Posted by Kimnikki on November 29, 2001 at 05:00:14:
Blissblade: Part II
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The first thing I noticed was the light ... or more precisely, the lack of a source of it. No lanterns or candles were lit, but the inside of the wagon was filled with a golden light. Like all caravan wagons the carnival used, it was basically a tiny house on wheels. I looked around in amazement at the profusion of things she had managed to stuff into it. I won't bother to describe them ... we'd be here all night just to list them all. Suffice to say that this old woman had been around a looooong time and had collected a massive amount of things.
She turned from the tiny stove, and poured us two cups of tea. I didn't notice at first that she was standing tall and straight, with no limp and that she wasn't using her cane. I sat and sipped in silence, not knowing what to say or how to ask what I knew I needed to. She watched me, sipping her tea as well, those eyes following my every move. When she finally spoke we had been quiet so long that I actually jumped a little.
"Well now," she said in her dry raspy voice, "since you seem unable to speak, I guess it's up to me." She heaved a heavy sigh, and without looking reached behind her head and pulled down a small plaque, which turned out to have a miniature portrait of a man about the age I am now. It had a surprising amount of detail.
"That's my Lars ... my husband. Oh how I miss that man. Died of a fever almost 40 winters ago. Even when I married him I knew he was something different, his aura told me that. It took me a long time to figure out what that difference was, and by that time he had found a lot on his own, just like you. When I realized what he was, I knew he could never be mine and mine alone, but being what I am, I understood about such things. I helped him to discover and accept what he was. Take at look at what's at his waist."
She said it with little emotion, but I could see tears in her eyes.
When I looked my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. Tucked into his belt were several knifes, whose handles were decorated nearly identical to my own. But this man had died 40 years ago, and I had made all my own blades. How could this be?
"When you first showed up," she said, "I thought maybe it was just coincidence. I checked you're aura of course ... and didn't see anything unusual. Maybe I'm just getting old, or maybe you hadn't progressed far enough yet ... either way I didn't think you had the gift."
I looked up from the portrait to find my eyes locked with hers again. As strange as what she was saying was, I could see in her eyes that she meant every word.
"So I ignored you mostly ... you brought back too many memories. Then I heard a couple of the local women in one town talking about what you had done to them the previous night, and I felt my heart skip a beat. I took another look at your aura, and I saw what I hadn't seen before ... that you did indeed have the gift."
"In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm the one who spilled the beans on you. Figured it would only be a matter or time before everyone got curious and wanted to see if the rumors were true. When I saw what you did to Ezmerelda, and just how much she enjoyed it, I knew for sure."
"You see Rando ... the big secret that I keep from everybody is that I *really* am a witch. Oh don't think about all that broom riding nonsense, I just can see things that others can't, and use that knowledge to do things others can't. As for why I'm hiding in this carnival ... well that's for another day. All you need to know is that I see 'auras' and that they can tell me a lot about a person. And yours tells me that you're a Blissblade .... right and sure you are."
That was only the second time I heard that word, and while it didn't effect me as much as the first time, I still felt a chill go down my spine.
"Ah ... you can feel the truth of that can't you young fella? But I'll bet you want to know how I know it don't you?" And with that she stood, and parted her robe.
She had nothing on underneath.
Now don't look so sickened ... she actually had a remarkable body for someone of that age. She was small and compact, and while the years had taken their toll, it was not hard to imagine that many years before she had been a real beauty. Rather than the wizened old hag we all thought we knew, before me was what remained of a once young and beautiful woman. Truth be told, with out the "old hag act", she wasn't ugly ... she was just old.
But years were not the only thing that had marred her beauty, for her body was covered in multiple knife scars. Scars that were in *exactly* the places I had learned to carefully cut, scrape or poke with my blades to drive a woman into a sizzling orgasm while making love.
These though were much worse than anything I had ever done. I drew blood yes, and often my bedmates were left a little weakened by the blood loss, but my worst cuts were little more than deep scratches. These had obviously been deep cuts and serious stab wounds. Without thinking I reached out to touch the scars, confirming the special points I had thought were my secret alone. I also found that there were much finer scars under the harsher, newer ones. I looked up into her eyes and saw that they were on a place long ago and far away.
"I had watched him with other women for so many years. And of course he'd done to me hundreds of times what you've been doing with women. That was safe and it was wonderful ... but I knew there was more. And I'd watched him many times go beyond that limit."
"I wanted to know ... I wanted to know what those others felt. And my own desires grew as well ... I wanted more from him and those beautiful blades. I pleaded with him to do more, but he was too scared of killing me, too afraid that neither of us would be able to stop once he began."
"Not one of them ever asked him to stop Rando, not one. Even as they bled to death in his arms they begged for more. You see he could tell which wanted it and which didn't. I could too, because of their auras. Even he wasn't sure how it worked ... but he always knew."
I swallowed against a lump in my throat. I too always seemed to know those that would accept what I could give them. You be amazed at how many women enjoy a hint of danger, a bit of fear, and just the right amount of pain applied at just the perfect moment. But to actually desire for death? To want the danger and fear to be real and not some elaborate game? Yet I felt a stirring deep inside me as she said the words.
"And their cries ... no matter how many times I heard them, they still sent a shudder of lust and fear though me. Oh Rando ... you think what you hear now pleases your pride? You think the cries of pleasure are sweet now? What I heard from them was enough at times to make me orgasm ... just from watching."
To hear this old woman talk about watching a murder, and climaxing as she did, should have been a hell of lot more disturbing that it was. I can see it disturbs you. But that door she had first unlocked a year before was begging to open as she spoke. And yes ... there are times when I do wish it had remained closed. But not very often.
She had removed the robe completely, and was now tracing some of the scars with her fingertips. For the first time since she began to speak, she looked into my eyes again.
"Finally he couldn't ignore his own senses any longer ... he knew I wanted it, and one beautiful summer night he agreed to my desires. But he refused to take it all the way ... he loved me too much and said he just couldn't do it. I knew without taking it to the limit I would not experience all, and that was what I wanted."
"I knew my own aura well, and I was sure with my skills that I could make a potion that would bring me back from the brink ... assuming it was given in time." She was beginning to breathe faster now, and while she still looked at me, her eyes went far away again.
"I showed him the potion and told him how to use it. For a long time, he just stood there looking down at me. I could feel his fear fighting his desire ... he so wanted to give what he knew only he could give. Then suddenly he scooped me up and carried me into our bedroom. Without a word, with only a single kiss, he took out his finest blades and began."
Her eyes fluttered closed and she clenched her hands together over her belly, directly over the largest of the scars.
"I screamed and screamed and screamed. That is what happened to my voice ... I actually ruptured my voice box that night. I came so many times Rando that my fear became that I would go mad from pleasure rather than bleed to death." Her hands unclasped, one hand tracing the scar that all but destroyed her bellybutton. "I had not really understood how much it hurt ... or how wonderful that hurt would be. The feel of the steel inside of me Rando ... knowing what it was doing ... feeling it move, like ice and fire mixed, as it descended into my body over and over."
Despite the circumstances (an old scarred woman, her beauty long gone, the horror that her words should have aroused and the deep-seated fear that should have followed) I felt myself harden as she relived the joy of that night. That door was opening wider.
"And the blood ... the feel of the blood on my skin, the taste of it in my mouth, and the heat of it in my womanhood." Her eyes opened again, and this time the tears freely came.
"I begged him to let me die ... to let it go that far, to let me have that final orgasm. Even though I had life literally at my fingertips I pleaded with him to gut me as I'd watch him do to others so many times." She touched the widest single scar that ran from her ruined bellybutton nearly to the bottom of her breastbone. "And he very nearly did ... as he came he nearly lost control. I only know what happened later because he told me. I came so hard, the pain and pleasure were so intense and so perfectly matched, that I fainted. And no young Rando ... it was not the blood loss, it was the joy that pulled me into darkness."
I was spell bound, her words held me pinned in place as easily as her eyes had that night a year before. In those tear filled eyes were a reflection of a joy so intense that it had very nearly killed her.
"He told he later that doing it to someone he truly loved was far more powerful than he'd expected. He came back to his senses only at the last minute. He had to force the potion down my throat, and much of it spilled out or went down my lungs. I swallowed enough to bring me back from blissful oblivion ... but as you can see it left me scarred for life and my voice never healed. Fortunately he had not touched my face with his blades ... only his lips."
She bent down and pulled her robe back on, drying her tears with an edge of the sleeve.
"But I would not have cared if my face were scarred like an old gnarled stump. And I tell you to your face Rando that I would have gleefully gone to my grave that night. I've lived with these scars for 40 years now ... and each and every one of them was worth the price. What I felt that night was worth 10 times the price. We had planned on doing it again, once each year, on our anniversary. But he died that winter of a fever I just couldn't cure."
I was trembling from head to foot now. Even to this day I can't tell you whether it was in fear or lust or guilt or any of a hundred other feelings that were running riot through me. I should have been horrified, I should've fled screaming from that little cabin, buried my blades and taken up turnip farming. Almost any other man would have ... but then again I'm not just any man. And so I stayed.
"Why, " I managed to gasp, "why do you show this to me? Why do you tell me this?"
She took my head between her hands. "You know why ... Because you are what he was. You share that same gift. You can do what he did. You ... are a Blissblade."
I took her wrists and pulled her down so that our eyes were level. "No ... that's not what I meant. I can't deny it anymore; yes I can feel it ... I can feel what you've told me is truth. I can feel it deep inside. But why tell me? If you'd never told me, if you'd never spoken, I'd never have known!" I was shouting at her, but even I didn't know whether it was in anger or excitement.
She bent forward to kiss my forehead then again took my head between her hands. "Because my dear man; knowing what I know, knowing how it feels ... how can I deny that joy to the women I will now teach you to find?"
Up until that moment I had not fully grasped the significance of all she'd said. Then it hit me like a lightning bolt; I could not unlearn what she'd just told me ... and would never forget her words as long as I lived. Already I was wondering how much more intense what she'd described was ... not just for me but for my lovers as well. The door had been unlocked, and now was open wide. And inside was a world of death and blood and beauty and pleasure. There was no way I could ever go back.
A massive conflict of desires and emotions ravaged their way through my head. An incredible desire to experience what she'd described, side by side with a disgusted guilt that I should even have such thoughts. A burning need to hear and feel a woman howling in pleasure and a horror of the pain that would be mixed in the scream. All these burned through me ... in a riot so chaotic and so violent that I wondered if I could stand it.
As it turned out, I couldn't ... and so I passed out.
Hmmm ... we seem to have run out of ale young lady. Here's another coin ... go get us some more will you? All this talk makes me thirsty.
Ahhh....there we go, that really hits the spot. Now ... where was I again? Oh yes ... passed out on Zelda's floor.
If I dreamed that night, I don't remember it. I groggily opened my eyes to late afternoon sunlight, looking around in puzzlement and wondering where the hell I was. Then the memory of the previous night hit and I sat bolt upright ... only to smack my head on the bottom of Zelda's table.
I cried out and rubbed the top of my head, hearing a chuckle from above me. "Good afternoon Rando ... careful with my table now."
I shot out from under the table, and stood looking down on her as she laid two bowls of soup on the table. I just stood there, not knowing what to say or do ... or even if I should say or do anything.
She looked at me with sympathy. "I know you're scared my friend ... so was Lars when I told him what his aura said he was. But you really don't have to be ... it's not horrible, or evil. It's just a part of the world that people don't understand because it's been too long since they touched their own spirits. Sit down now ... and have some soup."
I had to admit the soup smelled wonderful and my stomach was growling something fierce. I thanked her then attacked the soup and the bread she had brought with it. While I ate she talked.
"First let me apologize for last night ... I drugged your tea. I was worried that the stress of what I showed you might hurt you so I gave you a little something that would knock you out if it all became too much for you. It also fixed your teeth and let you some rest ... which you're going to need."
That stopped my spoon half way to my mouth, soup dripping back into the bowl. I remembered what she said last night, about teaching me how to find a certain kind of woman.
"Eat Rando ... you'll need your strength too. Don't look all worried ... as I said I've done this once before. In that you're luckier than my Lars ... we were both virgins in a sense that first time."
I wanted to say 'no', to thank her for the soup and then go back to my own wagon ... but something inside would not let me. I was still afraid right down to my socks at what she had suggested last night. But just as strong as my fear was a desire to know if it really was true, and what it was like to ... to ... to do as she'd suggested.
After I'd finished my soup and bread, she sent me back to my wagon. "Go home ... try to relax if you can. Pick out which blades you want to bring ... don't obsess about it; just let your fingers pick for you. Make sure they have an edge you could shave with and points that could pierce silk without tearing it. Then wash them and use them for nothing else. I'll come to you when it's time. Fortunately for us both it's a rest day."
Doing as she said was surprisingly easy, considering how keyed up I was when I left her. A bath, some clean clothes and a shave had me feeling physically refreshed. And rather than make me more nervous, the act of picking and preparing a set of blades brought a strange calmness. Not a numbness, not a dulling of what was around me ... in fact I became increasingly aware of the passage of time and of what was going on around me. I was not dulled or dampened ... but I was calm. This calmness stayed with me as day passed into night, and it was just before midnight when I saw Zelda again.
Still my heart did pick up when I saw her, back in her "wizened old hag" disguise, tottering towards me. She looked me up and down, noting my appearance, the blades tucked into my belt and how generally calm I was, and smiled at me.
"It was this way for Lars too ... always so nervous before. But once he got ready, once the blades were in his hands, he too became the calm assured hunter. Come my young hunter ... let me show you your prey."
My heart beat faster at her words, but in excitement not fear. Could a person change so fast? Just the night before I passed out from the conflicting emotions within me ... and now I was looking forward to it? I don't know what to tell you about that to be honest. I was still a little afraid, and guilt was still with me ... but it was all overlain by this alert calmness.
She took me across the carnival, but to my surprise she did not head towards the town. Instead she headed towards the second set of wagons pulled up on the far side of our main tent. She didn't slink or try to sneak and I followed her lead. She walked between several of the wagon and then stopped in the shadows between two animal carts. The wagon directly in front of us belonged to Vicky and Lisa, our single trapeze act.
I looked down at her, wondering if she had lost her mind.
Vicky and Lisa were two women in their 30's, both with the muscular bodies that female acrobats build after a lifetime of trapeze work. They worked on the single trapeze, one dangling below the other, doing incredible tasks of strength and balance and skill. They were actually on something of a sabbatical and had not preformed in several weeks. Both were well liked around the carnival; friendly, intelligent and willing to help other performers when needed. They were also lovers.
There you go looking shocked again. Remember I said that carney's can accept almost anything. We didn't give a fig if they loved each other and were lesbians. They were good people and damned good performers.
But I think you can see why I thought that Zelda had popped her cork. Of all the women that traveled with the carnival, these two were the last ones I'd expect to welcome me into their bed.
"Just wait my young skeptic ... just wait," she whispered, pulling me a bit deeper into the shadows. We were not there long when Vicky came out of the wagon heading towards the food tent with a couple of bowls, leaving Lisa alone in the doorway.
"Now ... tell me about her. Look at her Rando ... look at her and tell me what you feel." Her voice was so quiet that I barely heard it.
So I looked at Lisa ... and looked some more. She had long brown hair, where as Vicky was a blond. Worn loose, they tied it into long braids when they were performing. She was slightly older then Vicky and she was very pretty. She (and Vicky as well) had firm, small breasted, quite muscular bodies. They were not muscle women to be sure, but they had the firm bodies of excellent athletes.
I saw nothing out of the ordinary or out of place, nothing that I hadn't seen a thousand times before. She had perhaps lost a little weight, but there was nothing extraordinary in what I was seeing. And yet .... there *was* something ... not something I was seeing ... more like a feeling. It's very hard to explain, the feeling that I got, but I suppose the best way to describe it would be that it was like a tugging. A pull if you will ... that emanated from Lisa herself.
Have you ever been hungry and smelled some really good food? Well you know how the order draws you on, makes you seek out the source of the delicious smell? Think of it like that; it wasn't exactly the same, but I felt the same need to seek out the source of the "tugging".
I felt my heart begin to pound, and I started to become aroused by the feeling within me. "What is it," I asked Zelda, feeling that intoxicating pull as a steady tug from Lisa.
"She desires to die Rando ... in fact she is dying. But she wants death on her own terms ... and she is terrified of what is killing her. All this makes her perfect for you." Her voice was trembling a bit ... I wasn't the only one growing excited.
"How do you know all this? Are you reading her aura?" I could hardly believe I was asking that question ... but too much was happening for me to doubt anymore.
"Partly," she replied. "But mostly because she and Vicky came to me. Being a gypsy they assumed I might know a little something about poisons. They were looking for one that could end life painlessly but surely. Lisa has the wasting sickness ... a horrible way to die. No sane person would wish that kind of death."
As strange as it sounds I felt my heart go out to the poor woman ... and I always feel compassion for anyone who must face so horrible an end. "Is that what I'm feeling ... that she is dying?"
"That is part of it ... because you can offer her a way out. But it's also that she wants to die her way ... and there is something else besides." She tapped the scabbard of one of my blades. "She knows what you can do with these ... if you were a woman she and Vicky might well have invited you to their wagon by now."
"It's true that she would rather live than die. But she has no choice and so she wants to die her way. She is not afraid of death, just in how she goes. Given a choice, if she knew, she would choose to die on your blades. And that is why you feel her strongly."
"Someone could be perfectly healthy and you would still sense it if they wanted to die. Lars could always feel the desire for death. Though strongest of all was the desire for a sensual death ... not depression or desperation. He could feel those too, but if someone actually wanted to die in a mix of pleasure and pain, in the manner he could give so well, then he could feel them from miles away."
I stood there watching her, letting Zelda's words run though my mind, feeling a steady pull. I had no idea how it worked, but I could feel it as surely as I felt the shoes on my feet.
"It will take time before you learn to sort out one kind of death desire from another. Just know for tonight that you will be giving her a beautiful gift. Even if you can't yet believe that someone would die for what you can give, surely you can believe that you can give her a gentler death than the sickness will?"
There was little I could say to that. Even if I had never learned I could bring pleasure with my blades, I knew I could kill instantly and painlessly. I would have done this for the poor woman, even if I had never heard the word Blissblade or had any special skills beyond the norm.
I stepped back further into the shadows, think over what I was feeling, and to my surprise, Lisa turned to look right were I was. I was sure she hadn't seen or heard me. I moved ever so slowly, and her brows furrowed and she turned to where I had moved. She gave herself a little shake, and then turned back to Vicky who at that moment arrived with a late night dinner.
"She felt me," I whispered in excitement, "she felt me the same as I felt her"
"Of course she did ... not as strongly, but she knew that something she wanted was over this way. When Lars felt one of those who truly lusted for death all he had to do was sit across from her and eventually she would come to him."
Even though she was now in the wagon, I could still feel Lisa longing for a far gentler death than the sickness would give her. I still had my doubts, I still had conflicting feelings, but they were all secondary to the siren call Lisa was unknowingly making.
But then I froze; how the hell was I going to approach her? "Hi ... I'm here to stick these knifes into you and give you pleasure while you die?" I'd be lucky if I didn't end up with my knifes up my ass!
Zelda smiled, sensing my conflict. "Just go Blissblade ... just go to her. My Lars was never a good speaker, never one clever with words. But when he stood before a woman who wanted him or needed him, then either words were not needed, or the words would be there when they were."
She took my hand, and even in the darkness I could see the gleam of tears in her eyes. "Go Blissblade ... oh please go to her. Let her feel what I did so long ago ... and give her beauty in her death."
I gave her a kiss on her forehead, and then with a growing sense of need and assurance I stepped up to the wagon and knocked.
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End of Part II