They had met early one evening in a small cafe by the oceanside. He had come for coffee, she sitting at one of the outside tables gazing out at the ocean. Something in her eyes made him stop, a look of familiarity. He introduced himself to her; she invited him to sit. They talked about everything, as long lost friends would. Never the moment of nervous silence that accompanies most new acquaintances. He kept staring at her eyes though, he couldn't quite place them, but he knew them somehow.
He said 'You must remember it was the Middle Ages and the only women who appeared naked in public were those condemned to judicial torture. It was unthinkable for a noblewoman to appear this way, yet Godiva did it for the people. Had I been a commoner then, when the nobility cared nothing for the people, I would have honored her sacrifice and refused to look. But I was probably a knight then, given my residue of chivalry. Or a court soothsayer which I sometimes suspect.'
She smiled at him, 'or mayhaps one of the nobles who subjected those to their punishment.'
'I have had more than one lifetime in the Medieval period -- I think I loved it so much I didn't want to leave. Even today, I am fascinated by the period.�
'It's true,' she said, 'you do have a profound sense of chivalry.'
He chuckled, 'it is a hangover from one of those lifetimes.'
'I have always been fascinated with the period as well.'
Their talking continued, sometimes each finishing the others sentence, coming up with the same thoughts together.
'And old castles too -- which also enchant me to no end.'
'I am sure you probably already know of my enchantment and desires for castles.' She laughed, looking into his eyes, wondering whom this stranger really was.
'Of course,' he grinned at her, 'that's why I mentioned it. I share the same fascination. I always have.�
Always interested in reincarnation and past lives, she decided to take the conversation a bit farther. 'Someday my spirit shall return to them, to wander endlessly through the damp corridors and endless rooms.'
He stood, reaching for her hand, 'Come walk on the beach.' She placed her hand in his, walking beside him, they wandered down the sand to the waters edge, the sun setting behind them. 'As a ghost?' he continued. 'You might be a little late for that, I think the haunted castles are all occupied.'
She looked at him with a mischievous grin, 'but when I return home, it shall be MY castle and the others will either have to serve their mistress or depart.'
He laughed at her remark, though sensing an air about her, he could actually picture her doing just that. 'They might look at you as an interloper.'
'I shall return them to their subservient status and they will understand then,' she grinned.
'Me, I'll move on to the next incarnation.'
She smiled, her voice growing softer. 'I fear my heart belongs to the past yet.'
'One can feel a nostalgic attachment to the past but we can't go live there. The future is where we'll spend the rest of our lives, this life and those that follow. As much as I would love to revisit the Middle Ages, even the Dark Ages, I know I can only do it in a past life regression.'
� Are you sure? Perhaps we can return to the past. Perhaps our lives, past, present and future continuously play over and is our choice as to which reincarnation we come back into. And that may explain those that see into the future. They may have already lived there and have chosen to return to the past.'
'I know, there is a theory that time is not linear. That is one possible explanation and I wouldn't rule it out. But until I'm shown conclusive evidence otherwise I am inclined to accept the orthodox view that time is linear, history has been written.' He added then with a smile, 'I'd love to test it out, though. There are things called wormholes, pinpricks in the fabric of time and space, and scientists have speculated that they could be used to visit other times. But they are microscopic and constantly change position.'
'When I return to the past, I will find you and whisper in your ear of your future as you torture me for being a witch because I know things about you.'
'You think I would do that? Yes, I know I have done it in my past lives, but would I do it to you?
'Yes, if you could not look at Lady Godiva, you could easily torture and bring about my death if it was your station.'
He looked at her for a moment seeing the seriousness in her eyes. 'Ghastly notion, I must say. But I think I was careful to see that no one died under torture which would have been counter-productive.'
'To die under your torture, maybe not, but their death to be brought about by your torture I could see.'
'In the end, perhaps. But would I do it now, knowing what I know now? The whole purpose of reincarnation is to learn and evolve.'
'But if I find you back then, would you even remember your 'now'?'
'Now we come full circle. I am not convinced that the past is happening now, even as we speak, for I am here - I know that - but am I also there at the same time? I think not.'
'No, at the moment you are here. But when this life is done, maybe in your next you shall choose to go back, and if I find you, remember my whispers in your ear as you torture me.'
He shook his head, stopping for a moment to pull her down onto a small tuft of grass overlooking the ocean, mulling over her words. 'I am thoroughly lost now in a maze of speculation! But if I ever find myself there, and you in my chamber, I shall remember on some level and perhaps feel a deep sense of disquiet.'
'Would you feel disquiet, or excitement as you tied me down to a stone alter. Perhaps you would feel a bit of deja vu as you lashed me. Would you feel excitement as you turned me over, bound on the alter to continue the punishment from your whip as you seek my confessions?'
'Oh, no doubt I would. It is plain that I enjoyed my work since so much of it followed me into this lifetime.'
She could not keep from smiling as she continued, 'and before I was bound on your table to be submitted to your tortures, the chase began as I escaped the clutches of the guards, yet with no where to run, you chose to hunt me yourself.'
'For the sport, of course, yet you allowed yourself to be caught.' He whispered in her ear, pulling her in between his legs, her back to his chest, his arms wrapping around her.
'In the graveyard I did in our future, but in the past, I feared you and your wrath, and fought my capture. It's where the bloody claw mark on your cheek came from.'
He grinned, his head against hers, inhaling the scent of jasmine in her hair. 'Wow! What an imagination you have!' But then something knew flickered in his eyes, a faint hint of a memory. 'I didn't realize I had a bloody claw mark on my cheek. Do you see that?'
'Can you not see it? Can you not feel the dampness that settles in your bones from the stone walls?' She closed her eyes, leaning back against him. 'Grabbing me, one hand loosed from your grasp, allowing me to place my mark upon your face before you grab both wrists dragging me back to your alter.'
He thought for a moment, feeling the dampness settling into his bones, but it was only the salty air that surrounded them. 'Not at the moment, though I have been there before. I have a clear recollection of soot-smeared masonry from constant torchlight,' he confided in her, though his tone more humoring. 'Go on with this, it sounds interesting.'
'The sounds,' she whispered softly, 'the clinking of distant chains, agonized wails coming thru, faintly echoing down the corridors.' She shivers in his arms, her mind taking her to his torture chamber. 'You know of my fear, you have seen it many times before in the others, but also my spirit you sense, and it brings you great pleasure thinking of how you will break it.'
His eyes closed, lost in her scent, listening to her words, he could almost smell the rot of the dungeon. 'Continue with this, it is very interesting.'
'You bind my wrists, my body squirming, legs thrashing as you fight to bind my ankles. You take pleasure in the fire in my heart. With quick movement, you rip my clothes from my body, dropping the shredded remains to the floor. Gazing at my nude form, you gently run your fingers from between my breasts down to my mound, savoring my soft flesh; the flesh you will soon mar with your lash.' She felt his fingers caressing her arms, moving down to lace with hers, she continued to weave her spell. 'Picking it up you return to my face, a gentle caress on my cheek with the leather, but you make one mistake. You gaze into my eyes briefly, but long enough to spark a memory deep inside of you from somewhere.' She grew silent then, savoring his touch, the gentle caress of his leather, for soon she knew it would be much different.
He waited as long as he could for her to break the silence before he spoke, 'And then? Continue with this, please.' He urged her.
She smiled softly, 'and then is when you hear my gentle whispers in your ear, in your head. You quickly avert your gaze yet the image of my eyes burns brighter in your thoughts than any flame ever has. You begin to lash me, leaving livid welts across my pale flesh, and though you hear my screams and whimpers as you fill me with pain, in your thoughts you hear only my gentle whispers.' She paused again, the wind whispering in his ear, bringing her words of that time back to him. 'Tender words of one who called you master, one who respected you at one time. As you swing your lash, memories fill you. The sudden scent of fresh sea air fills your senses in the chamber, your lash strikes again and you hear the cries of gulls and a faint ringing bell mixed in with my screams. Visions of a fleeing angel in white, laughing softly as you pursue her through the graveyard. Your eyes keep seeking mine though you fight it. Moments of passion shared enter your thoughts. Bodies entwined, you become aroused. It�s something in them that haunts you. Fearing I might notice your excitement, you turn me over, binding elbows to knees, my rear and back readily available to you, my face covered with my hair, no longer are my eyes a problem. You lash my back, my tush, and small rivulets of blood flow. You find yourself pausing for a moment, watching as the tiny river of blood traces down my thigh, bringing to you memories of an alter, the night in some type of a cathedral under the stars. You shake your head, tis the witch in her that devils your thoughts you think.'
The silence between them not noticed, both lost in their thoughts and the moment. He could imagine, could picture all that she described, her words filling him with vivid images. 'Very interesting, Kitten. This could be one of those spontaneous regressions or the product of a creative imagination. Either way, I was entranced throughout but what was, and where it came from, a living past or a dead one, I cannot say.'
She purred at him then. 'Kitten? Where did that come from?' But she let the thought drop without an answer when he kissed her neck. 'Will you continue to lash me as you have remembrances of our pasts and futures?'
He thought for a moment before he spoke. 'Since you ask a hypothetical question I will give you a hypothetical answer -- No. It would give me pause. I would stop and wonder.'
His hands moving back up her arms, rubbing her shoulders before heading back down to hers, pausing only for a moment before moving to her thighs. She inhaled deeply at his first touch upon her thighs. Relaxing more in his arms, she continued her tale. 'But yes you do. Tis the devil in me you fear otherwise how could the sounds, the smells come to you. The visions, twas the devil witch trying to take your soul. You do not know when I became unconscious; you do not remember when my screams stopped. And when they came to take my limp body away to allow me rest till morrow when it would begin again, you found no release from my haunting eyes.'
'Back then I would have feared the devil perhaps. Now? You can't fear what you don't believe in. I think the devil is as real as the tooth fairy, Santa, and the Easter Bunny.' He said lightly, kissing her neck again, his hands moving farther up her thighs, this time he knew her trembling body was not from the cold.
'Yes, you did fear the devil, and you feared what you saw in my eyes. You feared what would become of you if for a moment you allowed yourself to ponder the visions. And only upon my death did you feel a unexplained sorrow, a feeling of loss unknown.' His hands moving to her inner thighs, her legs parting slightly for his touch.
'Perhaps. But you use the past tense. So has this happened already?' His voice becoming deeper, filling with the passion of his touch.
'Mayhaps it has m'lord,' she smiled, losing herself in the moment, 'but its now that I am telling you that I shall do it again, and mayhaps this time you will accept my words for what they be, then and now.'
'Are we caught on a karmic carousel then, turning endlessly, history always repeating? And if so, what purpose does reincarnation serve if we only repeat ourselves again and gain? Is there no learning, no evolution, and no growth? Or are we like rats trapped in a maze?' He continued to caress her thighs, yet moving no further as he began to think more about her words.
'Perhaps we continue until we learn all there is that we can know before we continue on. Or mayhaps as I said to begin with, its our choice to go where we wish, be it past or future, or even return to the present time.'
'Now I believe in karma - but it is only a belief, there is no factual evidence to support the idea other than Hindu and Buddhist theology, though I think I have detected its workings in astrology.'
'I believe in karma also' she said, her hands moving to his legs that wrap around her, running up to his thighs.
'Then how can we incur it or discharge it if everything happens simultaneously? Right now, somewhere in time, Joan of Arc is burning at the stake? Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo?'
'Yes.'
'And you and I are having this conversation about the deep mysteries of the cosmos.'
'Yes. And when we leave from this present and move into another, our karmic tendencies shall follow.'
'But if we follow this idea to its logical extent, I am torturing you at this very moment in a medieval dungeon.' He mused to her, still thinking about the feel of the leather in his hands and her nude body stretched before him.
'No,' she shook her head lightly, 'we cannot be both here and there at the same time. When I cease to exist now, its possible that I can return to a time back then, a time where I might encounter you once again should you choose to return there as well. And we may choose a time, a period in which we return, but we cannot choose a body or life we which to inhabit.' She grins, 'that�s where karma plays its games.'
'OK, that clarifies it somewhat and I won't dispute the possibility, only say that it is hard for me to accept.'
She laughed softly, her hands beginning their journey again, 'of course it is hard for you to accept, you remember your reluctance to accept back then, and part of you remembers what your punishment would be had you chosen to accept it.'
'Certainly, fear is powerful motivation. Not to mention the loss of status and position. Very important in those times when people rarely made a comeback after falling from grace.' He nuzzled her neck, nipping at it, his hands moving higher to feel the growing heat between her legs.
'And in those times, it was also the threat of religious implications that would probably cause your fear of what you saw in my eyes.'
'Sure, fear of hell; fear that you had supernatural powers. There was a poem once called Inquisition in which the clerical torturers felt desire for their victim and blamed it on her and her witchcraft.' His hands began working at the button and then zipper of her pants, losing interest in their conversation for the moment, his fingers finding her silky soft flesh and the moist cleft between her legs.
She moaned softly, 'And its what you did to me when some of those memories returned to your thoughts...� Her voice trailed off, her head turning. Her eyes gazed into his, sparking that memory again just before her lips joined his. His finger caressing her sensitive spot before turning her in his arms. His hands pulling her jeans lower, their lips never parting, their tongues entwined.
Pulling his jacket from his shoulders, he laid back on it. Her kisses traveled down his bare chest behind her fingers that undid his buttons. Soon he was free of his pants, his swollen member in her mouth. Her tongue lavished it with affection, her lips moving up and down its length as he thrust it gently into her mouth. The feel of her teeth on his tender flesh made him moan louder. His hands twisted around her hair, guiding his shaft deeper into her mouth. She took all of him she could, her sex rubbing against his knee, growing wetter by the moment.
He took her hands from his member, gently tugging her mouth back to his. As his tongue slipped into her mouth, his rock hard shaft filled her slowly. He made sure she felt every inch as he moved so painfully slow. With each inch that passed, he felt her grip tightening around him, around his member, and around his mind. His thoughts filled with visions again of a medieval chamber, and her eyes staring up at him from the woman stretched on his rack. She began to move faster on him. Riding him up and down. Faster and faster. Then just as suddenly she would slow. His body lost to her touch, his mind lost in her spell.
He picked up the lash. The long black robe he wore hid his throbbing shaft. How he wanted to take this witch. To thrust his rod deep into her, but he feared the devil in her eyes that called into his head. He began to whip her; the fiery welts would tame the devil in her. He watched as the blood ran from her body. But still those eyes.
Their moans grew louder together. He grabbed her in his arms, flipping her over on her back, he thrust into her deeply, hard and fast. In his mind he heard the screams of the woman on the rack, his lash falling harder with each strike. His climax building, he pounded into her, unable to control his feral passions. Her arms around him, her nails digging into his back, holding on. He was aware of her scratches, but it was the bloody mark she left on his cheek that he felt.
One final stroke of the lash, a hard strike across her breasts flaying her flesh, and then he caught her eyes just before she lost consciousness.
He looked down into her eyes; his final thrust filling her with his seed, claiming the witch he coveted so long ago. 'Oh god' he cried out loudly, collasping on top of her.
�darkest angell