Monday 16 April 2012

Nymphomania: #atozchallenge

Continuing on from Ivy...

It was the cool breeze blowing through the room that woke me up in the middle of the night.
“Ivy?” She stirred beside me. “How did we get here?”
She merely curled up again and went back to sleep so I slid off the bed and walked over to the window. The overgrown forest I had hiked through this morning seemed to have been cleared in a day.
“Come back to bed, Ben,” she mumbled.
“Where are we?”
“We’re still in the mansion.” She sat up, rubbing her eyes.
“But… it’s all different.” I turned back to look at her, taking in the room for the first time. I recognised it as one of the rooms we had explored upstairs by the painted cupids in the upper left corner, something I had been craning my neck to make out amidst the crumbling plaster. The cupids were as good as new now.
Her smile was beguiling, but I couldn’t help backing away. We had been sleeping on a bed of ivy.
“What are you?” I couldn’t help asking as she stepped towards me.
“Does it matter?”
“I… I don’t know. It might help.”
“Why are you afraid?” she asked as she backed me into the corner. I shivered as she laid her hands on my chest; a tingle, half of anticipation, half of terror.
“What do you want with me?”
“I want you. All of you. Stay with me.”
“What about my life? My job? My family?”
“Is it all that important to you?”
She pulled at me now, a soft insistent tug, like earlier in the morning. It was irresistible. We tumbled onto the bed, the ivy twining us around us, sealing us, making us one, until exhausted, we fell apart.
“I am Kissiae,” she finally said in the stillness above our laboured breathing.
“What does that mean?”
“I am the Ivy-nymph.” Her violet eyes glittered at me now. The long tendrils that had covered us wrapped itself around me, binding me tight.
“Am I your captive?”
“Do you want to be?”
“Would you ever let me go?”
“You have too many questions, little one. Let me stop them for you.”
Her kiss burst on me like a sunrise; multi-faceted, surprising, unexpected.
“Stay Ben, please.”
“Until morning.”
She nodded sadly, her hands reaching out to me again, pulling me into her.

The bright sun pierced my eyelids. I sat up with a groan. A bird twittered in the midsts of the trees outside the window, where the shutters hung loose on their hinges. The walls were covered with ivy again, the paint peeling, the plaster crumbling.
“Ivy?” Her name echoed in the empty hallway. I picked up my scattered belongings, pulling on my clothes as I ran stumbling down the same way she had led me. It was quiet now, except for the steady drip of water in the pool beside the thick old stem. I laid my hand on it gently, but it was nothing more than a plant.
I never found her again.

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Nymphomania:
uncontrollable or excessive sexual desire in a woman.

But I concentrated more on the Nymph part, sort of.
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing; their amorous freedom sets them apart from the restricted and chaste wives and daughters of the Greek polis. They are believed to dwell in mountains and groves, by springs and rivers, and also in trees and in valleys and cool grottoes. Although they would never die of old age nor illness, and could give birth to fully immortal children if mated to a god, they themselves were not necessarily immortal, and could be beholden to death in various forms.

4 comments:

  1. nice play on the word. Poor Ivy.

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  2. I like this. Great story. You are quite the writer. this is great inspiration for me as an aspiring writer. I am an English major in college. Hopefully I will be able to be as free with my words as you are one day, God willing.

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    1. That's such a compliment, Stephanie *blush*
      Here's to your writing career! =)

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