Year of the Inner Goddess

June 2025, 

(It would have been my 19th anniversary…)

There are many forms of healing, I’ve found. Some come with salt tears and quiet therapy rooms. Others, with spoons dipped in mint chocolate chip and the tired comfort of a romantic comedy. But this year, my soul snarled at such clichés. My insatiable and never tamed Inner Goddess arched a brow and said, “No, my love. We’re rewriting this night in sweat and fire.”

So the invitations were sent. The food I had fretted over was diverse and abundant, laid out in a decadent spread. And just before I could talk myself out of it, they began to arrive, gods and goddesses, all of them, in twos and threes, cloaked in laughter and sun-flushed cheeks, their merry presence filling the Great Hall.

I had a plan, or rather, she had a plan. I could feel my Inner Goddess pacing beneath my skin, her perfectly manicured nails tapping against my ribs in time with the flickering music and chatter. I nibbled my bottom lip, one hand clutching my glass, the other resting on the swell of my maternal heart, so full at the sight of this home brimming with warmth. As bulky figures skated across the frozen pond, bound in its black frame, my guests’ joviality bounced like light off icicles, and for a moment I thought…” Maybe this is enough.” Maybe tonight didn’t need seduction to replace the echoing past. Maybe I would simply bask in the communion of friendship, and when the Moon Goddess gathered with her court, I would quietly retreat to my bed with no bruises, no impiety, but gratitude overspilling my heart.

But then the hourglass emptied. The die cast.

I slipped into the en suite, the sound of mirth muffled by the half-closed door. My fingertips hesitated only a moment before fastening the blue elastic bands against my skin, binding me in glistening sapphire like an exotic dancer. I inhaled. Another. Then the summer dress fell back over me, loose, casual, deceptive. One last glance in the mirror, my cheeks were flushed, lips and eyes dilated wide. Deep breath. Then, left foot…right foot. I stepped back into the Great Hall, each footfall deliberate, my pulse a thunderous staccato, I prayed was swallowed by the hum of the crowd.

No one noticed. Or perhaps they were simply gracious enough to pretend they hadn’t.

My Inner Goddess scoffed audibly at the thunder in my chest, the foolish flutter beneath my sternum.

 “Really?” she drawled, rolling her eyes with annoyance and exasperation in equal measure. “You’ve been worshipped by Olympians before, and still you blush like some wide-eyed ingénue at her first scandal.”

I shrugged. Too much of me was still wrapped in the belief that I was too much, and yet, somehow, never enough. Who was I when compared to the gods and goddesses who wove through my life like incomparable constellations? The depth of my appetency was a bottomless, mortifying thing. They had only glimpsed its edges, the faintest shimmer beneath the surface.

So much of me stayed bottled and hidden, pressed down tight like an unholy spell I was afraid someone might read aloud.

What if those closest to me saw the truth? The full depth of my depravity? No. That part of me had to stay behind thick walls, released only in sips, not floods. I wrapped my arms around myself. Gave the smallest, neediest part of me the hug she hadn’t dared ask for.

“One day,” my Inner Goddess muttered, voice low and curling like smoke, “you’ll walk in like a lioness, lust still lingering on your lips, fire stitched into your spine, and not give a single damn who sees it.”

“Perhaps one day,” I thought, my chin lifting with borrowed confidence.

But not tonight.
Tonight, I needed a plan.

Across the room, the Woodsman leaned against the counter, casually scrolling his device…all unbothered masculinity, barely-leashed potential, and utterly unsuspecting.

My thoughts tangled like ribbons in a storm. What if he says no? What if it’s too much? What if I make a fool of myself?

But still…my body moved, with robotic stiffness. Obeying my Inner Goddess, even as my courage trailed behind like forgotten petals.

I stopped before him. Unsure. My great hazel eyes lifted, searching his face. He looked up from his screen. Smiled. Then his gaze dipped, catching the flash of sapphire where the cerulean straps peeked through the thin cotton of my dress.

His calloused fingertip traced the edge.

“What’s this?” he murmured, voice velveted with curiosity.

I smiled. That feline smile. The kind that whispered, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” And with a flick of my fingers, the right strap of my dress slid off my shoulder. Then the left. I never broke eye contact.

The dress sighed as it fell, puddling at my ankles in a forgotten breath of cotton and heat.

And there I stood.

Bare but for the bands of electric azure, each one gliding across my body like veins of indigo ice drawn by an unseen hand. They kissed the slope of my breasts, cinched at my waist, wound in elegant geometry over the fullness of my hips and thighs. I looked like a dancer mid-cadence, summoned not by music, but by hunger, all cool shimmer and hesitant invitation.

My breath caught, quailing behind my ribs.

The blood thundered in my throat, in my fingertips, in the longing hollow between my legs. The room was too still. Too bright. And though my eyes never left his, I felt everything, every gaze, every ripple of tension, every last golden thread of sun curling across my skin.

My body was a lit wick, but inside I was shaking. Nervous, yes, Gods, was I nervous. But I was also committed. I had promised my Inner Goddess, my mending heart, something new tonight. Something feral. Something to recall to mind year after year.

He drew in a breath. His gaze traveled over me like a slow caress, and in it, I felt the tension coil tighter, the delicious suspense before the snap.

I turned slowly, the better to offer him the full view, my thighs, my back, the unapologetic swell of my derriere barely veiled in sapphire. Then I turned again, eyes gleaming, breath quick. I don’t remember if I spoke aloud or if desire alone moved me, but I reached out, my fingers crooking in silent command, a lascivious little invitation made sweeter by my naked nerves. And he followed.

I moved backward, barefoot and scarcely breathing, every footfall step a prayer that he would come, each moment heavy with anticipation. The boudoir waited, dim and humming like a held breath.

Then he was on me.

The Woodsman’s arms wrapped around me with a low, hungry sound in his throat. His mouth descended on mine, hot, deep, anchoring. The kind of kiss that scatters thought, that turns a woman to ache and ash. His body pressed firm to mine, the material of his jeans cool against the bare bits of stomach peaking through the straps. With a sudden sweep, he lifted me effortlessly, and I gasped, a sound lost in the seal of his full lips.

He carried me like a stolen relic, and laid me down with yearning veneration, as if the bed itself might worship me now. His mouth trailed down my collarbone, my ribs, my belly, leaving heat and tremors in its wake. And then, 

Then he parted my legs and devoured me.

There is no gentler word. It was decadent, knowing, a sacred undoing made of tongue and famishment and a low, feral growl that vibrated through my bones. I arched. I moaned. I clawed at the sheets, so readily and utterly unmade beneath his mouth.

But even as the waves rose within me, my mind, damn my mind, splintered at the edges.

Had anyone seen me?

Had the guests noticed my coquettish invitation, my attempt to stimulate the events, and then disappear, like some half-mad nymph? Had the signal been missed? Had I screwed up?

Should I have declared it? Should I have voiced my intention to the throng?

But I couldn’t speak. He had me once more at the precipice…falling, falling, my spine bowing as his mouth pulled sobs from my throat, as the pleasure climbed and claimed and curled me inward.

And just as I was about to shatter, heads appeared, blurry at the edges of my vision. Faces full of curious delight, their eyes catching the tableau through the door.

I should have said something, welcomed them with some sultry benediction. But my body spoke instead, snapping, keening, slick and sacred in the Woodsman’s grasp.

Whatever doubts I had dissolved into the groan that spilled from me, curling through the air like rare incense.

Blur.

I’m pinned between two gods, one behind, one before, and breath has long since abandoned meaning. Thought is irrelevant, an echo lost in the pulsing now. My body moves with primal precision, an animal instinct driving me to push back harder into the onslaught behind me, while my mouth works desperately, hungrily, to take in the monolith that stretches my throat.

My moans swirl around the unseen god, broken and raw. Drool glistens at the corner of my lips, trailing down my chin, a shining testament to my ministrations. All around me, I feel the eyes of gods and goddesses watching, drinking in the debauchery swelling the room. But there is no shame here, no shrinking.

Only this moment. This worship. This surrender to being devoured and seen.

Blur.

I am on all fours, quivering, open, panting. My sapphire curls have long since been crushed in the mighty fist of multiple gods. Behind me, a celestial pounds into me with relentless abandon, each thrust lighting fires up my spine. I grip the sheets, my cheek pressed to the silken bedspread, screaming into the maelstrom until my throat goes hoarse.

Time has splintered. There is only sensation. The slick sound of flesh meeting flesh. The scent of sweat and desire.

Some tiny, distant part of me hopes my guests are indulging themselves, that this night is blossoming for them too, but while sincere, the thought is fleeting.

Because when I finally lift my head to peer beyond the blur, another god steps forward. Silent. Commanding. Hard.

His glory, flushed and rigid, is offered like a sword, and instinct takes hold of me once more. I cradle his hefty jewels in one palm, appraising my thumb stroking slowly over the silken crown. My lips part. I breathe him in, deep, decadent, and then welcome him between them.

No words. No thoughts. Just need.

Blur.

I’m tangled in the arms of a dark-haired god, his breath hot against my neck, his whiskers scraping my skin as he growls low and hungry. I arch into his mouth without thinking, offering, pleading, needing. My lips part in a silent gasp as his teeth drag across that tender place beneath my ear, not quite biting, just threatening to.

And then he licks me. Slow. Possessive. And mauls my neck as if he might mark me for every eye in the room but refrains, even as the gods behind him egg him to do so…My Inner Goddess growls, sinuous and feline, daring, demanding the cruel marks against my skin. Yet, ever the chivalrous god, he holds back, maintaining the licking, mauling over my alert jugular.

The sensation ricochets through me, unexpected and electric. My toes curl against the sheets. My eyes roll back as a ripple tears through me and over his fingers, he has buried within my core, an orgasm I couldn’t have anticipated and couldn’t describe if I tried. I rise to meet him, unable to stay still, as his hands clamp down on my hips, holding me against him like he means to keep me there forever.

And for a long, shuddering moment, I hope he does.

Blur.

Another god pulls me into his orbit, this one all smirk and mischief, his eyes twinkling with delighted trouble. He murmurs something low, suggesting I ride him, and my Inner Goddess churrs in reply. I move to straddle him, eager, but pause, realizing the delicate fabric I’m wearing, though it has been shoved aside until this moment, now threatens the mood with its stubborn friction.

So I rise to my full height, balancing, barefoot, atop the mattress, my body a silhouette of shadows and cobalt ribbons. His gaze shoots upward, pupils blown wide, and I smile, serpentine and slow. My fingers slide along my thighs, tracing the crossed straps, seeking the hidden knots that hold it all in place.

I find them. One slip. Then another.

The delicate peels away down my thighs with a sigh, the silk whispering down my legs as the rest of the strappy masterpiece remains in place, bold and unapologetic. His face, his face, goes delightfully wide-eyed. At first, I assume it’s awe. But then I catch it, the flicker of panic behind his eyes.

I freeze, the flush draining from my cheeks. There he lies, flat on his back, gloriously hard, his hands twitching at his sides, utterly still.

It takes a breath, two, before I understand. My slightly abrupt rise atop the mattress had looked to him like a prelude to something far less delicate. For one stunned moment, the poor god truly thought I meant to drop onto him from above.

The room erupts in laughter.

I can’t help but grin, honeyed, warm, amused. With a rumble in my voice, I begin to lower myself with measured grace, one knee at a time, sinking into the mattress.

“I promise,” I murmur, my tone dripping with bourbon amber, “I have no intention of hurting you…”

“At least,” my Inner Goddess growls, “not in any way you wouldn’t beg for.”

I straddle him slowly, deliberately, letting my fingers trail from his calves, along the hard line of his thighs, up the sculpted terrain of his torso. He shivers beneath my touch, every inch of him vibratile like a string drawn taut, not from fear now, but anticipation.

“Too much?” I ask softly.

He shakes his head hard, the words caught in his throat. “No, just… been a long time. Since I’ve been touched.”

That tender honesty coils around my ribs. I slow everything.I take my time.

I let my hands explore the sculpted lines of his body, let my thighs open wide as I sink down onto him, one luxurious inch at a time. And when he’s fully within me, deep, thick, perfect, I move. I ride him with tormented intention, letting pleasure roll through me in waves until I can’t bite back the sounds, until I’m crying out to the ceiling, to the stars, to whatever gods might be listening through the windows and the wild.

And then I break, loud, shaking, undone, as I clench around him and call his name like a spell.

Blur.

Here and there, I catch fragments of hedonism glinting across the room, limbs entwined, bodies gasping, mouths parted in ecstasy. The air itself has thickened, gone heavy with the scent of lust, each sound a low moan or breathless cry.

It hits me like fire to dry grass.

My Inner Goddess claws her way to the surface, feral, electrified, utterly untamed, and I scream louder, deeper, my body arcing like lightning struck. The god between my thighs folds me like ribbon, bending me into impossible angles, shaping my limbs with effortless strength. I am pliant. Undone. A masterpiece of surrender.

But it isn’t enough. Gods, it isn’t enough.

I need more. I crave more. The gnawing inside me howls, a bottomless void that no mortal touch could possibly sate.

And still, I reach for it.

Blur.

A god is driving between my thighs, his grip like forged iron clamped around my ankles, pinning me wide open while his hips slam into mine with exquisite, merciless rhythm.

My hamstrings tremble, stretched tight, my body a bow drawn to its breaking point. But it isn’t pain.

It’s power.
It’s friction and force and something almost holy in its violence.
It’s motion so pure, so exacting, I can no longer tell where I end and he begins.

I throw my head back, my scream cracked and guttural, carved from the deepest part of me. It barely leaves my throat before another god steps forward. He slips a hand into my hair, fingers curling, firm, and guides my mouth to his waiting sword.

My lips part without thought. Instinct. Reflex. Need.

And suddenly, I am full again, stretched in both directions, impaled and possessed, my body rocking between them in a rhythm older than language.

Thought shatters. Identity slips away.
I am no longer me.
I am only sensation. A mouth. A cocoon. A trembling thing caught in the teeth of pleasure.

And I wouldn’t escape it if I could.

Blur.

The bed is groaning beneath us, each thrust answered by the indignant creak of loosened screws. But this time, it isn’t just me. The whole mattress shakes with the rhythm of different god and goddesses joined, laughter, moans, gasps, our movements blending in one riotous chorus of skin and friction.

A sly grin splits my face. My eyes squeeze shut as I cry out again, helpless against the euphoria. The bed may not survive the night. But oh, how glorious its ruin.

Blur.

A new god enters the fray, his mouth a promise I cannot resist. I pull him down to me, devouring his kiss, tasting him like something precious and forbidden. I’m not drunk, not truly, but I am intoxicated by the sheer intensity of what my body has endured. I run my hands across his chest, his arms, his ribs, learning him, mapping him like a storm-wracked cartographer.

He tells me I’m in charge this time.

An impish little smile flickers at the edge of my lips.

My Inner Goddess rises like smoke and storm, ash-winged and barbed, a midnight star crowned in lust. She growls in my ear, red-lipped and whiskey-sharp, “Make him tremble.” 

He reclines beneath me, offering himself up without resistance. Good. I climb atop him slowly, deliberately, my legs shaking not from nerves but from the hunger coiled deep in my belly. My thighs cage him. My fingers wrap around his length, firm, unhurried, claiming.

And then I lower myself. One slow, devastating descent.

I take him in to the hilt, inch by inch, until I am split wide and full and gasping, impaled so completely I could weep. The stretch rips through me. The pressure drowns me.

It almost breaks me. But I don’t break. I burn.

I am to lead, I remind myself through clenched teeth.

I am the rhythm.
The reckoning.
The blade and the altar.

But then his hips buck, once, twice, violently, instinctively. My pulse catches, as near pain spirals through my core. The headboard slams into the wall with each brutal thrust, and I cling to it, breath ragged, knuckles white.

I’m supposed to be in control. I was in control.

But he moves like an esurience given flesh, and his rhythm devours me, hypnotic, relentless. Every pulse of him inside me drowns thought. My body begs for him, my thighs slick and frantic, like cracked earth threnoding for a storm.

Across the bed, a goddess is stretched out…fibrillar, exquisite, a vision slick with shared concupiscence. Another god moves between her thighs, and she receives him like worship, her eyes half-lidded, her mouth slack with pleasure.

I can’t look away.

My moans fracture in my throat, but my gaze stays locked, eyes wide with holy regard, starved. I watch her come undone and ache to reach her. To trace the sweat glittering between her breasts. To press my lips to the hollow of her neck and breathe her in, that scent of salt, skin, and something sweeter, something entirely her.

But she doesn’t look real. She emulates like poetry, too rare, too dangerous.
A verse meant only to be read in silence.

She is a psalm I long to read by touch alone.
But I don’t.
Because I’m not sure I’m worthy of her ruin.

The god below me thrusts harder, meaner, determined to shatter what remains of my composure. My hair clings to my damp skin. My jaw clenched. I am flushed and feral and broken open, but none of it matters.

Not compared to her. And then, we break. Together.

Our bodies bow in a shared rhythm, twin crescendos in a single, impossible stanza. For a heartbeat, for a gasp, we aren’t women. We are something else. Something ancient. Something unspeakable.

And in that moment, we don’t fall.

We rise. We burn among the stars.

Blur.

Conversation flowed around me in waves, laughter, sighs, the hum of pleasure never quite ceasing. I sent out invisible tendrils, a hostess’s instinct, checking for ripples of discomfort or dissonance. But the air shimmered with joy. Everything was right.

Jack moved with perfect ease between worlds, hosting, recording, indulging, weaving delight with a flick of his wrist and a rakish smile. I caught glimpses of him throughout the night: a brush of laughter here, lips reverent against a peaked breast… or buried between my thighs, his mouth devouring, his sharp eyes capturing every scream he summoned.

He slipped through the chaos like he owned it, effortlessly, assured, undeniably in control.

Fruits and cool water were brought to my lips, each offering a gentle, decadent interruption. Lost in delirium, I opened my mouth blindly, expecting the slick, glistening crown of a god… only to receive a chilled grape, a tender slice of melon, the shock of citrus.

I laughed against it, mouth half-parted, the contrast like lightning down my spine.

It was indulgence in every form, sweetness and salt, heat and ice, and I tasted all of it.

Blur.

If I let myself think, truly think, I adored the rotation of masculine hands. The exquisite anonymity of it. The slow, spiraling madness of not knowing whose lips branded my skin, whose breath warmed the nape of my neck, whose hardness breached the deepest parts of me with such calamitous certainty.

Who gripped my hips as if I were theirs by stolen right?
Who tilted my chin with firm fingers, guiding my mouth to their stark length, possessive and silent?

Sometimes I closed my eyes on purpose.
Sometimes, I suspect, I forgot to open them.

I savored the guessing.

The curve of one, the depth of another. The voice that growled low and unfamiliar, was it the soft-spoken god from the kitchen? Or the one with mercury eyes and a poet’s hands?

I pieced them apart by scent, by rhythm, by the way they unfolded me.

By how my body answered, as if recognizing them by spark alone.

They became a riddle, luxurious, consuming, and I was a scholar of sensation, ravenous for every clue, every secret writ in flesh that I had no desire to solve.

Blur.

She arrived like a Fey spell, the bonnie Gypsy Queen with mischief in her eyes and pheasant-fire in her veins. Her presence lifted something in me that no man ever could. She danced from body to body, barefoot and bright, leaving laughter in her wake.

Something warm and heavy brushed against my cheek. I stirred, expecting the firm, rough weight of a masculine palm or the eager crown of some familiar offering.

But the shape was all wrong, softer, fuller, impossibly lush.

I blinked, breathless.

Her ample breast, heavy and irresistible, pressed against my face, the weight a delicious, dizzying presence. Before me, flushed and perfect, her nipple rose like a pale sable jewel, impossibly lovely.

My lips parted on instinct, not from hunger, but from awe.

I wanted her. Reverently. Desperately.

And for the first time that night, I craved softness like it was sin.

The god between my legs shifted, reminding me with a hard thrust that I was still being ravished, still impaled.

But I was no longer just in my body.

I was lost in hers, her scent, her skin, her luminous delight. The room faded to her laughter, her softness, her chaos.

And I fell for her, utterly, as my hips rolled and my mouth opened for the sweetest iniquity.

Blur.

I was steady on my feet, at least, my Inner Goddess assured me so, bare and grounded, yet bent fully forward at the waist, my hands braced against the cool mattress. Before me, a god reclined like temptation made flesh, his thick glory pulsing, glistening, poised at my lips.

The sapphire bands that once bound my body had been removed, but whether by my own frantic fingers or by an Olympian’s, I would never know. Their constraining absence left my skin bare, vulnerable, yet poignantly alive.

He shifted beneath me, slow and deliberate, rippling through the storm of sensation consuming me. Around us, the room pulsed faintly with murmurs and laughter…yet I remained distant from it, wrapped in a cocoon of my own making.

I should have cared. I wanted to care.

Hostess though I was, the formal niceties, the grace, the attentiveness, had slipped from my grasp like moonlight.

But I could not stop myself.

Driven by something deeper than desire, almost fevered in my private need, I gave myself wholly to the moment. I was determined to repaint the memory of this day, no longer marked by grief or ghostly anniversaries, but remade in the tempestuous, defiant colors of indulgence.

This night was mine. And no memory would be left standing unchallenged.

And then, cold.

A cascade of cool water bathed my hips, sluicing over my heated skin. I gasped, body jolting with the shock of it. The chill kissed my fevered flesh, running in rivulets down the backs of my thighs, and I nearly wept from the exquisite contrast.

Behind me, I heard her laughter. The Gypsy Queen, light, wild, knowing.

Her fingers followed the water’s path, firm and slow, trailing through the streams and droplets as if painting a masterpiece across my skin. Her touch was thorough but teasing, weaving both seduction and surprise with every stroke.

And then, her fingers slipped between my thighs.

Without a word, she began to work me, oh so clever, commanding, impossibly sure. Her fingers moved with a blur of decadent purpose: circling my inner jewel, coaxing, pressing deeper until my skin no longer felt like mine. My moans vibrated around the god pulsing at my lips, trembling echoes of the chaos blooming beneath my navel.

She didn’t ask. She didn’t need to.

She took with the certain grace of a woman born of the wind and secrets. Her touch was not rushed; it was woven. Each motion cast like a spell across my skin, devastating and full of the kind of ancient knowing that made me tremble. The god before me, once the center of my attention, faded into a semblance of Gibraltar, his thigh beneath my cheek the only thing keeping me earthbound.

My body buckled, suspended between planes, lost in the trance the Gypsy Queen summoned with her fingers alone. I held to him by instinct, thighs trembling, desperate not to lose even that final thread of reality.

And then…I broke.

My body released in a rush, honeyed and helpless, soaking into the already-ruined rug, mixing with the last trails of cool water that clung to my legs.

Such contrast.

Cool water. Scalding touch. The endless whirl of her fingers.

And her laughter, low, lilting, voluptuously pleased, echoed through me like an incantation I would never unhear.

Blur.

Barely recovered from the Gypsy Queen’s flitting touch, her laughter still whispering through the fine, damp curls at the nape of my neck, I realize I haven’t moved. My limbs feel boneless, my legs parted wide in a perfect angle over the edge of the bed, arms locked on the bed, every nerve still ringing from release.

My vision swims. I blink, but the world remains a soft blur.

I cannot tell if the god who had claimed my mouth remains before me, or if he’s vanished, carried off by the rhythm of the room.

It doesn’t matter.

Because something, someone, shifts beneath me.

A presence anchors itself low at my hips, deliberate and intense. A god, now seated on the floor, presses his back to the bed beneath my trembling frame. His chin tilts, beard bristling, eyes fixed with the terrible focus of a hound on point, every muscle coiled with dark purpose. 

There is no softness in his gaze. No question. Only pure, unrelenting intent, to taste, to claim, to feast.

I feel his breath before his mouth ever touches me. His lips are at my apex.

His tongue, blessedly ruthless, slides over my swollen, overstimulated, delicate, tasting me like he’s starving, like he means to swallow every tremorous sigh from my thighs. Fingers join his mouth in a punishing rhythm, fierce, fast, cruel in their penetration.

Above, another god, perhaps the same, perhaps a new claimant in the chaos, fills my mouth with his thick length. I cannot be sure anymore. I only know the ache of absence when I am not working him with my lips, the hollow void when I must part from him for breath.

But there is no escape. A great hand rests atop my head, possessive, controlling, holding me in place with a pressure that allows only the briefest gasp before I’m drawn back down.

I try to keep rhythm, my mouth slick and stretching, my hips shuddering, my hands shaking against taut thighs, but the god beneath me is relentless. His mouth is too much, too intent on my destruction, alternating between maddening flicks and deep, curling strokes that send lightning through my limbs.

I feel it building, the release, hot and sharp and uninvited.

I clench around his fingers, my thighs quivering, trying desperately not to lose control, not to spill myself across his face with the flood rising inside me. I want to hold it back, to stay composed. Elegant. Human.

But he won’t let me.

And neither will the hand at the crown of my head, guiding me, holding me exactly where they want me, helpless between them, trembling and filled.

My body is caught in the crossfire of their hunger, claimed from both ends, unmade in the spaces between inhale and moan. I fracture. Come undone. Surrender splinters through me like glass catching light.

Blur.

Time folds in strange shapes after that, satin and breath, fingers and candlelight. Bodies tangled. Mouths wet. The hush of laughter, the exhale of ruin.

And then, later, much later, we begin to dress.

My muscles hum in that unmistakable way: sweet, low, and throbbing with desecration. I slip a silk négligée over my flushed skin, the delicate fabric catching against the bloom of bruises and fading kisses, each one a prized souvenir. My fingers, clumsy with afterglow, attempt to tame the impossible tangles of my hair, still damp with sweat and scented with the night.

Mascara streaks my cheeks like soot after flame.

And yet, I have never felt more radiant.

Around me, goddesses drifted like candlelight, draped in soft fabrics, their glow emanating. Their silence was sated. Their laughter came low and secretive. I hoped, prayed, in that feral, private way, that they too bore the burn of memory beneath their polished exteriors.

I spotted him across the room…my Jack.

He stood just beyond the crowd, one shoulder resting against the wall, arms crossed, lips curled into that smirking, knowing grin that told me he had seen everything and would replay the memories over and over until the end of time. Pleased as punch, onlookers might say. 

I smile, slow and disbelieving, shaking my head like a woman who still can’t quite believe what she’s done. But my Inner Goddess only purrs, unrepentant, imperial, utterly sovereign in her smug satisfaction.

Someone places a cool glass of water in my hand. Another draws me into their arms, pressing a kiss, cheek, lips, forehead, before slipping away. The hush of winding down drapes the room in quietude, but beneath it, my nerves still sing, an aria of afterglow and hunger.

I watch the departing celestials with a grin that borders on wicked, delighted to know their salt still clings to the peaks of my breasts, the nape of my neck, the damp center of my thighs. Every inch of me hums with the memory of another.

My heart, impossibly, overflows.

If the woman I was nineteen years ago could see me now, see the storms I would endure, the seasons I would weather, the chapters inked in celebration and survival, would she pale at the weight of it all? Would she retreat from the pain, the severings, the slow, brutal work of growing back each feather, until her wings, scarred, but beautiful, could finally unfurl? Until the fire that once scorched her became the very thing that lifted her into glorious rebirth?

Or would she straighten her shoulders, pour iron down her spine, and do everything in her power to make it come true…just a little faster?

I will never know.

But I know this: my feline Inner Goddess lounges on her velveteen chaise, licking her lacquered claws, her golden eyes gleaming like molten embers. “Oh, darling,” she purrs, stretching with bone-deep satisfaction.

“We are only just getting started.”

Until next time, XO. Elsie