Once upon a time two women lived together in
a little cottage in an old walled city. The winter past had been extremely cold
and there was no sign of spring approaching. The month of March brought even more
snow and ice. Jess, the older woman with the dark hair, had caught a death of a
chill. The younger woman with the red hair, Gabriele, had spent sleepless nights
brewing teas and potions, trying every which way to nurse her back to health.
Nothing seemed to relieve Jess of her suffering.
One snowy morning, Gabriele dressed in her
thickest, warmest overclothing, pulled on boots made of pig’s leather and
stuffed her spiky red hair under a fluffy woolen cap. She looked back over her
shoulder. Jess sat next to the roaring fire, rolled in various blankets. Her one
shoulder covered in a cream cotton shift was exposed. Gabi frowned when she
heard Jess’s rattling cough and her labored breathing. She hung her head and ventured
out into the blowing snow.
This was not the time of year to search for
herbs so Gabriele decided to visit the local wise woman and ask for help. Snow
swirled all around her as she stood on the threshold and knocked on the wise
woman’s door. The door creaked open. Gabi’s eyes widened as she saw a young man
dressed in a red robe, black hair spilling over his shoulders.
“Where is the wise woman?” she asked.
“She is also very sick,” the young man
said. His eyes were as black as his hair.
“Also?”
“Yes. You come because your lover is ill.”
“My lover? She is not my lover. Have we met
before?”
“Maybe,” he said.
Gabriele brushed his comment aside like she
would a fly. “None of my remedies help her. I don’t understand the nature of
her disease.”
“A strange strain of malady. The wise woman
suffers from the same and other women in the city as well. It seems the only
remedy that helps them is one that I administer myself.”
“Will you accompany me? We desperately need
your help.”
“I will do my best,” he said.
They ventured back to the little cottage
and found Jess swooned on the floor next to the fire. Each breath rattled her
prone form. Her face was pale and grey. The strange man produced a flask that
shimmered red. He rolled Jess on her back, tilted her head and lifted her chin.
Jess’s mouth opened and he dribbled one, two, three drops of the red potion
into her mouth. He covered her sparsely-clad body with a blanket, stood and
left the cottage without a word.
Gabriele threw her wet overclothes into a
pile on the floor and covered herself with a dry, black cotton shift. She sat watch
next to Jess the whole day and night. Early in the morning, groans and rustling
blankets woke Gabriele from a fitful sleep and she jarred awake to see Jess stirring.
“Oh, I had thought you would die!” Gabriele
said and hugged her friend.
“What has happened to me? I only remember
you leaving and me sitting here on the stool.”
“When I returned, you were unconscious.”
“I don’t know what happened. I remember standing naked in a hothouse. The tempered glass was red as blood and the
air was hot as hell. My skin refused to perspire and I was dry as ash from the
heat. I was so thirsty I could hardly breathe. The hothouse itself was full of
strangling, wriggling vines. The demanding plants prodded and invaded. They wanted
to tie me up and devour me whole. But a strange man appeared before me, allowed
me to drink from his fountain and…”
Gabi held her hand up and Jess stopped
speaking. “What did he look like?" Gabriele said.
“He was taller than I, dressed in robes red
as blood like the sky beyond the hothouse. He cupped my fevered face in his
hands. He kissed my lips and his juices moistened my mouth, my lungs, my loins.
He…”
Jess’s chest began to heave. She sat up and
searched Gabriele’s face for an explanation.
“Tell me what he did to you. You are
healthy.” Gabriele felt Jess’s forehead. “The fever has broken. He has healed
you.”
“He said I must drink. He knew I was
thirsty and only he could quench my thirst, still my longing, fill me, make me
whole again.”
Gabriele stroked Jess’s cream-white cheek. “Your
pallor is gone, your skin is cool. Show me how he kissed you.”
“He took my face in his hands and touched
my lips like this.” Jess pressed her lips to Gabriele’s and, ever so slightly,
parted their lips with the tip of her tongue, moistening and stroking. She
spoke without removing her lips. “The juices began to flow and I could breathe
again. But I was still burning with fever.”
Jess got on her knees. “He told me to
kneel. He offered me his warm and pulsing cock and I suckled him, desperate to
wet my parched mouth. But he pulled out of my mouth and laid me on my back. He
said he would heal me from the inside. He filled me to the hilt with all he
had.”
Jess’s nipples stood hard against her thin
cotton shift. Gabriele reached out and touched one. She ran a finger around the
contrast: soft breast, hard nipple. Jess grabbed Gabriele’s other hand and lay
back, pulling Gabriele down next to her.
“He sat over me, straddled my waist and
entered me,” Jess said.
Gabriele climbed on top of Jess. Jess’s hands squeezed
her buttocks as their naked loins pressed together. Gabriele allowed her hips
to slide back and forth, slippery wetness easing the ride. She slid two fingers
in between Jess’s moist folds.
“Tell me how he filled you.” Gabriele said.
“He thrusted in and out and each time, each
time, he…”
Gabriele lay flat on Jess’s belly, ground
her clit against Jess’ and thrust her fingers in and out, in and out, secretly
summoning the strange man with all the power she could muster. Then she felt a hand
on her buttocks. Not the sweet, gentle touch of a woman, but the strong, stable,
squeezing hand of a man. One finger entered her from behind. The finger thrust in
and out. She caught a glimpse of his red robe out of the corner of her eye.
“Fuck her to my rhythm,” he said as his
cock filled her tight pussy. Gabriele’s ass lifted to take him in as far as he
would go, to the hilt. Her fingers rammed again into Jess, keeping time to the
man’s breathing. Jess moaned. Gabriele filled her mouth with Jess’s breast as
the strange man fucked her from behind.
The man bore his weight down on Gabriele
who in turn bore down on Jess. They became one in the force that held them
together. The man ground down on the two women, thrusting his power from one to
the next. They began to vibrate as one being, shuddering and stammering. They
deflated as a whole. Jess opened her eyes. Gabriele looked over her shoulder.
They were alone.
Gabriele jumped up. “I must find him.”
She threw on her wet overclothes and ventured
out into the snow. She ran to the wise woman’s house and knocked on the door. The
wind howled and she shielded her eyes from the swirling snow. The wise woman
opened the door.
“Where is he?” Gabriele demanded.
“Where is who?” The wise woman looked hard at
Gabriele. “Come inside. Your cheeks are flushed with fever.”
“I am delirious,” Gabriele said. “I have
the sickness.”
“I will make you some tea,” the wise woman
said. She led Gabriele towards the fire, turned and closed the door against the
cold blast of snow. She put a pot of water over the fire.
“No, I need the potion! It is the only
cure.”
“Potion?”
“The red potion,” Gabriele said. “He gave
it to us.”
The wise woman sighed and added herbs to
the pot of water. She turned back to Gabriele with a pitying smile. “Yes, that
potion. I regret ever having made it. It
seems to have a mind of its own.”
“But it is the only cure for the disease!”
Gabriele said.
The wise woman strained two mugs of tea. “But
it is also the cause.”
