Keywords: M/F anal, oral, magic Author: W R Jenkins Title: Dark to Dawn Disclaimer:(standard) Do not screw up. Do not do anything illegal. This includes specifically (but not limited to) reading on if you are under 18- 21 in some localities If you are underage you must leave now. If you're young and curious, this is not the place to get the straight story. You act like this and people will look at you strange and give you a wide berth. Also, don't try this at home. Some of this stuff is just plain wrong, most of it is unsafe in the present viral climate and some of it doesn't work in this universe. They are stories. They deal with ideas, fantasies and thoughts that might not even be pleasant in real life. Thoughts are like that. Fantasies are there so we can toy with the sensations without feeling or inflicting the pain, despair or humiliation. End Sermon. Dark to Dawn - The doctor suspects strange happenings in town and sets out to find the cause. What? Can't people fuck anymore without someone thinking it's heinous? M/F, anal, oral, magic Dark to Dawn "What's the matter, honey?" asked Howard, "Aren't you in the mood?" "I don't know... yes... I just feel... dizzy. But yes, yes I'm in the mood," said Sharon. She wasn't sure what came over her. Her questions were quickly lost in the feel of Howard's lips moving down her throat, kissing at her collar bone, sliding down to her left nipple. She wanted him again. She knew the pleasure- the peace- that only came when she felt him inside her, warm and strong, filling her urgently. "Oh, Howard, don't bother," she said with a sigh, "I'm so ready. Please... please put it in me. Please fuck me." "Er... " Howard said hesitantly, "Just another minute, please, I'm not quite ready yet." His mouth moved to fix on her other nipple, but Sharon put her hand on his head and pulled him up. There was a look of apprehension on his face. She knew he didn't want to admit he wasn't able to perform and she hated to confront him with it, but she wanted him so badly. "Don't look so worried," she said gently, "I can help you." With that she laid his head back on the pillow beside her and moved down his body. His penis was red and raw, the head a swollen plum on a thin stalk too weak to support it. She would take care of that. She took his cock in her mouth and he jerked a little. She wished to reassure him, but she decided it was better to chase the head of his cock around her mouth with her tongue. She could just as well show him as tell him, and it would be sooner that his cock was hard and firm and large and she could feel it inside herself again. She felt encouraged as she licked under the head and felt a flicker of response. Still respectful of his shying at her touch, she did not set to sucking on his prick immediately, but sent long licks from his belly to the head. "My balls... my balls might like that," he said in gasps. Oh yes, that would be good, Sharon thought, and licked the wrinkled skin containing the two orbs. She sucked one into her mouth and gave it the same treatment as the head of his cock as he writhed. She licked behind the sack before taking the other ball in her mouth. He was much more comfortable with this and it was having the desired effect. She looked up to watch his cock move flopping one side to the other and seeming to expand before her eyes. She went behind the sack again, since that seemed to make him jump the most. But it was getting so hard to wait. She tried to satisfy herself with laving his balls, but her hunger, her need, made her leave them at last and take his prick in her mouth again. She needed it inside her. She needed it hard and thick and big. She had to suck it. He took it well, with only small grunts of protest as she sucked the now normal-looking, if still red, cock in and out of her mouth. He wanted it too, no matter what it cost. "I think... I think I can" he said, stirring onto and elbow and pulling at her. She was unsure, but went easily onto her back and opened her legs wide for him. He scrambled between them and hastily put his cock, which he held in his hand to guide it, against her slit. "Just... just have to get it in..." he gasped as he pushed with hips and fingers to press his barely tumescent prick into her, "just get it in... and it will be fine..." Then he was inside her. Not hard and large and insistent, but inside her. He moved, but it seemed his cock was fixed in place and it was only the slack that he was demonstrating as he tried to fuck her. "Ohh! That's it! Fuck me!" she called out with all the ardor she could muster- and much more boldness than she felt was proper. "Give it to me! Yes! Fuck me!" she cried out with all the pretended passion she had, hoping with her nasty talk to urge more stiffness into the prick that she wanted so much. The first light of morning was crawling to their window and as Howard concentrated on the wet warmth around his cock, the first ray broke through and struck him. He pushed heavily, trying to force more of his cock inside her and then fell on top of her. It was no good. The light made Sharon squint and she became disgruntled with Howard's weight on her, her own position, and the useless cock crammed inside her. He was still trying to hump ineffectively, but she pushed him away. "Get up, then," she said irritably. "It's morning." "Morning," he grunted, not to contradict her, but to complain. "But it's only dawn. Time for a couple hours... I could go in late again..." They were more fatigued than when they had laid down the night before. Sharon could have a lie-in, perhaps sneak a nap later, but Howard had to be to work. He had been missing far too many mornings as it was. He decided to make it one more, but he wouldn't sleep. His dick felt raw and swollen. Every step reminded him with a twinge as it rubbed against his clothes. He was going to see if he could get in to see Dr. Gilbert before he went in. Perhaps the doctor could give him something to relieve the pain if not heal the raw skin. "Well, flop it up here on the counter and let's have a look," Dr. Gilbert joked, already sure what he would see. Sure enough, Howard's complaint was friction burns on his penis. That would normally be rare enough, a man's desire and stamina usually stopping far short of damage, but it was not rare here. Howard was the third man he'd treated along with four women for the same kind of complaint. And these were not newly-weds in their late teens or early twenties, but established people, most of them long married. Dr. Gilbert wondered at the rash of sex-related complaints as he prescribed a steroid creme for Howard. It wasn't usual, certainly not normal. "I don't want to be indelicate, but there's really only one way to get a condition like this," said Dr. Gilbert. "If you know what it's going to do to you, why don't you stop before it hurts?" Howard looked confused, but then said, "I guess, when you feel like it, you have to. I mean, you know how frustrating it can be sometimes when you want to and your wife doesn't. I guess I'm getting it while the getting is good. Grabbing the chance you might say." "I might say it would be good to take a night off," Dr. Gilbert said. "That irritation won't heal if you keep this up." Felicity Goodman sat down gingerly in the hot bath of Epsom salts. She was wondering much the same thing as Dr. Gilbert. Why was it that she couldn't stop? Why couldn't she say no? But that wasn't a fair question, she admitted as she settled back and tried to let the hot water soothe her aching crotch. She remembered being as eager, even shrill, in urging Charles to take her again as he had been to fuck her. "I'll let you do it the way you like," she had said desperately, while jerking on his cock. That had brought a response, feeble as it was, that her fingers felt. She had rolled over and put her rear high in the air as she dove down to suck his cock into her mouth. She had let him, this time actually wanted him to, reach over her back and put a finger in her ass. It had the desired effect. She felt his cock surge with blood as he worked his finger in and out of her anus and she opened her throat as he thrust into her face with renewed vigor. Quickly, but not too soon, she was gagging as his cock recovered and began to seek her throat as he fucked her face. She took it with a great satisfaction amid the choking. It had been an ill-considered move, she thought now, but there had been no consideration of the consequences at the time. She had even chided Charles for the brief delay that he took in applying the minimal lubrication that she allowed before pushing her ass at him and begging for his cock. She shifted uneasily with the reminder of her lack of consideration as she moved to rest her weight on the other cheek in the bath. Charles had been more eager, more unrestrained as his cock pressed past the closed gate of her rectum than he might have been earlier, when they had just begun. And that was nothing compared to his vigor once his cock had breached the clenched door. She could not blame him. She heard her voice echo in her mind. She remembered shouting for him to go on, go deeper, go harder as he ravaged from the first entrance until he had fought his way to smack soundly against her rear. She had pushed her ass back to help him as he invaded her asshole. She had rocked in a counter rhythm to his thrusts to drive him deeper, make him pull farther out so his thrusts could be as long and harsh as they could both manage together. She had contributed, perhaps not as much, but as much as she could to the rough invasion and begged for more. Still, she remembered her reasoning and could not argue that her raw, sore vagina didn't need the break. But there was frustration she didn't understand as Charles finally stopped ripping her anus and fell back sated for a second. It took so much more urging, with hands and mouth; she even put her tongue into his asshole in her need. He was so slow to revive after ass- fucking her. And she needed him. Then they had fucked again, and again. Charles howled as his soreness poked into hers and she had threatened him if he stopped. She had begged and demanded, ordered and pleaded as he drove into her. And he had told her that he would take his revenge with a hard cock and stab her with it until she could take no more. She had taken more than she could, she winced. It was not a matter of that- at least not in the day. But in the night, it seemed there was no consideration in the need that came and made them repeat the same crazed lust over and over. At least Charles could doze a bit before he was needed at the bank. She wished to do the same in her bath, but each time she lay back to relax, perhaps lose herself in sleep, another twinge reminded her and the aching soreness would not let her rest. And there was the strange thing, Dr. Gilbert thought as he filed Howard's records. All his hyper-sexual patients lived on Gibbet Lane. Without being haughty, he had to concede it was not the kind of place one would expect to find such lusty goings-on. Not only was it address of settled couples, but couples that were successful, prosperous, and he would have thought, focused on other things than sexual excess. He considered briefly some kind of club or group organization devoted to orgies, but he couldn't believe that. He would have heard something. If not an invitation, certainly there would be a rumor about something as scandalous as that. Besides, if it were the case, he would expect at least one of his patients to be worried about disease and none of them were. It was very puzzling, but for the moment that was all it was. He had several patients, who all lived on the same street, who seemed to be on a second Honeymoon of prodigious vigor and unbelievable duration. "You want it. -don't you?" Melanie had put on Chinese silk pajamas for bed, thinking that tonight they might sleep after the insane fury of the last few nights. However, the top was thrown back, hanging from her shoulders and she was holding the short pants up, having already undone the tie. Mike was ripping at his clothes as if some alarm had gone off and he was compelled to answer it naked. She was teasing him with her full, lush breasts swinging seductively as she teased with dropping the pants and standing ready for his charge. "What's in here? What's in here that you want?" she teased as she pulled the waist out to look down at her own lightly furred sex and prepared for the dramatic drop that would take all obstruction, both to his seeing and his access, out of Mikes' way. "You'll find out what I want!" Mike said gruffly, "And it doesn't matter about those pants. I'll shove my cock right through them and fuck you with them on, if you don't get them out of the way!" Melanie dropped the pants as Mike was stepping impatiently on his trousers, pulling them off his feet. She stepped wider, letting her sex form a point aimed in opposition to the triangle between her legs. Mike did not seem to appreciate her pose. He rushed her, cock erect, and threw her to the bed, following her in a leap that brought him down on top of her, conveniently placed between her legs. "Put it in!" she said in a husky voice, "You can warm me up later." This was not so far from some urgency they had know in years past. Still, Melanie grimaced as Mike's cock pushed into her. Even in those fevered times, the teasing had made her more ready. But that was beneath consideration. He was inside her and the relief was far more than the pain of forcing her sheath to adapt. And he was grabbing her breasts, attacking her mouth, shoving his tongue into her like the invader below. They were fucking. It was the only thing that mattered. She wrapped her legs around him to pull him deeper. If it was to hurt, she wanted it to hurt her as much as possible. She wanted to feel him in her, against her, giving her everything he had as he took everything she had to give him. It wasn't so much fucking as writhing as one beast with a connection where their four legs came together. His hips moved and hers moved counter as his cock stayed deep inside her and he licked and squeezed and mauled her. "Yes! Touch me!" she cried. "Be rough. Use me!" But he hadn't been rough- yet. He was grinding against her, his hands moving as if there was some part of her that might escape if he didn't reach it, touch it, grab it in time. His hand went to her ass and back up to grab the hair on the side of her head and pull her head aside so he could bite her shoulder. That seemed to start it. His hand went back to her bottom, spanning it and pulling it up where he could probe more deeply. Holding her butt with one hand, his other went down beside her head for the leverage to start thrusting into her. "Yes! Like a doll! Like a rag doll!" she encouraged as she felt controlled by his hand and helpless against his need to hollow her out with his zealous cock. "Hurt me!" she hissed, somehow wanting more of him. She reached up to catch his nipples between her thumb and forefinger and kept increasing the pressure as he drove more strongly into her as she did. His hand tightened on her rear, but there was no more power he could use to push into her; he was driving as hard as their position allowed. Perhaps reacting to her pinching, Mike pulled up his knees and, pulling on her arm just below the shoulder, jerked backward until she had been pulled up. He was astride his thighs, one hand still on her butt and the other on her back, but supported, it seemed, on the hard stalk of his cock that seemed to grow deeper into her as she settled on it. He let go of her rear and used both hands on her back to lift her and drop her back onto his cock. She threw herself forward to press her breasts against him as his cock impaled her so divinely. She moaned in happy helplessness to be used as simply a cunt for him to jack off into. And when he tired, she pushed him back. They fell a bit uncomfortably as Mike struggled to straighten his knees, but Melanie quickly moved back and found his hard cock. She slid back, bending as needed, to drive the hard cock back inside her. Then she settled down to grind against her husband's groin. "Keep it hard because I want it inside me," she growled, "I want it in me forever. I want to feel it forever." It was simply an impossible admonition as she uttered it, but it felt like truth to a deeper part of her. She only felt comfortable, safe, when they were joined. She moved almost experimentally on him, lifting only slightly to press down on him quickly and rub against him before the next quick move up and back down. What they had missed in foreplay was long forgotten now. She was not only ready, she was seething, flowing with her desire for him. Yet she remained loathe to move energetically enough to relieve her need. She wanted it, but she wanted it to last. She also wanted closeness and that desire brought her to lean over and fall on Mike in the end. Pressed together, they once again spent long moments grinding their bodies together, although she felt slightly cheated since Mike's lovely cock was not shoved as deep as it might be with her on top of him. He seemed to share her feeling. He grunted a couple of times, wrapping her in his arms, and then rolled her over, settling between her legs once more and driving his cock to the fully satisfying, for both of them, hilt. He was lying on her and instead of suffocation, she felt the comfort and love of his cock inside her reach out to cover her totally. "Fuck me, but never stop," she whispered in his ear. He responded appropriately. She wrapped her legs about him again to squirm at the intrusions as he reproduced her movements on top of him with a more regular rhythm. He paused deep in her, but with less pause before withdrawing a little way and pushing back in. This was their way. They had hardly gone for quick completion before they married. They had spent long hours coupled and coupling, seeing the extension of pleasure as preferable to a series of rapid and furious fucks, particularly, from Melanie's standpoint, when the series was unreliable in number and in performance. It was standing them in good stead. When Mike at last could stand no more and thrust fast and hard, she dissolved into the ecstasy long put off and let him drive her to climax. She could hold him close a little longer. And when the desire came again, as it had every other night, she would respond as necessary to resurrect Mike's cock and again lay smashed or smashing together as long as the night lasted. An irritated bladder, 'honeymoon bladder', and more unguents for a case of vaginitis and Dr. Gilbert's interest was piqued. He was asking private questions now, not beyond the scope of a doctor, he told himself, but as a diagnostic tool to understand this sudden epidemic, he felt safe in calling it that, of hyper-sexual complaints. All denied any improper activity. There was just a new, although they did seem confused as it its origin, awakening of their love for their spouse. Every night? Yes, it seemed strange now that they thought of it, but it was real and it just happened. Every night. "Hold me. Can't you just hold me?" Gladys asked pleadingly. She felt that she was on fire. The pain had not dropped even when Evan pulled out of her and lay exhausted by her side. The burning, the pain was worse now and she wasn't sure if she could stand to ignore it for his sake as she had before. "I could... I could use my mouth to do it," she said hesitantly. "That would relieve you, wouldn't it?" Evan moaned. He felt no better than Gladys. "No. No it doesn't," he said, bitterly, "You know I've told you that. And I can't help it. I don't want to, you know..." She knew that before asking and she knew the darker truth that it wouldn't relieve her either. She was as much to blame as Evan, though content to let him feel the guilt she knew she shared. "Then hold me," she suggested again. "You know what will happen then," Evan groaned. "I'll hold you and all the time I'll be trying to sneak it back in you. And I will, even if I have to force you in the end. It's no good." He was right. All the same it was better than not. There was a great panic worse than the pain that grew inside her, and it seemed, him when they did not answer the lust that threw them on top of each other and made them copulate to the point of destruction. It was a fear of something, she didn't know what, greater then pain, torture or death that would surely come if they tried to resist. And it was irresistible. She howled. Evan gave out high-pitched grunts. Inevitably the cuddle had become the exploration and now the torture of them both screaming in pain as his cock tormented her swollen and raw sheath. They did not, could not stop. They fucked in agony. Dr. Gilbert was talking to Dr. Lombard, not a medical doctor but a Ph.D. who had lived in town nearly his entire life. Dr. Gilbert was slightly bored with the long-winded reminiscences of the old days, even old days before the aged Dr. Lombard was born. He snapped back to attention when he heard Lombard say: "I can't imagine why they'd want to memorialize that by calling a road Gibbet Lane." "Excuse me?" Gilbert interrupted. "What was that about Gibbet Lane?" Lombard gave him a wondering look, which Gilbert imagined had been turned on students regularly in Lombard's long career teaching, as if he wondered why Gilbert didn't understand his clear presentation. "Gibbet Lane was built on the site," Lombard said unhelpfully. "The site of the hanging?" Gilbert made the guess to cover his inattention. "Yes." said Lombard. "It was clearly that ridge on the south of town." Swallowing his embarrassment at not listening, Gilbert knew he had to ask Lombard to repeat the story he had been ignoring. If there was something about that ridge, it might apply to his study of the strange happenings there. That was his rational explanation. He was uneasily refusing to credit the hair rising on his neck as an indication that the story had some important meaning beyond the rational. "I'm not sure I got it all," Gilbert said, "Would you mind repeating the whole part about the hanging and why they, her, it, was hanged?" Lombard gave him a self-satisfied smile. For a moment Gilbert thought he might refuse, but then Lombard began to talk. "It must be difficult for you to admit an interest in old wives' tales, I imagine," Lombard said unhelpfully, "But as I have your attention, I will try and be as factual as the records will allow." Gilbert knew then that Lombard could not resist telling the tale and that his inattention was not unexpected. It only gave Lombard the chance to hold forth, something Gilbert already knew pleased him. "It was in 1692, when such things were in fashion, that the village was struck by a series of catastrophes, at least to the poor, ignorant folk who lived there," Lombard began. "Cicadas chose that year to emerge en masse, setting their superstitious nerves on edge with a strange whirring in the dark and the occasional fright when some, already frightened soul was out and one of the bugs would fly at them or land on them. They were sure it was a plague from the Devil. "Also a fever," Lombard continued, "Which your medical ancestors so wisely turned into many deaths with their habit of blood-letting." Gilbert could see that Lombard was playing with him, but he was doing nothing to interrupt the story this time. He wasn't giving Lombard any chance to draw it out. "It was also a year of indifferent harvest," Lombard went on. "And to add here, not legend or superstition, but a personal observation of human nature over many years: in light of historical events occurring at the time, the people were eager to join the excitement of casting out witches that had sprung up in neighboring towns, so as not to be thought the only village unable to see the evil within itself." Obviously Lombard was going to draw it out, whatever Gilbert did. "Their object, Mother Osborne, was already the object of much gossip- after all, didn't she eat poison and live? For the poor enlightened lady had the nerve to raise tomatoes and eat them, when her neighbors were still convinced they were poisonous," Lombard said smugly, "She also, unfortunately for her, knew much about herbs and healing that put her in disrepute with the doctor." Again he paused, seeming to await a retort, but again Gilbert didn't rise to the bait. It was already a much longer tale than the first telling and he wasn't going to give Lombard the opportunity to embroider more on the subject. "Osborne was, to say the least, uncooperative with the attempts to hang her," Lombard went on finally, "She refused to confess, or indeed, grant the elders any authority to question her at all. Then the strange things began to happen." Lombard looked to Gilbert meaningfully. "What strange things," he said grudgingly to make him continue. "Her chief accuser, Goody Booth, was discovered dead, her face fixed with an expression of horror, seeming to stare at her hearth. The hearth where, as all witchologists of the time knew, a witch would emerge from the chimney. Justice Churchill, who was leading the proceedings, found it impossible to speak whenever Mother Osborne was in the court," Lombard said with a pleased look, "This is not hearsay. It is in the record. The townspeople seem to have had enough. There is no more record of a trial. There is only an entry that the witch Mother Osborne was hanged." "And she was hanged where Gibbet Lane is now," Gilbert concluded. "Yes," Lombard said. "But don't you want to know the interesting thing? The thing that entered the event into the lore and legend of this town?" "Oh all right," Gilbert said, having listened so far. "The legend says that we, our ancestors, may have indeed hung the only true witch," Lombard said with sparkling eyes. "She left a curse. From a contemporary diary we find the reference to the actual execution." He paused, obviously not intending to continue until Gilbert asked for more. Gilbert had decided it was a waste of time, yet he could not bring himself to cut Lombard short. Loathe as he would be to admit it, the tingling sensation that had prompted his request for the story had not subsided. In fact, it had grown alarming as Lombard approached this point. "What did the diary say?" Gilbert asked, feigning indifference. "That Mother Osborne was taken, kicking and cursing, to the gallows where they, with some difficulty, mounted her on the ladder and put the noose around her neck. As it was customary to allow the accused to repent, even in a lynching, she was allowed a moment to speak," Lombard said, his eyes now glowing. "The diarist recorded her words: All you people good and true- I give my blessing unto you From dark 'till dawn shall be no rest - lest flesh on flesh you be press'd... She seemed to wish to speak more, but the hangman, on hearing what was clearly a spell in his ears, rushed to kick away the ladder and cut off whatever more there may have been by dropping Mother Osborne to strangle." "And so the town is cursed?" Gilbert asked skeptically. "Only with a legend for the tourists as far as I can discover," Lombard relaxed. "Nothing out of the ordinary has occurred since and nothing bad, if you don't count Mother Osborne's killers escaping any kind of reckoning for their actions." But something told Gilbert that there might be a consequence. His logical mind rejected what he was thinking, but his stomach was churning. The words, curse, whatever it was, came eerily close to what he was observing among the couples that lived where this accused witch had died. "Dammit, Howard! Don't stop!" Sharon shrieked. "But it's hurting! I hear you screaming," Howard argued. "I don't care! Fuck my ass!" she demanded. Felicity had been tragically, horribly, wrong about this approach to the pain and soreness of intercourse, but Sharon feared something else, something worse if they stopped. She felt compelled to suffer the tearing of her anus and the punishment of Howard's cock stabbing at her insides. She was beginning to believe only the white, searing pain could burn away the obsession with fucking all night they had been suffering since they had moved into their new house. And worst of all, it was doing little to relieve the desire that drove them. As she endured on her knees, her body felt cold and trembled except where Howard pressed against her as he drove the hard stake into her ass and skewered her with his indecent thrusts. She knew what it must cost him to pause and loved him for it. He was clearly deep in the grip of his need to fuck her and it must have taken nearly superhuman effort for him to stop the pounding heaves that split her anus as drove his hard rod deep into her. She tried to think of that as she muffled her cries of pain at the continued surge of thick cock rapidly in and out of her ass. She believed he couldn't help it. He was in the grip of... something that made him thrust so feverently into her unaccustomed and unresponsive asshole. He would split her, she was sure, the intrusion was so huge. She could feel the trickle of wetness she was sure was blood as his girth forced open the round muscle of her sphincter and intruded so brazenly in powerful, deep excursions into her bowel. "I'll cum now! It'll be over!" Howard announced. "No! Hold back! You know you have to hold back!" Sharon screeched, demanding more torture as an almost article of faith in the patterns they had discovered. He would only want more- she would too. The longer she could bear the fire and the tearing, the longer it would be before she would gladly sacrifice the almost equal pain of intercourse in the normal way. For she was sure that she would not be able to bear this anal entry again for a long time. The agony did not subside, only lessened, when Howard had continued to pull back and give her the length of his cock in hard, quick thrusts for some time before slamming against her and jerking out his orgasm in her bowels. It dropped to a dull throb inside her everywhere. That seemed to mask the sharp twinges of pain from her plundered anus as they demanded her concern. "I have to suck it," she told him. "I need it again. I have to have it. You must help me." There was no thought for where his cock had been as she dipped down to take it in her mouth. That seemed of no more consequence than her boldness demanding to put her mouth where she had only shyly been persuaded to put it before. She had no shame about sucking it any longer. Her need saw to that. She had nothing but that need and the compulsion to restore Howard's cock to a stiff, standing state that he could use to invade her most torturously again. Dr. Gilbert was not a psychiatrist, the kind of practitioner that he most thought could help his patients on Gibbet Lane. Their conditions were becoming, if not critical, at least dangerous to their general health. There already would be scarring on Howard's penis and the danger of septic lesions was not far off. They would not, said they could not, cease from their ruinous activities. Even a psychiatrist would be hard pressed to discover the cause and reverse the damage before severe consequences to their health occurred. It was very strange, yet he felt like a charlatan suggesting what he was having trouble discounting as a cause. "Why don't you and Sharon take a vacation? A few days in a hotel at least?" he suggested to Howard. "There may be fumes in the new house causing this," he fabricated a reasonable sounding story to mask his suspicions. He greeted the news that his prescription had worked with no happiness. Pleased as he might be that Howard and Sharon had gotten to sleep and all was well, it forced him to consider the unfortunate reason he had dispensed the advice. It wasn't possible. He was going as mad as the occupants of Gibbet Lane. Even so, it made it easier to promulgate the rumor that some drably mundane error in construction was causing the strange behavior of the residents. He succeeded in moving the couples out of their homes for a time, assuring them he was in contact with the authorities to unravel this mystery. The lies did not sit well. He was a hysterical old man to let some ghost story scare him into such evasions. But his patients were praising him for his wisdom, and he didn't know what to do next. Perhaps there was a fault in the houses, but he didn't know who or how to approach anyone to test this theory. And there was that growing feeling in his gut that he knew the solution and should have the courage to challenge not only his own rigid beliefs, but the suspected perpetrator. "Mother Osborne, Goodwife Osborne, if you exist you should hear me," Dr. Gilbert called out, feeling distinctly foolish. "If you cursed these people then show yourself." He had not researched summoning spirits or any such lore. In his heart, he knew he wished only to put this disturbed feeling to rest and that failing to bring forth the witch was a good first step. It was with horror of several kinds that he thought he heard a whispering response. "Who calls Mother Osborne?" Clearly the result of an over-excited mind, he thought desperately. I'm so mad that I'm hearing what I want to hear. On the advent of the event he wished to disprove, Dr. Gilbert was even more adamant that there was no phenomena here. "I'm called Dr. Gilbert. And I wish you to lift the curse," he said in spite of himself. There was no reply. Dr. Gilbert took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Perhaps he was coming to his senses. A cold, dark night on a deserted ridge, the lights of the houses dark because he had sent the residents away, a certain presupposition of Hallowe'en style events, it might have worked on his subconscious to bring forth childish fears of his childhood... "And what will you give me in return?" It interrupted his self-diagnosis so abruptly that he could no longer think he was manufacturing the voice from imagination. That frightful conclusion, along with the fact that he had no reply, left him silent. "Do you offer yourself?" the ghostly voice inquired. "Myself?" Dr. Gilbert posed as a question, but felt a chill as the sound became a low chuckle. "Then come to me. Come to the tree on the hill." the voice bade. "Now wait a minute," Dr. Gilbert said, he hoped to himself, "I'm out here in the dark imagining I'm talking to a witch that's been dead over three hundred years. I'm clearly insane. This doesn't happen. There are no witches. Magic is not real. I must be crazy." "Then come to me," the voice repeated. "What harm is there?" Well, that was right on. How was he to shake this delusion if he ran like a frightened child? He had to let it have its run and then he'd be forced to see it was all in his head- or (he had read a couple of journals on the subject) concoct an elaborate and even less likely excuse why it did not. Emboldened by his fresh grasp on reality and the rational explanation of an irrational event, Dr. Gilbert looked around for this tree his mind told him to seek. It stood only a little way off from the center of the cul-de-sac, clearly the tree since it was the only one aged enough to exist at that far-removed period of time. It was an oak tree of tremendous age, looking particularly sinister with his wide, gnarled branches ending in limbs that looked like limbs twisted by torture. He imagined, if it was indeed the tree from which Mother Osborne was hanged, that branch had grown far above the ground by now. "Would you hear my rhyme?" he imagined the voice to say. "I've heard your rhyme," Dr. Gilbert said, without considering he was granting the voice substance by his reply. "Not the whole rhyme..." the voice teased, "I was... cut off before I completed the spell." "And what does that matter?" he asked, before realizing he might ask a question for which he had no answer to see what he imagined then. "Did your spell not work as intended?" "Did it summon you here?" the voice rasped indignantly. "Is there a disturbance that had prompted you?" "And no-" the voice said bitterly, "I meant for the whole town to come under the glamour. Not just the ground about me. And I would have done..." It was shocking to think his mind could be so active without him knowing. He was never known for his sense of the dramatic. Perhaps it was repressed within him, which might explain it bursting forth in his madness. Unfortunately that repressed part of him was making too much sense- if that word could be used in this situation. "Then if you've failed, begone," he said with more resolve than he felt. "I banish you!" The voice was a laugh like gusts of wind at his attempt at the commanding declaration. "Oh you 'are' powerful," it mocked. "But if I have failed, why are you here? Why did you summon me?" Dr. Gilbert had to admit that it was no longer about the health of his patients. It had grown into a fight for his own sanity, his own mind. He felt definite peril and no longer cared what happened to the residents of Gibbet Lane. Yet, this delusion, this hallucination, this madness was linked to them in his mind, and that was where he was sure all this was occurring. "To tell you to be off!" he said forcefully. "Accept your fate and rest. Or go to Hell. Just leave and never come back!" "I could do that," the voice sounded thoughtful. "I might. But I demand a price." Oh what now? Gilbert thought, my soul? That would suit the workings of his over-excited mind. "Not your soul. You. Come with me and I swear to leave this place and lift the curse," the voice promised. Rather than worry him with the perceived knowledge of his thoughts, this utterance made Gilbert more sure it was all issuing from his disturbed mind. Of course he knew what he was thinking, even if he didn't know everything he was thinking as the delusion clearly demonstrated. Shaking the confused train of thought from his head, he tried to consider his next move. He was going to confront his illusion to force it to reveal itself or to destroy it. He knew that still made sense, although he was losing faith that he would recognize it when it happened. "Okay. I'll come with you as long as you lift the curse and never trouble this town- or any other- again," he said. Now he'd see. He felt more confident after calling his hallucination's bluff. There was no danger. He was already crazy. What else could a delusion do? The voice began whispering a verse. The beginning was familiar. "All you people good and true- I give my blessing unto you From dark 'till dawn shall be no rest - lest flesh on flesh you be press'd..." And it went on with a verse Gilbert did not know... "Unnat'ral as Hellfire burns- Shall be the lusts for which you yearn. Turning once upon you all Know me and you know your fall." Gilbert felt as if a string through his spine had been jerked upward. Suddenly he stood erect and felt powerless. He had no time to ponder how his madness could have this effect. "Shall I be man? woman? beast?" the voice mocked. Before Dr. Gilbert stood a boy. He recognized him as a patient. He had no feelings for the boy, although, if pressed, he would admit an admiration for the future obviously awaiting him. That was it. The boy was well-formed and bright with no defect and an inquiring mind. Dr. Gilbert enjoyed their snippets of conversation while examining him, but he didn't lust for him. He certainly never imagined him kneeling in front of him and taking out his cock. In horror and disbelief he felt a mouth, a small mouth, cover his organ and begin to move up and down. The boy that couldn't be, wasn't, was impossible to be there looked up with happy eyes and the doctor's cock between his lips. And he felt it. "I know you want to, even if you don't," the boy said, now naked and bending forward in front of him, offering his buttocks. He didn't want to- except that logic seemed out of place. He moved toward the boy and heard him grunt as he- unbelievably- put his penis between those small, round cheeks and sought the asshole nestled within. It was very tight, yet also elastic as he- unwilling- pressed forward and felt an anus welcome him. It moved enough but sometimes tightened as he pushed deeper into the rear of this child. He was sickened, nauseated, but there was also an appreciation for the pure physical pleasure of so perfect a receptacle for his thrusts. He could not stop the thrusting nor the enjoyment as he buggered this young boy with increasing fervor. "But there are more pleasures than this," the voice was almost scolding. The boy changed. His cock was no longer in the elastic grip, but in a wet compression that felt like a vagina. Only he noticed that something rude hit his belly as he pushed in and there was some curly rug or something between him and the target of his affection. When he looked down, he was shocked to see his cock moving in and out of the posterior of a goat. Somewhere he had lost his clothes. He was naked, bent over the goat and thrusting into it, its tail raised and poking his belly on every ingress. It felt no less like a woman, but his stomach rolled in protest. "Don't you like her? She likes you," the voice taunted as he fucked the goat unwillingly and helplessly. "A woman then," the voice sounded disgusted, but resigned. Ahh, I am just crazy, Dr. Gilbert relaxed as much as he was able in the midst of his acknowledgment of insanity. He was still naked, erect and in a lather of desire, but the goat had disappeared and was replaced by a woman he knew, a woman he had desired in his residency. She was naked and standing with her hands behind her and her eyes downcast, but she was familiar, clearly a product of his own mind. Then he walked to her and, without warning, slapped her full force across the face. She had no reaction, as if this was what she had expected. He was the one in horror as his next blow was aimed at her breasts. She stood- as long as she could- crying copiously as he continued to slap and then punch her. When she was on the ground, he grabbed her roughly by the hair and lifted her to her knees to plunge his cock in her mouth. She didn't fight him. She only struggled with panic as his cock jamming deep in her throat threatened to strangle her. And he went on, mercilessly fucking her face until she passed out, her skin a pale blue color from lack of oxygen. He kicked her awake, in total disbelief at his own actions and then fell on her. He was fucking her, but it seemed his delight still came from the abuse he heaped on her breasts and face as he thrust into her. Then, with a chilling fear of what he was going to do, he saw the glint of a scalpel laying near her head. He tried to close his eyes against the revulsion but he saw as clearly with them open or closed. Her blood spurted out to blind him with warm disgust as he drew the scalpel across her throat. He felt her move with the shock of dying and his own ecstatic release at her dying quiver. This was the end of everything. Even madness could not shield him from the despicable act he had done, imagined, been forced upon him. No excuse could take that horror from him. There was no cure that could heal the shame he was feeling. "I can't take any more!" he cried out. "Then you would have it end?" the voice asked seductively. "Yes! I want it over!" he said. He saw her for the first time, briefly. She was striking woman, quite tall for her day, he supposed she was the equal of many men and towered over some in height, and though aged, her hair was long and still quite black. Her eyes were intensely wicked and he did not linger looking into them, instead taking in a straight nose and a strong, if pointed chin. She was naked and he only caught an impression of round, high breasts before she was gone. She seemed to pass through him. He felt nothing at that passing, but immediately felt her presence behind him. She felt very real and still gave off the spirit of being sinister. "Now you will know your own true lover," she said, and the voice was a woman's voice, no longer a whisper. He no longer regarded the picture of himself alone, naked on the hill, acting out his mad fantasy. He was consumed by the hallucination to the point of flinching at her touch even as her warm hands stroked his body and then trailed down to caress his penis. She worked it, milked it, her body pressed to his back until she had produced an erection, firm and standing. He was slipping in his resolve as her hands roused desires in him as well. There was a questioning thought as he felt something artificial, something unnatural press against his buttocks as she held him to her. It felt wooden. And everything changed. All at once he felt a stabbing, ripping pain in his anus as that unnatural object was jabbed into him and the warm body went suddenly icy. He was frozen in its grip as the wooden stake rammed up his ass. He was being roughly fucked when he heard the delighted, cackling rendition of the unheard rhyme: "Turning once upon you all Know me and you know your fall." Whatever Dr. Gilbert was doing in the middle of the cul-de-sac of Gibbet Lane naked was never determined. It was said he had been acting a bit odd, and the discovery of a tumor the size of a tennis ball seemed to give an excuse, if not an answer. There was no obvious cause of death- the tumor not interfering with life function- but no sign of foul play. It was ruled natural causes and joined the tales of other oddities in town. He was remembered best by the couples on Gibbet Lane. Although he had never discovered the cause of their strange obsession, they were not troubled again after they took their recommended 'vacations' away from their houses before the doctor died. Of the witch, no more was heard. Oh, perhaps you might say she lived on- in spirit- among those same residents of Gibbet Lane when Evan might say to Gladys or Howard to Sharon: "Better get ready! I feel a fear of not fucking coming on!" Wherever she is, that might make her laugh. ###