We march down a winding wooded path, leaving the celebration behind. The sun flashes in the gaps between the leaves. Birds chatter raucously. The medicine woman limps at the front of our procession, leaning on a gnarled walking stick. Four burly village women accompany us, two in front, two behind. The Zul call them “Big Mothers”. When the ceremony is over, the Big Mothers will stay behind to watch over us. Atswaan glances at me, her eyes wide and anxious. Ghinini is trembling. She looks as if her courage will break at any moment. We walk until we come to the end of the path. There, a deep ravine yawns. It is like a hungry mouth. The earth is a dry yellow clay.
The ravine is surrounded by tangles of black thorn bushes and ancient acacia trees. This place has an air of secret magic. The surrounding plant life seems to tremble as we enter the clearing. It is just the wind, I tell myself, but I know in my heart of hearts that the trembling of the trees is more than just an errant breeze. I sense human voices, just fallen silent-- the voices of women, shouting out in agony and ecstasy, or a combination of both.
One of the matriarchs helps the medicine woman down the steep slope of the ravine. Ghinini descends ahead of me, then I follow. The side of the pit is dry and crumbly, and I lose my footing and slide a little before one of the older women reaches out to steady me.
Once we have descended, I expect the ritual to be done quickly, or perhaps I only wish it to be because I am frightened, but the older women instruct us to sit and then they go about making a fire. I sit besides Atswaan and we smile at one another. I wonder if she is as nervous as I. Does her heart race, and does her belly roll over and over inside her body? I look at the barren earth beneath me and I see that there are dark splotches in the soil, stains. There is a pile a woven cloth torn into narrow strips not far from the pit where the older women are building a fire.
When the fire is crackling, one of the women brings us fruit. “Eat,” she says. “The juice will dull the pain.”
The fruit is soft and sour-smelling, but I eat all of it, and then a second when it is offered to me. They taste retched, but I am afraid of the pain. I would choke down a third if there were any more of the fermented fruit left to eat. The rancid flesh of the fruit feels warm inside my stomach.
After a while, I go away from myself. It is like my thoughts are no longer inside my head, but float a short distance apart, looking on the scene with a strange sense of detachment. Two of the Big Mothers are boiling water over the fire while the medicine woman kneels and chants and waves her bony hands in the air. She bows her body down, forehead to the earth, and then flings herself up, arms trembling, repeating the motion over and over.
I rub my face with my hands and think how strange the sensation is. It is like there are hundreds of little spiders crawling all over my flesh. When I turn my head too quickly, my thoughts wash gray and foggy as if I am trying to see the world through a dense morning mist.
One of the older women is shaving Ghinini’s head. I watch the flowers and hair land in a moist pile beside Big Mother’s knees. She finishes with Ghinini, then moves to Atswaan. Atswaan’s hairless scalp shines prettily when she is finished shearing her. Finally she comes to me, and I smile as she lathers my head. The suds feel good. Tingly. She smiles back and says, “Be brave. You will be a Zul woman soon, Zenzele.” The stone blade scrapes across my skull with a scrrrrriiiippppp sound.
I start to reply but she is gone.
Where did she go?
I look around, confused, and see her near the fire. How did she get over there so quickly?
Atswaan laughs, and the sound is curiously slow and deep. She sounds like a giant. It is so funny hearing that deep voice booming out of her little throat that I laugh, and I have a giant’s voice too.
I glance up. The sky is pink and orange.
Evening already?
Somewhere to my left, there is a deep-pitched keening sound. It goes on and on and on, and I turn my head, annoyed by it, the whole world smearing as I shift my eyes in that direction, and I see that it is Ghinini making that sound. The older women kneel at both sides of her, holding her by the arms and legs. The medicine woman is crouched between her thighs. The old woman’s arms are smeared in blood-- bright red blood-- and Ghinini is screaming through her clenched teeth, her eyes squeezed shut, the muscles in her neck standing out like ropes. She is shaking her head no-no-no but the women holding her down do not release her. The medicine woman does not stop.
I blink, and Ghinini is lying unrestrained. She is trembling, her legs bound together by strips of cloth, her eyes closed. Her cheeks are wet with tears, but she is no longer screaming. It is over for her. She is a woman now.
That wasn’t so bad, I think, and I recline on the cool soil and look up at the sky. I drift away, and do not wake until the women gather around me, and take my arms and legs in their hands.
“It is time, Zenzele,” one of them say.
I nod.
I look down between my thighs and watch the medicine woman lower herself shakily between my legs. She looks tired. Her eyes and cheeks are sunken, the wrinkles of her flesh deep and black like she has begun to crack beneath the weight of her own great age. She speaks to me, but I cannot follow what she is saying. It is like her words are broken apart. They float in the air singularly, each to their own self, like the beads of a necklace that has been torn from a woman’s neck. I do not feel fear until I see the knife in her hands-- long and narrow and made of glossy black stone-- and then I begin to struggle.
“Hold still, child!” one of the women hisses.
“It will be over in a moment,” the one who shaved my head tells me.
The medicine woman fumbles with the fleshy folds of my uke. Her bony fingers pinch one side of my genitals, her long dirty nails digging into the tender skin, pulling it taut, and then she begins to cut.
I scream. I can’t help myself. The pain is white hot and all-encompassing. I scream until it feels like my throat will burst, and still the old hag cuts at my maidenhood. She cuts and cuts, tossing little bloody pieces of my flesh aside as if they have no value-- my flesh!-- and then she digs the tip of the blade even deeper, carving out my little pele, and I scream so loud there is not breath enough to make the sound, tears of agony coursing down my cheeks, and then it is over, finally, it is over, and they clean my bloody groin with hot water. The medicine woman rises and totters away and the Big Mothers smear my mangled sex with an odorous paste. They press my knees together and bind my thighs shut with strips of cloth, knotting them firmly.
I try to move, and the pain drives all thought from my skull. When I awaken, the medicine woman is standing over me. “You must remain here until the sun has passed through the sky three times, woman,” she croaks. “The Big Mothers will stand guard at the foot of the path. Cry out if any beasts come sniffing after the blood. I will return and check on you in the morning.”
I nod, and then my thoughts slide back down the dark throat of unconsciousness.
12
I come to with a start, the pain still boiling between my thighs. I try to move my legs without thinking, and the agony that bolts through my body elicits a howl. I grit my teeth, trying to bite back any further sounds of pain. Breathing deeply, trying to master the agony pulsing in my crotch, I shift my body slowly until I am half-sitting. Propped against the crumbly bank of the ravine, I survey my surroundings. To my left, Atswaan and Ghinini lie unconscious, breathing softly. It is dark, the moon riding low in the branches of the surrounding trees, and their bindings are black with blood. The only sounds are the soft crackle of our fire and the whisper of the wind in the branches of the acacias.
My stomach trembles. My heart is racing. I sense something malevolent nearby. I know I am not imagining the threat because the night is too silent. Even the insects have fallen still.
Cry out if any beasts comes sniffing after the blood, the medicine woman said. Her words echo in my mind. She would not have said it if the beasts do not come, I reason.
Eyes bulging,
I scan the boughs of the surrounding trees. I hear an echoing snap-- a broken branch-- and draw a breath to shout to the women who guard us from the path.
“Zenzele? What is it?” Atswaan whimpers beside me.
“Shh! Something is moving in the trees,” I whisper.
“What?” Atswaan rolls over and a guttural groan escapes her lips.
“Quiet!”
Before I can say anything more, a dark shape races through the upper branches of the encircling trees. I try to follow it with my eyes, but it is swift. It circles around, and then it leaps to the bank and slithers down into the ravine.
Even as my body jerks involuntarily with surprise, the creature stands upright.
It is a man!
But he is like no man I have ever seen. He is on the other side of our guttering fire, and the low red light gleams off his flesh, which is dark and smooth and strangely glossy. It is like his whole body has been anointed in oil.
He is tall, with a heavy-boned and thickly muscled form. He has powerful slabs of muscle for his chest. Rippling arms as big around as my waist. A flat belly banded with muscle, and a face that seems carved out of some dense and impermeable stone. He is completely naked, his male organ hanging gravidly between his legs, and as he appraises the three of us-- three helpless women, bound and injured-- his bulging eyes catch the flickering orange and red light of our fire and encapsulate it so that it appears as if there is a fire burning inside his head, its light glinting out at us through the sockets of his skull.
“A demon!” Ghinini cries, and his head jerks in her direction. He smiles, and bright white fangs show between his thick and sensual lips-- fangs as long and dreadfully sharp as the eyeteeth of the great predatory cats that roam the savannah.
I am too frightened to cry out. I have forgotten, in my terror, that we have protectors just a short distance away.
I watch as the ferocious creature inclines his head toward Ghinini, and then his nostrils flare. He sniffs loudly, his eyelids closing, then opening. Slowly. As if he is beguiled by the stench of the blood and urine soaked into the earth beneath our bodies. His face softens with pleasure, and his fingers curl-- and then he is gone!
No! Not gone! Moved, only faster than my eyes could follow.
Ghinini cries out as he crouches over her. I roll over, ignoring the pain between my legs, and watch the terrible creature dip his head into the crook of Ghinini’s neck. There is a horrible crunching sound as he bites into her flesh, and Ghinini wails. He slurps at the blood gushing from her flesh as she pushes helplessly against his thick shoulders.
“AAIIIEEE!” Atswaan screams. “Big Mothers! Help us!”
The giant male’s head snaps toward Atswaan, blood dripping from his chin, and then he pounces upon her.
“No! No!” Atswaan howls, battering him with her fists.
I try to aid her, but my legs are bound. I can only wriggle on the ground like a worm.
“Get away from her!” I snarl. “Sister! No! Fight him!” I grab clods of dirt and throw them at the monster.
He pays no attention to the little rain of dirt I cast in his direction. He grabs Atswaan’s flailing wrists and presses her arms to the ground, and then he bites into her neck as well.
Atswaan’s face is turned in my direction, and I look into her eyes as he slurps her blood. Her eyes glitter with terror and pain as he gulps greedily from her spraying arteries. They lose focus, as if she is confused, and then the life flees from them.
“No, Sister, don’t go!” I sob, heaving myself across the ground toward her.
I hear cries of surprise and fear from the edge of the ravine. The Big Mothers have arrived to answer our calls for help. The demon-man raises up from Atswaan, his lips and chin and cheeks slathered with her blood, his male organ jutting out stiffly from his lower abdomen. One of the Big Mothers lobs a spear in his direction and he catches the weapon in midair. He ducks the next one, laughing, and then, quick as a snake, he lunges toward me.
He scoops me up as more spears fall upon the place where he was kneeling only moments before-- one of them driving into the meat of poor Atswaan’s thigh-- and then he leaps into the air with me, moving so fast, so hard, that I am dizzied by the force of his sudden acceleration. The trees rush up to envelope us, and then we are whooshing through the twisted branches like a wind, flying so fast that I can scarcely see more than a blur of limb and leaf. He holds me to him with one arm. His flesh is so cold and hard it is like being embraced by stone, and then he leaps clear of the grove and bounds with me into the starry heavens.
13
My thoughts are strangely calm as I dangle from the monster’s arms.
Stolen away again!
I suppose I should get used to being kidnapped, only I suspect that this will be the last time I am ever abducted. The monster that has stolen me killed Ghinini and Atswaan without hesitation, and I am certain that he means to kill me as well.
I shiver from the unnatural cold of the demon-man’s flesh. The wind flogs my face and shoulders cruelly as he races through the dark landscape. He moves in great leaps, the savannah rising and falling below. It would be a wonder, this flight, if not for the pain that sizzles between my thighs each time his feet hit the grassy earth and he leaps skyward again, jostling my body. I can’t help but cry out each time he lands and vaults again into the heavens, and I wonder when he will finally stop and feed upon me.
But he does not stop. Perhaps his belly is full, and he has stolen me so that he might feed upon me later, when he is hungry again. I try to scratch out his eyes when I have recovered some of my strength, but he brushes my hands away from his face without the slightest sign of irritation, and so I surrender. I go limp in his encircling arms, and await my inevitable fate.
We travel east for a while, the dark grasslands blurring past below us. My captor bounds across a herd of wildebeest, crossing the great mass of dozing animals in one leap. A lioness startles when we land near her unexpectedly, but we are airborne again before she has time to scramble away in a panic. My abductor’s passage eventually angles north, and then he is scaling a great escarpment of stone, a mountain, its crown swathed in mist. The moist air tingles against my cheeks and breasts as we ascend, moving higher and higher. He carries me into a cleft in the rocks near the apex of the rugged peak, and there he places me down inside a warm and fire-lit cavern.
I sprawl limply upon a mound of soft furs, trembling from the cold and the pain. There is no terror left in me now, only a fatalistic passivity. Death would be a release.
The demon-man who killed my sisters paces for a moment, his shadow quivering on the dank stone walls of the cavern. Finally, he sits on his knees. He puts his fists on his hips and looks me over. He has large, scowling features, big gleaming eyes, skin like obsidian. His hair is thick and bushy, like a fuzzy cowl.
“You bleed,” he says.
I would have been surprised he spoke my tongue if not for the stupor which has come over my senses. Yes, I am bleeding. Warm, wet blood dribbles from between my thighs. So?
He makes a loud snorting sound, his thick lips twisted into an expression of disgust. He seems to come to some decision then, and he drops to all fours and crawls toward me. I do not struggle as he loosens the strips of cloth which bind my legs together, though I do cry out when he seizes my knees and forces them apart.
“Please, no!” I gasp. “Aaiiieee! It hurts!”
He does not seem to register my cries of pain. His strangely gleaming eyes are riveted to my genitals. I see his stomach convulse, and then he bends down between my thighs, and his tongue lashes across my mutilated organ.
The pain is immediate and enormous, and I shriek, the sound amplified by the stone throat of the cavern.
I struggle against him, but his hand comes down on my chest, pinning me to the ground. I try to push it away, but it is like trying to move the earth itself.
He makes a retching sound. I feel something cold and wet splatter my groin.
“
Stop!” I howl, dizzy with pain. My vision sizzles with dark spots and little flashes of light. I am losing consciousness, the world narrowing, shrinking to a tiny point of light.
His tongue works its way around my wounded genitals with a moist slurping sound. It is slimy, like a fat earthworm. Slowly, the pain begins to abate. I feel a sudden flush of warmth, a sharp prickling sensation, and then the pain is gone, completely gone, as if it never existed. Pleasure, low at first, then growing in intensity, spreads throughout my pelvic area before threading its way up my body, first to my breasts, my nipples tightening to hard brown pebbles, then to my extremities. My groin throbs as if it is a second heart, and I feel the echoes of its pulsations reverberating through my body. I gasp, my thighs quaking, my toes curling. For a moment, it is like I am in a dark, womb-like place, and all there remains in the world is the pleasure, the warm, tingling pleasure.
My captor withdraws. He sits back on his knees, squinting at me. I want to grab him by the hair and pull his face back down between my thighs.
“The pain is gone,” I pant. “My uke doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“I have healed your injuries,” he replies, and then he rises. His organ is still tumescent. It sways back and forth like a great snake as he crosses the cavern and reclines beside his fire. I sit up, touching myself between the legs. There is no blood. No pain. Only smooth, scarred flesh, warm and pliant, still moist from his tongue.
“My teoma has healed your injuries,” he says. “But it cannot restore the flesh that was cut away from your body.”
Yes, I have already realized that. The flesh the old woman carved from my body is still absent. There is only smooth skin and a tiny warm opening, barely large enough to press the tip of my finger inside. My pleasurable little bud, the sensitive skin that surrounded it, are gone. My explorations evoke a sharp sense of loss, a feeling that is equal parts panic and mourning.
The Oldest Living Vampire In Love (The Oldest Living Vampire Saga Book 3) Page 31
