It came to me in a dream. I saw a sun dappled glade deep in the heart of some ancient wood, but it all felt so real. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, the softness of the grass beneath my bare feet, I almost believed I was truly there! Then, I realized I was not alone in my dream. Standing in the center of the glade was a great stag, larger than any deer I’ve seen father return with, slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain, after one of his hunting trips. The stag’s pelt was the color of freshly tilled soil, and a pair of great, many-pointed antlers crowned the beast’s regal head like some forgotten king of the forest. Its eyes, they were like nothing I’ve ever seen! They seemed too intelligent for any mere animal, yet too ancient to have belonged to any man. I felt as if the stag were calling to me, drawing me towards it for some unknown purpose. Before I could approach the dream came to an end, and I found myself lying awake in my bed.
My pale skin was flushed and sweat beaded on my exposed flesh in a sheen of perspiration, I felt lightheaded, almost dizzy, but the strangest memento left by my dream was the slickness I felt between my thighs. I did my best to ignore the aching dampness between my legs as I closed my eyes once more, pushing thoughts of the strange dream from my head and willing myself to sleep. When I woke in the morning, I found that my memory of the dream had faded, leaving nothing but a faint impression of the woods and the sight of the stag. I went about my day as usual, helping mother with the laundry and cooking while father and my brother, Samuel, worked in the fields.
“Mary,” mother said, “Go fetch some water from the river.”
I remember leaving my home, bucket in hand, and I remember arriving at the river only 400 paces from our home, then something called me. Not with words, but I know that something called me, something in the woods. I could feel it, gnawing at me, and most alarmingly causing a dampness to seep between my thighs. Just like my dream. I vaguely remember the bucket slipping from my fingers as I stepped forward. I crossed the river, not caring that my shoes and dress became soaked with water. My shoes. What happened to my shoes? I left them somewhere, somewhere in the woods. I can’t remember where, all I know is that one moment I had them and the next I was barefoot, treading deeper and deeper into the woods as if bewitched by something lurking among the trees.
I walked for what seemed like hours, pausing briefly to marvel at the silence so deep within the forest. Birds no longer sang, and the only sound was that of my passage. Brambles and branches snatched at my dress and skin as I passed, leaving small tears in the fabric and red lines on my flesh where thorns had drawn blood. I no longer knew how far I was from home, or even what direction my home was in. Had father ever gone this deep in the woods when he hunted? Had anyone?
My questions came to an end as I stumbled through a thicket of grasping thorns and sharp branches, breaking through into a clearing. Not a clearing, I realized, but a glade. Rays of sunlight broke through the canopy in scattered spots, painting splashes of light across the dark grass that covered the floor of the glade. Dappled, I thought. The glad was dappled. There was something else too, a pungent odor like livestock. My nose wrinkled as I inhaled, the musky stench was so powerful, almost overwhelming like the pen of some unwashed beast. The smell was strangely intoxicating, and I could feel the effect it had on my body immediately. My skin flushed with sweat and I felt hot, too hot to be wearing so many clothes. I tore at the remains of my dress, uncaring of how unwomanly my behaviour was, or of how my mother had worked so hard to make it for me.
The cool air of the glade caressed my naked breasts like a lover’s breath, the sensation enough to leave my nipples erect and sensitive. Even without my dress it was still unbearably hot. My undergarments clung to my loins uncomfortably and, after a moment’s hesitation, I torn them away too, tossing the damp garment aside, leaving my womanhood as exposed as my breasts. Without thinking, I cupped one of my bosoms in my hand, squeezing the pliant flesh in a way that elicited a most unseemly moan from my lips. This is wrong, I thought, this is sinful, but I didn’t care! My hand left my breasts and traveled lower, across my sweat slicked navel and towards the cleft of my thighs. My fingers met the hair of my groin, then—
“Cease.”
The word leapt, no, forced itself into my mind unbidden, as if something else had thought it. It sounded with such mental force that I likened it unto thunder, like the voice of God, or a demon. My fingers froze, just inches away from the lips of my virgin lips. I was not alone out here, I realized, and a tremor of fear raced up my spine. I heard the snapping of a twig and my heart leapt! I whipped my head up, looking at the source of the noise and gasped as I attempted to cover my breasts and womanhood with my hands.
Standing there, in the center of the glade, was a creature the likes of which I have never seen. It was tall, almost twice as tall as any man I had seen. The creature’s head was like that of a great stag, massive and regally crowned by magnificent antlers that scraped the limbs of the trees. Its shoulders were broad and its chest, a chest like that of a man, was bare, revealing thick muscles barely contained beneath its bronze flesh. The creature’s physique was of an inhuman perfection, as if it had been sculpted from marble. It was like looking upon a pagan deity, a being of such raw animalistic power that its existence defied even God’s will. My eyes traveled lower, the creature’s flesh gave way to tawny fur at the hips, and I gasped as I saw what hung between the stag-god’s thickly muscled thighs.
Its manhood was large and darkly fleshed, like the leathery member of a stallion. The true length of the stag-god’s phallus was unknown to me, as it was resting in a thick sheath, but I knew that it would be the largest manhood I would ever see. Even larger than that of the horses that father used to plow the field. Below its equine penis hung two orbs of masculine flesh in a loose, leathery sack of veiny skin. The creature’s testicles reeked of a masculine potency the likes of which no man could match. This beast, this god, was like an effigy of virile desire. Its fur-covered legs were like those of a goat, or some other animal and they ended in a set of large, cloven hoofs.
I looked up, returning my gaze to the stag-god’s eyes, and realized that while I had been inspecting its sinfully masculine form, it had been doing the same to me. With a slight blush I realized that I had moved my hands away from my body without thinking, exposing myself, no, presenting myself to this creature, this king of the woods.
"Defile yourself not, daughter of Adam." the stag-god spoke without speaking, its words appearing in my mind with all the force of nature's majesty, "The temple of your body is mine, and mine alone, to desecrate."