KISS THE WITCH (11 page)

“
Plea,” said Lilith, her
outburst startling both Ursula and me. “It’s plea. Not
prayers.”

“
Yes, plea. Hear our plea.
I know that.”

“
Don’t fuck this up,
Tony.”

“
I won’t,” I said. “I’m
sorry.” Suddenly, Ursula’s naked body was no longer my only
preoccupation. I now had to contend with a feisty witch hell bent
on semantics. I considered stepping away, screwing the entire
ceremony. But the look on Ursula’s face changed my mind. I knew she
thought nothing of standing naked before me for the sake of the
coven. Her convictions ran that deep. But to have her efforts
result in nothing more than an exhibition because I sabotaged the
ceremony, well…. I could not have that.

Pressing on, I leaned in and kissed Ursula
on the east point of the circle. Continuing south, west and north,
I marked the points accordingly, asked the mothers to hear our plea
and kissed each one as before. By the time I drew the eye,
utilizing Ursula’s belly button as the centerpiece, I was getting
used to the idea of kissing her body. What’s more, the taste of
olive oil on my lips only made me want to continue kissing her. I
guess I was getting into it. A bit later, I am afraid I got into it
a little too much.

I stood. Ursula responded by splaying her
arms, presenting the classic frisk stance Lilith assumed earlier.
And just as she had done with Lilith, I began her whole-body splash
by spreading my oiled thumbs along her forehead, across her cheeks,
chin, and down her nose.

I do not remember dressing her neck and
shoulders. But I remember she did not flinch when my hands cascaded
down her breasts, my fingers rippling over her nipples. I feathered
my touch along her sides and returned to her breasts for more
thorough coverage. And there I lingered, perhaps too long. I
pressed my hands against her and moved them in slow swirling
motions counter to each other, lifting, squeezing in synch to the
rhythm of her shallow breathing. She rocked her head back gently. I
gathered her nipples between my oily index fingers and thumbs
pinched them. She held her breath and gasped when they slipped from
my grasp. I looked at her face, searched her ebony eyes in primal
curiosity. They never blinked. Behind me, Lilith cleared her
throat. I recoiled sharply and my hands fell away as if by some
invisible force. Still, Ursula’s gaze remained unchanged, fixed on
a forward light as distant as a star.

I knelt before her and began on her legs. I
slid my hands up the inside of her thighs, my thumbs brushing her
lightly on a place I did not mean to touch. She smiled faintly.

Embarrassed? Maybe, but not as much as
me.

“
I’m sorry,” I told her.
“That was an accident.”

She replied, “Aye, methinks you missed
it.”

“
What?”

Lilith said, “You have to anoint her entire
body, Tony. You cannot skip anything. It’s the trust factor,
remember?”

“
And you’re okay with
that?”

“
Of course.”

I looked up at Ursula. “It’s okay?”

She adjusted her stance wider. “I know thee
well and trust thee, Master Tony.”

I re-oiled my hands, palmed her gently and
worked my fingers through her felted patch. It did not take long,
and perhaps no one should have been surprised, but something
natural began to stir both inside and outside me. I finished her
legs, and when she turned to let me do her back, I stood.

That is when Lilith noticed it.

“
What are you doing,
Tony?”

I was not there yet, but my frightened
turtle was definitely losing his shyness. “Lilith,” I said. “I’m
sorry, but what do you expect?”

“
I expect you to stop
it.”

“
You want him to stop?”
said Ursula, looking back over her shoulder.

“
No, honey, you just turn
around and let him finish what he’s doing.

By then, I had gotten a handle on my
involuntary reflexes, mostly by thinking of the hell Lilith might
put me through if I did not.

Having dodged that bullet, I proceeded to
apply the final touch (so to speak) to Ursula’s anointment ritual.
I tipped the bottle into my hand, allowing the overflow to spill
out and roll down her back. The beads skittered down her spine in
nervous procession, riding the swell below the small of her back
and disappearing single file between her cheeks. I saw her butt
muscles tighten at that, and the thought of doing it again caused
me to hesitate.

Lilith said, “We’re running out of
candlelight, Tony.”

I knew we were not. “Are we?”

“
If you don’t move it
along.”

“
Yes, of course.” I set
the bottle down, rubbed my palms together and proceeded in brisk
fashion to complete Ursula’s session. A few broad sweeps down her
back, over her buttocks and across her shoulders, and I was
done.

“
There,” I said.
“Finished.”

Ursula turned around, picked up the oil,
spilled it into her hand and said, “`Tis your turn now, Master
Tony.”

“
My turn?”

I know I sounded surprised, but I was not. I
think I was hoping Lilith would hear the panic in my voice and
volunteer to do me. When it became apparent that would not happen,
I simply shrugged, crossed my arms at my chest, spread my stance
and said, “All right then. Have at it.”

I do not know if I knew exactly what I was
getting into. For that matter, I don’t think Lilith knew either.
Again, nature being what it is, no one should have been surprised
at what happened next.

It turns out, Ursula’s approach to oiling
down a man’s body is far less seductive than oiling down a woman’s.
Of course, maybe that is just my take on it. That and the fact that
the cleansing ritual is not supposed to be seductive. Nevertheless,
lack of seduction does not mean lack of arousal.

She started by drawing the circle on my
stomach, as I expected she would. When she reached the kissing
part, however, all bets were off. The first and second kiss, the
ones on the east and south points of the circle, stirred an
undeniable tingle inside of me. The third, fourth and fifth brought
movement to places that Lilith did not approved.

It was the kiss in the center of the witch’s
eye that got Ursula’s attention. When she leaned in, she brushed
against me where before she had not, noticing my reach had
gradually extended.

I saw her glance down at it with a puzzled
look. Perhaps questioning her previous assessment and the comment
she made when I first came out of the bathroom.

Having drawn the circle and called for the
mothers of the coven to grant us the rite, she stood. When she did,
I placed my arms out to my side, now feeling more vulnerable and
exposed than ever.

She oiled her hands up generously, and when
she stepped in close to reach my forehead, our bodied touched, or
more specifically, a certain part of my body touched her somewhere
around her mid-section. She leaned in to me anyway, pretending not
to notice. My heart began racing again. My senses tingled
everywhere her hot, oily skin touched mine. She ran her fingers
over my face, her hands down my neck, across my chest and down my
stomach.

I do not believe she knew what she was doing
to me, the impulses I had, the nerves she struck. To her, it was
all mechanical, all part of the coven ceremony.

She gathered more oil and reached between my
legs with both hands. I pulled back in kneejerk reaction, even
gasped as though I had been holding my breath a very long time.

Perhaps I was.

Ursula seemed equally startled. She let go
and backed away a measured step. “Forgive me, Master Tony. I hurt
thee?”

“
No, Ursula,” I said. “You
didn’t hurt me. It was just a reflex.”

“
Then I shall handle thee
with more tender,” she said, cradling my package and massaging the
oil in softly with her fingers.

“
That won’t be….”
necessary, I started to say. But already I was filling her hands
with more than she could handle.

She looked down, and a stark wonder molded
her face. Clearly, she had ventured into unchartered waters. I
thought she might stop, but with wild curiosity in her eyes, she
continued. And the more she caressed me, the more aroused I became.
Soon she was making long, hard strokes and I had no more resistance
to offer–perhaps by design, I grant you, but I felt powerless
nonetheless. I looked beyond the candle’s reach for Lilith. She
could not see what was going on, as Ursula had her back turned
completely to her, blocking her view. I suspect, however, she was
getting suspicious at how long the anointment ritual was taking to
advance.

“
Ahm, Lilith,” I said,
reluctantly, but I said it. “You might want to come over
here?”

She stepped from the shadows, and her eyes
grew as wide as spoons. Ursula looked up at her and smiled, her
hand in a frozen grasp of my 21st digit.

Lilith asked, “What the hell are you
doing?”

“
I’m not doing anything,”
I said.

“
Not you. Her. Ursula,
what are you doing? You’re not milking a cow you know?”

“
Aye, `tis amazing,” she
said, her excitement filled with wide-eyed innocence. “Sister, look
what I found. `Tis the work of the coven, I am sure. The more I
stroke, the more there is to stroke. `Tis magick, is it
not?”

Lilith reached down and removed Ursula’s
hands from her point of fascination. “No, Urs. It is not majick.
And trust me, that’s all the more you’re going to get.”

Ursula looked up at me, at it and at me
again. “I do not understand. You can do that without magick?”

Lilith said, “That’s the trouble with men.
They can do that without a brain. Now, give me the oil. I think you
two have built up enough trust for one evening.”

“
But sister. Can all men
do that?”

“
Of course. Didn’t you
know?”

“
Nay, I did
not.”

“
No one ever talked to you
about the birds and the bees?”

“
I know of birds, aye, and
of bees.”

“
I mean sex.”

She seemed to blush at that. “Oh, pray thee,
no. It is not proper to discuss such things before marriage.”

“
Ursula, we talk about sex
all the time. Do you mean to tell me you have no idea what we’re
talking about when we have our girl talks?”

She blinked back bashfully. “`Tis you
talking most times.”

Lilith wrinkled her face. “Yeah, you do kind
of nod a lot during those conversations. We’ll have to have a real
girl-to-girl after we finish here.”

“
Aye, that would be good.
Oh, do you think my Dominic can do what Master Tony can
do?”

Both gazed down at my ridged form with silly
grins. Lilith shook her head and made a tic sound through her
teeth. “I don’t know, Urs. I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high.”
Then she backhanded me on the flat of my stomach. “And you. Put
that thing down. You look like you’re carrying a spear.”

“
Put it down?”

“
You know what I
mean.”

It was not hard, pardon the pun, to put it
down after that. I never felt as awkward in front of Ursula as I
did then. I only hoped Dominic would never know what happened
there.

Lilith finished dressing me in oil herself,
determining Ursula and I had established sufficient trust to
precede with the ceremony. Frankly, I think she simply did not want
Ursula touching me for fear of risking another spontaneous show of
gratification on my part. She was probably right in that
assumption.

Having completed the cleansing ritual, we
(and by we, I mean Lilith and Ursula mostly) moved on to the most
important part of the ceremony. The casting of the circle.

I thought I knew what to expect here. After
all, I participated in Lilith’s Rite of Passage ceremony, the
ceremony that literally brought the house down. It is true. After
returning us to our physical prime, or perhaps during it, it is
hard to say, as we were in the eye of a tornado at the time, the
house simply blew away. Gone. Vanished. When it was over, I found
myself standing on an empty slab, holding Lilith in my arms and
wondering why I was not dead.

Still, as amazing as that ceremony was, the
casting of the circle for the Rite of Passage called for far less
preparation than the one for the witches’ coven.

It began with Ursula taking one end of a
length of cord measuring four and a half feet and pinning it to the
floor in the center of the room. With the other end held taunt,
Lilith chalked off a line of brick dust to form a perfect nine-foot
circle. All the while, she and Ursula chanted whispers in ancient
rhymes. The words I did not recognize.

With that done, the two moved on to candle
assignments. Ursula facilitated the placement of the four primary
candles: yellow, red, blue and green, representing air, fire, water
and earth, the prime essentials in necromantic rituals. She placed
the yellow one on the east side of the circle, and positioned the
others on the remaining compass points following clockwise. Her
chant, again in ancient rhyme, mimicked the mantra recited during
the drawing of the circle.

As she did that, Lilith gathered the
remaining candles, a dozen or so, as near I guessed, all of them
white and in glass jars. She arranged them on the coffee table,
stacking them in pyramid fashion in front of a black mirror to
create an altar of sorts. She then reached up on the bookcase for
the dagger I had seen earlier that morning, the thing she called an
athame. Lilith pointed it at Ursula and asked her to get the
elements from the kitchen. Then she pointed it at me.