Verse & Vice

The chill of the stone altar had seeped through my bare skin.

It only made your hands feel all the hotter when you finally took me in your arms.

A thousand questions flashed through my mind – was any of this real? Did my sacrifice matter? But questions weren’t a part of the ceremony. Choosing you was. And so was the question you would ask me.

“Life or death?” Your voice echoed against the walls, each reverberation adding new weight to the words. “What will you have?”

“Life.” The word was quiet, but it carried my certainty nonetheless.

You leaned over me then – I looked into your eyes, kind and passionate. I had chosen my god well. Your hand traced the curve of my neck down to my breast, then lower still, stopping over my lower stomach.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

The ceremony didn’t ask for much, and you didn’t offer more than it needed. You crawled onto the altar with me, kneeling between my thighs as though I were the deity of the evening, not you.

A part of me wished I were. I would spirit us away to another world, away from the hidden gazes I felt prickling against my skin… Shame curled through me, but witnesses were needed.

The gods had to be satisfied.

We would have our privacy in every future night. Tonight, I just needed you to take me, to complete what we were there to do.

“Please.” I whispered. “Take me.”

You grabbed my legs then, pulling my hips up to meet yours. I’d been well prepared – there was oil there. But as you let your length slide against me, you felt a smoother glide, the truth that even now I wanted you.

You looked in my eyes and found the final permission you needed. You let yourself catch on my entrance, teasing more arousal out of me, before finally letting yourself sink into the warmth of me. I whimpered as my walls stretched around you, locking my legs behind you to keep you from moving.

You felt bigger than you had before. Perhaps the gods really had possessed you.

My legs weren’t enough to hold you in, not when you didn’t want to be. You pulled back out before I was ready, making me cry out at the raw drag of it. You pressed back in just as quick.

I felt the sharp pain as you reached the deepest part of me.

It wasn’t long before the stone beneath us warmed and sweat dripped beneath us, our combined scent mixing in the air. I thought of how many times I’d prayed here, how many times this ritual had been performed… Only now did I see how profane divinity could be.

I was more devout than ever.

Your willing sacrifice, a creature no god could take from you.

You bit into my neck, sucking against the flesh, and I returned the kindness with my nails against your back. You drove me too hard – each thrust a penance, each grunt a prayer.

I screamed, no longer caring about the eyes and ears around us. I needed whatever release I could find, I needed –

Your breath was coming faster now, almost a pant, as your rhythm took a wilder turn. Your hand reached between us to play with me, sending shivers across my skin that sent me twitching around you.

You would give me my release, and take yours with it.

I felt your hips start to lose their pace, each thrust shallower than the last as you couldn’t quite bring yourself to pull out of me.

I reached up to pull your face close – the look in your eyes wasn’t your own, not anymore.

“I choose life. Give it to me. Please.”

The first pulse was enough to send me tumbling over with you. You collapsed onto me, chest heaving against mine as you groaned. Each sound was matched by my own as the heat of you filled me, the pressure only adding to the pleasure crashing over me.

This was a covenant.

It would not be undone.

As the pleasure faded, I pulled you against me, letting your head rest against my chest so I could whisper in your ear.

“Please tell me you left the robes nearby.”

You let one tired hand fall to the floor next to us, pulling up the edge of a robe to show me. I smiled, laying a gentle kiss on the crown of your head.

I felt the eyes start to turn away from us as you softened inside me, the spectacle clearly no longer entertaining enough. I didn’t care. The show was over. All that would be left now was us.

Or perhaps us and one more, if the gods had taken their tithe.