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     ISLE1.TXT continued

     Perhaps a week later Wendy rang up the surgery and asked to talk to 
me. She asked me to come by my flat that morning; the matter was urgent. 
She wouldn't say more. I cancelled appointments reluctantly and went.
     When I arrived, she was quite naked but for a filmy peasant blouse. 
She smiled at me openly, drew me to a divan, and we sat. I wasn't sure 
if she intended an examination or a seduction; she was quite lovely, 
tanned and lean, her blonde hair about her shoulders.
     "I'm glad you came. It's time you learned a bit about our customs."
     "Your customs? Have you asked me here to seduce me?"
     Wendy laughed delightedly. "Perhaps. I have some things you must 
know. Please listen, and don't get in a snit. Hear me out, all right?"
     I nodded.
     "Well." She took a breath that made her barely concealed breasts 
jostle. "We have a fair every summer solstice, Midsummers day. A woman 
is chosen then; chosen is what she is called, and it is a very great 
honor. She is given to the Druid god- well, I won't go into that. She is 
revered. Women seek her blessing; men honor her and desire her. For the 
year that she is chosen, she can do much good; she is unique and holy 
among us. This has all been concealed from you; we wanted to learn what 
sort of man you are."
     She took another breath. "Midsummer next, the chosen is cleansed 
and prepared ritually. She lays herself on a stone altar, and one among 
the elders takes her heart from her body."
     She glanced at me; I gaped, shocked. She continued. "Her body is 
taken to the butcher shop, where its dressed and roasted, so that each 
may share her flesh. After, of course, another young woman is chosen."
     She took my hand and pressed it between her breasts. "Jon, in a few 
days it will be my heart, and my body. I am chosen."
     I sputtered and barely found my voice. "This is horrid. You want me 
to help you stop it-"
     "My god, no!" she said. "No. Dr. Stewart will do for me; I shall be 
his last. I must admit, I have moments when- but no. I don't want you to 
stop it."
     "What then?" I was stunned; I was horrified; I was, shamefully, 
aroused. Wendy took both my hands, kissed them and squeezed them. "If 
you hadn't guessed already, Stewart is stepping down from his duties as 
an elder as well. He wants you to take up the mantle. He asked me to ask 
you. Will you do this?"
     "You want me to slaughter you?" I asked.
     "No. You weren't listening. Stewart will do for me. After that, you 
will be the one to-" she giggled- "to slaughter the chosen, as you put 
it."
     "No. This is ghastly. It has to stop. It must."
	Wendy sat closer to me, and gazed with those disturbing blue eyes. 
"We tried one year, you know. Dr. Stewart was foremost in his 
opposition. I had barely been born then, but I heard about it. Our good 
doctor persuaded the elders to forgo the sacrifice; they offered up 
grains and wine instead."
      She paused, shook her head. "There was a drought, first off. A 
drought, in the midst of the North Sea! Many good families lost their 
crop. Then a disease among the sheep. People became distrustful and 
hateful. A woman was murdered. That has never happened here, never 
before nor since."
      "Except once every year," I said bitterly.
      "No. That's a loving thing. Murder is hateful." She sighed, and 
looked out the windows at the afternoon. "I'm afraid, sometimes. 
Terrified, really. Sometimes I wish it was another woman. But there is 
honor, and worthiness. There is-" she gave an odd laugh- "There is an 
exaltation. Can you understand that? Midsummer day is only a few days 
off. My time grows short, but my life is richer for it, and I can give 
that wealth to the people I love."
     Wendy smiled serenely. "The year that Dr. Stewart tried to stop the 
ritual- that was the year his wife was chosen. She insisted, don't you 
know. She insisted that she be slain; she insisted her husband do it. He 
did, finally, poor wretched man, but he did. He understands now."
     I began to understand other things for my part; that was why 
Stewart was tempting me with my own loving wife, as a sort of revenge. 
He wanted me to consider slaying the woman I loved, the easier to slay 
women I didn't know. "I doubt that I can do this. Even if you've 
resigned yourself to your fate, it's a cruel, fiendish thing."
     "Resigned?" Wendy laughed with delight. "I embrace it. You can't 
understand how eager I am for-" she stopped, and sighed- "But you really 
don't understand, do you? I do; and sometimes I can see how a man would 
feel, given the duty that Thomas has. That we wish you to assume."
     Wendy slipped to my feet, kneeling, smiling at me radiantly. "Jon, 
you have an erection." She tossed her head. "A rather handsome fellow, 
too. He's been standing at attention nearly since you came. Is that 
because I'm nearly naked? Or do you like the notion of a pretty girl 
naked and helpless before you? Naked and waiting for you to do her?"
     My face went hot. "They ought to find someone else," I said. "I'd 
be a monster. I-" I shook my head. I couldn't continue.
     Wendy touched my erection; I was ashamed. "That someone else would 
be Eric, did you know that? Eric is a brute and a sadist. He's a cruel 
lover; I know. He would be even more so with the chosen. He wouldn't 
trouble himself over it as you're doing; he is already a monster. You 
like women, Jonathon. You've a caring heart. I can see how difficult it 
is for you; more so perhaps than for me. But we need a gentle monster. 
Eric would cause so much needless pain. You really must accept this 
role."
     "I can't. No. I can't. I really don't believe I can." I was 
confused, embarrassed by my erection, and by this woman's insistence, a 
woman who herself would be such a victim.
     "That is why you must. Thomas chose well. You would be perfect, a 
monster with a conscience, with quick and gentle hands to slay 
lovingly."
     She sat back on her ankles and slipped off the gauzy blouse. "I 
hoped you'd make love to me when I asked you here. You will, won't you? 
We'll talk about slaying young, pretty women, and feed your dark 
desires." She started on my clothing; I was fiercely aroused and afraid 
to touch her.
     Wendy smiled gently. "Imagine it will be your hands that take my 
life. Then touch me. Tell me how you're going to do it. Tell how you're 
going to slay me."
     I groaned; but I didn't protest. I did as she said. She was 
passionate and radiant; I was hungry and cruel, at least in words. I 
throttled her, impaled her. Beheading, flaying, disembowelment, the most 
grisly things I could think of. Wendy encouraged and elaborated the dark 
fantasies; the love-making, though, was tender and intense. She would be 
dead on a dark altar in a few days, and we both knew that. That was 
enough, that and my words, a torrent of cruel descriptions as we made 
love.
     I went back to my surgery after; I was sexually sated and horrified 
at what I'd learned. What troubled me most was not the sacrifice, but 
that some compelling part of me wanted to participate. I had taken 
Wendy, wishing to ravish and murder her, for no purpose more than a 
horrid sexual hunger. She understood that and welcomed it. I was 
troubled at the sacrifice; but I was horrified at my own hunger for 
sexual murder. It was nothing else. The rite, perhaps, benefited the 
community; the Druid faith had much to commend it. Still the rite came 
down to one man murdering one young woman, and they wanted me to be that 
man. I wanted it, as well, but it was monstrous.
     I rang up Stewart. He took rather long to pick up, but he knew 
immediately why I had called. I spoke to him frankly; there seemed no 
reason to do otherwise. I did not want to be a monster. I would refuse. 
He acknowledged quite readily that it was a terrible obligation, and 
urged me to reconsider. I hesitated- and then consented to that, at 
least. I would give it thought; I would reconsider.
     As we talked, I heard a harsh voice off the line- it was 
undoubtedly Eric- and then a woman cry out. "Eric is here, yes," Stewart 
said.
     "And the woman?"
     "There is no woman here, Jon. You will consider this, won't you? I 
didn't chose you casually. It is quite important."
     "Some secret society of Druids murdering women; this is important?"
	"There is no secret, Jon. Ask anyone. This isn't some secret cabal 
bent on slaying young women. You've been kept in the dark by everyone. 
Ask anyone on the island. We are all a part of this."
     That took me back. "I'll consider it," I said, "No more than that."
     "Don't be too long about it. I really must go. I've company, you 
know."
     After I got off with Stewart, I called Robin at home; the neighbor 
girl answered. Robin had gone into the village. That meant she would 
drop round, and I did not want to see my wife in the state I was in. I 
closed the surgery and went for a stroll in the village.
	A pretty blonde woman sat on a bench in the commons, two small 
children playing at her feet. Ask anyone, Stewart had said. I steeled 
myself, sat, and introduced myself to her. Her name was Fran. "You're 
the new doctor. I hope you're nicer than Stewart," she said, smiling and 
shaking my hand.
	"What's wrong with Stewart?"
	"Oh, nothing really. He's a good doctor, but a bit randy. He likes 
to grope a bit when he examines me. It's rude, though I suppose its 
harmless. You're handsome enough, though; perhaps a grope might not be 
unwelcome."
	"I'm married," I said, perhaps a bit indignantly.
	Fran laughed. "Forgive me; so am I. I can't help being a bit of a 
flirt." The little boy ran up to her, and she tied his shoe for him.
	"Fran, I wanted to ask you-" I paused, unsure how to frame the 
question. It sounded absurd to me, asking a young mother on a bench in 
the afternoon sun about sacrificial rites. "Midsummer day, the chosen. I 
wanted to ask you-"	
	Fran caught her breath, startled, and then flushed. "Am I to be 
chosen next?" she asked quietly.
	"No. No, not that I'm aware of. I know very little, though. I've 
been asked- that is, Dr. Stewart asked me to step in to- to assume his 
duties."
	"I see." Fran looked at me oddly, then laughed nervously. "I'm 
sorry." She straightened her shoulders and laughed again. "Well. You 
gave me a fright."
	"This business frightens you, then?"
	"Yes, of course. Well, I saw you walk up, and my heart stopped for 
a moment. I know who you are, of course, Dr. Stewart's protege. I 
thought- well, I know who you are-" she laughed again. "I thought I'd 
been chosen."
	I shook my head vigourously. "I think it's a brutal, barbaric 
practice," I said vigourously. "I think it ought to stop."
	Fran looked shocked. "Why?" she asked simply.
	"This sort of thing doesn't happen in the civilised world. It 
needn't. It appalls me." Fran was oddly distressed, and growing more so 
as I went on,  expressing my outrage. "You could leave the island, you 
know," I concluded. "You'd be safe then."
	"Perhaps we oughtn't speak of this." Fran gave me an anxious smile. 
She meant it; I had cleary upset her.
	I apologised, drew a deep breath, calmed myself and approached it 
differently. I explained myself as well as I could, leaving the outrage 
out of it. It was a peculiar thing, to be discussing paganism and 
sacrifice on a sunny afternoon with an attractive young mother whose 
children played at our feet. Everything was commonplace except the 
conversation. I succeed in reassuring Fran, at least; I convinced her I 
was simply naive and distressed by the custom, rather than indignant and 
horrified.  The conversation turned commonplace, or nearly so.
	"There are demons and goddesses on our island," she said, when I'd 
finished explaining what Stewart expected of me. "If we killed off the 
demons, there would be no goddesses." She smiled at me, her cheeks 
dimpling. "Forgive me. I'm being poetic. I could run off to London, 
certainly. Then I'd have to worry about being run over by a lorry, or 
catching some terrible disease. I could be mugged, and murdered, or 
worse. I'm not a sophisticated girl, you know. There are things in that 
modern world of yours that would frighten me badly, and that you would 
take in stride. We have our chosen; you mustn't let it trouble you so."
	Fran paused and laughed again. "The prospect is frightening, yes. 
But it is a bit remote. Frank- he's my husband- tries to keep me 
pregnant, the dear. The chosen dare not be with child, not when she's 
first chosen. But I fool the lovely man and use the pill; I'm not a 
brood mare, and besides-" She stopped and shook her head, wetting her 
lips.
	"Besides what?"
	"You've met the chosen?"
	"Yes."
	"She knows something. She's filled with light, with spirit. I don't 
know; I'm not saying it well. She's profoundly at peace, and sometimes I 
think it might be worth it, to know what she knows, to taste her 
serenity."
	She looked at me frankly and openly. "Perhaps there could be a 
chosen without the bloody part," I suggested.
	Fran laughed delightedly. "You're so delicate about it. Sacrifice. 
Slaying. Bloody frigging murder. But that would make it all trivial, 
wouldn't it? A beauty queen cutting the ribbon on the new building 
society. No. No, that wouldn't do. Demons and goddesses, you know? Not 
politicians and beauty queens. Our lives are already thoroughly 
commonplace. We need a goddess; therefore, we need a demon."
	"Suppose you were chosen? Would you accept?"
	Fran looked at her children, then at me, her face dark and open, as 
a woman might look at a lover. "Yes," she said softly. "I rather think I 
would. Not that I'd have a choice," she added quickly. "The chosen never 
does. But I'm prepared. I hope I'm worthy. The chosen can have at any 
man on the island; that rather appeals to me as well, naughty girl that 
I am."
	She stood abruptly, perhaps embarrassed. "Well, I've got to get 
home. Brandy, Richard, come along. We've got to prepare dinner for your 
father." Before she left, though, she turned back to me. "Does that make 
my chances less remote? Telling you that?"
	"Perhaps. I can't say."
	She nodded, her eyes on mine, intimate and intense. "You would be 
the one, wouldn't you? The one to take my heart?"
	I didn't answer. I felt as though she was going to propose a tryst; 
there was that about her, erotic promise, dark desire. She laughed 
again. "You've got me all bothered, doctor. I rather think Frank will 
get lucky tonight. Isn't that funny? He thinks its because I want 
another baby." She drew a breath and straightened her shoulders. 
"Forgive me, I'm being much too bold. Please don't tell Frank on me, 
will you? He'd take it badly if I was chosen. Goodbye, Doctor. I'm 
pleased to meet you." We shook hands and she left, her children trailing 
her.
	Sitting in the bench in the commons with the sun on my shoulders I 
admitted that I could do this thing. It was the first time I accepted 
that it was more than a dark, hidden fantasy, that I could be a good 
doctor and a good husband and still slay nubile young women. It was a 
horrid thing, but I could do it, and live with myself.
     Better I than Eric, I thought. A benefit for the village, I 
thought, sitting on the bench in the sun. I thought many such things, 
rationalisations and justifications, but finally realised that beneath 
the arguments I was at ease with myself. My outrage was simple 
hypocrisy. I would make peace with the beast in me by feeding it.
     Robin was not yet home when I arrived; I paid the neighbor girl for 
watching Kat and sent her home. I rang up Stewart and told him my 
decision; he sounded surprised, though pleased; he advised me to read up 
on the beliefs and the rituals. He asked me if I'd witness the ritual 
with Wendy; I said I'd be honored. Robin arrived shortly and began 
dinner; she seemed a bit distracted, so I took Kat outside to play. 
Sooner or later I would have to tell Robin; not now, though, and I 
dreaded the prospect. I could be a good husband and father; for the 
moment, that was all I was.
     The ritual was six days off; in that time, I met the elders- there 
are eight, none of whom need be mentioned, except, of course, Dr. 
Stewart and Eric. I was initiated into the faith, a thankfully brief 
ceremony. Stewart showed me the ceremonial knife; it was all of iron, 
perhaps a foot long including the handle, curved slightly, two-edged and 
exquisitely sharp. "It's reforged every year," he said. "The blood of 
countless young women has been hammered into the blade." I hefted it 
once before returning it to its case; it was massive.
     The next few days, Robin spent a great deal of time in the village, 
helping to prepare the midsummer fair. She refused my advances at night, 
protesting tiredness. I didn't press her; we were still somewhat at 
odds, distant from one another, and there was Wendy. In the afternoon, 
after surgery, Wendy was receptive. Receptive? She was eager, 
passionate, insatiable. "You're nicer than Stewart," she told me. "He's 
so bloody big, it hurts. You're much bigger than Eric, though, and not 
so horribly cruel."
     "Stewart has had you?" I asked.
     "Oh, yes. Lots of times." Something bothered me about that, but I 
couldn't place it, not with Wendy's eager mouth doing what it was doing.
     The evening before Midsummer day, the six young men who would 
participate went to Wendy's flat. They spent the night, comforting her, 
talking to her, making love with her. Well before dawn, she was washed, 
anointed with oil, and then two elders came, blessed her, and asked her 
for her heart and body. They proceeded to the Anglican church. The 
ritual was indeed no longer public; the Druid altar had been established 
in a deep cellar beneath the church. If the chosen refused, the six 
young men would have taken her there just the same.
     Wendy walked herself to the church, wearing a white linen robe 
proudly. I saw her coming down the steps to the dark altar; she was 
nervous and radiant. Words were spoken, Wendy's robe taken from her 
shoulders, and then she laid her slim golden body on the stone altar, 
her glistening body lit by flickering candles. More words were spoken, 
celtic invocations.
     Six pairs of hand grasped her; one man at each hand and foot, two 
at her hips. Her arms were drawn sharply over her head, forcing her back 
to arch, as Stewart approached her with the large, gleaming blade.
     Then silence, silence except for the sound of Wendy's light 
panting. We were waiting for dawn; one minute, then another. Stewart 
grasped her oiled breast and fondled her nipple erect; Wendy smiled at 
him crookedly.
     "It is time," one of the elders said finally.
     Stewart flattened her breast in his hand and presented the blade to 
her nipple. Once, twice, sawing, and then he'd split her firm little 
breast down to the ribs. Wendy gasped and shuddered. When Stewart cut 
between her ribs, he threw his shoulder into it, cutting everything; 
skin, muscle, lung. Wendy cried out once, then her mouth filled with 
blood. He sawed quickly, and her side opened, raw and red. She squirmed 
and thrashed convulsively. Knife tip and left hand slipped into her 
chest, and emerged in a moment. Stewart held her small, trembling heart 
up, then placed it on her chest. Wendy shuddered, her eyes wild; 
Stewart, mercifully, placed the tip of the blade under her chin and 
drove it up through her palate into her brain. Her gleaming body 
convulsed, once, then lay still. It was done.
     Her body was wrapped in her linen robe and taken off to Eric's 
shop. An elder took her heart; it would be burnt later, on the altar on 
the bluff. Stewart left by himself, and went back to his house. I went 
home as well, but Robin had already gone to the fair, taking Kat with 
her.
     I took a nap, showered, and then puttered about the garden, bemused 
and a bit sad. In those moments before Wendy's death, I believe every 
man there had wanted her terribly; her sex and her death both. Wendy had 
told me one afternoon that Eric would likely have sex with her body 
before he flayed her; she found it amusing and erotic. I was sad that 
she was gone; yet I would have slain her myself, had it been me, and not 
Stewart.
     Robin came home early in the afternoon, distraught, her eyes red. 
"I left Katherine with the neighbors. We have to talk."
     Robin led me to the garden bench, sat me down, then knelt before me 
as if in supplication. "Please hear me out before you say anything, 
Jonathon. I've a confession. Everything has changed, and you must know 
about it. I do love you. Remember that, if you can. What I must say can 
only hurt you."
     I nodded for her to continue. I dreaded what she was about to say, 
but I wasn't going to guess at it.
     "I've been dishonest with you. And unfaithful. Ever since the day 
Stewart drew on my chest. It- well, it aroused me. And he had the 
largest manhood, long and thick. He wasn't cruel, but it hurt, he was so 
big, and that aroused me too. It hurt when he rutted in me, and I had 
cramps after."
     Robin drew a breath; I said nothing. My heart sank.
     "Then there was Eric. He took me in the back of his shop on a 
pretext one day; we flirted mildly and then he playfully suggested how 
my body might be butchered. And it made me feel- well, he had me too. 
Cruel and handsome and-" She stopped. "They've both had me. Many times, 
in every way imaginable. Don't hate me, Jonathon."
     "Don't hate you?" I asked quietly. She was anguished, as was I.
     "It was animal rutting, crude and savage. They seduced me, yes, 
both of them, but I kept returning. It was my fault. It was only sex."
     I might have known; I should have. I recalled things over the past 
weeks that should have roused suspicion.
     "A few days ago, you were at Stewart's? You were home late."
     "Both of them. Stewart asked me over. They put me in the stock and 
used me."
     He had her at the altar on the bluff, and many other times, as 
well, I supposed. I was heartsick and filled with a terrible desire. 
"Why have you told me this, Robin? Do you want a divorce? Is it over 
between us?"
     "No!" Robin cried, "No! I love you. It doesn't matter. It doesn't 
matter anymore." Tears welled in her eyes. I took a handkerchief and 
wiped them away tenderly. It didn't matter; I had already realised that.
     "Then what?"
     Robin gained her composure somewhat. "The girl, Wendy- at Stewart's 
dinner party? You were taken with her?"
     I nodded. "She was someone called "the chosen." She was slain this 
morning in some Druid ritual. I saw her body in Eric's shop. He was 
butchering her. Butchering her, for meat. Every year, there is another 
girl, another chosen, another slain woman." Robin paused and drew a 
breath. "Jon, I have been chosen. Next year, it will be me."
     I could not have described the feelings raging in me at that 
moment, though I'd known what she was going to say. Stewart had seduced 
me as skillfully as he'd seduced Robin. I should have hated him, and 
hated Eric, for what they'd done to my wife. They hadn't told her of me, 
either, and that was artful as well. Now I knew how Stewart felt so many 
years ago, when his own wife was chosen. In that moment, I loved her and 
wanted her as passionately as ever a man wanted a woman. At the same 
time, I could see her naked body before me, feel the knife bite her hot 
skin, feel her lovely body shudder and writhe.
     "Jonathon?" she asked softly, "Do you understand?"
     "Yes," I said, just as softly. "Have you consented to this?"
     Robin swallowed, nodded, then said, "Yes. I have, yes."
     "Robin," I said, "Stewart has retired. I'll be taking over for him" 
I traced a finger across her breast, across her nipple as she knelt at 
my feet. "I'm the one who'll be cutting your heart out next midsummer 
morning."
     Her mouth dropped open, lips trembling. She gave a little sigh, and 
lowered her face to my lap. We said nothing more; I took her inside and 
we spent the afternoon making love. I was as tender and solicitous as I 
was ever; I didn't need to revenge my pride and my honor. I would do 
that soon enough; I would have her heart in my gentle hands. Tenderness 
was my revenge; Robin knew that, and responded with more passion than I 
had ever dreamed of.
     Stewart rang up that evening; Robin answered. "He wants me to come 
over. Druid things; I'm to be cleansed and blessed."
     "And fucked, too?" I asked a bit sharply.
     Robin flushed, then nodded. "Yes. If he'll have me." She waited for 
my anger, but I had none.
     "You'll come home after? I'd rather you didn't spend the night with 
him."
     Robin nodded, smiling timidly. "I shall. I do love you. And I'm 
glad its you. I'm so very glad its you."
     Robin lived in a quiet frenzy of sexual activity that lasted until 
spring. Stewart, Eric, myself, of course, and many others. Then she grew 
more temperate in her passions, quieter, more introspective. Although 
she still had lovers, she stopped seeing Eric; he was indeed cruel, the 
more so because he no longer needed to conceal his tortures to Robin's 
body from me. Robin took up with his son, Patrick, though, a pleasant 
young man as handsome and muscular as Eric. Sometimes she brought him 
home, and they made love before the fireplace in the study. Patrick was 
different than his father, and I rather liked him. Sometimes I watched 
them, and he was tender with my wife. "I want to gentle him," she told 
me. "He needn't be like his father." I believe she was successful. At 
one point, before she and Patrick went to the study to make love, she 
brought us together, and made us both swear that Patrick, and not Eric, 
would butcher her body, and that I would witness it. She didn't want 
Eric touching her again. Eventually Robin introduced Patrick to Shayla, 
a pretty little black girl in the village, daughter of a fisherman. 
Robin was chosen; she was working her own odd magic on us. Her days, of 
course, were spent counseling and dispensing her blessings; she did have 
much to give, and she was loved and honored for it.
      Evenings when she returned from a tryst or a ritual, we talked 
about what was happening and how she felt; sometimes she was terrified, 
other times resigned, and yet other times caught up in a terrible 
ecstasy. Ironically, we grew closer than we'd ever been. It was with 
Robin that I learned the secret places in a woman's heart, the places 
where desire and death mingled wantonly, as dark as the blood that 
welled from her chest the day I cut her heart from her body.
     Robin was the first; despite my knowledge of anatomy, I was clumsy 
and slow about it; her oiled breast slipped from my grasp and shifted 
back and forth as I cut. It took far too long. She watched me ardently, 
but writhed and shuddered as I cut and fumbled. I cut into her ribs, 
across, and a red gap opened in her chest. Once in her chest, I found 
her heart, small in my hand, pulsing strongly. Robin gasped, her face 
pale, and I cut quickly, pulling the organ from the raw gash. She 
watched me in horror and exaltation, and I watched her until the light 
faded in her eyes.
     I touched her right breast, her nipple still drawn up erect, and 
then stood back as the young men lifted her lifeless body from the 
altar, to be wrapped in linen and carried to Eric's butcher shop. One of 
the elders bowed and took her heart from my hand. I left the knife in 
her blood, pooled on the altar, and went out into the sunlight.
     "It will be easier next year," one the elders said, squeezing my 
shoulder.
	I went to Eric's shop then, and stood by quietly as Patrick worked 
on my wife's body. She hung by meat hooks in her armpits. He'd already 
removed hands and feet, and gutted her; he was washing out her body 
cavity when I arrived. Neither of us spoke; I helped him as he began 
flaying her. She stared sightlessly at the ceiling as we worked the skin 
off her body. Her breasts were still warm as we peeled them away from 
her chest. Once that was finished, I left the village.
	At home, Robin had left a note on my desk, something she'd written 
months earlier. I read it in the garden.

     "I am the rain when it falls, refreshing the black earth. I am the 
sunlight on your shoulder, rich with strength and promise. My voice is 
the breeze, and the breeze is the sound of my voice. This isn't merely 
poesy, or fancy, or some sad hope. This is my experience, now, of the 
richness of life. That you may not understand or believe it does not 
make it less true.
	"You will do this. I consent; I insist. It is because of this, 
because of what you want and what I've consented to, that I am exalted. 
You presume to some social or ritual necessity; a terrible hunger is the 
simpler truth, selfish, raw and dark as blood. Because of this I an 
exalted. Had you proposed simple desire my body would nourish a child. 
That would have been enough. It is no longer. You wanted more, a black 
desire, and now I am exalted. Now, my body will nourish all of reality.
	"You don't understand, do you? I do. The rain, the sunlight, the 
black of night all sing together; your consuming desire and my 
exaltation are a part of it all. You have your desire; because of this I 
am exalted. You will not deny me my exaltation by refusing your 
terrible, ghoulish desire. I wait for it more eagerly than you, more 
impatiently than you can ever understand. You shall do this."

	 It would, I suppposed, be easier the next year.



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