[Submission] Virginal Venus
And it was all so ghost-like at first, merely a promise of contact, of a caress.
When she awoke, gritty sounds and warm liquids spilled into Cora’s ears.
She found herself reclining on a velvet divan, black curtains surrounding her. The curtains stretched onwards endlessly, one shadow after another, candles far away in the perpetual hollowed out dark, darkness like a mouth, red candles, some semblance of light, ravens hawking, piercing music that grew quiet, loud, quiet again, velvet brushing her thighs, cushions under her neck, smell of incense, taste of Turkish delight or honey or wine or all of the above, death, downy fancies, blood in her veins. Blood in her veins. So, she lives.
“So, you live.” Hollow, dark voice. Auburn curls of Death brushed aside to reveal the last sight Cora saw before her fall. (The first sight she ever saw, perhaps.)
“Are you alright? Eat something, eat something, or you’ll faint again.”
A red feast before her.
Instead she fed herself on his incarnadine lips.
He knew. So, in the next moment, a crown of black flowers- or perhaps red, or even white were placed on those honey locks of her hair, now longer than ever. They were cut, those honey locks. Perhaps not in that moment, but soon they revealed a long bare neck. She could have been anointed with oils, or made to drink a brew, but none of that was needed. He waited for her (to break on through, break on through to the abyss beneath her feet) and wanted her in her purest, nakedest, fairest and foulest form.
She can’t hide now… But no part of her wished to hide now in the hot recesses of Hell. Tartarus. Underworld. Too many words. Too many-
He started with her bare skin; he did not touch her at first but merely let his ghost hands hover. And it was all so ghost-like at first, merely a promise of contact, of a caress. But there would always be more, never less.
And then he whispered in her ear, a godly melody, one she had heard uttered so many times before, broken by the transmission of some device (radio, vinyl, etc etc). Spoken in a soft and supple voice:
“I found an island in your arms.”
Then, again.
How could she cry out with such birdsong at such banal and over-heard words? It was not the sensations, gleaming and glaring around her, that made her sing in the voice of a nightingale.
Island in your arms…
Island…
The island lay now in his arms.
This story was submitted to the White Lily Society for the limited time submission prompt “Death and the Maiden”.
Hello, my name is Elizaveta. I’m 18, and started writing from a young age as an escape from a world that I found increasingly confusing and isolating. Over time, however, it became less of an escape and more a way to put my own experiences into a more symbol heavily and metaphorical format, helping me to understand them. The first book I read that truly impacted me was Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, which still stands as a major inspiration for a lot of my work. Recently, however, I’ve been diving into post-modernist works, particularly those of Nabokov. The themes I am most interested in dealing with are those of coming of age, the passage of time, and identity. My protagonists are always the focus of the work, and I see not only side characters but plots and locations as mere representations of this protagonist’s change and being.
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