pausing, running and pausing again, before skating off in quick retreat.

  From neck to shoulders and down, Ursula ran her hands in broad, smooth strokes; her palms now flat upon Lilith’s skin. They followed her torso, in at the waist, out at the hips. At the thighs, she started up again, tracking a slightly different path to oil new skin along the way.

  From the armpits, she moved inward, across Lilith’s chest, cupping her breasts in circular swirls and spilling once more in cascading brushes past her belly, washing away the circle and witch’s eye she had drawn earlier.

  I admit the demonstration struck me as somewhat sensual, even erotic, yet I disciplined my thoughts to a focused purpose. I did not let the sight of one woman oiling another in the warmth of candlelight to sway my objectivity. At least not yet.

  There were times during the process when I thought the application of oil was mostly symbolic, that anointing most, but not all of the body was sufficient for the ceremony.

  Again, I was wrong.

  When she finished, Ursula had thoroughly oiled every square inch of Lilith’s exposed skin, front-to-back, neck-to-toe and all private regions in-between. Only her head remained dry, and only then did I realized why Lilith had tied her hair up like Ursula’s.

  “There. I am done,” said Ursula, and she handed the oil to Lilith.

  Lilith nodded approvingly. “Thank you, Sister. Good job.”

  I smiled when Ursula looked at me, knowing that her turn was next. I hoped she would not feel too embarrassed having me watch while Lilith anointed her. She smiled back curiously. I looked to Lilith. She was also smiling.

  “What?” I said.

  Lilith handed me the oil. “It’s your turn.”

  I took it. “You want me to oil myself?”

  She shook her head.

  I looked at Ursula. Her smile waned but did not fade entirely. To Lilith I said simply, “Her?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It is not right. She’s engaged.”

  “Tony, this is not a sexual thing. Forming a coven requires building trust. The reason I had Ursula anoint me, is that you and I already share that deep physical trust. We know each other, body and soul. You and Ursula don’t have that yet.”

  “But…it’s such a personal thing.”

  “That is exactly the point. Now come on. We have a busy night ahead of us.”

  I looked at Ursula. She didn’t seem timid in the least. “It’s all right with you?”

  She squared her shoulders to mine, crossed her arms below her breasts and spread her stance slightly. “We are but one and the same. Thou hast a right to my body as thou dost thy own.”

  I have to say, her words caught me off guard. I knew she did not mean I had the right to her body whenever I wanted it. Yet, she meant exactly that. As members of the coven, all held unfettered access to the body and soul of the collective.

  As I took a breath, I saw Lilith slip into the shadows of my periphery, perhaps affording me the privilege with Ursula without the self-conscious guilt.

  I thought of Dominic, and how he would not like what I was about to do. How his image of Ursula might change if he saw how easily she presented her body to the eyes and hands of another man.

  I tipped the bottle into my hand and dropped to my knees. I told myself I would pretend it was Lilith. That they looked so much alike on the outside, I might find no conflict of emotions through the intimacy of contact.

  Unfortunately, that was not the case.

  I touched her stomach and she gasped for the su
dden coldness of the oil. My heart began racing. This was not Lilith and my mind knew it. The subtleties escaped me. Though Lilith and Ursula’s bodies looked the same, I could see no similarities with them now. I had explored every curve on Lilith’s body, yet the curves before me seemed unfamiliar and new. I traced my finger along Ursula’s flat belly, as she had done on Lilith’s, clockwise, below her breasts, down to her hairline and back again to form a circle.

  “Mothers of the coven….” said Ursula, leading me through the process.

  I repeated her start. “Mothers of the coven, um…”

  “Hear our plea.”

  “Oh, yeah. Hear our plea. Grant us…um….”

  “Grant to us the rite of thee.”

  “Yes, yes. Grant to us the rite of thee.”

  My hands were trembling now. Here, Ursula’s mid-section and more filled my entire field of view, and somewhere in the shadows, Lilith was watching, encouraging my participation in this bizarre affair. It seemed surreal, if not ludicrous. But for the sake of the coven, or so I told myself, I continued.

  After completing the circle on Ursula’s belly, I pressed my index finger to the right edge of it and uttered, “Mothers of the east hear our prayers.”

  “Plea,” said Lilith, her outburst startling both Ursula and me. “It’s plea. Not prayers.”

  “Yes, plea. Hear our plea. I know that.”

  “Don’t fuck this up, Tony.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I’m sorry.” Suddenly, Ursula’s naked body was no longer my only preoccupation. I now had to contend with a feisty witch hell bent on semantics. I considered stepping away, screwing the entire ceremony. But the look on Ursula’s face changed my mind. I knew she thought nothing of standing naked before me for the sake of the coven. Her convictions ran that deep. But to have her efforts result in nothing more than an exhibition because I sabotaged the ceremony, well…. I could not have that.

  Pressing on, I leaned in and kissed Ursula on the east point of the circle. Continuing south, west and north, I marked the points accordingly, asked the mothers to hear our plea and kissed each one as before. By the time I drew the eye, utilizing Ursula’s belly button as the centerpiece, I was getting used to the idea of kissing her body. What’s more, the taste of olive oil on my lips only made me want to continue kissing her. I guess I was getting into it. A bit later, I am afraid I got into it a little too much.