The 19^th Path: Lust

"But to love me is better than all things,

For one kiss, wilt thou then be willing to give all…"

The Book of the Law 1:61

It was a beautiful day to be beautiful, a beautiful day to feel beautiful and Sue, quite unaware, shone brightly across the whole spectrum of human perception. She barely noticed the crowd milling and jostling around her as she flitted from shop to shop, speculatively eyeing the drop-dead dresses and skimpy lingerie outfits her husband so enjoyed peeling from her girlish body.

A few startled souls turned and stared, suddenly dazzled by a bright light at the edge of vision; but when they turned and looked, there was only Sue. Most shook their heads, puzzled, and moved on, but many of the men paused for a moment, running hungry eyes over her svelte figure.

Sue was excited. For the first time since she and Bill were married, there was hope, real hope. For years they had longed for a child, and the dream now seemed on the verge of fulfillment. How she ached for the touch and feel of a baby of her own, for the tender joys of nurturing a tiny precious life. For a decade, this hole in their life together had been the only blot on their happiness, and now at last, the impossible might really happen.

She was frightened of her own welling happiness though, terrified of yet another disappointment. At thirty-eight she knew she was traversing the final period of biological possibility; that if they were not successful this time then they would have to adopt, and Bill was stubbornly reluctant to even talk about that.

She glimpsed her reflection in the shop window and smiled confidently, pleased at the slender, and yes, dammit, the sexy blonde figure that smiled back at her. She still wore clothes designed for women fifteen years younger, and turned heads wherever she went.

She enjoyed her power over men in a lighthearted sort of way, but judged most of them to be weak, guided more by their balls than their brains - except Bill, of course. When he entered her life she’d just about given up on ever finding a man who could match her mind (or her libido, she giggled). She’d tried other women for a while, and enjoyed the experience. But she was soon bored again, seeking a soul mate. That was over now. She had a wonderful husband, an affluent lifestyle, and the culmination of her dreams formed a bright, imminent vision at the core of her soul.

She peered through the window of a jewelry store at an exquisite diamond necklace, and for a moment pictured herself wearing nothing else, relishing the kiss of priceless carbon-ice against her skin. She sighed deeply. They were well off, but not that well off.

Another reflection appeared in the window. Sue gasped suddenly as chill shards of violation penetrated her head. A tall, bald-headed man with unfathomable eyes of naked darkness stared at her from the glass with such intensity that her stomach lurched. His image stood out in bright contrast to the vague wash of humanity fleeting across the reflective surface, burning its way into her brain like a solitary star in the corpse of the heavens.

She sensed a barrier in her mind disintegrating under the caress of irresistible, corrosive force that she instinctively feared, but could not identify. Her defenses collapsed, and a cold sea of strange thoughts overwhelmed her. Without further warning or prelude, she sank into a rich, dark cloud of unreasoning and overwhelming eroticism that shrieked its lust from every neuron. Surging currents of sensual energy crackled through every channel in her body. In shock and disbelief, she turned sharply to face the stranger. He made no move as Sue stared at him in utter bewilderment.

Neither young nor handsome, he was tall and lithely muscled, dressed all in black with a hooked nose and the shaved head of an ascetic. He smiled coldly, beckoned her to his side. Helpless, overcome with irrational desire, Sue followed him directly into a waiting taxi. The door slammed shut.

Despite the brilliance of the afternoon sun, the interior of the vehicle was dark, suffused with a cloud of insubstantial vapor that veiled the stranger’s face. His eyes glittered brightly through the unnatural shifting umbra, penetrating Sue’s mind with shapes and suggestions for which she had no words. Her blinded spirit responded only with indescribably intense longing. All other thoughts and feelings died as they arose, strangled at their moment of inception.

A tiny, desperate voice rose in her, railing against the irresistible rhythms of her surging erotic anticipation, begging her to resist. Then that too was washed away in a tide of mental darkness. On trembling unsteady legs, she grasped the stranger’s arm and clambered out of the taxi onto the streets of a seedy and dilapidated precinct.

She stumbled, leaned heavily on the stranger, thrilling at the taught hardness of his flesh. Together they moved to the entrance of a shabby hotel. A few care-worn, bawdily painted whores haunted the pavement aimlessly: despised and discarded jetsam of the city’s tawdry nighttime. They stared at Sue curiously: expensive girls like her didn’t usually ply their trade in this place - Park Lane maybe, but not here.

‘Going down in the world are we…?’ one of them taunted her through a mottled mask of stale, cracked makeup. Her companions laughed raucously.

‘Looks like he’ll get his money’s worth deary…enjoys them stuck up does he…?’ another shouted, cackling loudly at her own immense wit. The stranger ignored them. Sue barely heard them. Her legs trembled violently. The stranger’s grip kept her steady as she stumbled yet again. He roughly pushed and half carried her up two flights of stairs before reaching the entrance of an anonymous room. She shivered at the rasping sounds of his labored breath, tingled at the probing of his eager hands as they surveyed her pliant body.

Supporting his helpless captive by her waist with one arm, the stranger open the rickety door and threw Sue onto the unmade bed. She gagged on the cold odors of smoke and stale urine that rose from the stained sheets. Her skirt rode up around her thighs, but Sue was beyond modesty. The curtains were closed, and in the half-light she saw the room was a tiny space containing little more than the tousled, sweat-sour bed, a chair, and a small sink. Some imprisoned part of her watched in sickened fascination as she sat up eagerly and reached for the stranger’s crotch, lightly running her fingertips over his hardness before unzipping him and teasing him with eager lips.

He moved over her silently, running cold hands over her breasts and abdomen, tugging roughly at her dress and underclothes, exposing her silky heated skin, driving her into a delirium of sexual passion with the silent commands of his mind and with his body of rippling muscle and adamant.

Sue’s whole being tingled, responding eagerly to endless spinning visions of orgiastic penetration and unspeakable pleasure as she offered herself again and again, begging the stranger, her stranger, to take her, to pleasure himself as he would. A monolithic sea of spectral naked figures whirled around her, writhing, thrusting, screaming, without thought or restraint. Pleasure was all, and all was pleasure without shame or restriction. The stranger did not tire.

As she plummeted into her fourth orgasm, consciousness slipped away and Sue plunged into comatose darkness. A small voice wailed within her, protesting violation. Then that too died.