The Witches' Communion

She opened the front of her robe, revealing naked skin painted orange in the firelight, with the soft curves of hips and thighs. Jo leaned in almost before she realized what she was doing, yearning to bury her face between those legs. Dulciana held her off with one hand.

"Not while you're like that. Take off your clothes. Slowly."

Her cheeks burned red, but Jo obeyed, pulling her sweater up and off and depositing it on the bare part of the floor before doing the same with her undershirt. Once she was down to her bra Dulciana reached out and squeezed the exposed part of her breasts, a quick and violent motion that took her by surprise and made her gasp.

The other woman ignored it and pulled her in to begin fondling her more, putting her book down on the table and then putting her hands everywhere, groping Jo's breasts and legs and thighs and the curve of her buttocks; Jo felt like she was being sized up.

The arch of Dulciana's eyebrows told her she still expected Jo to continue undressing, and she slipped her jeans down her own thighs and to the floor, stepping out of them and then catching her breath in her throat when Dulciana stuck her fingers underneath Jo's panties and continued touching anything she wanted.

The red book on the table caught her eye. Jo couldn't recognize the language or even make sense of the illustrations on the gigantic open pages. "What's that?" she said, noticing that her own voice sounded distance and hazy now.

"Nothing you need to worry about," Dulciana said. There were other things on the table: a feather, a knife, a bowl of water and a bowl of salt, a piece of white chalk that had been used to draw a circle on the tabletop, and other things around the edge of that circle too. Jo saw that an apple was part of the arrangement.

But then Dulciana dragged Jo's gaze back to her. Jo stood naked now, and encircled in Dulciana's arms; the other woman's grip was strong and hard, but her skin felt soft and smooth and Jo perceived goosebumps wherever they touched.

She didn't mind the hard, pawing way that Dulciana touched her anymore. It felt good to have another woman's hands all over her while Jo looked into Dulciana's deep, dark eyes, the same color as the shadows in the corners of the basement.

Dulciana's lips were red and Jo wanted to kiss them, but it didn't seem safe to lean in. Instead she let Dulciana push her to her knees again, and then Dulciana leaned back against the table and spread her legs, the white cloak spreading too.

Jo laid her cheek against the cool, soft flesh of Dulciana's bare leg, then began trailing wet kisses from the other woman's knee all the way up to the inside of her thigh.

Twining her fingers through Jo's hair, Dulciana cooed. "That's right," she said. "I know what you came here for."

She spread open even wider and dragged Jo in. Her pussy looked swollen and juicy in the firelight. Jo tried to envision taking a bite of the sweet apple again, but of course, that wasn't right at all; that was a weak and pale pleasure compared to putting her lips against Dulciana's warm, wet pussy and drinking it in.

Closing her eyes, she lapped inside Dulciana's thighs and licked again and again at the other woman's swollen lips, savoring the sweet tastes and the acrid ones. Dulciana cooed more and pushed on the back of Jo's head with both hands. Jo felt the tight cradle of Dulciana's legs close around her face and pressed herself further into it. Every single inch of her own body was gooseflesh.

"That's what you wanted," Dulciana said as she growled deep in her throat.

"Mmmhmm," was all that Jo could say, her head swimming with the scents of the other woman's body. She felt the heat of the nearby furnace on her own bare backside as she stuck it out, and she imagined what she must look like here, naked as sin in a complete stranger's house in the middle of the night with barely a memory of how she'd even gotten here.

"It's been a long time since you treated yourself, hasn't it?" Dulciana continued.

"Mmmhmm," Jo said again. God she felt good; Jo wanted to melt all over the basement floor, but instead she continued licking and teasing and sucking away. She put her hands between her own legs and worked her fingertips in a tight and furious circle, until she was positively dripping wet, feeling it run down the inside of her own thighs.

Mom's voice was still buzzing around Jo's ears for some reason. "You shall not suffer a witch to live," it said, but Jo pushed it away. Just shut up, Mother, she thought firmly.

"We shouldn't live in deprivation," Dulciana continued. "We take the things we need to feel good, and we use them until they're used up."

"Oh yes!" Jo said. Sweet juices covered her lips, and she licked them greedily. Then Dulciana pulled her up for a kiss, and the touch of their lips meeting was like electricity in the dark. She resumed licking while Dulciana picked her book up from the table and began reading from it:

"'Nothing is real except for the world and the flesh. No god is higher than the gratification of flesh, because all thoughts and imaginings die when we let the flesh grow too weak. Do you understand?"

"Oh yes," Jo said, touching herself again.

Dulciana continued: "'What they call sins are our true gods. What they call heresy is the only piety. Nothing exists except for life, and the only blasphemy is to deny living wants.' Do you understand?"

"Yes," Jo whispered, shaking all over. "Mother, goddess, vessel, queen, I understand."

And at that moment she did. Kneeling in the red light, she became a whole congregation to herself, on her knees and praying in the chapel that was the other woman's body, to the god that was herself.

Purring, Dulciana touched her affectionately on top of the head. "That's very good," she said. "Now come with me."

Without a word, Jo stood and followed where Dulciana took her. Behind the furnace there was an archway in the old brick wall, and beyond it a tunnel of sorts. A draft chilled Jo's naked flesh head to toe, like a sigh coming up from the earth.

They walked in silence, with the hem of Dulciana's robe trailing the tunnel floor. Jo moved automatically, and she felt loose and good, as if she'd just awakened from the longest and most relaxing nap of her entire life.

Curiosity pricked her when they came to a large, open space with another brick floor and lit by more candles, with many people wearing similar white garments. A fire burned here, red, like the fire in the furnace behind them, and Jo was sure it was the same flame.

The people had been waiting, it seemed, and when Jo approached they presented her with a long, loose, open robe like theirs, but black instead of white. It fit perfectly around her shoulder. It was the softest and most comfortable thing she'd ever felt.

Standing in front of her again, Dulciana turned Jo's face to look at hers. "Poor Jo," she said. "You never did like this night."

"That's true..." Jo said.

"So why did you come out anyway?"

"Because of my daughter. And because...I guess it's a tradition."

The people here murmured when she said that word, and Dulciana looked pleased.

"Yes, traditions are important. Like when you went to the church with your mother all those years ago even though you didn't want to do that either. Will you honor our traditions with us too? We need your help to make the night complete, and to keep our tradition alive."

Shivering, Jo said, "What do I have to do?"

"Come to the altar."

Leading her by the hand, Dulciana brought Jo to where a slab of stone waited. Following her indication, Jo climbed onto it. The ceiling above them was too dark to see. The people closed in around them; Jo thought here and there she recognized faces from one of the other women in the neighborhood, but it was too dark to really be sure.

Dulciana placed an embroidered pillow beneath Jo's head. "Are you ready?" she said.

"What's going to happen?"

"Don't you know, silly? It's time for the sacrifice."

Jo nodded, as if this made perfect sense. "Will it hurt?"

"Not at all. Now you and the world will be one flesh, and you will know all that the world has to know. Are you ready?" she asked again, and this time Jo said yes and meant it.

The first parishioner approached and, opening her own robe, climbed on top of Jo. Jo received her with open arms. "This is my body, which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me," Jo said, her voice a breathless whisper.

The other woman kissed her, and Jo twined her arms around her. The others waited respectfully for their turn, as others had waited for them on Halloween nights past when it had been their own turn to briefly render up their own bodies for the sake of all.

The time for true communion had come at last.

***

Jo woke with a start, as if from a nightmare that had retreated before entirely finishing.

She was still in the living room, she realized; she'd fallen asleep in the chair after putting Nashia to bed and remained there all night, as the crick in her neck and the pain in her lower back told her.

Groaning, she dragged herself to the kitchen, where Nashia was already up and had dutifully fixed herself breakfast, nodding at her mother over her Cheerios as Jo fixed a morning meal of coffee and aspirin. "Good morning, Mommy," she said.

"Good morning," said Jo, kissing Nashia on top of the head. "Mommy is having another one of those days."

"You were talking in your sleep."

Suddenly more alert, Jo said, "What did I say?"

"I couldn't tell. But you were having a bad dream."

Pausing before sitting down at the table, Jo said, "I guess I was, in a way." She could only just remember whatever she had dreamed about, a shadow play of naked bodies and fire...

"And you left the door unlocked when you went out last night," Nashia continued.

Jo choked. "What do you mean?"

"You went out just before midnight. I woke up when I heard the door close, but I thought you must have been taking a walk, so I got up to make sure you locked the door, because you're always warning me to stay safe and lock up the house at night."

"That was...very good, dear. I'm sorry I woke you." Jo shook a couple more aspirin out for herself.

"It's okay. Isn't this your apple?" Nashia said, pointing. Jo saw that the caramel apple—unwrapped and with several large bites missing—had been sitting in the middle of the table the entire time. Tsking and feeling guilty, she picked up the half-eaten thing and prepared to throw it away.

Following along with her now empty cereal bowl, Nashia said, "You don't want the rest?"

"I don't think so. I mean, I do, but it's not good for me."

Jo looked at her daughter again. Her daughter, who was growing tall, and in whose face Jo often imagined she could see the shadow of the woman she'd one day become.

Then Jo looked at the mark of the bite she'd taken from the caramel apple the previous night.

And she waited for the memory of her own mother's voice to come to her again. But for now it seemed that it was gone.