Story: The Return of Spring
Dec. 8th, 2008 06:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosThis is unseasonal, and some of you may have seen it before, but I can't find it in the entries/tags for this journal, and I've been feeling the urge to post it. Maybe it's because, despite the actual season, I'm feeling like my own life-force has been returning more and more strongly over the past several weeks.
I was brushing my hair, gazing at the silver mirror but seeing nothing, when my husband came up behind me and caught me around the waist. “I hate spring,” he growled into my neck. His hand came up under my hair, pulling my head back. I dropped the brush, reached back to capture his own head in my hands.
His lips and teeth left a trail of kisses from my ear to my shoulder. I shivered, twining my fingers deeper into his raven hair. He turned me roughly to face him and claimed my mouth in a hard, fierce kiss that spoke eloquently of his desire for more.
I’ll be late. . . I thought, but didn’t care. Mother could wait. She could wait all damn day. My husband wanted me, I wanted him, and we would be too long apart. I swayed my hips against him in lascivious invitation.
He tore his mouth from mine with a soft roar of satisfaction. The next moment, my gown had joined the hairbrush on the floor, leaving me naked to his hot gaze. “My wife.” He pulled me close again. “Mine.”
“Yours.” I tilted my head back, drew his mouth down my breasts.
The world around us blurred. Naked together on our bed, my husband held me close, fiery passion gentled to desperate tenderness, the deadline for my departure hovering like the sword of Damocles over us. “I want to wrap you in cobwebs and keep you here,” he husked. Legs and arms entwined, he moved onto me, into me. . . night and day blending and blurring in a holy eclipse.
“She pretends I’m still a virgin!” I gasped as my hips rose to meet his. “She refuses to accept that I’m a wife. . . a queen!”
My husband thrust deep, sweet friction making me cry out. “My queen!”
It was over too quickly. We lay in each other’s arms, my head nestled against his chest, until a chiming, bodiless voice announced, “The messenger is here.”
My husband grabbed me in another fierce kiss, then pulled me from the bed before passion outweighed prudence. He wiped my love-damp body with a warm towel, then brought me the light green gown my mother had sent as an equinox gift. His lip curled as he drew it down over my nakedness. It was, as always, a gown for a nymph, a maiden.
He brushed out my hair, kissing the crown of my head when he was done. I put on a circlet of silver flowers -- another gift from Mother.
Once, decades ago, I had gone to meet her as the wife and queen that I am, not the maiden daughter of her lost dreams. She withdrew in injured fury, and I was compelled to assume my proper role. I have not tried to defy her illusions again. But looking at myself in the mirror I saw the absurdity of my girlish garb – particularly with the dark glory of my naked husband behind me.
Our eyes met in the mirror, then I stood. He extended his arm and we walked in silence to the gate where the messenger waited for me.
The whole earth waits for me, waits for the Kore to emerge from her captivity in the underworld, waits for the Earth Goddess to release her hostage hold on the crops. I turn. My husband lifts my hand to his lips, looks in my eyes as he kisses my fingers.
There is nothing to say – nothing he is willing to say before the messenger of the Most High.
I turn to Hermes. “I am ready.”
Chattering the gossip of Olympus, he leads me up into the springtime sun where my mother is waiting impatiently to greet her long lost child.
I go to my reunion, obedient to the command of Zeus.
My heart remains in the underworld.
I was brushing my hair, gazing at the silver mirror but seeing nothing, when my husband came up behind me and caught me around the waist. “I hate spring,” he growled into my neck. His hand came up under my hair, pulling my head back. I dropped the brush, reached back to capture his own head in my hands.
His lips and teeth left a trail of kisses from my ear to my shoulder. I shivered, twining my fingers deeper into his raven hair. He turned me roughly to face him and claimed my mouth in a hard, fierce kiss that spoke eloquently of his desire for more.
I’ll be late. . . I thought, but didn’t care. Mother could wait. She could wait all damn day. My husband wanted me, I wanted him, and we would be too long apart. I swayed my hips against him in lascivious invitation.
He tore his mouth from mine with a soft roar of satisfaction. The next moment, my gown had joined the hairbrush on the floor, leaving me naked to his hot gaze. “My wife.” He pulled me close again. “Mine.”
“Yours.” I tilted my head back, drew his mouth down my breasts.
The world around us blurred. Naked together on our bed, my husband held me close, fiery passion gentled to desperate tenderness, the deadline for my departure hovering like the sword of Damocles over us. “I want to wrap you in cobwebs and keep you here,” he husked. Legs and arms entwined, he moved onto me, into me. . . night and day blending and blurring in a holy eclipse.
“She pretends I’m still a virgin!” I gasped as my hips rose to meet his. “She refuses to accept that I’m a wife. . . a queen!”
My husband thrust deep, sweet friction making me cry out. “My queen!”
It was over too quickly. We lay in each other’s arms, my head nestled against his chest, until a chiming, bodiless voice announced, “The messenger is here.”
My husband grabbed me in another fierce kiss, then pulled me from the bed before passion outweighed prudence. He wiped my love-damp body with a warm towel, then brought me the light green gown my mother had sent as an equinox gift. His lip curled as he drew it down over my nakedness. It was, as always, a gown for a nymph, a maiden.
He brushed out my hair, kissing the crown of my head when he was done. I put on a circlet of silver flowers -- another gift from Mother.
Once, decades ago, I had gone to meet her as the wife and queen that I am, not the maiden daughter of her lost dreams. She withdrew in injured fury, and I was compelled to assume my proper role. I have not tried to defy her illusions again. But looking at myself in the mirror I saw the absurdity of my girlish garb – particularly with the dark glory of my naked husband behind me.
Our eyes met in the mirror, then I stood. He extended his arm and we walked in silence to the gate where the messenger waited for me.
The whole earth waits for me, waits for the Kore to emerge from her captivity in the underworld, waits for the Earth Goddess to release her hostage hold on the crops. I turn. My husband lifts my hand to his lips, looks in my eyes as he kisses my fingers.
There is nothing to say – nothing he is willing to say before the messenger of the Most High.
I turn to Hermes. “I am ready.”
Chattering the gossip of Olympus, he leads me up into the springtime sun where my mother is waiting impatiently to greet her long lost child.
I go to my reunion, obedient to the command of Zeus.
My heart remains in the underworld.
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Write me.....
Date: 2008-12-08 02:56 pm (UTC)Uncensored!
Re: Write me.....
Date: 2008-12-08 03:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-08 03:36 pm (UTC)Thats all I can say. :) Wow.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-09 01:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-09 01:55 pm (UTC)When are you starting the Persephone devotional? ;-)
Ugh
Date: 2008-12-11 08:03 pm (UTC)There is just something about that dear man that makes me ache.
Thank you for giving Persephone *personality*, I have a hard time seeing her.
But Hades, my heart bleeds for him, and he's as sultry and affectionate here as I picture him.
My friend Myrrhmade works with this duo, mind if I link her?
Again, beautiful. Thank you.
About the abduction, have you read:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19857
http://www.angelfire.com/nj/persephone/weiderkehr.html
Re: Ugh
Date: 2008-12-12 02:26 am (UTC)This Hades is based entirely on LM, and how he played the role the morning of the spring equinox. I'm glad you like him!
Please feel free to link to your friends.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 03:41 am (UTC)wooh hooh, and yeah!
This has a savor like Wendy Froud's poem about the claiming of Persephone. I love it.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 12:03 pm (UTC)Do you have a more specific reference for Froud's poem?