If Wishes Were Horses

IF WISHES  WERE  HORSES

An Ellora's  Cave Publication, November  2003

Ellora's  Cave  Publishing, Inc.

PO Box  787

Hudson, OH  44236-0787

ISBN  MS Reader (LIT)  ISBN #  1-84360-702-6

Other available  formats  (no  ISBNs  are  assigned

Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mob     ): ipocket (PRC) &  HTML

IF WISHES  WERE  HORSES  ©  2003 JOEY W.  HILL

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED.  This book  may not  be reproduced  in whole or in part  without permission.

This book is  a work of  fiction and  any resemblance to persons,  living or dead,  or places, events  or localesis purely  coincidental. They  are productions of  the  authors’ imagination  and  used  fictitiously.

Edited by  SHERI  ROSS CARUCCI

Cover art by  DARRELL KING.

IF WISHES WERE HORSES

JOEY W. HILL

Joey W. Hill

Chapter 1

She had been in a  small town too long if  she could excuse trespassing with the lameexcuse of “no one will mind”. Particularly since she, the chief of the Lilesville policedepartment, was the one doing the trespassing.

Something about the forty-two acres of undeveloped land backed up against her own five-acre property called to  her, however, and had  done so since she had moved in almost six weeks ago. The adjacent property  belonged to Justin Herne, a local resident who operated a sex shop in the small town’s unincorporated area. Her cop's mind rationalized  that  he'd  want  to  stay  on  the  good  side  of  the  law,  even  if  he  did  discover

her there.

She winced at the thought. She hadn't met  the man, but she was sure he'd get thatderisive sneer to his lip that all those who  walked the shades of gray between law and lawlessness did when they caught  a police officer bending the rules.
 
You're no better than me, sister.

Still, it wasn't as if it hadn't been done  by the previous occupants of the house. A well-worn path led  into the  woods from her  back stoop and  tonight she’d finally givenin to the urge to follow it, to find solitude.

The parallel to the changes she had made in  her life over the past several monthsdid not escape her.

Her divorce had been painful and predictable. Overworked big city detective, too many hours on the job, irascible and closed  off when she was at  home. When she found the lipstick on his collar and put it together, he claimed she drove him to the other women. She shot four holes into their bedroom wall over his head, went out, got drunk and humped an accommodating salesman hanging around the bar of a nearby hotel. Inthe morning she woke with sour breath,  a massive headache, and a broken heart.

Sarah moved from her fast warm up walk  into a jog, stretching out her thigh muscles, but she couldn’t outrun her thoughts.

God, divorce sucked. It wouldn't be so bad if  it were possible to have the memories surgically removed as part of the process,  but every  other second she remembered.  Small images as lethal as a sliver of glass gently drawn across a major artery. His cheek against hers as they danced at their wedding. His warmth curled around her in bed.  The bed that waited cold and empty for her now.

He'd turn her over and start a gentle suckling of her breasts as she lay there, halfbetween sleep and dreams. His hand would  slide down her stomach, slip under the waistband of her pajama bottoms and press against her, a slight movement  of two fingers against her clit, his other  fingers  delving deeper into her moistening, willing folds as she turned her mouth to his, awake  now and rising to the passion in his kiss.

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If Wishes  Were  Horses

Truth be told, the sex had become not-that-great except in those half-dream, half-awake times, but early in the marriage it had been good. Maybe it was that way for everyone. She didn't know when it had gotten  to be something she had to will herself todo, like an exercise workout. Something she  knew would make her feel better after she did it, but getting started and in the zone took effort.

She thought her husband was a wonderful lover in the  beginning,  but as time went on there was something desperate to his performance, like a  man trying  to  hold  ontosomething he thought was running away from him.

But I was right there. Wasn't I?

She turned off the path and  scrambled up a wall of dirt  and vines,  her major muscle groups screaming as she pushed herself, her blood roaring in her ears. She got to thetop, picked  up another path and tried to push  herself back into the same hard run. Her lungs rebelled, forcing her to a shuffling trot. A moment later she gave up and just stood, hands on knees, head low, wheezing for oxygen, trying to establish a rhythm  to her erratic breathing.

She found a rhythm, but it was not her own. Sarah realized she was matching thecadence of her lungs with a beat that was not coming from her pulse.

She straightened, forcing her breath to an  even keel so she could listen. A  drum.  About six seconds between beats.

This was private land. She should not be here, and she should definitely not befollowing her curiosity through the woods,  pinpointing the location as she moved silently.

Perhaps it was the cop instinct suggesting  that people did not go deep into thewoods in the middle of the night to beat a  drum for innocuous reasons. Or perhaps it was something else drawing her. As she got closer to  the sound,  the pace of the beat

stepped up  and she felt her blood stir with it.  There was a hush in the forest as if all the  creatures of the night had stopped to listen, and the heat that prickled over her skin did  not come from the leaping shadows that  heralded a fire somewhere just ahead.

Now she heard voices, raised in a chanting song that reminded her of the  ceremonies she had attended as a child  with her Cherokee grandmother. The voices  were devout, strong, aligned with the drums. Men’s and women's voices.

Either someone else was trespassing on  Herne's property, or he had given them permission to be there. Either way, it would  do  no  harm  to  take  a  look  in  case something came up. And whether it was something or  not, she
 
would
 
talk to Mr. Herne  this week and get his permission to run on his land.

Her guilt somewhat assuaged, Sarah moved  forward. She saw the flickering of the fire but not the fire itself, and as she got closer to the noise she realized it was because

the chanters were below her in a ravine. She went to her belly and inched forward so  she could peer over the lip.

Nine were gathered around the bonfire.  Seven circled the fire, including the  drummer. Two were inside the circle, closer to  the flames. The light plumbed the depths

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Joey W. Hill

of the ravine, exposing all its shadows and  starkly outlining the movements of man or  beast, or both.

Since Sarah was part Cherokee, there was something vaguely familiar about what she was seeing. Nevertheless, her cop side wished for the comfort of her sidearm.

One of the  two in the circle was a man.  She knew that because  from  the neck down

he was naked, save for the paintings of symbols on his chest, arms and thighs. He was  also impressively aroused, his cock rising from  a dark tangle of hair like the shadows of  the ravine. Okay, the guy was more than  impressively aroused. He was hung like a much larger mammal. In fact,  it was the size of his  erection that made her think he  might be closely related to the animal whose head he was wearing, a ten-point stag whose eyes glittered brown and feral in the firelight. A pair of straps, crossed over his  broad chest and back and buckled under the cut of the deer's pelt, anchored the noble  skull to the  man's, but even with the help of  the straps, his shoulders and neck had to be  strong to take the weight.

He sprang up from a kneeling position and turned  with the beat of the drum,  offering, displaying…yes, he was  displaying himself, to the woman across the fire from  him.

She was naked as well and heavy-breasted, with generous hips and symbols painted on her body. A crescent crystal hung  from a plain cord around her neck. Shewore no headdress as he did, and Sarah saw  the woman with dark, shoulder length hair and bright green eyes was probably in her  early thirties. Her hands were outstretched and crusted with mud as she sang the chant  with the others. She cupped her breasts and spun in lithe invitation.

A woman in the circle began to sing alone,  the others dropping  to a soft murmuringchant behind her. Her voice was a soft rush  of sound, like wind moving through marsh

grass.

The woman is the altar.

The center of the circle.

Death and life spiral around her.

Inside the circle, the naked woman's arms folded across her chest,  her focus inward and yet intent upon the man.

Sarah gasped as the deer man leaped the tall bonfire. No running  start, no warning, just from a  crouch to a soaring burst of power in a moment. It was not the effeminate elegance of a ballet move. No, he exploded  over the flames like a primal warrior, muscles bunched at thighs and  back, neck corded and taut.

He landed at the woman's feet in another  crouch, his pale body curled toward the earth in a posture of deep obeisance, his fingers tented  against the ground,  their tips sunk into  the soft earth. His  haunches tightened and released with the  beat of the drum,

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If Wishes  Were  Horses

a rippling, infinitesimal rhythm of buttocks  and back thigh muscles that suggested the erotic movements of copulation.

As the woman looked  at him, a smile lit her features and brightened the ravine with  a power greater than the heat of the fire. The hair rose on Sarah’s damp neck.

Something was there, part of the woman, linking them all, even Sarah, for the  energy flowed through the stillness that gripped the ravine. It did  not feel threatening  as much as it simply swept over and overwhelmed the  senses. Sarah felt it through the stuff of her sweat suit, the heat above her, the  press of earth below, against her breasts,  her loins, her thighs.

The crouched man pressed his jaw against the side of the woman’s calf, careful not to harm her with the antlers. He  had his hand on her leg, holding  her. She touched his bare shoulder and swayed, still softly singing the  chant along with the  others, her eyesvividly alive and yet far away at once.

He kissed her feet, her knees, the flesh just  above  her  pubic  mound.  He  did  it  in  aformal, fervent way as she raised her hands  out and above herself again, her nipples tightening in want even as she sang praises to those they were worshipping. Now a man from the circle sang out, in a deep  baritone that resonated through the air.

Lord of life

Death and the underworld.

Sun to the Goddess's moon.

Male to  Female.

Strong in the physical world

as She is in the spiritual.

Magic springs from their Joining

Balance is in their unity

Matter and spirit brought together

Death to Life and Life to Death.

Something new comes from something ending.

A new beginning.

The cycle continues.

The deer-man rose to one knee, and the priestess kept her arms spread out to eitherside of her. He kissed each breast, a reverent brush of lips over the top of each curvethat Sarah felt on her own flesh. It was sexual, but it was more than that. Her reaction