“Not always a white woman,” the old woman said, “but, in any case, Cassiopeia was Queen of Ethiopia, and did you ever see a white Ethiopian?”
“I guess not,” Gerry said thoughtfully. “It certainly is a beautiful picture. How much do you want for it?”
“Oh, nothing,” the old woman replied. “It belongs to Cassie now.” She smiled at Cassie as she spoke, and Cassie blushed in gratitude.
“Thank you,” she said, “although I’d be happier if you took something for it.”
“No, no! No, no!” the old woman protested. “I never paid anything for it, as it came down to me from the past, so you take it and make it part of your future, my dear.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Cassie said.
“That’s alright, dear. Now you take him away with you,” she said, nodding at Gerry, “because he has some serious studying to do.” She winked at Cassie, who giggled.
“Come on, hon,” Cassie said, “let’s get back to the cottage, so you can do your homework!”
“Homework?” Gerry echoed. “Very funny!” The two of them stood up, and bade their goodbyes to the old woman. As they stepped out of the trailer door, Gerry turned to look back at the old woman still sitting on the chair. “You never did tell us your name, did you?”
“You never did ask, did you?” she replied, a glint in her eye. “Nation, people generally call me. It’s short for Carnation.”
“Carnation,” Gerry said slowly, thoughtfully. “And just how did you pull off that trick in the bookstore yesterday?”
“Trick? There was no trick. You saw what you wanted to see.”
~* * * *~
Later that afternoon, back at the cottage, Cassie was enjoying a refreshing swim, while Gerry, quarantined from the lake until his puncture wounds healed, sat in a Muskoka chair on the dock and watched her through dark, mirrored aviator sunglasses. Resting on the arm of the chair, just next to his hand, was the book of the Tarot of the Acolyte, but, for some reason, he didn’t want to open the book in the bright light of the blazing afternoon sunshine.
Covering the eye on the front of the book with his hand, Gerry let the hot, humid air sink into his body, easing the aches from his wounds and the tetanus shot. Gradually, a heavy stupor washed over him, pulling on the lack of sleep from the night before, and dragging him into a fitful doze. The sounds of bees humming by, and the distant tinkle of Cassie’s splashing, added to the calm tranquility.
“Sure, and don’t he look pretty when he’s sleeping?” The lilting voice of the Queen of Storms whispered in his ear, bringing him awake with a jolt! He sat up and looked around, but everything was as it had been, with no sign of the Queen, nor of any impending storm. However, the sudden painful strain in his groin told him he was hard once again. Adjusting himself to relieve the pressure, he squirmed a little in the chair, then stood up and, picking up the book, he headed back into the relative coolness of the cottage great room.
From the coffee table in front of the large sofa in the corner of the room, he picked up the bag containing the silver box that held the Tarot of the Acolyte, and then headed for the dining area of the room. Pulling back one of the chairs at the dining table, he sat down heavily, putting the box and the book down on the table. Opening the box, he carefully lifted the wrapped deck of cards out, and undid the Celtic knot holding the wrappings secure. It occurred to him that the knot-work seemed familiar to him from somewhere else, but he couldn’t place it just then. Once the cards were unwrapped, he flipped them over and spread them out, faces up, on the table. Carefully he picked through the upturned images until he located the Queen of Storms, which he took out of the pile and placed next to the notebook. Then he collected the rest of the deck together and piled them in a neat stack on top of the wrappings beside the box.
Picking up the Queen of Storms card, he was again struck by the power of her eldritch beauty, which seemed to ooze from the card, tingling the tips of his fingers as he carefully held her up, and making his mouth water in imaginary anticipation as his eyes dropped down to scan the fullness of her pale-skinned breasts, with their hard, raised nipples, teasing him, tempting him to touch her there...and there...and there...”
“Are you ok, Gerry?”
“What?” he replied with a start, twisting round on the seat. Cassie was standing behind him, her naked body glistening with droplets of lake water, her hands each holding an end of the towel that was draped across her shoulders. “Mm,” he said, looking up and down her body, “you look delicious! I didn’t hear you come in, but now that you’re here...” He took a playful lunge at her legs, which she deftly avoided.
“Steady on there, cowboy!” she joked, laughing. “You’re not fit enough to fuck yet, remember? We wouldn’t want to open up any of those wounds – just yet!” She smiled lasciviously at him.
“Yet, is it?” he retorted. “You heartbreaker, you!”
“Hey, I’m not the one who runs through the forest in the middle of the night,” she smirked, leaning forward, “naked!” Gerry lunged at her again, but she ran, laughing, into the bedroom, to dry off and get dressed.
Gerry laughed as she ran away, then turned his attention back to the notebook. Picking it up, he inspected the hand-tooled cover, with its fantastic design. Other than the outlandish imagery, there was no wording on the book, giving no indication of what it was about. Carefully, he checked the binding and the spine, seeing what kind it was, and gauging just how far he could open the book without damaging it. He was pleased to see the book was long-sewn, in the English style, so pages wouldn’t come loose if he laid the book open flat. Laying the book on the table, he carefully lifted the front cover, to find, hand-written in black ink,
Tarot of the Acolyte
* * * *
The Lore
“The Lore, eh?” he said, smirking, even though a shiver of nervous anticipation trembled down his spine. The pages of the book looked aged and fragile, but, when he lifted the first page, he found the paper still soft and supple. The script that filled the pages of the notebook was strong and flowing, using the old English style of long-S’s and diphthongs, making it somewhat difficult for him to read at first. Impatiently, he flipped past the first few pages of introduction, until he saw that the subsequent pages were titled with the names of the cards: Acolyte, Shaman, High Priestess... Picking up the book, he riffled through a large number of pages, slowing down when he got to the section of the Suit of Storms, and, finally, he came to the page entitled Queen of Storms.
Laying the book on the table again, he slowly read through the description of the card, but it only told him what he could already see on the card itself. But then, after the description, in a section sub-titled The Lore of the Card, he read:
Here we see the beautiful Irish Celtic witch-queen Sín, whose name means “Storm”. Although she claimed to be “of the children of Adam and Eve”, the Irish believed her to be one of the god-like Sidhe, faery dwellers from the Otherworld. Sín claimed many supernatural and magical powers, and had a collection of names that reflected her origin. She is most well-known for perpetrating the Threefold Death of Muirchertach mac Erca, 6th High King of Tara, whom she had beguiled into an adoration of her so strong that, at her request, he had cast out from his castle of Cletech the true queen – the mother of his children – and his children, and set Sín up at his right hand in her place.
“Sin!” he said thoughtfully, closing the book. “Her name is Sin. Ha! I have you now!” He picked up the card and looked into her deep blue eyes. “So, Sin, my dear; when are you planning on visiting me again? Maybe I will have a surprise for you!” He smiled at her face, then put the card down again. Then, just out of sheer cussedness, he gently ran the tip of his finger across her raised nipples, feeling a surreptitious thrill as he did so.
“Were you talking to someone?” Cassie asked, coming back from the bedroom, dressed in the skimpiest of shorts and a tiny, bright yellow halter neck that accentuated the smooth darkness of her skin.
“Nah,” Gerry mumbled in reply, packing up the cards into two even stacks, and then putting them and the book into the silver box, which was now filled perfectly. “Just researching a little, but I’m done – for now!” He turned to look at her as she approached. “Wow!” he said appreciatively. “You look effing delicious, babe! Good enough to eat!”
4
Gerry stood on the veranda of the cottage and watched as dark clouds gradually obscured the stars overhead, filling the surrounding forest with an inky darkness – a darkness he found both alarming and thrilling. The weather had been oppressively hot over the last few days, heavy and humid – the perfect generator for thunderstorms. The very thought of a night storm made his heart race and his manhood twitch in anticipation. Would the Queen of Storms come back for more of his ‘essences?’
But what if she doesn’t come back? he thought, a sudden panic shivering through him. What if that was my one and only encounter? He felt his knees tremble a little at the thought of losing her. But then – who or what am I really losing? A succubus in the night?
A sudden wave of guilt washed over him as he thought of Cassie, lying on the sofa in the cottage great room, reading her book. She loved him and cared about him deeply, and all he could think about was seducing – or, more correctly, allowing himself to be seduced by – Sin, the Queen of Storms – some mythical figure from, of all things, a Tarot deck. I mean – does she really exist, or is she just some kind of illusion? But, if she was an illusion, how could he explain those two small holes in his prick?
“Sin,” he said out loud. “How apt a name is that?”
“And why would that be, Gerry?” The voice of the Queen of Storms, with its melodic, Irish lilt, whispered right into his ear, causing him to jump and spin around. As he did so, a huge, black raven that had been sitting on the railing of the veranda, although he had not seen it land there, let out a loud, raucous “Cahaw!” and took flight into the deepening darkness. Other than that, there wasn’t a living thing in sight, let alone the enchanting figure of the Queen of Storms.
“Are you talking to yourself again?” Cassie’s mellow Bermudan accent gently teased him as she came out of the cottage and headed in his direction. She was naked from the waist up, and her firm, round breasts swayed temptingly at him as she walked, attracting his eyes away from the smirk that played on her lips.
“Mmm,” he said appreciatively as she approached, “you look soooooo delicious, babe!”
“Do I now?” she replied, smiling as his arms enfolded her, crushing her hardened nipples into the firmness of his muscular chest. He nuzzled her softly behind the ear, sniffing in the aroma of her hair, then kissing her neck, his manhood already hard and raging to get free of his shorts, pushing itself against the warm, yielding flesh of her mons.
“My, my,” she said, “who’s a horny boy?” Gerry felt her body tremble as he gently bit into her shoulder at the base of her neck.
“That would be me,” he said, moving them apart so he could ensnare her mouth with his, while his right hand captured her left breast, his fingers taking control over the hardness of her nipple. Their tongues fought a brief winner-takes-all battle, which he proceeded to win and win again, as he felt her hand drop to stroke and squeeze his throbbing cock through the rough material of his cargo shorts. The dark clouds around the cottage thickened and rumbled gently, but the pair were too engaged in their growing passions to notice.
“CAHAW!” Right next to the oblivious couple, the loud, ragged call of a raven split the night air, shocking them apart!
“What the fuck?” Gerry called out, whirling around to lash out at the bird, which fluttered effortlessly out of his reach. Cassie laughed behind him, and grasped his arm as he teetered after the bird.
“It’s just a raven, hon,” she giggled. “Leave it be, and come and pay more attention to this black bird.” The sultriness in her voice brought his mind back to the subject at hand, driving the thoughts of the raven out of his head.
“Black bird, is it?” he replied, then, lunging playfully at her, he grabbed her around the hips as the wrap she was wearing fell away, leaving her dressed in only the briefest of bikini bottoms. Then he hoisted her effortlessly over his shoulder, where she laughed and screamed in mock anger, and playfully beat on his back with her fists, as he carried her away to the bedroom.
~* * * *~
A few hours later, the cottage was fully cloaked in the rabid darkness of a summer thunder storm, wind howling through the minute gaps in its old, wooden walls and shutters, its loose window panes rattling gently as the thunder rumbled through. But the old cottage had been built from strong timber beams that barely registered the seismic effects of the thunderclaps as they blasted by.
Inside the cottage was a different tale. Gerry sat in a corner of the large sofa, away from any of the shuttered windows, holding a terrified Cassie in his arms, her face buried into his chest so she couldn’t see the flashes of lightning that still managed to peek through into the room. Each rumble of thunder close by brought another moan of terror from her lips, and made her body shake in fear. To Gerry, the situation was oxymoronic, because he loved the power and beauty of thunderstorms, and loved to watch them, even though he was well aware of the dangers they brought. This storm was no different to many others he had enjoyed there, from being a kid when his parents had originally bought the cottage, through the quarter-century or so of summers they had spent there, both as a family and, later, him and his friends alone, after his parents had decided to move to Victoria on the west coast of Canada, and sold the cottage to him.
Another loud thunder blast close by elicited a shriek from Cassie, and her grip on him tightened even more, if that were possible, her finger nails clawing into the muscles of his back.
“It’s ok, babe,” he said soothingly, rubbing the knotted muscles of her neck and shoulders. “It’s not gonna hurt you.” To himself he wondered if this was one of the Queen’s storms, and if she was prowling around outside, trying to figure a way to get him out of the cottage, or if it was just an ordinary thunderstorm, with no supernatural power governing it. Then he remembered back to their first encounter, and how the powerful storm that had driven him from the cottage had not disturbed Cassie in the slightest as she lay sleeping in their bedroom.
Nope! he thought. This one must be a real storm, and not one of hers at all!
As if to deny his thought, a blinding flash of lightning, coupled with an instantaneous blast of deafening thunder, crashed against the front door of the cottage, shattering the lock and sending the door swinging wildly to slam into the wall behind it. Cassie let out a scream almost as deafening as the thunder clap, and scurried away from the sofa and into the relative safety of the kitchen, while Gerry leapt to his feet and headed to the door.
Grabbing hold of the swinging slab of wood, he hove it closed against the force of the wind streaming through the doorway, eventually managing to hold it shut long enough to slide home the bolts at the top and bottom of the door. Then he leant against it as it rattled behind him, wiping rain from his eyes and face.
“Fuck me!” he said, gasping for breath. “No friggin’ need for that, eh?” He looked across the room at Cassie, who was coming slowly out of the kitchen, her face streaked with tears of fear. “It’s ok, babe,” he said, “all safe again now.” Suddenly, Cassie started to laugh, and pointed to the countrified dining table away to Gerry’s left. His eyes followed her finger, to discover the raven, perched as proudly as an eagle, on the back of one of the chairs. It looked around the room, firstly at Cassie, then at Gerry, and then let out an ear-splitting “Cahaw!”
“Aren’t you supposed to say ‘Nevermore’?” Gerry quipped, somewhat annoyed by the bird’s presence. “And who invited you in here anyway?” Cassie was so amused by the sudden turn of events, she didn’t even flinch as another round of thunder and lightning rolled around the cottage.
“So, what are you going to call him?” she asked, looking at Gerry
and nodding sideways at the raven.
“Call him?” Gerry chuckled. “For a start, I don’t think we’re keeping ‘him’ – if he is a ‘he’ – but, until we decide what we’re doing with him, let’s call him Edgar.” They both burst out laughing, as the comic sight of the raven relieved the tension the storm had brought. The bird itself watched them with its black, bead-like eyes, as if in utter disgust and contempt at their unseemly wit.
A short while later, the thunderstorm abated enough for Cassie to feel safe enough to go to bed, and Gerry led her through to their boudoir, closing the door carefully behind them – making sure the raven was settled comfortably and safely in the great room.
~* * * *~
Lying on his back, Gerry stared up at the exposed rafters of the cottage bedroom, listening to the gentle snores of Cassie as she lay on her side, facing him. The atmosphere of the small room was filled with the enticing aromas of their lovemaking, and Gerry inhaled them deeply, his naked manhood twitching as the scents stimulated his mind, bringing back the visions of their passion.
Getting out of bed, he slipped his feet into his open sandals, and ambled to the bedroom door. Carefully he let himself into the great room, making sure he didn’t let the errant raven get into the bedroom. With all of the shutters being closed, the room was almost pitch black, and Gerry carefully made his way across the large, open space, heading directly for the front door, as he had many times in the past. Unerringly, his outstretched hand found the door exactly where he had expected it to be, and he quickly undid the bolts and opened the door wide to the back wall, where a hook secured it to stop it from closing.
Outside, the night sky was clear and translucent, littered with a myriad of bright, twinkling stars, and the air was cool and fresh after the rain, although the humidity still lingered, coating his naked skin in a sheen of clammy perspiration. Carefully he made his way around the cottage to the shutters that covered the French doors of their bedroom. Lifting the heavy beam of wood out of its cradles, he knelt down to gently lay it against the foot of the wall of the building. As he let go of the timber, he heard the veranda creak behind him, and he quickly stood up and spun around, ready to confront whoever was approaching him.
Voracious Vixens, 13 Novels of Sexy Horror and Hot Paranormal Romance Page 189
