Circle of Stones
© 2004 by A.
L. Nathan
The grass crunched beneath
her worn out Japanese sandals. It was near dusk, and this was when pain
wrought questions inside her head.
Why wasn't this enough?
It should be enough. This
was what she had longed for: peace, solitude and a garden of her own.
The waves crashed, a sound
no longer out of a conch shell but moving through the air to her sensitive
ears. It reminded her that her whole life had been geared towards this
island retreat she had worked so hard for. Twenty years of giving 150%
of herself in her work - the best arbitration lawyer in the business, and
for what? Twenty years of diligent work and penny saving for this moment
and all she cradled was emptiness.
Her hair remained black thanks
to modern hair care. The fine lines of her face were barely discernible
thanks to the wonders of cosmetic technology. But when she stared at her
eyes in the mirror, they were empty. Soulless, like the people of her acquaintance
she had disdained in private. Many years, she had nurtured the smug certainty
that beneath it all she was different. The mirror told her something
else.
She walked to the steps that
led down to the beach and watched the jewel-like colors of an equatorial
sunset, soon fading as dusk gave way to night. There had to be more . .
. there just had to be! Where was the much anticipated soul completion
once she had claimed this reclusive sanctuary? All her life she had worked
towards this. A time when she need not talk to anyone for days if she did
not want to. A lifetime of legalese had fueled that need.
She sat and watched the tide.
A lone jogger moved barefoot across the wet sand and was soon gone. His
presence was a visual routine she had grown used to in the months since
her early retirement. She watched his back grow smaller and smaller against
the vastness of the sands and the darkening of the skies. When she jogged
in the mornings and evenings their paths would often cross and she would
grunt in acknowledgement to his polite hellos. She never looked him in
the face and suspected it was the same for him. It was a compact between
people who respected their privacy, a jogger's truncated conversation as
they made their winding tracks along the shore in opposite directions.
It was getting cold now.
The chill made pebbles on her dusky skin while the fine hairs at her nape
and forearms stood up. Hugging her arms around her body, she reminded herself
that it was getting late. She walked quick even steps to the staircase
that led up the cliff to the white bungalow that was home. It was just
the chill and the lateness of the hour playing on her imagination, she
murmured, half-aloud.
Self-enforced solitude had
turned her into someone who frequently talked aloud to herself. She stepped
into her home, trying to recognize the unease that traveled up and down
her spin and over her skin.
***
Hours later, she awoke with
a start and with a pounding heart. Jumping out of her bed, she grabbed
a favorite windbreaker --- a constant from lonely, terrible undergraduate
years to the early morning jogs of the present. She left the room and unlocked
the door of her house. She peered at her moonlit garden of white hibiscuses,
ferns and other herbs. Her eyes looked at the circle of white stones she
had impulsively arranged at the east corner of her garden, bordered by
rare purple chrysanthemums.
They glowed in the moonlight,
but it seemed to be more than light which reflected off their smooth surface.The
stones glimmered with something from within. Her heart pounding with fear
and excitement, she padded in bare feet down the crazy-paved walk to that
corner she had created beyond any logical impetus. She unbraided her long,
dyed hair, letting the wind whip it around her face. She dropped the windbreaker,
her faded faculty t-shirt, the striped cut-off pajamas. Mother naked, she
entered the circle and squatted.
Her hands moved over the
chrysanthemums, grown lush despite the unbeneficial salt air of the coast.
She deftly plucked them, one by one, weaving them into her hair, making
circlets for her arms. Was this madness? The rational corner of her brain
told her yes, this was so, while the bookworm in her remembered that sad
Man of La Mancha. She let her hands roam over her middle-aged but taut
form and wondered what it was that she felt. As always, she was an observer
of even her own self.
Then she heard it coming,
a sullen distant roar that started off from uncharted distances within
her self, whirling deep within her womb. It was a roar that then spread
from her midriff to her diaphragm, then her lungs. From her throat, it
was birthed as a full-throated primal wail of anger, pain and rising passion
which had been her shackle for more than two decades.
The roaming of her hands
grew frenzied and uncontrolled as she discovered, basked and throbbed with
her self, wetting her fingers with secreted desire. None of the men in
her half a dozen half-hearted relationships, none of the two women she
had dallied with, had been able to satisfy this deep emptiness and hunger
in her. None of them had approached her with more than the polite, lukewarm
groping and prodding that substituted passion amongst the educated people
of her clique.
This was the core, she told
herself later as she sprawled within the circle, staring at the full moon.
This was the center of her being; this was what she had looked for. This
was the only way she could satisfy her need. Then, she saw another.
He moved away from the wall, naked, and with her precious chrysanthemums
in his hair, eyes gleaming with the same wild light that she knew emanated
from hers.
Instinct taking over, she
sprang away from the stone circle and started to run towards the safety
of her bungalow. A powerful arm hooked around her waist and drew her towards
a hard midriff and the erect heat that poked against her back. His hand
smoothed against her hair, a tentative gesture that seemed like a question.
A nose breathed in her scent, tickling the nape of her neck. Scream,
she told herself. Move; kick him where it hurts most. But fear had left
her, strangely enough. Still, she remained rigid, with indecision.
His body started to withdraw
from hers, and she heard an exhalation of something that sounded like remorse.
She half heard a stammering apology before she reacted, grabbing his hands
and pulling him back towards her. A reflex action, she justified herself,
making a sound of approval as he embraced her and started fondling. She
moved one of his palms over her attention-hungry breasts.
The roaming hands went over
the territory she had recently covered. They unlaced the curtain of flowers
she had just recently woven over her pubic hair, in addled remembrance
of Lady Chatterley and Mellors.Fingers dipped past the springy curls to
reach the inner petals, then deeper still, poking into the core of that
primal, liquid roar, feeling those inner muscles pull at his digits as
he brought her fantasy to life.
It was a dream; it must be
a dream, she reflected as weakness caused her legs to give way. She collapsed
against the warm wall that seemed to be surrounding her universe. This
stranger was striding through doors she had newly unlocked, conquering
the earth she had primed with unprecedented presumption. Her mind churned
out resentful thoughts but her hands clutched at the strong arms around
her. He twisted her around, a shadow against the glittering stars, a warm
mouth claiming her breath, a neck around which she wrapped her arms, pressing
heated breasts against his chest, heaved with shudders and a heart beating
too fast.
The roaring that made its
way from inside her moved outward, filling her ears and spinning her out
of her rational self. It brought her into a universe of chaos and intellect-robbing
euphoria, her arms and legs hooking around this unknown upstart conqueror
as he rammed into a stronghold newly renovated, lifting her up and onto
his waiting, erect cock. The meeting of their bodies caused him to utter
a sound of longing.She gasped and wriggled on him as he filled her emptiness,
filled her until there didn't seem to be any space left, or air either.
He then walked both of them back to the circle of stones with a stride
that lodged him deeper into her need. She groaned, and he made a grunting
sound as he dropped to his knees:half-falling, arms secured around her.
Once there, he placed her
against the springy grass and serviced her with long, measured strokes,
his inarticulate moans and grunts becoming the only sound she heard over
the roaring of her blood. She tried to master enough coherence to ask him
his name. She gasped and shook with the impact of his maleness inside her,
and begged him in a high voice to make it harder, no, to stop, no, to tell
her his name. She cursed his trespasses then begged him to love her, to
never stop.
Through it all, he answered
her only with his guttural onomatopoeia, driving into her again and again
until all words were pushed out of her too. Their coitus drove her deeper
into the grass, making imprints that would last long after the sun rose,
releasing the scent of loam, making her feel that he was going to fuck
her straight into the ground until she was buried in earth and him. A moment
later she sobbed in release. He dropped against her and kissed her tear-stained
cheeks and smoothed his fingers over her hair. Clumsy arms moved her trembling
form closer against him.
***
She awoke at dawn, finding
chrysanthemums strewn around and across her naked form. She was lying atop
crumpled once-white bed sheets.
Her window was wide open
and she could taste dew in the air.
Raising herself painfully
she looked down at her body, streaked with grass stains and loam. Earth
streaked the bed sheets two and two windbreakers lay at the foot of her
bed.
She had vague recollections
of him placing her on her stomach and driving into her from behind as his
hands pulled at her nipples. They had fucked each other more than twice,
that much she remembered. Heat plunged her loins into milky remembrance,
but her morning self questioned sanity. Was it a dream? Had she finally
driven herself over the edge? It couldn't be real. It was too crazy to
be real and she half hoped it wasn't.
She couldn't have pleasured
herself in the moonlight in front of a stranger, who couldn't have walked
into her precious circle of stones to take her. She couldn't have been
the one begging him to fuck her, again and again, deeper and harder. But
her heart ached that it might not have really happened, that it was some
sort of advanced somnambulism. She ached at the thought of never tasting
his sweat again.
The smell of coffee, thick
and inviting made its way from the opened door of her bedroom. Footsteps
approached. Eyes widened, hands clenched on earth-stained bed sheets. He
entered the room.
A.
L. Nathan is a postgraduate student and a writer. She is also the editor
of the independent e-zine Alchemica
Erotica. She describes herself as “probably the most prudish erotica
writer in existence” and spends most of her time burrowing in geek-like
activities, books and various creative projects.
