Grungy goodness
http://rpaulsardanas.com/eros.html
FROM THE INTRODUCTION...
"Spirituality and sexuality are long overdue for a re-connection. Somehow in
modern life those two great sources of passion have fallen into conflict. There
was a time when respect for the Sacred Feminine was a way of life. Down
through history, even patriarchal cultures like that of ancient Rome had a
place for the concept of Bona Dea—the Good Goddess—a figure suffused
with life, and linked with the pleasures of sexuality. Before that, in the
Egyptian personifications of Isis and Osiris, sex was celebrated as an
experience leading to resurrection and the soul’s immortality.
Contrast that to today, where demonized sex is presented over and over in
terms of negativity: lust is a vice, nudity shameful…the hungers of the body
considered to be violent things, to be tamed in the name of decency. Needless
to say, we don’t agree with that vision of passion.
Throughout our separate careers in the arts, we have championed the beauty
of sexual feelings. The glory of the flesh when set alight with fires of the soul.
In this book we explore that, shaping a journey that moves from loneliness
and isolation to the reclamation of sexual power, to the tempering and
humanizing of that power. The lovers we portray are framed in both darkness
and light—ultimately, we hope, finding balance.
That we chose a woman for the embodiment of that journey is done in full
awareness that our perceptions as men will be tested—carried far into waters
that echo the ocean-deep strength of the Sacred Feminine. And if the images
burn brightly enough to even partly illuminate those waters, then so too can
we join our lovers in journeys of transcendence; incandescent in our desires
and their fulfillment; crowned with fiery halos; finding heaven, in each other’s
arms."
"Spirituality and sexuality are long overdue for a re-connection. Somehow in
modern life those two great sources of passion have fallen into conflict. There
was a time when respect for the Sacred Feminine was a way of life. Down
through history, even patriarchal cultures like that of ancient Rome had a
place for the concept of Bona Dea—the Good Goddess—a figure suffused
with life, and linked with the pleasures of sexuality. Before that, in the
Egyptian personifications of Isis and Osiris, sex was celebrated as an
experience leading to resurrection and the soul’s immortality.
Contrast that to today, where demonized sex is presented over and over in
terms of negativity: lust is a vice, nudity shameful…the hungers of the body
considered to be violent things, to be tamed in the name of decency. Needless
to say, we don’t agree with that vision of passion.
Throughout our separate careers in the arts, we have championed the beauty
of sexual feelings. The glory of the flesh when set alight with fires of the soul.
In this book we explore that, shaping a journey that moves from loneliness
and isolation to the reclamation of sexual power, to the tempering and
humanizing of that power. The lovers we portray are framed in both darkness
and light—ultimately, we hope, finding balance.
That we chose a woman for the embodiment of that journey is done in full
awareness that our perceptions as men will be tested—carried far into waters
that echo the ocean-deep strength of the Sacred Feminine. And if the images
burn brightly enough to even partly illuminate those waters, then so too can
we join our lovers in journeys of transcendence; incandescent in our desires
and their fulfillment; crowned with fiery halos; finding heaven, in each other’s
arms."
Eros - The Divinity of Passion
20 new poems by R. Paul Sardanas, 20 full color plates by H. Samarel
Now available from Passion in Print Press
____________________________
The Order of the Golden Rose
Paul R. Sardanas
A Siobhan Bishop Erotic Underworld Novel
In a stunning tale set against the rich urban landscape of modern-day Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, occult book authority Siobhan Bishop uncovers a century-old secret society of sexual mystics. A rare edition detailing the dark sensual practices within the Order of the Golden Rose has surfaced. On her quest for answers, Siobhan encounters charismatic Harvard professor Richard Blake, and passion ignites, plunging Siobhan into Richard’s circle of hidden knowledge and transcendent eroticism. But does love stand a chance amidst the twisted obsessions of Richard’s scorned lover, Olivia Dorian? Having tasted the sexually charged magic of the Order of the Golden Rose, Olivia will not be satisfied until she possesses all of the perilous knowledge of the erotic mystics, no matter who is destroyed in the process.
_______________________________________________________________________
The following is an excerpt from "The Order of the Golden Rose" by R. Paul Sardanas, now available from
Passion in Print Press.
Prologue
Richard looked long and hard at her; a naked woman cradling a rare book in her hand was a sight to stimulate more than one level of emotion. If she felt the intensity of his gaze, she didn’t show it. The slight curl to her lips might have been amusement, might have been interest. Then her tongue appeared briefly; she lifted a fingertip to her newly-moistened lips, used the finger to turn a page.
“The rose is the gateway, its measure rolls fire toward the horizon, ringing the world, closing the circle.”
She had the voice of a natural orator, just the right amount of inflection to actually make the words feel as if they prompted the air to ripple. What reader of spells, he thought, though with her it seemed impossible to judge whether she truly felt the words, or simply recited them beautifully. Surprising that she’d had such an undistinguished career as an actor when she’d been young. Of course her formidable mind hadn’t even considered that a setback. Going in a heartbeat from acting to producing, her plays in the Theatre District were always hits. As the principal owner of the Promethean Theater, she had the reputation of managing one of the most cutting-edge stages on the East Coast. She probably had more money than he and all of his Harvard colleagues combined.
Richard undid his tie, then slipped out of his white dress shirt. He’d always been a modest man, but had his share of quiet pride in the fact that at forty he remained trim and strong. Those male professorial colleagues for the most part had only the charisma of their intellects rather than their bodies. But, he mused, perhaps his looks were no blessing. The men and women he worked with mostly had loving partners…they had kindness and caring in their lives. He had this. Women like Olivia Dorian. Attracted by magnetism rather than emotional depth.
They had met a few months ago, when the Dean of Students had been called out of town unexpectedly, gifting him with tickets to the opening of a modern reworking of I, Pagliacci at the Promethean Theater. The play was still running, showing no signs of slowing in popularity. Sex, betrayal, murder…he smiled. Right up Olivia’s alley. During the intermission he had noticed her standing with the writer and director, surrounded by smiling critics and other well wishers. She’d been a little behind them, just as she was the mover behind the production itself; most of the compliments circling around the group had been for the actors, for the creators. She’d seemed lost in thought. A former actor rendered invisible, though of course he hadn’t known all that at the time. He’d always gravitated to people just outside of the spotlight; he introduced himself, leading to an unexpectedly stimulating conversation before the curtain went up for the second act.
“Powerful characters,” he’d said of the play. “So many masks, the play within the play.”
“Yes,” she’d answered, looking at him with growing interest. “I enjoy the dual nature of them all too. Or rather the triple nature. Actors portraying actors, who in turn portray characters that echo their own lives. And I confess, I always get a rush when Pagliacci murders Colombina. I played that same role once, long ago.”
“Did you? An actor yourself?”
“For a little while. I got pigeonholed. Tragic heroines. Colombina, Desdemona, Ophelia, Juliet.”
“Dying over and over again. That must have been uncomfortable.”
“Quite the contrary. Dying is sexy. You think women would swoon over Romeo if he’d lived?”
She had actually invited him to dinner after the show, rather than the other way around. And over wine and talking about the hidden sexuality in the tensions of life and death and theater, the talk had turned to mysticism.
Point of no return, he thought now.
Fascinating woman that she was, Richard immediately felt the mixed sensations that always seemed to surround him since he and Olivia had become lovers. Sex, particularly sex elevated to a mystical experience, should be a step in bonding, should bring them closer each time to a union that was far beyond a fuck. But even as the sight of her and the sound of her voice caused his cock to harden and his breath to come short, he felt a conflicting desire to tell her to get dressed; send her away, tell her this was pointless.
Yes, you speak so beautifully, Olivia. Only there’s one word that is hard to imagine ever coming from your mouth. Love.
Richard finally stood naked too, the bedroom of his Massachusetts Avenue apartment filled with the purple light that came with twilight’s deepening. They had eaten an early dinner in one of the classy downtown bistros that she enjoyed, then they’d come to his place just as the sun had begun to set.
“Olivia, I think we should talk,” he said.
She raised the finger she had used to turn the book page to her mouth again, letting it linger there between her lips for the space of a long breath. Then she lowered her hand, stepped forward, and caressed his cock with her dampened finger.
“You always want to talk,” she said. “People talk at me all day long.”
“Well, I’m not one of your stage managers or actors,” he persisted, refraining from touching her in return; instead he reached out and gently nudged the still-open book. “Maybe you don’t take this seriously, but I do.”
Her eyebrows went up slightly, and the curl of her lip ceased to be ambiguous; this time she did smile.
“I take it perfectly seriously,” she said. “Haven’t I shown how proficient I can be?”
She set the book aside, placing it on the edge of his nearby desk. She knelt down in front of him, smiling again, then extending the tip of her tongue so that it just brushed the head of his cock. He shuddered, half-involuntarily. Electric, she was electric. She inscribed her tongue-tip in a perfect circle around him, raising her hands at the same time to caress her own small breasts. For a moment she stopped, still kneeling, and looked up at him.
“We open the first gate, where the thick river flows, and the air sighs,” she said.
He put his hands against the side of her head. Her blonde hair had been arranged with care into a professionally perfect coif. He pictured her as she must be during the day: sitting in her office, talking to one person after another, making calls, using that exquisitely modulated voice…knowledgeable, decisive. Filled with perception and drive. He strongly suspected that nobody messed with Olivia more than once. He knew she was similar in age to him, but she didn’t look it. Not a single worry line, or laugh line, for that matter, on her face.
. He looked at that face, between his palms. He’d never known a more intelligent woman. Why did it seem so impossible to move her to the beauty of the sharing in what they were doing together? Looking at her, he felt the hopeless desire to try, one more time.
“Warmth, Olivia. Mystical lovers inspire warmth, and life.”
She raised her own hands and pushed his away.
“The sun sets,” she chanted, “and we see the bronze doorposts which open one way only. Their outlines are jagged and hover on perception’s edge. Venom runs hot, and pain rips along the opening of a cut.”
She moved one of her hands to curl around the edge of his thigh, then scratched him there with a nail. Again he put his hands against the side of her head.
“Do you feel any affection for me at all?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” she sounded impatient. “You’re quite brilliant. I admire that a great deal.”
“You don’t see any problem between the question I’m asking and the answer you’re giving?”
“Fuck that,” she said, and when her eyes raised again to look at him they were clouded by an immense rush of lust. “The second gate opens in sudden, crystalline clarity.”
Waste, this is just a waste, he thought, but he used his hands to pull her head toward him. Her mouth opened with an intensity of greed that shocked but inflamed him; she took him deep in her mouth, holding him there against the back of her throat until he half-thought she must be choking, suffocating. But then finally she ran her lips back along his shaft with infinite slowness.
Unable to resist any more, he reached around the back of her head and tangled his fingers in her hair. She responded, sucking him with an almost elemental ferocity, until he gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.
The gateway, yes, all of this was a key, but what she wanted when they passed the gate remained an absolute mystery to him. He had asked her before of course, and she had just been as maddeningly obscure and evasive as ever.
“I’ve had my fill of la petit mort,” she’d said. “Grand deaths, or nothing.”
He tried. He calmed her slightly, slowing the motion of her fellatio, touching the side of her face this time with conspicuous, intentional gentleness. He said the next words:
“Four, five and six are ruby, emerald and diamond…”
But there was no chamber inside her with anything like love. Fuck, fuck fuck was all. All right then, that’s the way it is. Time to retreat from the point of no return, if such a thing was possible. His only consolation in the moment was that he’d only taken her so far, not fully into the circle that embodied the knowledge that they were experiencing now, from book and from screw, from half-wisdom and barren reach for bonding.
He pulled her away from him by her hair, the smile she gave him this time positively feral. Continuing to pull her hair, he got her into a standing position, then lifted her under the armpits and sat her on the desk. She managed to take an instant to shove the rare, irreplaceable book she had been reading from where it had been resting on the desk onto the floor. Then she leaned back and opened her legs wide. He plunged in his tongue, drawing the circle there as she had done on his cock; circle of life, it was supposed to be. He moved his mouth to taste the lips of her vagina, then used the Serpent’s Kiss against her clitoris, darting in, touching, retreating, darting in again. She stayed silent, not a single moan. A woman of infinite control.
She used her nails again, once again choosing a spot that wouldn’t show when he was clothed. The side of his torso near his heart – she made the spiral there, breaking his skin and marking with a tracery of blood the sign of Ouroboros, answer to the Serpent’s Kiss: the snake with its tail in its mouth.
You know it all so well, he thought. But it won’t be enough for you, will it? It never is.
She let him continue, moving her hips in time with the strokes of his tongue. He felt sure she was close to an orgasm, and many was the time he had coaxed her to climax after climax, but this time as her muscles began to contract with the beginning of her first, she pushed him away with a foot against his chest.
She narrowed her eyes at him. She knew. Of course she did. After tonight he was never going to make love with her again. Precisely for that reason: it wasn’t making love. He had a flash of thought that she should be angry at the knowledge. But she just arranged her lips into that cool smile again. She sat up, leaning over to return his cock to her mouth, but only for a moment before retreating and inclining her mouth upward to kiss his, giving him a taste of his own musky heat. She slipped off the desk. Such a small woman, it became so easy to forget that, as she became such an insatiable force in her passion. But her mind was always working. She took up the next ritual position perfectly, placing one of her feet on top of his while putting one of her arms around his back and the other on his shoulder. She bent the knee of her other leg for him to take hold of. Small, yes, easy to lift; he raised her up and she curled her legs around his ass, then he lowered her on to his cock, impaling her as if on a spike. He held her there, hands under her buttocks.
She buried her face against the side of his neck and he fully expected to feel the sudden, shocking pain of a bite. Vampire: that would suit her. But all he felt was her breath, even and steady. To continue climbing the tantric ladder would require both of them to pierce the veils and mists of simple lust and begin to gather energies in the mind and in the body. Almost he began that; the envisioning of the goddess in her, and the summoning of the god into his own body. Then the tracing of pathways of light in patterns from her eyes to his flesh, from his hands to the fiery center of her sex. Climbing toward an orgasm that would flood the mind with light and leave him gasping and transformed.
Instead, she pressed her feet against the back of his knees and lifted herself off him.
Only grand deaths, no more little ones.
“Animals tonight, Professor Blake,” she said. She turned away from him and got down on her hands and knees. She put one out-thrust hand right on the book she had shoved to the floor, covering the words there. Symbolic enough. That, and the reversion to his academic identity, took them in an instant fully from being intimates. No longer magical lovers, just an angry man and woman having sex for the last time. So, he thought, she’s decided on her own response to the rejection she’s sensed in him. She’d turned her face away, but still wanted satisfaction. He could have her from behind, leaving any rapture that might enter into her own eyes unseen by him. She arched her head back slightly, inviting him to take hold of the hair that was now plastered by sweat against the back of her neck. The Lioness. A position of supposed submission, which he was astute enough to be aware represented exactly the opposite.
Yes, animals. This is how the fallen fuck when they have ceased to climb toward heaven. He slipped the length of his cock into her, feeling a primitive satisfaction in the degree to which he filled her. This time he fancied the smallest moan escaped from her. It surprised him. This is what really gave her pleasure, then? The moment before an ending, with nothing but mutual dismissal left in it? He did grab hold of her hair, and so in that moment he became the primal man, screwing Lilith in the final hour before she turned her back and walked out of Paradise. He pounded hard at her, until the pearl of heat that had begun to take root in his groin began to spread outward. Once again he gritted his teeth; his body convulsed in a pleasure that felt closer to pain. If she had an orgasm of her own she didn’t cry out. Again, the faint moan, then she shook her hair free of his gripping hand. As he let his cock slide out of her she moved in a casual fashion until she was kneeling upright, then in a smooth motion she stood, still keeping her back to him. She went right for her clothes, where she had left them draped over the back of his desk chair.
His legs felt weak. He wanted to stand too, to be on equal footing with her. But he felt so drained he couldn’t bring himself to rise. She was speaking, and it took him a moment to realize the words were the last of the chant.
“A golden-eyed panther, cut from uncast shadow, will leap and lay open the last of flesh.”
“Olivia…”
He didn’t know what to say to her. For all his embrace of the mystical, he had never been a believer in demons. People were just people under it all. There wasn’t any devil. But as she turned, favoring him again with her icy smile, he began to wonder.
“It’s been fun,” she said. “I really wish you’d introduced me to the rest of your friends. They might have more to offer. In fact, I’m sure of it.”
“What are you talking about, Olivia?”
She had put her dress back on. She slipped on her high heels, then crouched to fasten the straps.
“Why nothing, darling. Why don’t you take a little nap? They call sleep the little death too.”
He shook his head. He blinked, raised a hand to brush the sweat from his eyes. When he opened them fully again she had her coat over her arm. He finally did stand, but made no move to accompany her as she walked to the door of his apartment. Thank heaven he had never given her a key. When she made her exit without another word, he took distinct pleasure in flipping the latch of the lock.
It wasn’t until he came back to his desk and looked with alarm at the empty floor, that he realized she had taken the book.
to be continued....
R. Paul Sardanas is the author of thirteen books of poetry and prose, including the five volume poetic cycle The Empyrean, illustrated with his own oil paintings. He is a seven-time nominee for the Rhysling Award, which recognizes the best speculative poetry of the year. His historical works include the books Mythology and Dark of the Sun, which explore Greek and Roman society, myth and culture. His erotic writings have appeared in an extensive Samarel Artcore Fantasy online collection, and his poem Succubus was displayed alongside the work of award-winning photographer Lochai at the Miami World Erotic Museum's 2008 exhibition. He is the editor of the online and printed philanthropic anthology Nox: Dark Poets Against Abuse, which benefits women and children seeking safe haven from environments of domestic violence.
The Blood Jaguar
The second book of the Siobhan Bishop Erotic Underworld series ushers the occult book expert into the feverish world of a vampire subculture thriving on the Gulf Coast of Florida. A package from Miranda Thomas, a childhood friend of Siobhan’s, arrives at her bookstore and inside is a priceless 500 year-old manuscript detailing the passionate and bloody history and rituals of Mexican Aztec magic. Siobhan and her lover—Harvard Professor and fellow mystic Richard Blake—travel to Florida to pursue the mystery surrounding Miranda, and are soon plunged into an environment where popular vampire-lore is turned on its head. The Aztec-inspired vampires of the Gulf of Mexico love the sun and are anything but undead. They run a fabulously successful private resort where the rich and famous journey in secret to experience the intense raptures of sun-vampire sex. Siobhan, attempting to free her old friend from a dangerous affair with the head of the cult, the hypnotic Don Cipriano Rodriguez, instead finds herself trapped where ecstasy flows like hot blood.
The following is an excerpt from "The Blood Jaguar", by R. Paul Sardanas,
available from Passion in Print Press.
Prologue
The package in her hands was death, sex, money, and blood from under an ancient sun. Miranda clutched it against her chest as she hurried through the predawn dark to the trailer park’s only public mailbox. The air, thick with the suffocating heat and humidity of late July in Central Florida, caused her to sweat uncontrollably. Nothing new. She often swore that she hadn’t stopped sweating since she’d first arrived in Florida, how many years ago now? Seventeen. Of course, seventeen, since Esther had only been a year old.
“No fucking snow, at least, huh Mom?” That was what Esther always said, child of the sunlight, never truly knowing winter.
Miranda let her blonde hair grow long because Cipriano liked it that way, but even in a ponytail the lank, damp weight of it sometimes made her want to scream. Where it rested against her back: sweat. Where strands escaped and trailed across her forehead and cheek: sweat.
But enough, enough of that. Cipriano loved the heat. He breathed it in and it rode through his bloodstream like a fever, filling him with energy, life and strength. The Jaguar.
Blessed Mother, a glorious jaguar. And I belong to him.
Thinking about Cipriano made her resolve start to melt away. Her grip twisted tight around the package. She looked at it, wrapped in brown paper and covered with every stamp she’d been able to find in the mobile home, half of them not sticking properly after sitting in her desk drawer for months in ninety percent humidity. But there was no way she could bring it to the Post Office and get it weighed, get it properly stamped, get delivery confirmation. No way. Cipriano wouldn’t kill her if he found out, but his wife might. Not might: would.
The path from her trailer up to the front of the mobile home park, paved with crushed shells, seemed to jab like a living thing up through the soles of her sandals. Even the ground attempting to hurt her, to keep her from going forward.
When she’d gotten to the trailer there had been no lights or sounds from inside. Stillness, except for mosquitoes buzzing sluggishly around standing water in the empty flower pots. All around the trailer hung an overall smell of tin and mildew. She’d expected that, but in a little corner of her heart she’d nursed a faint hope that Esther might really be there. Though she’d really used coming to look for her daughter as an excuse to get away for a few hours, hope died hard, and she’d been schooled in miracles since she’d been a kid herself.
Miranda came out from under the drooping canopy of palms and live oaks to where the mobile home park’s office sat by the gate. No lights in there either, of course. Way too early. But the sight of the blue U.S. Mail box there made her fingers twitch against the package again.
She looked at the handwritten address. Her fingers had been shaky but she hadn’t screwed it up. The numbers and letters could all be read. Sometimes the silencio santo, the holy blood silence that Cipriano had branded into her, worked that way: she would think she had written something clearly, and when she looked at it later the letters would be pure gibberish. Early on after the first of the blood and sex rituals had sealed her with the spell of silence, there had been times when she’d gotten crazy out of control and had tried to call the cops from pay phones, but she’d been shocked to find that every word came out garbled, as if she was speaking in tongues. The first time that had happened she’d dropped the phone and run right into the arms of Cipriano, who’d told her with gentle firmness: “Even if you lose faith Mira, the holy silence can’t be broken.”
Well, he and his high and mighty goddess-consort might be just a bit surprised to find out how I got around that.
Turning the package over in her hands, Miranda pressed down the cheap tape sealing it and tried to make the peeling stamps stick better. At the mailbox she gathered her nerve and pulled open the slot. She set the package on it. All she had to do now would be unclench her fingers from the mailbox handle. Let go, let it drop in.
But why would she want to do that? What was wrong with her? Why would she want to give up one little bit of what she had now, what Cipriano gave to her, stirred in her, released in her?
With those thoughts came a flood of relief. The fit had passed. Nothing done yet that couldn’t be undone. She’d give the package to him and sink to her knees to apologize. He’d forgive. He always forgave.
With her free hand she reached to touch the small silver cross on its chain around her throat. Cipriano had given it to her, knowing that she would treasure it. He would touch it sometimes, saying it moved him with the innocence it symbolized in her heart. A vampire with a soft spot for crosses. Jesus Christ Almighty.
Miranda would swear she never sent the command from her brain to her hand to let go of the mailbox handle instead of reaching in to take the package back.. But she watched with a kind of fascinated horror as her fingers unclenched from around the handle and let the package drop into the mailbox with a thud that sounded terribly final. Did she just do that? She opened and closed the slot several times to be sure, to make certain the package really had dropped in.
Yes, gone. She couldn’t get it back now. Holy Mother, she needed to get away from the mailbox before he arrived and found her there.
She backed away unsteady on her feet, then felt a surge of adrenalin or panic and ran all the way back to the trailer.
The screen door hinge gave its usual shriek when she pulled it open and went inside, but she still felt comforted to be back in the familiar surroundings. Florida Power hadn’t shut off the trailer’s electricity yet, though she’d seen the notices from them stuffed into the mailbox when she’d arrived earlier. Taking all the envelopes inside, she’d tossed them along with the other overdue bills onto the table of the kitchenette. She had to remember to pay those. If Esther did come back, Miranda didn’t want the place to be shut down and lifeless.
In the back of the trailer were the two tiny, cramped bedrooms that mother and daughter had used now for years, while Miranda had eked out a living doing domestic work for beach hotels and waitressing at Gulf-side tiki bars and dives. She went back and looked into Esther’s room, with its bed made up and untouched for long weeks. A twinge of nostalgia jabbed her, remembering the teen rock-star posters and pictures of wild horses clipped out of magazines that had once adorned her daughter’s walls. Those had all come down over the year before Esther had disappeared— her baby done suddenly with girlish things. Strange to think how every day for years Miranda had prayed for change in their lives, wanting to end what had seemed like a terrible drought—no real man in her life, just occasional lovers, never enough money even for this one-step-up-from-trash lifestyle, Esther skating by at school on her natural intelligence, but constantly falling in with the wrong crowd— and now that the whole world had turned upside-down she felt nostalgic for the past. Stupid. Could there be anything more stupid than that?
Esther hadn’t even replaced the posters and pictures with anything to show new and changing interests. The walls had been left empty.
“The word is nihilist, Mom,” Miranda could hear her voice now. “It means nothing has any meaning.”
But that wasn’t true either, was it? Love and sex had meaning, as much or more to a teenage girl than they did to her tired, but always-hopeful mother. Yes, love and sex had taken their world and rocked it to the core.
Miranda left her daughter’s room and went into her own. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she looked around and fought a wave of hopelessness, wishing with absurd fervor that this ridiculous place could somehow feel like home again. The little embroidered flowers on the edge of her bedspread, the photograph of her own Mom and Dad on the wall with an old crucifix and votive candleholder that she’d taken from the Boston house after they’d died, bright holiday cards—some of them years old— tacked on a cheap corkboard. All of those things had been lonely companions, but they had still anchored her in a way. The trappings of home. Now they seemed like relics belonging to someone else.
Mine is the room that looks like a teenage girl’s.
Lying back on the bed, she clutched one of the fluffy pillows and folded her arms across it, hugging herself.
Love and sex. They were always what got her in trouble. Esther too. Like mother, like daughter. That was true now on a scale like never before. Vampires—holy Christ, vampires who loved the sun and the warmth and blood for reasons that bore no resemblance to any Hollywood Dracula—now she needed someone to help her, to rescue her, to get her away from the bizarre, surreal thing her life had become. One of the holiday cards on her corkboard, from last Christmas, stood out from the rest with the hope that its sender might give her that help. Her old, dear friend Siobhan, who hadn’t forgotten about her across all the years since Miranda and Esther had left Boston for this broiling subtropical Purgatory. Siobhan would still care, would do something to help her. Siobhan was so smart, had done so much with her life since their days as girls together in Catholic school. A book expert, with rich and famous people coming to her for consultations. Not a Catholic any more, which had strained things between them sometimes, but now that would be a good thing: Siobhan wouldn’t condemn her out of hand, or call her damned.
But once again her vacillating emotions swung to the other extreme. Why should she regret what she had now? Love and sex, love and sex. Miranda had them like never before, even if they had taken a form she’d never imagined in her wildest fantasies. This bed wasn’t sterile and quiet any more. Any sensation was possible here. She should be rejoicing, celebrating the day Esther had found her dark-eyed, brooding Juan…and that in turn had led to Juan’s father, Cipriano, coming to end Miranda’s loneliness. Oh God, what had she done, stealing from them, sending that package to Siobhan in Boston? She had to get up right now, go out and find a way to get it out of the mailbox, give it back to Cipriano before his wife, the unholy, bloody she-jaguar herself, found out.
Putting aside the pillow, Miranda sat up, but even as she did so the screen door gave its unmistakable creak.
Too late. Her heart pounding, she grabbed the pillow again and held it in her lap. Pitiful shield to her purity. She almost laughed, setting it aside. That purity was gone far beyond any protection or recovery. And she was glad. Why should she be afraid so much? The vampires didn’t know everything. Even with their spells of silence they couldn’t read minds. They had no clue about what she’d done. She should forget it, forget all about it, because that way there would only be this moment, with no thought or concern for tomorrow. Her lover was here, and despite it all the pounding of her heart transformed into anticipation, even happiness.
The few times he had come to the trailer it always seemed too small to hold him. Not because of any extraordinary physical stature: he stood at medium height and had a slender build. It was because even as he stood there in a black t-shirt and blue jeans, he carried himself with a mixture of aristocratic grace and animal power. His dark skin had a reddish bronze tone, set off by straight, short, jet-black hair. Black eyes, too. Miranda, however much she gazed into their depths, had never been able to detect shades like the many areas of color in most eyes. Despite his claim of being almost twenty years her senior, he looked like a man in his thirties. That was because of the blood, of course.
He came into the tiny bedroom and looked at her with a mild smile, showing just the hint of his teeth. All the vampires had that smile down pat. Never so broad as to display those perfect, carefully-filed incisors. Even when he gave her a broader grin in private, which he sometimes did after sex, the teeth weren’t dramatic. Jesus, the movies were so full of it.
“Don Cipriano,” she said.
“Mira,” he nodded. “So she isn’t here, I gather.”
Miranda lowered her eyes.
“No,” she said. “I always hope. Silly I guess, when I get these intuitions that she might be home.”
“Not silly at all,” he shook his head. “I worry every day about Juan and Esther. He was angry when he left us, I know. His mother pushes him too hard. I suppose children will never like the way their parents do things. So we are always destined to worry, eh? But I’m not making light of it. You know I am looking too, Mira, with all the resources I have.”
“I know you are.”
Cipriano moved around the side of the bed, touching the same personal things in the room that she had just been looking at. Miranda had one of her paranoid flashes as his fingertips moved near her board with the old holiday cards, but she sighed with relief when he settled on the old photo of her parents. He looked at them for a long moment; her Mom and Dad not long after they’d been married, hugging one another and smiling.
Lingering by the crucifix and candle holder, he touched them with what seemed to her a gentle reverence; Cipriano showing his soft spot for holy things.
“When we find the kids,” Miranda said, “I’m going to give Esther the cursing out of her life.”
He laughed.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use a profanity,” he said. “Nothing harsher than an occasional ‘Jesus’. When Juan’s mother swears in Spanish, I’m always amazed the air doesn’t burst into flame.”
“She’s got some choice ones for me, I bet. Starting with puta, right? That means whore, doesn’t it?”
He looked at her with what she would swear was genuine regret.
“I’m sorry she says and does cruel things. She has no right to. She knows the rights and responsibilities, as do you and I.”
Miranda reached out her hand to him.
“I don’t care,” she said. “She’ll do what she does, and I can’t change that.”
Pulling his hand toward her, she placed his palm against her breast.
“I’m afraid of her, I can’t help that,” she went on. “I’m afraid of you. I’m sorry if that hurts you. But you are my lord, Don Cipriano Rodriguez, Tepeyollotl, God of the Heart of the Mountain.”
Miranda let go of his hand and stretched out her arms to him, like a child asking for a hug. With a little sadness still in his dark eyes, Cipriano crouched by the bed and embraced her. The surge of passion that always blotted out her roller coaster of thoughts overwhelmed her; Miranda gratefully surrendered to it. She kissed his forehead, his cheeks and eyelids, finally seeking for his lips.
Cipriano also gave himself over to desire. For the first moments as Miranda gave him delirious caresses he remained passive; the God of the Heart of the Mountain indeed, his mind still working to order the shadowy troubles of their lives. But the heat of Miranda’s hunger for him drove the shadows into hiding, at least for a little while. His muscles unclenched. She felt him becoming hard and fluid all at once: that splendid transformation into his other, elemental aspect, the jaguar.
Pulling off his black t-shirt, she transferred her feverish kisses to his body. The smooth dark skin, so seemingly unmarked by time, with a warm sheen of sweat like that sheathing her own body. Feeling that she couldn’t tolerate being in her clothing for another second, she pulled away her damp tank top, kicked off her sandals and wriggled out of her cut-off shorts and panties. So much easier here in the south than it had been up north when she’d first started to give in to her aching desires; fumbling through layer after layer of clothes with scared and awkward boys at Catholic school until she’d become pregnant with Esther, and those pious priests and nuns who lectured constantly about understanding and forbearance had expelled her. Here in the south only the thinnest layers of clothing and propriety masked their animal selves. Miranda pulled the rubber band from her pony tail, no longer irritated with her waist-length hair; her mane, which spread rippling over her shoulders and back.
For the briefest moment she touched the small scars on her left breast; she felt them throbbing already with anticipation of the moment soon to come when Cipriano would place his mouth there to take her, to take her blood; to renew his primal strength and to simultaneously pour that strength into her.
“Lord Tepeyollotl, stalker of the sun,” she breathed out the ritual words he’d taught her, eclipsing for now her usual pleas to Mary and Jesus and the Father. “Warrior of the secret fire, take me. Oh God, take me.”
Cipriano stood to slip out of his jeans, till he loomed at the end of the bed, once again making the pitiful trailer bedroom seem like a cramped tin box. His erection stood out hard and straight; Miranda moistened her lips, her whole body consumed with wanting him.
Still sitting at the end of the bed, she took him into her mouth, using her tongue on the underside of his cock while letting the shaft slide far toward the back of her throat. She put her hands around him, holding his ass, so he stayed fully in her mouth while she cupped her tongue and let it pulse against his skin. Her eyes open, Miranda angled her gaze upward to see his face; she wanted to see the marvelous instant when his transformation became complete, his mouth opening widely at last to show the feral beauty of his sharp teeth. When it came, when he stood above her complete in his incarnation as the jaguar-god, she gave a small cry in her throat; he reached and took her hair in his hands, slowly pulling her mouth from his cock. Her open lips lingered there almost touching it, her warm breath still continuing the caress. With his fingers tangling themselves even more in her heavy crown of hair, she curled her tongue out, touching its tip to the head of his cock, then circling it in a sinuous catlike motion of her own.
She remembered the first time she had learned what the vampires do: how they freed everything primal in themselves in the act of sex. It was the same thing she had always done herself in her own crude way, the power of the body sweeping away all of her inhibitions and fears and doubts, letting her ride for a while in the unthinking glory of physicality. In those early days with boys at school she’d been far too timid to envision her own transformation into anything like the she-panther; but here with Cipriano that identity came with natural ease. Yes, she was still a little afraid, anticipating the moment when her blood would enter him and she would bask in his resulting heat, fiercer than any sun could be. Afraid, and desiring it more than anything.
His strong arms guided her backward until she was lying prone on the bed, her legs still dangling from its end. Cipriano caressed her breasts, touching and kneading the hard points of her nipples, then he bent to kiss her stomach and to glide his fingers smoothly along the inside of her thighs. Miranda moaned and gasped as one of those fingers moved upward to touch the lips of her vagina; she arched herself toward him, raising one leg to rest across his back as he crouched there. Such deftness in his hands, coaxing her to open more and more, until finally he slid one finger into the moist damp opening. Miranda cried out and her first climax shimmered through her.
Cipriano waited until the trembling of her muscles eased. Getting her breath back, she reached out her arms to him again. He arched himself over her; with one hand she held him behind the head, pulling his mouth to hers, with the other she guided his cock into her.
His body felt so young. His skin smooth, his muscles so well-defined. Yet his son and her daughter were the same age, and he had become a father much later. Miranda had had Esther when she’d been seventeen. Now, in her mid-thirties, she felt her own youth blossoming again through the touch of this lover, through the strange ancient magic that he lived by. She wrapped her legs around him, willing him to plunge to the deepest places of her body.
As her second climax began to flower, Cipriano lowered his head from hers, kissing her breasts, running his tongue along her areolas and the peaks of her nipples. Miranda gasped, knowing that the time had come. Even after so many times, she still tensed as his teeth sought out the place of the small scars on her left breast, above her heart. But the sting as he used his sharpened incisors to reopen those wounds of passion actually felt exquisite, and vaulted her right into a flaming second orgasm. So much sensation poured through her that her mind couldn’t process or separate it. Her blood flowed into his mouth; she could feel the effect it had on him, like liquid lightning coursing into his nerves and muscles. As she convulsed in the grip of her climax, he came too, and they were crying out and gasping together.
It wasn’t a taking; a sharing, rather. Miranda felt the incredible life-energy of her lover entering her right along with his cock and his teeth. A brilliant sun came to life in her body, replacing the agonizing sweetness of the orgasm with a glow that spread through her, filling her. She wanted him to stay rooted in her this way forever.
The moments did pass with a lingering slowness; he gently smoothed the hair away from her face, and when he raised his head from her breast it was to look at her with the most heartfelt affection. He licked the inside of his mouth, taking the last of the blood from his teeth. Then he lay his head on her breast, where the new wounds had already ceased to bleed.
Miranda let herself drift into feelings of happiness and satiation. Why was she ever afraid? Why did she let herself get so wrought up in doubts that this was the greatest gift that had ever come into her life?
Her thoughts were all blurred; hadn’t she done something today, something desperate and foolish? She should tell him about it, beg his forgiveness, send him out to make it all right again. But she couldn’t even quite remember what she’d done. She ran her fingers through his hair, looking at the dawn light on his face as it came in through the small window of the trailer bedroom. Light on a face filled with both power and peace.
Nothing she had done could have any effect on that strength. She closed her own eyes, feeling the heat of the day grow as the sunlight spread across her own body.
to be continued...
For more information on "The Blood Jaguar", or the first Siobhan Bishop novel,
"The Order of the Golden Rose", visit Passion in Print Press www.passioninprint.com
And look for the third book in the Siobhan series written by Paul R. Sardanas out now!