I awoke on a cold stone alter, the room swimming around me in dizzying landscapes, swirls of color, great arching windows of stained glass that allowed light to bleed in, candlelight flickering and shadowed demons lurching through cobwebbed corners.  A strange smell drifted to me, blood and incense, burnt offerings perhaps, and I choked on the smoke.  It took only a moment to realize were I was and then a chilling fear shivered through my flesh.

I remembered earlier that evening meeting Xzandria at the Coven of the Succubi, a secretive society of women that practiced the Black Arts and various disciplines of pleasure and pain.  I had been inducted as a novice into the fold, but first had to be properly initiated in sacrifice.  I had allowed myself to be willing drugged and informed that I would be taken to a secluded place were the initiation would take place.  This was such a place.

The room was immense and rose above me, up, up to were it disappeared into dark obscurity.  I could hear an eery chanting whispering like voices of fallen angels, songs of sorrow, a mournful nocturne crooning from the bowels of a dark yearning obsession. 
The symphony surrounded me, entering me deeply through my extremities, crawling up through my bowels like a beast stalking.

I couldn't move.  My limbs were heavy with drug and bound hand and foot, wrapped in black leather shackles, warm, organic, attached to the altar by cumbersome chains, arms and legs parted wide.  Fear flushed through me, yet not exactly fear without the thrill of exquisite anticipation coursing through the heat and pulse of my veins.

I first heard the movement, a sweeping rhythm of fabric whispering, the soft shuffle of bare feet across the wooden floor, the metallic chiming of bracelets, then the sweet spicy aroma of sandlewood embraced me.  I saw her shadow looming above, long hair as dark as a raven's wing, the folds of her heliotrope robes quivering and fluttering open like vagina lips.  I caught a glimpse of a rose-bud nipple, smooth moon-skin, soft woman-curves, luminous eyes like pools of dark water.  Then the beautiful face, so darkly angelic and filled with wicked innoncense so I could scarcely believe she was capable of such atrocities, yet fully understood that she was. 

"Xzandria?" I whispered, almost afraid to speak, my voice hoarse, my throat dry as cobwebs.

"Shhhh..." she commanded, hushing me with her fingertip against my lips, "you are parched and must not speak.  Soon your thirst will be quenched.  I will show you such rare beautiful things, terrible things—I'll drag you down into the very depths of the mystery... and of death!  But do not speak to me again until you have ‘become'."

Xzandria stood over my head, up-side-down, her breasts falling forward with soft encumbrance.  She sliced her finger with the razor point of a jeweled athame, a drop of crimson welling upon the fingertip, wet and thick.  Her eyes glazing over as she swayed to some internal rhythm.

My eyes were drawn to the blood as if it were a flame in the darkness—the lush ripeness of it against her china-white skin—it was so blood red, so beautiful and red: red like her soft full lips; red like the inside of her beautiful sex.  These things I wanted to kiss, to taste, to swallow and ingest; her blood I wanted too, more than hunger, more than desire, like an instinct I could not ignore, an obsession.  The forbiddenness of it made me weak, delirious; made me ache in the tender void between my legs:  Her blood—Her life—beating into mine; I wanted so to quench my thirst with her dying...

Her eyes locked onto mine.  The blood flowed unstaunched, oozing down her finger to her palm.  She pressed her palms together, as if in prayer, then spread them before me.  They were stained like a henna ink blot, whorls and designs, dark creatures painted by her blood.  I thought of how they would feel against my nakedness, those bloody hands, flowing over my stomach, my breasts, smearing me, painting me like a canvas.  A scene flashed in the back of my mind: my body split wide, skin peeled back like the skin of a pomegranate, my organs glistening like seeds, her breasts and mouth slathered in my blood, an expression of demoniac delight on her sweet sadistic features—O!—She would be so beautiful bathed in my blood.

I felt pain, a raw burning, then realized I had bitten my own lip while watching her; I could taste my blood, feel the texture upon my tongue, the taste of alkaline batteries, thick and salty and metallic.

She bent close, her breath fragrant against my cheek.  Her tongue snaked out and she licked the blood from my trembling lip, her mouth covering mine in a deep woman-kiss, hot and wet reminding my of the mouth between her legs.  She sucked my tongue inside of her, it was so smooth like the walls of her sex.  I felt the sharp stab of her tiny teeth as she bit my tongue and drank my blood like sacrificial wine.  I moaned, a rippling sound of vowelly o's as she pulled away.

She wrote symbols on my forehead in her blood, anointing my lips, my cheeks, my nose, a sacred ceremony, in which I was the sacrifice.  As she moved to stand beside me I saw the gleam of her knife, then the cold steel blade as it slid under my blouse and cut the material from my breasts.  It was shockingly cool, hard, and my sex throbbed with delicious excitement, even as I was filled with fear.  The blunt edge of the blade slid slowly over my skin, pressing hard enough to dent my flesh, cutting away my clothing, slowly revealing my most secret of places.  I closed my eyes, unable to bear the sight of the knife so close to my flesh, fearing she might slip and cut me there, fearing even more that she might do it intentionally.

"Look at me." she demanded, her voice as cold as poison, as she jerked at my hair and pulled my head back.  A shock of pain pulled deep at my roots.  My eyes sprang wide.

She was so savagely beautiful, all dark and pale at once, her eyes the color of smoldering amber, her lips bruised by kisses of wine like a bloody devouring flower, her skin impossibly pale against her inky hair. 

"I want you to watch as I pierce your flesh."  she said, in a calm,
smooth voice, as if she were talking merely of ordinary things.  "I want to watch your expression as I cut you.  I want you to see my pleasure and desire for you color my eyes.  You must not move, or think to stop me, or try to speak out... do you understand?"

I nodded silently, tears wetting my cheeks.

She then smiled, showing her small, yet brilliant teeth beneath the
crimson of her lips—teeth that were familiar with the taste of sinful blood from human fruit.  The smile was not of humor, but ominous, and her eyes gleamed wetly like whiskey in a glass.

Xzandria began to carve symbols into my naked flesh, the athame dancing over my skin, her touch feather light and fleeting, tiny stinging cuts, pentacles, moons, stars, and a strange script like hieroglyphs tattooing my body as if I were a bloody book and the symbols a story blooming across my parchment-flesh.   I saw colors of dark shadow explode behind my eyes as they rolled back into my head.  I would have passed out if she had not slapped me.  My eyes fluttered open and I saw bloody nicks and beautiful designs, my pale skin smeared with delicious crimson.  The athame captured prisms of colored light and reflected them like a kaleidoscope across the shadows.

Xzandria pulled away from me then, gazing at the masterpiece she had worked upon my flesh, her eyes hypnotic as she watched the blood flow, her breath in quick little gasps of excitement, her tongue snaking out between her lips.  Strands of dark hair stuck to her damp forehead and neck.  My heart beat hard against my chest, straining, the sounds of chanting rising and falling in undulating rhythms.  The air hummed, smelling of blackberry candles and raw flesh, shadows swaying like phantasmagories of smoke.

She removed her robe and stood naked before me.  Such a dark moonlit goddess collecting both light and shadows upon her skin.  She began to dance, slow and voluptuous, her body writhing, contorting to the rhythm of the chant.  She held the blade over her head, the beat of her step quickening with the beat of my pulse.  She danced wildly, circling my prone body, spinning in dizzying twirls around and around, her hair flying out, her back arching gracefully, her limbs lithe and long, her bare feet barely touching the ground.  Her hands held the knife and they too became an intricate part of the dance, slicing at the air, plunging and soaring like birds in flight.

I became hypnotized by her movements, my head lolling from side to side.  I could no longer follow her, only catching glimpses of her out of the corners of my eyes like a phantom-wraith.  I felt a dizzying intoxication as the room reached ever so high above me, swirling like smoke.  The chanting grew louder inside of me, the hum swelling and vibrating.

Suddenly, she stopped and collapsed upon me.  My breath rushed from my lungs.  Her body was hot and drenched in sweat, sliding over me as she straddled my hips.  My eyelids fluttered like dragonfly wings and her image began to swell and recede—a heart expanding and contracting with blood.  She held the jeweled athame above me and said some words that I could not understand, although I was sure she spoke with a Latin tongue. 

The blade cut deep, slicing my flesh so it gaped like a ripe split fruit, spilling my blood.  The cold hard blade of steel probed my wet darkness.  It was the strangest sensation, not really pain, but penetration.  I heard my voice whimpering, so far away, felt the horror of the blade dissecting me, and was filled with a dreadful euphoria.  She was half-mad with ecstasy, her head thrashing, her hair whipping the air, now soaked with my blood so it was blackened like blueberry wine, the blade plunging deep.  Through my blurred tears, I could see her body painted deliciously in my blood as she smeared the red wetness over her abdomen and breasts.

I heard her growl as she slid over me and began licking at my wounds, sucking and licking my blood until I was consumed by a fierce pleasure and pain.  I moaned, writhing beneath her, listening to the low vibrations moving from her throat, the humming inside me growing deeper, her hot tongue stinging my flesh.  I ached so completely.

Xzandria lifted her head laughing, her voice dark and hollow.  Her mouth was smeared with my blood and she looked absolutely demonic.  Her tongue flicked in and out of her full soft mouth, as if tasting the air.  She bent down over me, her eyes wide and glowing like amber flames and she kissed my forehead.

"It is time."

She slithered off me, crawling like a beast and moved to the foot of the altar.  The small blade moved between my thighs, the point pressing against the mouth of my sex.  I held my breath, the muscles inside of me clenching tight in response.  She slid the slim blade up inside of me, slowly, deliberately—in—out—brutally cold, chilling me to my depths.  A hematic, river of blood flowed freely between my thighs, mixing with my sexual juices.  I felt a raw burning, a sticky sweetness.  The room began to spin and turn in on itself, insideout, outsidein, churning and swallowing me down into depths of oblivion.  The hum moved through me, pounding, thunderous. 

I felt her tongue there, at the mouth of my sex, drinking the rivers of blood that flowed from my womb, her hungry moans and sounds of pleasure drifting to me like words through water, like smoke through blood.  Ripples of dark sensation moved through me, the sound of my heart beating, dimmer, dimmer, my sex throbbing and on fire.  I shuddered violently against her mouth, spilling both blood and come.

Once again she positioned her self above me, her face looming hugely, the room swirling like a giant whirlpool.  She raised the athame high over her head, its blade pointing down towards me as she grabbed me by the hair and forced my head back, exposing my throat.  My eyes grew wide as I mouthed, "No!" then broke into heavy sobs.

The blade was so quick, that I did not realize my throat had been slit until a moment after it happened.  I felt the wound gape open, heard the gurgle of my breath rush from my neck, tasted blood in the back of my throat.  I choked, blood foaming from my lips, streaming down my throat, drowning in my essence and intoxication.

Darkness swarmed like a cloud of locusts, filling my mind, droning in my brain, filling my sight.   I saw a dark tunnel in the distance, yet it held no blinding light, but that of a red, sanguine dimness, that flooded towards me like sunlight through red stained-glass.  My heart tripped, struggling to pump my blood as it pushed my life from my throat.  Death hovered close, blanketing me in velvet blackness as I lost all consciousness, and fell at last into the void.


***

I awoke to the sound of kitten-like mewling, rich hot blood flowing down my throat, swallowing, swallowing.  The flavor was somewhat unfamiliar, more dark and smokey than my own.  My body ached with a hundred fiery scratches burning over my flesh. 

"Yes, yes, yes, my precious, drink."  Her husky voice drew me from dreams of death and darkness, my eyes fluttering open.  At first I saw only shadows as a babe must see when leaving the womb.  Gradually I began to make out her soft warm breast from with I drank her bloody nourishment, my hand kneading the full flesh and coxing more blood from its depths.  Her beautiful moon-face loomed above it, her features flooded with rapture.  She held me cradled in her arms and I realized I was no longer shackled to the altar, but laid upon her lap on a long leather couch.  I drank and drank until I gaged and could drink no more, and still I suckled the blood from her ripe breast so it ran in rivulets from my mouth.

"Ah, the babe awakes." she purred, pulling her bloody nipple from my hungry mouth.   I moaned out loud, the room throbbing softly.  My skin burned and itched with candle wax as my wounds quickly mended.

She moved from beneath me then stood, her long dark hair falling around her shoulders, candlelight flickering across her milky skin.

"Welcome Daughter.  Welcome to the Coven of the Succubi.  We are the Daughters of Darkness possessing both the power of life and death... from the blood of our wombs and from the beat of our hearts... from the sacrifice of our life, from the ashes of our sins, we are reborn in death.... you are mine now... I am yours... we have become one and the same... forever and for all time... together always."

I let my head sink heavily into the soft couch, the rich, organic leather caressing me.  I was saturated with her blood, my heart beating a bold, new, unnatural rhythm.  I beheld her vile, loathsome beauty, inhaling her stench of death like a sweet perfume.  I gazed at her with dark devotion, my voice whispering across an eternity, "Yes... yes... always, my love."