This is a work of adult fiction and should be read only by adults. It is also my work. Although I receive no compensation other than your comments, it is still my work. Please respect this and do not repost it somewhere else without talking to me first about it. If you are not allowed to read works with sexual content, either due to your age or by virtue of the laws in the geographical location in which you reside, please do not continue.
I'd love to hear from you - please, please, please let me know what you think. Like most writers, I take what I do here very seriously, and I'd appreciate any feedback, suggestions, or comments that readers are kind enough to send.
Alexis (ealexissiefert@yahoo.com)
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Nevermore (M?F myth F-solo?)
In Pacific Northwest native cultures (Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon) Raven serves many purposes. He is often a force who brings change or creates order, natural phenomena, habits, or customs. He's a trickster and a fool, but he is also a protector of people and smaller beings.
There is a in the Haida in which Raven brings light to the people. This is based upon that myth.
~~~~~~~
It wasn't going away. It had come before, and it had always gone away before, but this time seemed different somehow. This time it was heavier, lingering longer, filling up more of the empty spaces around her life. It was seeping through all of the uncaulked cracks in her psyche and was running down the walls of her brain. The cloud had taken on an almost physical form around her. It sat on her eyelids and made them heavy. It rested upon her shoulders and forced her to slump. Although she intellectually knew the 'truth,' her mind refused to believe that the depression was just a series of emotions, feelings she could banish if only she could find the energy. She also knew that this was the final time she would go through this cycle.
Connie sighed as she turned the faucet off. Steam rising from the tub blurred her vision and fogged the reflective surfaces of the mirrored paneling along the bathroom wall. From her perch on the tiled edge of the bathtub she could see through the steamed window, into the small yard behind her home. It was just as well that the condensation blocked her vision; her normally pristine landscaped yard had been allowed to fall into disrepair this summer. Her roses, her perfect prize roses, hadn't been pinched back once since they started blooming. The raspberry bushes lining the tall wooden fence had grown gnarled and impossible. The berries were allowed to grow beyond ripe until they fell, swollen and sticky, onto the ground below. Hundreds of times this summer she had started outside to prune and cut, intending to weed the rows between her carrots and peas, wanting nothing more than to inhale the full blooms of the roses and run her hands through the carpet of impatiens beside the stone walkway from her side door. However, it seemed that just putting on her gardening togs was enough to exhaust her, and by the time she reached the door it seemed as though the effort wasn't worth any benefit she would garner from being out.
This had always been the first sign that she was headed into a dark time. The tried and true pick-me-ups stopped working. Biting her lip she gently eased her feet into the scalding tub. The water was hotter than she usually found comfortable, but at least the sensation of pain could still get through her dulled senses. At some level she was worried that the only feelings she still seemed to retain were those most feelings of pain. The milder emotions seemed blocked by some invisible bubble surrounding her. As she eased her body completely into the water and let the steam envelop her, Connie pushed those worries aside. The heat filled her head and numbed her skin.
Connie sat this way for what seemed like hours, partially draining and refilling the tub whenever the water cooled or whenever her body adjusted to the temperature. With a dispassionate eye, she could see the redness form on her skin, the flush from the heated water, the slight burns. She took comfort in the fact that she saw these things rather than felt them. 'Tomorrow,' she thought, 'tomorrow none of this will matter any longer.' She reached for the blade she had set on the edge of the tub.
There was pleasure in the pain, comfort in the idea that she could still feel something, at least for now. She stopped the pressure to examine the small drop of forming on her inner arm. The steam had built into such a curtain around her that she was having difficulty focusing on the veins beneath her skin. Putting down the razor, Connie reached for the clasp of the window above the tub. She opened the window a few inches to clear the steam and allow her to focus on the task at hand.
As she reached to again pick up the blade, she saw a flash of white through the window. Squinting through her blurred vision, Connie saw a large white bird sitting on the windowsill. 'Strange,' she thought. 'I swear that looks like a raven.' She shook the thought from her head. 'Impossible. I've never heard of a white raven.'
She put the blade down on the tiled floor and reached up towards the bird. He sat still, watching her with a wise eye, his head tilted towards her. As her hand approached the sill, he suddenly opened his beak as if to squawk, but merely ruffled his feathers and took flight on silent wing.
~~~~~~
Connie woke with a start. Apparently she had forgotten to fully pull the curtain last night (although to be honest, she didn't completely remember coming to bed after last night's bath). The morning sun had sent tendrils streaming across her bed to play with the loose folds of the summer blanket. Grumbling quietly to herself she pulled the sheet over her head and buried her face in the pillow. She strained to pull tears from her eyes, or sobs from her throat as the faint throbbing in her forearm began to assert itself and remind her that she had failed to end things last night. Nothing. There wasn't enough feeling left inside her body to summon tears.
'Well, no sense making the same mistake twice,' she thought as she sighed and poked her head out into the stale room air. Rolling first to her left, she reached out and pushed the bedroom window open. Her body shivered slightly as the cold early-morning air washed over her. Twisting her body, Connie reached for the open vial sitting on her nightstand. 'Remarkable, really,' she thought absently, 'I would have thought that my hand should at least shake a bit.' Connie took this steadiness as a sign of her body's acquiescence to the decision made by her brain. She shook the pills out into her palm and silently counted them. It had taken an amazing amount of willpower to stockpile this bottle. Her insurance would only allow for a one-month prescription at a time, so she had been forced to fall back on over-the-counter sleep aids for the past two months so she could hoard her small supply of the triazolam. She had no idea how many pills this would take, but she figured that her hard- saved 60-day supply should be more than sufficient.
Setting the pills in the ceramic dish beside the bed, Connie stumbled sleepily to the kitchen to fill her water glass and the water pitcher she kept by her bed. Glass in one hand, pitcher in the other, Connie returned to the bedroom and settled comfortably between the cool cotton sheets. She thought briefly about closing the window; the temperature of the room had dropped dramatically with the open pane, but the effort seemed silly. 'It's not going to matter much in a few minutes anyway.'
Two pills at a time, slowly so as not to upset her stomach and destroy the whole point of the overdose, Connie began to the pills. Her stomach clenched as the pills began to dissolve. 'Small steps, Connie. Slow and steady if this is going to work.' Two on her tongue, wash them down with water, rest a moment to let her stomach settle, then reach for the next two.
It was then that she noticed it again. The raven. The white raven. With her attention diverted, her hand stopped somewhere between the bed and her lips. Her eyes were caught by the sunlight glinting off his feathers. 'Strange,' she thought, 'he doesn't look quite as white as he did last night.'
She blinked her eyes and rubbed the lingering sleep from her lids. 'No, he definitely looks substantially gray around the edges. Positively dusty.' She laughed softly and her fingers traced the small flecks of gray at her own hairline. 'Oh well, little one. It happens to the best of us. One day we just wake up and there're the telltale signs.' Her voice was strange to her ears. The sound echoed against walls that hadn't heard human voices in days, weeks perhaps.
The bird preened silently, almost as though he too was inspecting his newly darkened feathers. As his beak brushed under his wing, Connie could see that it was more than just a new smattering of darkness. Where last night there were white feathers, the undersides of his wings were black. Mesmerized by the raven's motions, Connie sat motionless, pills still in hand, watching the bird. She could feel those first few pills start to take hold of her consciousness.
The raven stopped and focused his eyes on her. Still, silent. He could have easily been one of the ceramic figures she remembered her being so fond of collecting. Those silly figurines gathering dust upon the mantle. But there was a difference. This one had a fire in his eyes. Those eyes that looked at her, seeing through her. She shuddered.
'Stop it Connie. It's just a damn bird. Or it's a figment of your imagination. Let it be.' Her voice was rough, raw from disuse. With a wave of her hand she shooed the bird away. "Bah! Scat!'
It raised itself on tufted legs and shook its wings out to their full span. It wasn't until then that Connie got a full appreciation of the size of the bird. Its wings beat a slow rhythm, fanning the summer morning air into the room and filling her nose with the scent of dew-damp grass and blooming morning glories.
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply letting her head fall lightly back against the pillow. With a half-effort, she weakly raised her hand toward her lips, but by that time the first pills had reached their prescribed effect, and she silently nodded off to sleep, her task again left undone.
The once impossibly-white raven watched silently over her as she slept, departing only as the day passed and the sun began to set.
~~~~~
Her dreams were fitful, as they often were when her sleep was drug-induced. They were impressions, really, more than dreams. Images.
The touch was light over her eyelids. The faintest of brushings along her skin, tickling her lashes and cheeks. She smiled in her sleep and tossed her head, remembering, perhaps, a lover's touch. A long-ago touch from a long-ago man. Delicate, loving. The feather continued its path across her cheeks, over her lips, tracing their lines with its edge. She lifted her chin slightly, exposing the pale skin of her throat, the throbbing of her pulse evident under the taut skin. The feather paused slightly as it wound its way under her jaw, a shiver from her body.
Even in her sleep, she could feel her body begin to respond. Her fingers wound into the sheet, gathering it up in her palms as she pressed her hands into the mattress. Her nipples pressed against the cotton of her t-shirt, straining as they hardened with the remembrance of things past. The sleeping woman's breath seemed to catch in her throat as she arched her back, giving silent voice to the stirrings of once-felt desire.
Through the haze of sleep, Connie could feel the steady hand wielding the torturous feather across her skin. The nerves in her body suddenly seemed to cry out for more, to beg for a firmer touch. As the feather teased her now-swollen nipples, Connie pressed her shoulders harder into the bed, forcing her up, searching for fingers, hands, lips, anything other than this barely-there touch.
As she strained towards the unseen hand it withdrew, leaving her quivering, struggling to pull herself from sleep. Not until she calmed her breath and relaxed back into a restful slumber did the feather resume its exploration. It began over her right breast, tracing circles around her areola. an invisible line from the tips of her breasts, down to the skin between them, skin damp with the slightest touch of desire.
From her breasts, the feather drew paths to her belly, pausing only briefly over the hollow of her stomach. Along that delicate line at her hip, over her swollen mound it flirted.
Connie felt her thighs parting, not completely at her will, although not controlled by anyone other than herself. The unseen hand found the cleft between her legs. Teasing her clit from its hiding place, the feather stroked a long, slow path between her nether lips. Her sex blossomed, opening in desire for the touch.
The feather, glistening with her moisture, withdrew. The sleeping woman moaned in frustration and desire, her hips grinding against empty air.
~~~~~~
He came to her again that night as she slept. This time beginning at her toes, like light fingers fluttering over her skin, stroking her soles, along her arches, and sending shivers up her thighs to her center. Her thighs parted, offering her willing sex to the unknown suitor. Muscles throbbed and clenched, and her juices flowed freely from her sex, between the cleft of her buttocks, moistening the sheet beneath her.
Stroking up her calf, along the sharply defined muscles of her legs to the soft skin of her inner thigh, it drew its energy from her body, pulling from her the darkness that had threatened to overshadow her being.
She shuddered with a forgotten delight as the cloud was pulled away from her. Again, he withdrew, leaving her bucking against the emptiness of her room. In her sleep she cursed the unfairness of it, she railed against the exquisite torture of the waiting, the denial of release. It had been so long since she had felt the desire, always the internal bindings holding her down and the clouds darkening her soul had fought against the longing, suppressing it until lust and desire were nothing more than vague memories.
~~~~~~
He came to her again that same night, and then again, repeating the cycle almost endlessly. her out, pulling her cravings from the untapped reaches of her soul, holding her body tight at the edge of orgasm until she quivered and shook for more. With each passing stroke, each touch upon her skin, his body darkened as he pulled her burden into his own being.
Her skin tingled as the shroud lifted, pulling her climax slowly, the orgasm from the deepest recesses of her belly.
Her cries, both of joy and sorrow, filled the empty room.
~~~~~~
It was the feeling of change that finally pulled her from sleep. Again, the sun was shining through the open curtains, but this morning the air in the room was fresh, not stale. The window remained open, and with a sudden dawning of realization, Connie understood that she had slept at least through a day; and, judging from the stiffness in her hips and shoulders, perhaps two.
Connie stretched her arms above her head, slowly rotating them to work the kinks from her stiff joints. She wondered absently if there was any ground coffee in the freezer, but then she realized that she was awake, really awake, and clear-headed. And happy.
On the window beside her bed, curtains fluttering around its glistening body, sat the raven. Its once-white feathers, now a deep ebony, shone in the morning sun. With a seemingly-satisfied nod of its head, the bird spread its wings and took flight, a small piece of darkness stark against the bright light of day.
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