"As you proceed," he said softly, with the proper reverence, "attend to my voice."

"Je vous mènerai. Vous restez l'ancre," I replied; close to the end of the recitations and the ritual words sounded sweet on my tongue.

"Accept us as worthy." Max's voice was so rich it made me feel the depth of his willingness to be doing this with me.

"Marraine, nous entourer dans la lumière."

"In our time."

"De nos jours."

We sat facing each other, my legs draped over his thighs; the feel of his hands resting on my knees gave me the oddest feeling of being outside myself already. Around us, a circle of Spanish moss kept us safe. At seven intervals, wildflowers plucked from my mother's mother's decayed garden would help us remember.

"It's beginning, Maximus," I told him. "Do you feel it?"

"Give me your hands then."

His hands in mine helped me feel curious and eager to experience. I wondered if, like me, he was feeling the mildly hallucinogenic effects of the mushroom tea I'd brewed and which we'd sipped to begin the ritual. I leaned back and looked above me. Straight up. Into the sky. Stars floated, obscured fleetingly in the shifting currents of the tops of sugar cane stalks surrounding us. The wind was coming.

The spring's air at night was still a chill to my body; it did nothing but make me shiver. Wet below from what we'd already done to set the ritual in place ... naked to the night ... and, deliciously, just a bit unsure we should tempt the fates.

"Listen to me, little one," Maximus said, leaning close to me to be sure I paid heed to his words. "You are not cold. There is a warmth that encases you. Remember to let my voice be your guide if you need one. Will you believe in me?"

"Yes. Will you believe in me, Maximus?"

"With all I have, yes." He paused and I knew what he was doing even though I was not watching him. His eyes were closed, and his body now knew what mine did. "Ah, yes. I feel it gathering."

"Shall I tell you the story then? Will you have me begin now?"

"Begin when you will. I am ready."

"Stay with me, Maximus. Do not let go."

There is a tale among my people of a land that only the selected could ever experience. Only a woman may enter it. But a man will be the key she uses to unlock the entry.

This land is said to be a place where you walk a solo path toward a vision that is yours alone. It is also said that the woman's vision is a glorious gift. It is further said, and this said in such a way as if to make it that much more provocative, that the woman must be worthy to enter this place, but that among the blessings she will be granted is the ability to celebrate her own sexual power.

It is a vision of female empowerment and insight; and as such, its secret ritual is shared only by the women, who whisper it from mother to daughter. The men of my people find this rarely-acknowledged legend at once titillating and frightening; but it is not to them that is told the true glories. For only the rare man chosen to be a woman's key learns that in this experience, he gains the opportunity to have a vision of his own.

Many women search for it; some give their lives in the search. It is a land of legend and its supreme irony is that those who most seek it are most unworthy to find it.

I believe as my mother did ... but then, I learned the tale from her. And this is what we believed: If you were worthy, you never had to seek it. It called to you.

Sometimes, I tell my mother that this tale she has passed to me has done me harm. For I have spent my life wondering what I am: a seeker or a worthy. It seems I should have to be one or the other; aren't I forced to choose which I am just in the knowing of the legend? I have lived with this tale's mystical shifts since I became a woman; and since then have wondered why I cannot choose to be one or the other. But since I have never actively sought it but have also never found it, I must conclude that I am destined to be one of those who live their lives only half full of promises.

Nonetheless, it has become apparent to me in the past few months that perhaps my mother has done me a real service with this tale. For I do believe that it is this legend of my people's women, whispered mother to daughter, that made it possible for me to find the Game as if I'd been chosen at birth for it.

I was 17 years old when the appointed day came for my mother to bring me into the knowing of this tale. Such a wildly inappropriate age for a mother to find a receptive daughter, in the typical scheme of things. But between my mother and I, there had never existed that animosity that so often comes to mar such familial relationships. In my mother's eyes, I saw the affection for our shared blood. From her, I caught the devotion to my culture. For her, I willed myself to be faithful to her belief in our ancestors.

This was why the telling took so well, my grand-mère told me once. This understanding nature between my mother and I marked me, the women of my family agreed.

Yet, it made me feel I'd failed them when I was not called in my youth. Someday is not etched in stone until it becomes yesterday, my grand-mère told me before she died. It was the final thing she told me, whispered in that paper-thin voice of the aged as I bent to kiss her temple and knew within myself it was the last time I would find her alive.

A tale of women. A tale of women who will believe in mysticism while searching for signs of normalcy. Visible only in the light you must seek in the dark. I do remember that part of the tale so well. It is why I have always wanted to believe in magic, spirit, callings and romance.

This is the tale I would tell to Maximus. Into each woman worthy of finding this land, a man will come who can unlock the vision. Pick wisely, my mother always told me. It will be a man you don't expect. It will be a man who is himself searching and is open to the purely supernatural. It will be a man who sees the value in the searching even above the finding.

There were two other times in my life when I thought I might have felt the whisper of the calling to this land. But in those before times, I'd never had it call to me with such clarity as it had that first day with Max in the cane field. It's the secret we shared. That it existed beyond us. And with what we'd found the way to share after, Max agreed to spend one night together in a visit back in the cane field. We wanted to know if what we'd felt was a shared delusion or an opening to individual visions we could only find if we worked together.

A lifetime of wondering if I should be worthy or if I shouldn't give fate a nudge and search to see if I was worthy. And it came to this one chance moment with the most improbable of men, to be standing with him in a field and witness how he was able to feel the mystic rush. To recognize in him that, if I were to ever find myself worthy, it would only be with his help.

And it was how I knew that those other two times I thought I'd felt the whispers of the calling were only there to give me hope. And to teach me what I would feel when it really happened. I had felt it and recognized it for such. But I did not trust in Maximus enough to attempt it in the first flushing moment.

But this night, I trusted him this much. And not much further. For there were so many things of which we remained uncertain about each other.

That was okay. It was not needed to trust with our entire souls. It was only needed to trust that we had to make this journey together or not at all.

Deep within me, I listened to his voice as he talked to me. He was finishing the tale that I had begun to tell him. It was his voice that made me remember it in all its richness. He was the key.

Warmth encases me. I sit up and find Maximus lying on the ground upon the blanket we have carefully placed among the cane stalks. A golden daylight finds us here. He sleeps still. He is beautiful in his repose and I admire his pure magnificence as if it is a gift I make to fate.

He is nude, just as I am. It is how we went into this in the night.

There is a light sheen of sweat glistening on his chest. I know without looking there will be a similar glazing in the folds of his neck and between his legs.

I touch him. He does not wake. His eyes flicker and I know he is dreaming. I wonder if he will tell me the vision he sees in his time. It is his vision; he does not owe it to me to tell me but I still wonder if he will.

I am calm in the face of finding myself in our time. It will not come again and so I will cherish it as I have been told I will.

I am elated to find that I am indeed, after all, worthy.

My hands touch him again. I examine him while he is in his vision and wonder if he can feel me where he is. I suddenly want desperately for him to be able to feel me. To know that he is here with me and that I am glad for that.

He is so strong, is Maximus. It is his body but it is more than that. It is so much more. He has a belief in the purely spiritual that I did not know until he whispered words in my ears when we first joined. Because of what he said, from that moment, I knew we would be here. Maximus tells me he knew something like this would happen from the first moment he read that I believed in Spirit Guides. I tell him he only says things like that to annoy me.

I blow softly across his chest to cool his body. He arches his neck and I know he wishes me to ease away the sweat he holds there. When I puff a waft of air there, his smile is my reward. I kiss his throat and love the taste of the reminder of his sweat. With my index finger, I trace his forehead's creases and wonder at the name of each worry and responsibility that deepened these furrows. My finger scratches lightly across his brows, straightening the hairs there even though they don't really need it. I love the feel of his eyelashes as they rest upon the softness of that space beneath his eyes. Again I note the flickering of his eyes moving under his lids and again I wonder what his vision is.

Bending to him, I kiss his lips and am surprised when they respond; they are sluggish but their very laziness is unrepentantly arousing. He whispers something and I cannot get my ear to his lips in time to understand his words. They disappear as if they never existed.

He has a body that must have been forged for women like me. I love the solidity of it just as much as I love the ripeness of it. I love the way his chest is so robust and broad while his tummy holds the bit of fleshiness that seems all the sexier for not expecting it.

I trace his hair. From his beard to his neck; skip to his impressive arms and stroke in one long line down to his fingers; move over to his chest and pet slowly down to the groin.

Blowing once more, into his private area now. He shifts and moves his legs so that I may have access to the part of him that is moist and so warm. As I puff a cooling breath there, between those magnificent thighs, he shifts again and I bite my lip to see his hand come gather up his shaft. My eyes dart to his but he is still where he should be, in his vision. But now I know. He can feel me.

It is as my mother told me it would be. She described this to me from lore, not from memory, for my mother has never been here. I am aware, in this place, that the last member of my own line of women to be here was my beloved grand-mère.

I do not know how I know this, that my grand-mère has been here. But I do. Someday is being etched, I tell her and smile at this thought she left me with. I am in my time.

Maximus is as languid in his stroking of his hardening cock as he was in his kiss of my lips. I sit up, hug my knees and watch him, sedate in the seclusion of being only a watcher in this moment.

But even as I observe him, I take in the reality that I am in this place of the legend. I wonder when my own vision will happen. But with that thought, I can feel it gathering and know that soon nothing but the power of Maximus' hold on my corporal body will keep me bound to earth.

My own vision is beginning. I know because I can feel his touch on me, there, below where it is now growing wet again without me even making an effort. Somehow, inside me I know I do not have much time before the vision will take me over.

I move back to Maximus and take his cock from him. Let me, I tell him and know he hears me even though my words are not aloud. I stroke him and then kiss his tip. But I can even then feel my vision drawing me away. Too late to do more. I put his hand back where it was.

Taking my place on the part of the blanket that will be mine, I lie back. I can feel him and know he will be with me in my vision and now I know I am in his as well.

This is the moment my vision grips me. It is like dreaming while I am awake. But it lets me remember and I know I shall like to remember this in my old age.

I am walking. The path I trod is infused with golden light that hovers with such abundance that it hazes out my ability to see with any clarity into the distance that I walk toward. To my left are the sounds of the sea; I believe I can even smell the faint salty aroma of the shore. To my right are the gentle calls of the wind through trees. Nothing has familiarity. The golden light softens and I find my hiking has led me to a blank wall made of aged marble. The marble fair glows with the bouncing highlights of the golden ambience I am in. I walk toward the wall and it is as if stepping through a gossamer illusion. The wall allows me in; when I turn back to examine it, it is solid. I gaze around and find myself inside a hallway. Marble walls, marble floors. A translucent gold-hued whiteness that is filled with the most affecting and stirring light. Warm as the marble is cold. I open myself to this and know I must walk on.

Around me, the whisper of voices but no people. This does not worry me. I know they are the voices of the women who invited me to this inner sanctum. It is my vision, not theirs, but they are intrigued by what I will want to see.

As I walk down the long corridor, my hands reach out to trail along the marble walls. I have done this before; a fleeting memory flies into me and it jolts me to a stop. When my eyes look up again, I find that Maximus is waiting for me. I walk to him and he holds out a hand, palm up. I slip a hand slowly into his and feel the warmth of his touch like a flash of light.

"I know you," he tells me.

"And I know you now," I reply, and know this is a ritual part of the vision. That we recognize each other's spirits is important or we cannot go forward. How I know this, I am not sure.

He leads me into a chamber and bids me to lie upon a low padded bench. The material covering the top of the bench is the same color as the marble and it feels so like satin that I wonder for a moment if I will slide off.

"Do you remember my promise, little one?"

"When you first came into me. Your promise to take me here. I don't understand how you even knew," I tell him.

"Somehow I did. I saw it in your eyes and knew I could do this for you."

"And, what about where I am with you, Maximus? In your vision? Have I taken you where you needed to find?"

"You have, Ann. But this place is here for you. It is for you to take from it what you will."

"Touch me, then. Show me that which only you would know to give me."

My eyes look up to the ceiling and find a soft mural has been applied there with a deft hand. Swirling, muted colors tell the tale and I know where I am. It is a place I did not know until that moment but when I see it, it is a memory I have carried in me forever.

When I look down at my body again, I find Maximus there applying a sheen of gold shimmer to my skin. Painting with his fingers. Using liquid that leaves me beginning to tingle upon the places anointed with deliberation and care. I feel the gold glisten upon my breasts, neck, wrists, tummy, clit, the crook of my arms, the back of my knees, inside my thighs. It is creating a mounting itch and I long to find a way to release the tension I feel building in these points that arouse me.

"Your legs must never close," he tells me as he spreads them wide again, placing them carefully on either side of the bench, kindness in his voice because he knows I will obey once I understand. He puts the pot of golden liquid down upon the floor and turns back to me. Bending to kiss my lips with just a gentle nibble. His hands wrap easily around my wrists and he draws them up over my head. I feel the edge of the bench against them as he stretches my arms taut. "You must never need to be bound. You will find the will to keep yourself thus."

"If it is your desire," I tell him and am rewarded with a deeper kiss. He flickers his tongue upon my lips as he pulls away. I stretch lightly but I keep myself exposed just as he has asked me, my arms above my head and my legs spread so wide. I have recognized what my vision is.

"Watch," he whispers in such deep voice. His tongue circles my nipple and licks across the gold. I shiver uncontrollably and think I must come at the feel. He nods at me. "That shall be your reward. I know you will deserve the full reward from me. If you do as has been prescribed. Can you do that?"

I am sweating just from what has rushed through my body at what his tongue has done to me. I feel myself gush below and I need relief. But I also know I don't want relief. Not yet. I want to be drawn to relief as if it is the final act of my life. I do not want to rush it.

"I can do anything." I tell him this not to brag but to reassure him. He is, after all, doing my vision's bidding. It is the magic of this place.

He tells me to rest and leaves me. I concentrate; wanting to obey the simple instructions he has given me. That he can instruct me so and not feel the least need to bind me in place tells me so much. He honors me with his belief in my strength. I will not disappoint him.

Into my mind slip the memories of where I've been in life. There is no feeling of regret, no doubts, no longings. Just knowledge. Placed before me with equanimity and respect. But it is not actions I see; it is people. The people I have known and loved; those I have lost as well as those I have gained. They race before me so that I see the patterns and the development. They are often oddly juxtaposed; and in their positioning, I see some people as I've never seen them before. At the ending, I close my eyes to store the meaning deep within me.

And just as suddenly and completely as the memories overtook me, I am back in the present. I feel I have choices I never imagined.

I am aware of my body in a way I had not been before this began. As if my internalizations must give way to external forces. When Maximus returns, my eyes are closed tight and I am struggling with myself. I feel my arms wanting to move, to come down to my body, to feel myself and to relish the feel of my tingling skin. But I will keep them just where they are. I will never move them. I have the ability to control my desires.

My vision's message is being taught to me in this struggle. It is in the control of my own impulses that I will find the message. It is in this that I will most fully understand why, mother to daughter, we look to be worthy of this experience. What I take from this vision will be mine alone, but it is as it always has been - the path to this vision finds me prepared to take its full measure. This is when it comes to me: I was as those before me; I could have been just as easily a seeker as a worthy.

Ah, this is the secret, then. It was always a choice, but until I was ready, I was wise enough not to choose.

"I know why it was you," I whisper to him but I do not open my eyes. I deliberate on whether I have inadvertently flexed my thighs and drawn them even a smidgen closer than he had placed them. I have not.

"And I have learned why it was you," he responds.

Now I open my eyes. He holds a bowl out to me and I feel myself drift without warning. I go inside myself in a panic, calling out in my mind to him, needing to hear his voice: "Maximus! I am ... Something is happening. Stay with me! Please don't let go."

I hear the answer in my head. His voice answering me from within his own vision. I feel him touch my hand and I am anchored again. My focus comes back and I am again looking into the eyes of his emanation.

The realization occurs to me that I must at once be within this vision while being able to recognize it for what it is. It is why I faltered. But it also teaches me that Maximus remains not just the key but the anchor.

Before me, the emanation of Maximus nears, still holding the bowl. I see within the bowl that there are the most beautiful slices of fruit. They are so ripe that they ooze their nectar. With a sigh, I recognize them - quartered peaches that he has dipped in the same golden liquid upon my skin. The sight of them reminds me of the tension that has never left the places he anointed earlier.

He kneels beside me and places the bowl of fruit upon my belly. I quiver at its coolness but when he chides me, I calm. He lifts one of the slices in his hand and I watch as he bites into it, letting the juice drip from his chin. I feel each tiny splatter hit - plop, plop, plop - in the valley between my breasts.

When he bends to kiss me, I want to lick the remnants of peach juice from his face. He makes me wait until he finishes with the kiss. Then he looks intently into the bowl and draws a new slice out; turns his head to give me a sly smile.

"Hungry?" he asks me.

"Insatiable," I respond. He brings the slice to my mouth. Holding it just out of reach, squeezing it slightly; my open mouth catches the drips and I drink them down with such relish. I open my mouth again to accept the fruit but he pulls it back, trailing it lightly over one of my breasts.

His free hand spreads the folds of me below and I know what will happen. I feel the cool slice as he slides it right into my opening there. My legs tremble at the urge to close. It is impossible to keep still with this insane sensation. The juice seems to have triggered new itching from the golden paint on my breast and around my clit. As he pulls his beefy fingers from inside me, they linger as if by accident and then nonchalantly draw up my slit.

But there is nothing casual about his moves. And he is intent on his actions now. With great concentration, he slowly and deliberately places two more peach slices inside me, not as though he intends to fill me but more as though it must be done just so for some as yet unknown reason. I get the impression it is as if he is building a purposeful work of art.

Finally, he rises on his knees and studies what he has done. My legs are shaking and I am focusing as much of my control as I can on not expelling the fruit. I suddenly realize that we have not spoken a word during this entire time. I have no power of speech now so I don't even try.

Now appearing satisfied, he removes the bowl from my belly and carries it from the room.

I lay there, trying to control every single muscle in my body, begging myself to cooperate. Intent on my enjoyment of this experience. It is unlike any feeling I have ever had. I begin to catalogue the sensations. I make lists in my brain, hoping I will remember it all, knowing I will.

When he returns, I speak to him in a soft voice. "This is my chance, is it not? I see so clearly where I have been. The path I took to reach this point has been worth it if for no other reason than that it has given me the ability to enjoy this part of the journey. But, Maximus, I beg you to see in my eyes what you have been unable to before. How could you have foreseen this experience but not been able to read my eyes?"

"We see what we shall see. We are all seeking different truths, different meanings. But I will look again."

He bends over the bench, his hands trailing up my torso to lightly hold my breasts before moving up to my neck. His thumbs grip into either side of my face, a slight but definite pressure on my jaw, holding me still. I look into his eyes and will him to see me, to see that it is me here before him.

I think fleetingly of also willing him to be glad it is me thus before him. But I do not.

He rises over me, straddling the bench over my chest and I see his proud shaft before me. It is hard; it has drops of pre-cum already glistening. He reaches behind him and I feel one of the peach slices leave my opening. I groan to watch him smear its juice upon his cock and my mouth begins to water.

His eyes are reading mine and I know he sees me now. And I know what he will do next.

"Oh. God," I breathe out in wonder.

He places the peach slice between his lips and I see his teeth grip its flesh. He leans over me, his hands coming to rest next to my head. I cannot take my eyes from his but the peach is in my sight as well. He bends further toward me so that he can guide the peach into my waiting, open mouth. I take a measured but eager bite.

It is sweet. So very sweet. But I can also taste within the heavy peach flavor the heady mingling of the essence of my own juices with his. He waits patiently for me to gulp down the piece I have nibbled off. Our mouths meet as he pushes more of the fruit into me and we split the remainder of the soft mass; chewing slowly against each other's lips. Before I can swallow, his tongue invades me and we kiss without shame. Eating from each other.

Somewhere, our real bodies are still in the cane field and there, he has hold of my hand and won't let go. He is the only reason I stay tethered to my body as I float in this other realm that has only been a tale but now is mine.

I fear I may disgrace myself by not having the control I need. Though ... not disappointing him is not as important as not disappointing myself.

In my head, I hear him ask me something within his own vision and it excites me. I never knew this part of the tale. That we could titillate each other even while on separate journeys. I concentrate and reach into his vision. I hear his groan echo through me and I know I have given him a surprise there.

My attention comes back to his emanation with me in my vision. I do not see him at first but then realize he is kneeling out of my sight, at the head of the bench. I arch my neck and search behind me for sight of him. I feel his lips on the tender undersides of my wrists. The lightest, slightly damp kiss in each spot and I feel the liquid gold set my skin there quivering. I bite my lip when I feel him kiss deeply into the inside of the crook of each of my arms. His face is upside down to me as he kisses my forehead and then my lips.

He whispers a sweet sentiment into me as he leans further over my body to lick along my neck. It is then I can see what he intends. As he licks each spot he anointed with the golden liquid, it now turns to flame. He is setting my body on fire with the wetness he leaves behind.

I feel the real struggle begin. I want this fire quenched but yet I allow it to ravage me as he leans fully over me and spends so much time on my breasts. My eyes open to look at the skin of his chest before me. I raise my head and kiss him on the only spot I can reach. I can feel the way it trembles inside him to feel me do this.

My hands cup his balls as they are right within my reach without moving my arms. I feel their heft, caress them and marvel at the miracle of his design.

But he moves further down my body and my hands have nothing left to hold. I will myself to remember that my hands are holding his in the field. This calms me when I most need it.

For his mouth has left behind breasts far too sensitive to take the scratching of his light chest hair as he moves over me. I want to cry out but resist. Instead, I find I am panting.

I feel his hands at my hips as he leans his weight upon me. He has paused and is blowing cooling air upon my slit. But it does not cool for long; rather it seems to make the fire there blaze to life. I open my mouth to describe it to him but realize I can do this in my head instead. For, before me, I see something I would rather do with my mouth.

He hears my desire and lifts his hips. He takes his hardened cock in his hand and glides it between my lips. I give him a deep kiss of gratitude. Inside my head, I hear his moan and know that in his vision, he must be feeling my desire for his own fulfillment.

There is scant time for me to wonder on this. His broad tongue is licking along my slit and I hear him slurp a combination of the peach juice and my own nectar that I feel flowing. The hair of his beard scratches, scratches, scratches along my sensitized clit as his jaw moves against my opening. He is delicately, slowly drawing the second peach slice from me. I can sense the cool hardness of his teeth as they carefully nibble into its soft ripeness.

His avid enjoyment of the meal he has catered for himself overwhelms me for a moment. I feel my hips shift and know I want to shove myself into his mouth. His fingers lightly press me down and I search for the calm flittering somewhere just out of reach.

It doesn't work. I gasp out around his cock. I have lost the ability to stay with him but he pumps harder into me and I begin suckling him again.

Still his jaw moves as he finishes chewing each moist inch of that peach slice. I feel my body want to push it out, my internal muscles cramping with the effort to stay as still as possible. But when he finishes this piece, he deliberately shifts to suck hard against my now riotous nub. I cannot control my response.

I feel myself beginning to come and my mind reels with it. But he stops what he's doing and allows me to collect myself. In response, I suck hard on him, hoping to make him come quickly so that I may then selfishly focus on enjoying what I know will be an experience I might have once imagined but could never have known would be thus.

He allows me. I feel him lay his forehead on my mound and he grunts toward his coming. Thrusting into me with more force that I am prepared for. But I relax my throat and accept him further. In my mind, he recites a litany of what I am making him feel. I know that in his own vision, he is coming. And now in mine, he is coming with such force I am not sure I can deal with it. But I do and I am greedy to swallow everything he gives me.

With an appreciative moan, he eases his softening cock from my mouth. He rises on his hands, swivels for just a moment to kiss me deeply and murmur his sigh of pleasure and desire.

And then he is back where he was. His mouth suckling so gently at first, as if to remind me where we were. His tongue invades me like a soft spear, jabbing at the third and final slice of peach. And I am shamed that my legs almost snap shut in surprise. He pretends not to notice and I gulp in huge breaths to calm myself.

"Will you give this last piece up to me?" he whispers against my opening.

I tremble at the sound of his voice. It is so rich, so deep, so masculine that it near hurts to hear that it is directed at me.

"Open to me fully," he orders.

Concentrating on this, and I know this is when my control is most needed. Am I in command of my own body? My own mind? My own spirit? Now is the time I am to learn this.

All within me goes into a state of focused calm. I note each tingling nerve, each itch that needs to be resolved, each element of me that wants to come. I have decided how I will come and it is in the doing that the ability to do it comes to me.

His tongue dives in again and I feel him nudge the final piece of the fruit. Jangling inside my most private space. Reverberating throughout me.

I simply take what he will give me, knowing the reason he was the one sent to help me. Our bodies work together. He is finally able to bite into the fruit. I feel his teeth's hardness against my inner sanctum but do not ever feel the need to flinch though I know he could so easily wound me in this most tender place of my body.

I can feel each nuance of the peach as it leaves my body and enters his. I let him drink my own juices as if he will never be quenched of the thirst for what he takes from me. We talk to each other, in our minds, and we see each other so clearly in this moment.

As he brings out the last of the peach, he wants to bring me to the final coming. I begin, feeling my internal muscles convulse in the pleasure of being allowed to finally do what they've longed to do for what feels like forever. He completes the act by sucking in upon my nub, lightly at first, but then inserts two fingers so he can feel when the spasms will wrack me. As a final testament to how he wants me to trust in his own control, his teeth grip into me, with infinite precision, on either side of my pulsing clit; he is gentle, but he applies definite pressure. This is what makes me finally release my voice. This dichotomy between danger and safety.

He sucks hard, his lips replacing his teeth. He lets me thrust up into him and thrash under him. Move your arms, he encourages me, relax your legs. In my mind he tells me my body is free to me and that the only bondage I was ever held within was of my own manufacture. In my coming, my final moment of insight.

I am released. 

There are never bindings more restrictive than those with which you hold yourself. I am not sure if it is his voice I hear or the women who have been before me. This is the moment I free myself from my vision.

My eyes slide open as if on a dream. I gulp in night air. Above me, I am watching stars again. I turn my head in time to see Maximus start and he gasps loudly. We are holding hands so tightly that I wonder if the blood will ever pulse in mine again.

He turns to meet my gaze. We are no doubt mirror images in the amazement on our faces.

"Oh my God," I whisper to him, giving him the easiest smile I've felt in too long. I feel like doing a handspring. Or two.

"I don't believe I would have thought that possible in this day," he replies and I hear awe in his voice.

"Was it the vision you needed to help you?"

"I believe it was just so."

"Then you were right, weren't you? You knew somehow before even meeting me this would happen." I turn on my side, prop my head up in my hand and rub his chest with my other. "In a million years, Max, I would never have believed you were the one who would have been able to experience this with me."

"Will you tell him of this? The one whose spirit infused your vision?"

My heart skips at Max's ability to see me so clearly in this moment. I am determined to be honest with Max and myself. "I didn't expect it to be him. I fear I am destined to lose him, Max."

His arm around my waist draws me into his embrace; I lay my head on his chest and feel cherished for what we've been through together. I am glad he does not pursue this. He asks me instead: "Will you write about this?"

"Indeed I will. It has been in my blood to write about it so I really have no choice on the matter." I get a flash of lingering connection to his thoughts. "You won't tell me your vision now, will you? Because you don't want me to write about it."

"I will only share it with the one who permeated my own vision. You understand that, I know."

"Oh, yes, I do. Yours was not the vision you had expected. It has restored a part of your spirit, hasn't it? And the sharing of that should be held sacred. She will like it so very much that you knew instantly it is only her who will honor it in the way you need it to be honored." I hug in around his waist and prize the strength of his return hug. In an excited voice, I tell him: "I am so thrilled for you, Max. But not half as thrilled as I am for myself."

He laughs at me. Long and very hard. Rolling me under his body as he calms from the avid amusement at my own elated spirit. He buries his face in the hair behind my ear and whispers to me: "It is hard to imagine just how light I feel within my skin at this moment. Promise me that you will let me repay you someday for this experience?"

"You owe me nothing, Max. It took us both to do this. And we benefited in equal measure." I have only just taken note of where and how his body is. I squirm slowly under him. "However, it seems we have come back from where we were and find ourselves still ready for the other. Curious, don't you find?"

"Why curious?" he asks, but I note he is now moving against me with definite intent.

"Yours was not as good a vision as mine, perhaps," I tease him, knowing full well that his had sexual components just as mine did. "In mine, I was eminently satisfied by you. Perhaps I was not so good to you in yours?"

"Perhaps," he grunts, trying to fool me with his gruff voice. Then I catch the glint of a swift smile that looks mischievous. "Perhaps the gods and goddesses see fit to reward us for a successful search for this experience we have shared."

"For whatever goddess endowed you, I give thanks," I sass as I wiggle harder into him.

"And for whatever god gave you your spirit, I will pray he be flogged mercilessly by the other gods," he whispers hoarsely into my ear even as his knees spread my thighs.

"Oh, Max, you say the sweetest things to me!" I squeak it out as I feel him begin to enter me.

He hilts in me in one swift motion, gliding in unopposed upon a path of slippery want. We move against each other, growing swiftly serious in our pursuit of the other's passion. His hands on my hips try to hold me steady as he begins to thrust into me with increasingly powerful movements. When I struggle to go along with what he wants, he raises my knees to my chest and then spreads them wide, pulling them over his shoulder as he seeks his release. I find my rhythm and feel the gathering of my coming explode in golden glory.

Somewhere in this night, I am consummating a tale. A legend of my people's women. This is my final aspect. I have joined the line of women who find it when they least expect it. But I think I know its power might have been with me from birth; perhaps the need for fulfillment of this tale was the only reason I ever found the Game. Perhaps the Game was only there to serve as my way into my birthright.

I believe the searching was the finding. Is freedom next? Am I now brave enough not to need it?