
                              The Circle

     Jennifer snuggled close to Wimple as they walked down the red 
brick cobbled street.  They moved as one, casting a four legged shadow 
in the dim moonlight, tapping an almost equine rhythm with their feet.  
Wimple couldn't remember when he felt this good, maybe he never had, 
in any case he knew better than to analize good luck too closely.  
Tonight was one of those rare moments in time when nothing could go 
wrong.  She leaned on him, but he was following her.  

     The street veered in a slow arc to the right, Wimple went with 
its flow.  No silly, not to the right, the left, she said.  You'll 
like my sisters, they'll love you ...  The narrow alley spoke of age, 
somehow it seemed older than the city itself.  The red stones took on 
a brownish glint, moist, each framed with just a touch of algae.  
Obviously few feet had passed to sterilize their surfaces barren of 
one of Earths earliest citizens.

     He felt a twinge of uneasiness as the light dimmed into dark 
gloom.  Long forgotten protective instincts wellhead up inside him, 
visions of hoodlums threatening violence passed through his 
imagination.  He saw potential threat in every doorway and crevice.  
Automatically simple logic came to his rescue and stood before his 
imagination.  The stones themselves spoke of little traffic, felons 
such as those would haunt more productive streets.  Nothing threatened 
here save an over protective nature.

     Jennifer broke his reverie; "we're almost there, see the light?".  
A solitary lamppost partially obscured by a bend in the lane bravely 
pushed away the blackness a meager half a block ahead.  Near there 
must be the house of her sisters, Wimple thought.  His mood lifted, 
the evenings earlier enchantment flowed back into his chilled 
consciousness, perfection returned.  

     He resumed his strategies of how to be charming to her family; he 
adored her, she loved them, her sisters must love him too!  Charm was 
not a practiced skill for him, but tonight he would be charming, he 
must be.

     As they rounded the curve and gained the company of the street 
lamp, Wimple saw that the alley ended in a circular cul-de-sac with 
the lamppost at the far end.  He expected an old Victorian house to 
grace its edge, what he saw was a shabby abandoned warehouse.  Where 
do your sisters live, he asked in bewilderment.

     Jennifer smiled as though he had said something foolish.  Sue, 
she called.  As if from nowhere a tall, obviously athletic brunette 
stepped from the shadows wearing a smile hauntingly similar to 
Jennifers'.  Again and again she beckoned; Betty...  Ellen...  
Marguerite...  Diana...  Jill...  Hellene...  Cathy...  Linda...  
Kimberly...  Marilyn...  Raven.  

     With each name another emerged, one to the left, to the right, 
behind, until the curb was encircled by thirteen women.  Each and 
every one profoundly different from Jennifer execpt her smile.  Every 
male since Adam knows and has been subjected to that smile; cool, 
superior, slightly amused, painfully tolerant, shown by women to 
errant children and foolish men.

      Wimple had planned to be charming, witty and at all costs 
likable, his wildest imagining had conjured nothing like this. For him 
sisters meant more than one, this was a platoon of relatives to 
appease.  He might ingratiate himself with two or even three but this 
wasn't a frailly, it was a crowd. His heart sank, Jennifer had made it 
all too clear how important it was that her sisters approve of their 
union. He was deeply dubious of his prowess as a charmer and despaired 
of his chances.

     These are your sisters, all twelve, Wimple gasped!

     The ring of smiles closed until he was encircled, each hand in 
hand.  Not of the flesh, Jennifer answered in a husky voice, but of 
the coven.  Jennifer stood directly in front of him, she pushed him 
playfully backwards with outstretched arms, palms flat.  

    Caught off balance, he stumbled backwards and fell hard against 
the woman behind him.  Hellene giggled, bit him coquettishly on the 
nap of his neck and flung him forward into the ready arms of the buxom 
brunette first called.  With astonishing speed Sues' powerful 
enfolding embrace took the breath from him, she kissed him deeply, 
driving her wet tongue down his throat like a snake in pursuit of a 
gofer.  Just as abruptly she sent him careening into yet another 
embrace, fondled provocatively, teased beyond endurance, and then cast 
off to the next in line, as if a toy in a round game.  

     With each erotic welcome his disorientation expanded at equal 
pace with his rising passion until finally he fetched up, falling 
heavily forwards into Ravens' powerful grasp.  She cradled his head 
between her hands, her long jet black hair cascaded about him forming 
a dark canopy shutting out everthing.  Her face filled his world.  She 
looked down at him, eyes piercing, breath hot on his face.  He was 
transfixed by their deep and penetrating stare.  She was 
breathtakingly bountiful, yet he felt coldly scrutinized, the way a 
mouse must feel in the inescapable presence of a sleek and hungry cat.  

     He grinned self-consciously up at her, Her persistent, communal 
and enigmatic smile deepened into an unyielding and pitiless leer.  
For the first time Wimple was afraid of loosing more than his 
dignity.  His confusion was replaced by fear dangerously close to 
panic.  With a single thrust she ejected him from their shared canopy, 
sending him sprawling, face down, dead center, within the ring of 
protagonists sisters.

     Wimple feebly picked himself up, gasping for breath, reeling near 
exhaustion, trying desperately to regain some measure of control.  His 
body pounded with ragging lust, while his mind sought an avenue of 
escape.  He floundered looking from face to face, pleading with his 
eyes.  Their girlish tittering laughter profoundly deepened his 
sensation of surrealism. There was nothing his mind could fix on.  It 
was as if reality had abandoned him the way it often does in dreams.  

     Smiles, still uniform, had lost their subtlety, now they mimicked 
Sues' portending leer.  Jennifer advanced slowly, swaying seductivly 
and locked her hands behind his neck.  She cooed in his ear, as if to 
a frightened child, kissed him ever so gently, still advancing as 
though leading in a dance.  Wimples' fear and confusion evaporated 
under her caressing touch.  The succor of her comforting, rhythmic 
advance belayed all reason.

     As if in a slow waltz, Wimple retreated backwards retracing the 
distance between he and Raven standing, hips wide, like a catcher at 
the ready, directly behind.  Minutes later his back felt the firm, 
warm points of her generous breasts press into him.  From behind the 
tall womans' voluptuous body sent near electric thrills through his 
frame and in the fore was Jennifers' delicate, titillating, reassuming 
kiss.  

     At that moment Wimples' effort to understand desolved into total 
surrender.  THe urgency of his need thrust forward as if driven by an 
independent will, while his self went into total retreat.  He would 
try to understand later, now all of existence was need, dignity, self, 
even his apprehensions where abstractions far too remote to intrude.  
He had spent his entire adult life in a manic effort to control events 
around him, he could grapple with pain, control it, if not defeat it, 
but he was defencless against pleasure.  letting his will go filled 
him with a comfortable weakness, an odd contentment almost religious 
in texture.

     Sudenly something cool and unyielding dropped tightly around his 
throat.  His arms flailed involuntarily straight out from his sides to 
be captured by Linda and Kimberly pulling hard in opposition, like 
twin cats clutching an escaping bird.  Raven slowly tightened the 
leather belt around Wimples' neck, her body quivering with an 
intensity of excitement even Wimple could feel through his dimming 
consciousness.  

     Too quickly, too quickly!  Jennifer shouted.  You'll spoil it!  
Raven relinquished her implacable grasp, just enough to bring Wimples' 
consciousness back from the yawning pit of consuming darkness that had 
opened before him.

     Wimples' eyes spoke to Jennifer, imploring to know why?  
Why not, she answered, as though talking about the weather.  Its 
not as though you mattered, no one does, there are plenty more where 
you came from.  If there is a point, it is simply that; as in nature, 
there are two types of entities, pray and predator.  We play the part 
of predators, you are cast in the role of pray. Which is which is of 
no consequence, how the piece is played is everything. You and we have 
auditioned our entire lives, this is your moment, you're on.

     Wimple struggled convulsively against his restraints of noose and 
hands, but he was far too weak and his captors resolve too firm. 

     Don't fight it, Jennifer said, it will go much better if you 
don't. We love all you!  Predators don't hate their pray, they love 
them. We kill for the love of killing, but only those marked by thier 
nature for death.  Not sadists but saviors, we give your life meaning 
in the manner of its passing. Is it better to vomit up your life, fed 
on by some hideous disease, or leave your remains painted on a lonely 
highway? Surly we are a better prospect than that?

     With that she kissed him as departing lovers do at train 
stations.  Sighed wistfully and knelt in front of him, Japanese 
fashion, tidy and demure. She paused for a long, moment meditating, 
and then reached out and unzipped his pants, brushed aside their 
fastenings and pulled them, undergarments and all, to the ground in a 
single fluid motion.  

     Besides, she continued, we are only doing what you want, what you 
have always wanted.  What we do, we do for love of you.  If you cannot 
accept the logic, then concede the evidence of your own body.  I will 
prove it to you.  If your body refuses, we will let you go, if not 
then we will know that you are well chosen.

     She fondled his now limp penis as she expounded her philosophy, 
stroking in syncopation with her words, punctuating each phrase with a 
squeeze of supurbe craftsmanship and clinical detachment.  Massaging 
slowly her hand moved up and down his organ. In defiance of his will, 
his flagging member began to show signs of life.  

     She shifted his growing erection from hand to lips.  Moving her 
tongue expertly down its length, abrading its surface with her teeth 
just enough to produce the desired effect.  See, she said, isn't that 
much better?  Do you really want me to stop, all you have to do is go 
limp and we will believe you.

     Jennifer looked up at Raven approvingly, I think he'll do just 
fine, she said.  She turned toward her sisters, he's ready.  One by 
one, each in her turn, knelt before him.  Each in her turn suckled, 
stroked and fondled with infinite care and consummate skill, as though 
talking part in a sacrament of lust.  As each finished, the noose 
around his neck tightened a fraction more, orchestrated by Raven in 
perfect harmony with her sisters ministrations and Wimples' reflex.

     The shimmering moonlight bore whiteness to a slow execution 
administered in lascivious black erotica.  Like feeding animals atom 
by atom they sucked, tongued and probed their victums life away.  
Raven waited patently, her ever tightening noose ready for Whimples' 
final reply.

     The last sensation Wimple knew was the pulsating throb of his 
exploding climax tearing at his soul, searing every cell in his body 
as he fell into to utter nothingness under Ravens' prefect timing.

     His body now hung limp, held half erect by Ravens' black leather 
belt.  She smiled, bit into the back of his neck, ran her tongue 
through the ravaged tear and tasted his blood approvingly. With deep 
satisfaction she let him drop, in a forgotten heap, on the cold wet 
paving stones of an equally forgotten lane.

