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Attis threw the letter onto the table in front of Cybele. "I read it," he said, then stormed from the hut. Cybele had no idea what to make of his outburst, but she picked up the open letter and read it. "Oh, Attis," she cried after her absent lover, "Surely you do not think some unsigned piece of poison would turn me against you?" She flung the thing onto the fire and ran after him. He was leaning against an old apple tree in the grove when she found him. His arms were crossed and his eyes puffy. "I have burnt the wretched thing, dear brother," she said to him. "That was foolish, someone may have been able to recognise the hand," he replied without meeting her gaze. He stared out toward the open sea with unfocussed eyes. "Do you not wish me to call you brother?" she asked. "I am as much, why would I mind?" "But you like it, do you not?" "Yes," he said almost inaudibly. "Brother..." she said again, and came closer to him. He walked away from her until he came to the stone wall that edged the grove near the sea. He stopped and leaned forward over the wall, chin on his fists. Cybele followed him and came close up behind him until only a hair's breadth separated them. "Brother," she repeated in a heavy whisper. "I mean to take the mark of the Serpent," he blurted suddenly. Cybele had read the book, she did not need to ask why. "You serve me so willingly?" "I serve you in all things," he replied quietly. "Then look at me, dear brother," she asked. He turned to face her, so close that she could feel his breath upon her skin. She breathed opposite and in time with him, as though drinking the very air he expired. "You have seen it yourself, Cybele. I, whom am so used to self control, cannot any longer control what lurks within me." "The wolf? Cerridwen? You think I am afraid of you?" she asked. "You have no need ever to be afraid of me, Cybele. I can assure you of that much. If I grew fangs as long as my thumb and a full coat of fur, you would still have no cause to fear me." "What is happening, Attis? What is it that is happening on the Isle?" "I do not understand it myself," he replied, "but I know I cannot stop it, and neither can you." "Are we really such victims of circumstance and fate?" she said. Attis flashed an unreadable smile to himself, as fleeting as a merlin's dive. "What is it?" she demanded. "Nothing, only your choice of words. They strike me as ironic." "Why? What did I say? That we are bound by fate? I do not believe it, Attis. I think that we can change what is written as destiny." "I do not doubt it," he replied, "but it is a risky pastime to challenge the Gods. Their humour is sharp." "So you would just follow blindly the path set for you?" "To protect the future I will follow, yes. But I am not blind." "But how can you know the future?" "It is no blessing to have seen it, but believe me when I say I know the future, Cybele." "Your own death?" "Yes." "And you fear it not?" "I fear more what may happen if I live." "Cerridwen?" "Yes. I cannot deny that she runs within my veins." "From the brand?" Cybele asked disbelievingly. "No, from birth. From our mother. From her mother and her mother before her. The Goddess has always had three faces, Cybele, and she will not be stilled even if it means her own doom in these soft times." "So you walk happily to your own end?" "Happily? Hardly! But I accept my fate. We all must die, and only some of us will be born anew. At least I have that much." "And I," said Cybele miserably. "Only I sometimes wish I were a once-born so that I would not need to suffer life again and again." "Who is the black one now, then, Cybele?" he asked gently, then raised his palms to graze her nipples through her gown. "Dear, dear brother," she said, as he softly caressed her throat, his fingernails catching on her soft skin. She felt his strong fingers closing around her throat, but she did not fear. She trusted Attis more even than she trusted herself, she knew that now. It seemed strange that not so long ago, she had doubted his loyalty, but when that loyalty was challenged by others, she suddenly knew, knew implicitly, that he could be trusted with her very life. She reached under her gown and pulled our the amber talisman. She took it from her own throat and placed it around his. "It is you who are under threat," she said gently, and he did not resist. He turned her around so that it was she who rested back against the wall. This damned belly annoyed her beyond all measure. She could not wait for when it was gone, the wretched thing. Oh, to be able to have him unhindered. It was only now that this obstacle jutted between them that she truly appreciated how much she had enjoyed their previous couplings. Would it ever be the same after the birth? Would the birth ever come? Seven moons only had passed, and it seemed an eternity. Two full moons to go. If she could take a knife and carve the thing from her very belly, she felt ready to do it. Attis pressed her back against the wall. Her buttocks pressed into the cold sharp stone behind, and his hands held both her breasts firmly. "How long have we together?" she asked him. "Eternity, Cybele. We will always be together." "You make it sound like a punishment," she quipped, but he did not answer. "I meant, how long before... you meet your fate?" "Do not think about it, sweet sister. If you do not see the future, think yourself blessed. I would rather that I did not know it myself." "But you do know, do you not? You know the day of your death." He still did not answer, but pulled away from her and started walking up the hill back toward the village. "Where are you going?" she called to him. "To find Cabirius. I mean to ask him who best draws a serpent." He disappeared over the hill. Cybele was suddenly aware of how chill the sea wind was, and clutched her gown about her. Cabirius was just leaving his class when Attis caught him by the sleeve. "Ho, Attis. I could have done with you in class just now, to answer questions of the Mainland. The Novices seem convinced that they cast girl-children to the sharks and drink nothing but the blood of slain beasts." "Not so far from the truth," Attis replied. "I hear you are thinking of taking the ancient mark of Priapus." Cabirius glanced around, and pulled him away from the busy groups of Novices leaving the classroom. "Ssssh," he said abruptly. "Return to old customs is not a popular topic on the Isle these days." "I cannot see why. We should be proud of our heritage," Attis said, deliberately overloud for Cabirius's near ears. The Novices showed little interest in the conversation, though, as they walked away in giggling clusters. "Our heritage?" Cabirius hissed to him. "You are not even Isle-born, Attis." "You are happy enough to have me as Consort, though, are you not Cabirius? It serves your own political ends as well as if you did the service yourself, only without need for the exertion. Do not by turns call me Mainland or Isle-bred when it suits your various purpose. I am of the Isle as much as any, and well you know it. The fisherman was no more than seed. I am my mother's son." "Well, how did you know I thought to take the mark of the Serpent? It must have been Kelle, unless you have again read my thoughts." "Do you find it an infringement for me to do so?" said Attis, his voice dropping to a purr, soft and sensual as a kiss. Cabirius reddened, as though he thought Attis was reading his mind there and then. He turned away and tried to leave, but Attis again clutched his sleeve. "I know many things about you, Cabirius," he said softly. "Let go of me," Cabirius warned. "Or else? You will... hit me? I am more able to defend myself now, Cabirius. I am a boy no longer. Can you not feel my strength?" He squeezed Cabirius's forearm, and Cabirius was horrified to feel his phallus swell as Attis held his arm. His first guilty thought was for Kelle. She had been so tolerant of the coupling with Cybele, but this? He hated himself, and knew he was not worthy of her. "No?" said Attis, so clearly reading his thought, that for a heartbeat Cabirius thought he must have spoken the concern aloud. Surely he was being oversensitive. Attis could not really read his thoughts. "She would have little cause for complaint, I assure you," Attis continued, confirming that he had read the thoughts indeed. Cabirius blushed as red as a clouded sunset. "I wish to join you in taking the snake," Attis said. Cabirius was so immersed in his guilty surging passion that he misunderstood, even though it was said clearly enough. "I am loyal to Kelle," he mumbled. Attis gave a deep sensual laugh. "Oh, that as well, but I meant I wish also to be marked with the serpent of Priapus." Cabirius felt ready to faint with embarrassment, but Attis's hand suddenly slipped directly onto his throbbing erection and left no doubt as to his intention. "I thought you had given up your hopeless desire regarding me." Cabirius said to him, grabbing Attis's wrist and prising it from his manhood. "Things change when there is no future to fret of." "Mean you that you have performed your function, Cybele is with child, so now you can return your attentions to me?" Attis smiled knowingly. "I suppose in part. I also know that you will not have to worry of being bound with me forever. I can promise you that if we have an affair, it would last no longer than the Spring." "Us have an affair? Why would I consider such a thing? Kelle is the only one who matters to me, and I would not risk that," Cabirius said, incensed. "Kelle would never share my attentions." "Really? What of your little deal regarding Cybele?" "I should have realised you would know of that. Cybele tells you all, does she not?" "What use would there be to conceal? Can I not read your own thoughts, Cabirius, as clearly as if you had spoken them?" Cabirius looked away, as though trying to hide his thoughts by hiding his eyes. "I needed not to feel your erection to know your want for me," Attis observed cruelly. "There are many other arguments I could also give you, but that is the best. We want each other, and there is no reason not to follow that want." "Even if your own partner would share you, Kelle would never consent," Cabirius said surely. "I do not wish to hurt you, Cabirius, but I can assure you that she is not so committed to monogamy. Ask me no further detail, else you do even more harm to the bond between you." Cabirius looked to the ground, as though he could sense somehow that Attis told him the truth. "If you wish," Attis offered, "we could meet in secret, and there would be no need for any other to know." "Or we could not meet at all," Cabirius said, exasperated. His tone was one of resignation, though, and Attis sensed that he had won this most drawn out of seductions. "I want you now," Attis said deeply, and Cabirius felt an aggressive passion rising within. "I want you, then I want us to be marked together to Priapus." Cabirius felt that nothing he could say would make any difference. It was like he was falling though the air, and there was nothing to catch to break the fall. Attis was leading him by the hand to the small study room where they had once taken lessons as tutor and pupil. It had a stout wooden door and bolts inside and out. Attis lit the small lamp on the heavy table, then bolted the door so that they could not be interrupted. "Kelle will be expecting me soon," Cabirius said. "I said that I would hurry back after the lesson." "I think she can wait a little longer. I do not wish to sleep with you, after all." "What do you wish of me?" Cabirius said bluntly. Attis smiled at him hungrily. "Is there nothing you wish from me?" Cabirius sighed and backed slightly toward the door, as though ready to change his mind. "I wish you to suckle my phallus," Attis said to him then, as firmly as any order. Cabirius found himself on his knees, as though he had lost time somehow. Attis stood naked only a hand's length in front of his face, with his huge jutting erection already leaking traces of seed. A spell, or merely a convenient blank to avoid responsibility for the situation in which he now found himself? Cabirius had not had time to shave this morning, and Attis now ran his hand over the stubble approvingly. "Do you not wish to suckle me?" Attis asked, almost as a taunt. Cabirius did not answer, but plunged forward with his mouth opened wide. This time, he meant to finish what he had started so long ago on the night Attis was made Consort. He lapped greedily at the oozing seed, and Attis looked down at him with dark glazed eyes. As Attis thrust into his mouth, Cabirius's cheeks bulged and his stubbled chin grazed the base of the shaft and testes. Cabirius's own erection ached to be touched, but somehow he felt self-conscious of rubbing himself while he suckled Attis. This seemed amusingly incongruous, but then many thoughts have little sense to them. Attis slowly pushed Cabirius away and his phallus sprung from Cabirius's mouth like a young sapling. He pulled Cabirius up and gently took hold of his neglected erection, and guided Cabirius's right hand onto his own wet hardness. They stood face to face, rubbing each other's phalli by the flickering lamplight. "I mean to spill," warned Cabirius, but Attis took hold of a point underneath and by a squeeze, made Cabirius's peak shrink back. Attis then leaned forward and kissed him, his wet tongue searching deep into Cabirius's mouth. They continued in this way for some time, and each time Cabirius came near to spilling, Attis would expertly make him subside, to lengthen the pleasure. Finally, he could take it no longer. The ringing tension felt ready to tear his whole body apart. "I need to spill. I must, and soon, or else I shall collapse," he whispered breathlessly to his partner. Attis pushed him back so that his buttocks rested on the desk, then fell to his knees and sank Cabirius's manhood deep down his throat. Cabirius clutched onto the edge of the table and spread his legs to push his pelvis forward and force his erection all the deeper into the other Priest's mouth. "Mmmm. Uh... Uh...." He felt his hot seed spurt forth, and at the exact same instant, he felt Attis's own fall onto his bare feet in surging bursts. As he gasped for breath, Attis slid from his softening phallus and slipped to standing against his body. They were of the same height now, and Attis pressed the full length of his body against Cabirius's. Cabirius could feel the stickiness of his seed on their chests, where it had trickled from the edge of Attis's mouth. He was overwhelmed by another wave of pleasure, like the aftershocks of an earthquake. Attis squeezed him close by the buttocks and kissed him deeply. The taste of his own seed in Attis's mouth drove him nearly to distraction. He could feel his erection hardening again already against Attis's own. "We cannot continue," said Cabirius breathlessly. "It will kill me." "Do we not all die?" Attis replied. His sharp fingernails grazed like claws suddenly down Cabirius's back, drawing blood. Cabirius pulled away angrily. "What did you have to do that for? Now I'll have some explaining to do!" "No more than others," said Attis without concern. Cabirius furiously pulled on his gown and boots. "I do not know how you got me into this." Cabirius said bitterly as he unbolted the door. Attis turned to face him, naked and glorious. "No?"
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