glistening shoulders rippling in the midday sunlight. That day I cried, as much for her as for myself, I felt as though the coming year would be intolerable without her and I envied her for the fervor of passionate consummation that awaited her. Once I am inside the palanquin I pull back my hood and look around. The interior of the vehicle is splendid. I am sitting on a pile of embroidered cushions and the walls are hung with velvet draperies. The silver ceiling above me is carved into a scene. It is the god Xerastes, his own vassals (lesser gods of our faith) Pytheum and Logastum and the goddess Sabina, she who gives her body so that we may have life. Xerastes sits on a bed with Sabina on top of him lowering herself onto his erect cock, his three faces contorted into a wild groan of lust. Pytheum and Logastum stand behind them with pained looks on their faces as they await their turn with her. As for Sabina the look on her face is one of complete ecstasy. The carving was clearly made by a master smith, for it is detailed and finely wrought. The eroticism of the image is obvious, but beneath it is certain nobility as well. I brush my fingers over the taught leg muscles of the carved Xerastes and long to slip a finger inside of myself, but I do not. Today I will remain untouched, my unquenched thirst building in me bit by bit until I allow the Potentate to release it in a gush of ecstasy. The bumpy wavelike motion of the palanquin isn’t helping though and by the time it is set down I have become so wet that I imagine the red silk knot tied at my entrance must be soaked with my lust. I hear the footsteps of the men as they retreat from the palanquin and I wait until the sound of them has died off completely before I emerge.
Chapter Four The Temple of Xerastes I am standing inside the high wall surrounding the temple of Xerastes. Xerastes is the highest of the gods. He is a broad shouldered man with three faces, the face of mercy, the face of wrath and the face of passion. His scepter is the trunk of a great oak, fashioned at the end into a point that he throws like a spear. Xerastes comes to earth and is incarnated into mortal form as the potentate, as his vassals, Pytheum and Logastum, are incarnated into mortal form as the vassals chosen by the potentate. Every year a virgin of great beauty is given to them as a gift so that they may fill her with their seed. The pleasure that all three will take in this act is of the utmost importance as it is this which will form the gift’s transcendence. After she has been entered time and time again by the holy men, after she has taken them in her mouth and slaked their lusts and she herself has been brought into the bliss of orgasm many times, then she can be sent to the grey tombs where she too will be incarnated with the spirit of the goddess Sabina, a beautiful woman who satisfies sexual appetites. The courtyard that I stand in is planted with every imaginable tree, bush, or flower, most of which are foreign to me. Their brightness almost hurts my eyes after the dim interior of the palanquin. A marble path leads down the center of the garden courtyard to the massive steps of the temple, but before I can start upon it I must cross a featureless door of grey slate set into the ground. My steps sound hollowly within it as I cross, this is the door to the grey tombs, but I barely register its presence. I am far too focused on the coming of my reaping, the frenzy of lust that lies before me. As I walk down the path my heart beats furiously and my craving grows into a painful ache. I have waited so long and now finally they will have me. Each footfall is another moment of delayed pleasure. My desire is so great it hurts. I know I should be walking slowly and deliberately in order to do justice to the solemnity of the ritual, but my excitement is such that it’s all I can do to stop myself from skipping up the steps of the temple to the archway beneath the marble columns. I