#and he is proof that the myth of the tortured artist is just a myth

[meandmypagancrew]

Musical theatre challenge: 8 songs

5: Hero, Ghost Quartet

[pagesofangels]

What's your favorite chapter you've ever written? What fic is it from? Why do you love it? Copy and post it here!

Oooh, I have a lot of favorite scenes and chapters from all my years of fic writing. But my most recent favorite chapter is Chapter 1 from “The Thorn and Her Golden Rose”. It introduces the backstory, sets up some dynamics, and has some drunken sex. What more could you want? XD Besides I just…really love the language my co-author and I wrote in that scene, especially during the sex.

Because why not, I’m posting the entire first chapter here for anyone whose interested, especially for anyone who hasn’t heard of my Fem!Phantom writing before. Feedback appreciated! ^u^

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Chapter 1: A Night of Cards and Gin

“You always let me win, Nadir.” Erika tossed her cards onto the table. “I barely know how to play poker. Either you’re letting me win, or you’re sincerely that pathetic at cards.”

“Is it such a bad wish to lighten your mood, Erika?” The Persian sighed, abandoning his own cards as well. “It is the opposite of an easy task.” Or, one could say, perhaps even impossible. Besides, he knew too well how much his friend despised to be defeated.

He was long since used to her grimness, which had only grown in the last few months – ever since she took the young new tenor under her wing. Something about him had possessed Erika, and suddenly the Mirage that stalked the opera’s halls was dedicating her days to mentoring the lad.

“I’m surprised you made time to play a few hands. You are obsessed with that boy.”

“I am not obsessed,” Erika defended herself. “He is my student, and therefore it’s my duty to take his affairs into consideration.”

Nadir shook his head. “Erika, you forbid him to engage or see any young lady. That is not something one would do if not obsessed.”

“I simply refuse to let him participate with lowlifes,” Erika shrugged, gathering up the cards. “I plan to bring him up from the status of a beggar boy to a gleaming star.”

“While that may be a kind wish, Erika, what I’m concerned about is how you plan to do that,” Nadir said. How many innocents might suffer? Besides, could he sincerely trust she saw only a student and not a perverse obsession in that boy?

“I own this building and everyone in it, dear friend,” Erika said. “The right tug on the strings, and I can make them dance however I want.” She smirked at him as she rose to put away the playing cards. “You should know that. I convinced you I was worth being spared the fate of a harem girl.”

It was certainly useless to try and explain to Erika once again the Opera Populaire did not belong to her, let alone the people in it. Once the Mirage found power, she would hold onto it with claws and teeth.

Nadir shook his head. “You were no mere harem girl, Erika. You were the most exquisite and dangerous creature I had ever met…a genius. But aside from that, I owed you for Reza’s painless demise.” The Persian felt a sting in his heart, mentioning his son.

Erika turned her back on the Persian and shut her eyes. It still hurt to remember the little boy.

________

Nadir had taken her into his home in Mazandaran, despite knowing she was a woman. And a woman not of his faith, no less. His home was the only place she could shed the disguise of a man she had adopted to procure her position as the royal family’s assassin. His son, Reza – the poor, ill child – had taken a liking to her quite quickly. Only a child desperate for a mother would cling to someone like her in that way, or so she had thought at first.

Despite her better judgement, Erika had eventually found herself bonding with Reza. Often, she found herself playing the violin at the foot of the child’s bed when he had trouble sleeping. Other times, she quietly listened as he told her personal stories, his enthusiastic interests, his hopes for a future he would never see. Once or twice, she allowed the boy to sit in her lap while she read aloud from tomes of folklore and myth.

Neither she nor Nadir had ever mentioned it, but it almost became a domestic situation between the three of them. Erika had never had a proper family unit, and Nadir’s family had been shattered with the death of his wife. It was pleasant, finding herself the honorary member of a loving family.

But nothing pleasant ever lasts.

When Reza’s health had declined into a terminal stage, Erika and Nadir both had agreed on ending his suffering. Never before had Erika killed for mercy, but it was the hardest thing she had ever done.

She had made it quick and painless, staying with the oblivious young boy until the sleeping powder took effect. The strangulation was never felt on his part, but she would be haunted by the memory of his throat under her hands forever. Nadir had walked into the room to find her how she had hoped he wouldn’t: cradling his son’s body in her arms, tears falling from under her mask.

________

Erika shook her head to regain her composure. She set the cards atop her writing desk and said: “You didn’t need to come with me. You know that. They thought me dead, and likely still do. You could’ve stayed where you weren’t an outsider.”

Slowly, Nadir closed the gap between himself and Erika, laying his hands on her slender shoulders. He always felt a little hesitant to touch her, for pushing the Mirage over her edge would not be a wise decision. Yet, he longed so deeply to comfort her.

________

Reza had become isolated after falling ill. The poor child’s world shrank into a narrow window that was never able to peek beyond their garden. Thus, he became sad. That little mind desired to laugh and learn, but it was denied that joy. The police chief’s heart had wept, helpless against his son’s cruel fate. It bled watching a pure young soul fade together with its small body, slowly slaughtered by sickness.

And when all hope had at last been lost to Nadir, and he began silently counting Reza’s final days, he’d brought Erika into their home.

He’d discovered the true gender of the Shah’s young assassin by pure accident. He had found the Angel of Death in an obscure corner of the Shah’s palace. Erika had been sewing closed a gash in her side given to her by the last target she’d been assigned to. He caught her just as she was pulling a thread of catgut through her flesh using a needle of bone. The veil that always hid her face had been pulled aside in disarray. The bloodstained tunic she wore had been pulled up enough to expose the bindings around her chest. And like that, he finally understood why the Angel never spoke in more than a whisper.

One of them would have died by her hand that night had Nadir not sworn by his blood to hold her secret. After much internal debate, the police chief decided to keep this strange creature hidden in his home until her wound healed. It was a peace offering, proof he would cause her no harm if she caused him no harm. He would be the one to help her recoup, with no need to call a physician who would not hesitate to reveal the truth to the Shah.

The first weeks in his abode she was like an injured wild animal, eager to be released from her captivity once nursed back to health. Yet, as her interactions with his son became more frequent, her disposition became more relaxed. That was when Nadir came to know Erika, and not the Angel of Death.

Deep in his heart, the Persian knew it wasn’t any medicine that granted Reza a few more months. It was her presence. She gifted him happiness once again in that innocent mind; a mother he never knew. She would entertain him and play music for him, and even speak to him for hours. Who could have ever thought Mazandaran’s most feared assassin could unveil such a gentle face?

Gradually, Nadir came to realize his soul was still capable of adoration. He was a man already turning silver at thirty-eight, and he was separated from her in age by over a decade. Yet day-by-day she began to change in his eyes. The sharpness of her tongue and her dark forbearance began to hold an otherworldly allure.

That creature who was both a monster and a woman, an assassin and an artist…he loved her. He felt it when she played her violin at the windowsill on those dry, hot evenings. He felt it when he saw her sleep on the cushions in the parlor, her mask placed aside, and her half-missing face bared to the candlelight. When he could look upon her like that and say, truly, that he found her beautiful, he knew he loved her.

And he never uttered a whisper of it.

The Angel of Death’s secret couldn’t stay hidden forever. Weeks after Reza’s funeral, Erika was brought before the Shah to confirm his suspicions. Nadir had been forced to confess what he knew, under threat of his friend being forcefully disrobed in front of the royal court. She was given two options: a torturous execution, or imprisonment as one of the Shah’s concubines. Erika selected the latter to keep herself alive until nightfall. After sunset, she and Nadir carried out the plan they’d devised in the days before her summons. Nadir was only expected to have a horse waiting in the streets for her, and to have faith she’d make it out of the palace alive. But he had supplied a second mare for himself. Together, they rode across the desert sands until well into the dawn. They fled the city, fled Persia, with no intention of looking back.

________

A sad smile crept onto his smooth, brownish pink lips. “No, Erika. I had no choice but to follow you. I was banished.” The Persian gently squeezed his old friend’s shoulders from behind. “Yet had I not been, I still would have come with you.”

Nadir was the only human being Erika allowed physical contact with her. Had it been anyone else, her – rather violent – instincts would have activated from such sudden touch. “Banished?” she asked, standing there and allowing him to keep his hands on her. “For keeping a woman in your house? Or for denying the Shah another whore?”

Nadir sighed. Always so blunt in words, was she not? “Banished for treason,” he said, as if speaking about the weather outside. “After all, I do have royal blood in me.” His words held no pride. “He may have seen me as a threat.”

Erika chuckled, slowly removing his hands from her shoulders. “Don’t be so cocky,” she said, leaving to open a bottle of gin she kept on the countertop. “You? A political threat? Unlikely.”

“Well, likely not.” A tiny smile curled Nadir’s lips. “Yet, you know the Shah…he sees threats everywhere. Even in me.”

“Yes,” Erika agreed, pouring them two small glasses of the clear alcohol. “A pity he didn’t see enough of a threat in me.”

“He was a fool not to.”

“Care to join me for a drink?”

Nadir nodded, taking up a glass. “Certainly. My gratitude, old friend.”

Erika toasted her drink to him. “My pleasure.”

The Mirage was a notorious lightweight to any who had seen her drink. She always meant to limit herself to one glass, yet…not always. But that night, with a guest in her house, she intended to remain firm with herself.

“How has Paris been treating you?” she asked, taking her first sip.

Nadir raised his glass as well before draining it quickly. He did not drink often, preferring very much to remain sharp. After all, he alone had a hope of talking the Mirage out of her madness. He felt he needed to be her neutralizer.

“Ah,” he sighed with a small smile, lowering the glass. “Like one would suspect it to treat an unknown foreigner from the East. Yet, I cannot complain.”

“Well, as I am in your debt,” Erika paused to finish off her glass, “if you experience any kind of violent prejudice, contact me. I’ll take care of it for you.” She left her glass at her side, intending on keeping it empty the rest of the night.

Nadir sighed deeply. “Erika, I hope you do remember. You gave me your word, you shall never kill again.” Perhaps it was unwise to trust the word of the Mirage…but she was his only companion in that damnable city.

“Correction, I said I would never again assassinate an innocent,” Erika said. “I do not consider a racist an innocent.” She glanced at the bottle and held it out, offering without words to refill his glass. “You seem compelled to dampen my spirits today.”

“Those people simply do not understand it, Erika. I worry not about them. I have not met any discrimination which would truly impact my life for the worse,” Nadir assured her, unwilling for anyone to die. “Please, if only you drink with me, my friend.”

With a sigh, Erika refilled her own glass and set the bottle of gin between them. She stood on one side of the counter, and he on the other. Erika sipped on her second drink while brooding.

The warmth of her first glass was already starting to bring color to her ghostly pale cheeks. Perhaps being the daughter of an alcoholic gave her a certain susceptibility, but she didn’t mind.

“So, shall I tell you of my plans to promote my student to lead tenor?”

Nadir’s jade eyes would not leave Erika’s gaze as his rough hand took hold of the bottle to refill his glass. Not a drop of the clear liquid spilled over. “I most certainly would like to hear them,” he nodded, hoping no murder was involved.

“Simple,” she said. Another quick drink. “I get Carlo fired. Nothing a little blackmail can’t do. There’s no such thing as a secret to me.” She smirked at Nadir. “No bloodshed required.”

“Very well,” Nadir said, draining another glass. “Yet, I believe you do understand he shall not give up his career without a fight.” Not many people he had met in his life were as arrogant or stubborn as the star tenor. The man rivaled the Shah in terms of entitlement.

“He can fight all he wants,” Erika said. “I’ve gathered enough to soil his reputation. And even if I’m lying right now, I could make up something believable.” She downed the rest of her drink and shook her head to dispel a cloud of intoxication. Alright, that was certainly enough. “For example, I could tell you something right now and have you guessing the rest of your life if I was being truthful.”

Well, nothing less could be expected from her of all people. He tilted his head at her words. What was she speaking about? Alcohol was slowly blurring Nadir’s mind as well, making him dizzy. “Don’t make me curious and then silence yourself, my Erika. Pray tell.”

Erika’s laugh was a hum in the back of her throat. “I could tell you I sometimes want to strangle you in your sleep.” She hoisted herself onto the counter, sitting on its edge. “You see, because we are both a little over the edge of sober, and I’m always one to blur the lines of fiction and reality…you will always wonder. Wonder if that statement was true, and always wonder why. What could you possibly do to infuriate me to the point of murder?”

Nadir sighed yet again, draining another glass of was indeed a difficult companion at times. Ha…at times?He couldn’t remember a day when she was not. The Persian drummed his fingers into the wooden countertop. “Why am I not surprised? You want me to plead, don’t you, my dear old friend? Beg you not to leave me wondering? You always desire a helpless victim to be under your thumb in one way or another, you sick woman. And yet, I could never walk away…I could never abandon you.”

“Oh, you’re so dramatic.” Erika felt more of the drink go to her head. “And you never do what I want, either,” she playfully pouted. “Maybe that’s the reason I want to kill you so much. You’re the only person who doesn’t fall for my shit.”

Nadir chuckled, alcohol slowly dissolving his usual stern, almost grim, attitude. “The pot calls the kettle black, I see.”

She laughed a little too much. “God, I hate you.”

“You may hate me, Erika, but I love you.” The smile on Nadir’s face never faltered, as if he didn’t fully realize the gravity of his words. “I have always loved you. And no vile thing you could say, no harm you could cause me, shall ever tear you away from my heart.”

Erika rolled her eyes. “You think you’re so secretive, Nadir. You know nothing about being secretive.” She moved a little closer. “I’ve known since Mazandaran. That you love me, and I hate you.” She sighed. “You would make a terrible assassin. No secrets whatsoever.”

“No one is secretive when they stand before you, Erika. No secret remains hidden from you.” Nadir murmured, taking a step closer as well. His jade eyes pierced firmly into her dark brown ones. “Then good thing remains I’m not an assassin. Neither have I ever intended to be.”

Erika grinned and reached out to touch his shoulder. “No, but you are a thief. You’ve taken far too much of my headspace than I prefer, and without my consent. It interferes with my hobbies.”

“Your thinking of me is not something I can change, Erika,” Nadir said, grasping her hand and kissing it. He sensed no danger, with the world soaked in gin around him. “Though, I must admit, I’m glad to be bothering you and pulling you away from certain things.”

“You’re wicked,” Erika smirked, gently kicking him in the leg. “How am I supposed to get anything important done with you constantly in my mind?”

“That is not a question I can answer.” Nadir raised his hand and caressed a lock of her black hair, a boldness he would never show while sober. “Perhaps it may make you less violent.”

“Or more violent, at least in other ways,” Erika said, returning the kind gesture by exploring the texture of his facial hair. His eyes had always been such a beautiful, Eastern jade. Like the sacred dragon statues of China.

Her face was rosy and her eyes – just a little bit watery. She knew she was long gone, and she was afraid to get back on her feet. If she did, the dizziness would hit her full force. For the moment, all the rest of the world melted away. It was just her and her old friend, sharing an intimate moment. As someone who envied the beauty of others, Erika never liked touching the faces of others. But with her inhibitions gone, she was fine showing this level of affection to him. At least to him.

“Can you tell me why you tolerate me, Nadir?” she asked.

Had Nadir been sober, he would have realized just how astonishing that small gesture of Erika’s was. She did nothing, only stroked his stubby beard. She never touched other people’s faces, seemingly too jealous to feel them and not tear them off. She was touching his face without tearing his skin to shreds…it was a display of gentleness in her storm-like nature. He would never have expected. One could never tell just how bitter things sometimes were between the two.

The former Daroga’s skin was also flushing red from the heat which the alcohol inspired in his blood. “I have already told you, Erika. I love you. Nothing in this world could ever possibly part me from you.”

The more she gazed at him, the more she appreciated every aspect of his natural beauty. The bridge of his nose, the sharpness of his cheeks, the curve of his jaw. All were a brushstroke in the artwork that was his person. It’s a common saying that alcohol turns the world aglow, but Erika saw it as more of a truth serum, making things just as bright as they would be without the darkness of the world.

“Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” she asked him with a tipsy smile.

Nadir must have been a madman indeed, for he may have fallen for the Devil herself. Still, even knowing this, he abandoned all defenses and treasured the sensation. May it cost him his head or not, he couldn’t tell – nor could he care.

“No, you have not. All you’ve ever called me is a great booby.” The Persian man let out a dizzy, rumbling laugh. “And you may do it again now, when I say that under your mask lies beauty this world is too shallow to understand.”

She grinned wider. “Why can you only tell me these things when we’re both drunk?” she teased. “Can’t you tell me how much you love me at a time when I’ll remember it the next day?”

Nadir chuckled, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer. “Well, my dear Erika, I certainly would if only I didn’t have to worry over being strangled for it.”

“Well, you’ve told me now,” Erika said, her arms snaking around Nadir’s shoulders, “and no one’s died yet.” Her fingers found their way into his thick mess of black hair. With a sigh, she rested her forehead against his.

The water in her eyes wasn’t from drunkenness anymore. “Damn it all, this is just cruel of you Nadir! I’ll wake up tomorrow assuming everyone on this planet wants me dead, you included. How could you make me feel so gleeful at a time I won’t be able to remember?”

“We are both drunk,” Nadir murmured, leaning down and pressing a ghostly kiss to her temple. His thumb sliding up and down her lean spine, feeling each vertebra through the skin. “That is why you have not strangled me yet.”

Nadir’s drunken smile faded as he saw the bitter tears suddenly spring from her foggy eyes. “Ah, my sweet Erika…forgive me for this. I swear to you, one day I will tell you when we both are sober. My heart will cease beating if I remain silent. Perhaps you will accept me, perhaps you will strike me down. I do not care either way. Just do not weep, my love…” His lips brushed against her eyelids, desperate to dry her tears as he squeezed her firmly to his chest.

“How often do you think you’ve told me, and neither of us remember?” Erika asked.

“Perhaps never, perhaps countless times…” Nadir sighed, his heart soaring high and sinking low at the same time.

“Well, come what may,” she said with a tearful smile, “no matter how I react come daylight, I want to remember tonight. I want us both to remember, whether we like it or not.”

Before he could answer, she softly pressed her lips against his own. Her senses were filled with everything she had adored about Persia: the lingering spices, the golden sand, the sweet waters of an oasis. He tasted like the scenery and was warm as the desert. She kept her fingers in his hair, keeping him close to her as she pulled away.

The kiss came as both a striking surprise and something completely expected in that moment. The Persian’s breathing hitched, in response to the thing he’d secretly yearned for through all those long years. She tasted so sweet, like honey and blood.

“Yes,” he breathed, “nothing matters tonight, beloved…nothing but you and I.” Pulling her into yet another passionate kiss, he eased her off the edge of the countertop.

She ran her hands down the length of his torso and softly moaned against his lips. He held her steady as she swayed on her feet, too drunk to stand on her own. Now, of course, she had to gaze up at him – which was a change that was almost comical. At least it was while drunk. The contact between them was heavenly, if a heaven should exist to compare it to.

“Do tell me, old friend,” she muttered, “just how will tonight be about us?”

Nadir wondered: in what corner of her mind did she find such false belief that she reeked of death? To Nadir, the scent of her was elegant and intoxicating. May it be tricks of drunkenness, love and desire, or may it be truth, he did not care. His dilated eyes found the gondola that gently rocked on the mirror-like lake not far away.

“Tonight, on this misty lake under blind night,” he whispered, leaning down and kissing her neck before sweeping her up into his arms, “we will become one, my friend…my love.” With a head spun by alcohol, even he became a poet.

With surprising steadiness for someone so dizzy, he carried Erika like a bride to the dock and placed her on the cushions of the small boat. He joined her, his weight bobbing the vessel as he climbed on top of her. He pulled her into a deep kiss yet again, his large hand on the back of her neck. Every tiniest fiber of his being felt on fire, desperate to be hers and to make her his.

Erika laughed as he settled himself over her. She laughed at the ones who had hurt her all those years ago, made her afraid of trusting a man with her safety and well-being. The last time a man had been over her she had been unwilling, petrified with terror as she could only let herself be violated. Now here she was, absolutely in a state of bliss, she and her partner at play together.

Erika marveled at the poetic nature of making love in the gondola. Not even she could have thought of it sober, let alone with gin in her veins. “Honestly, Nadir,” she panted between the meeting of their lips, “if this isn’t a sign of what you and I have wanted from each other…then we must be mad.”

Nadir kissed Erika’s forehead, pulling her even closer, longing more than anything to show her what it meant to love and be loved – to soar in extasy and wallow in passion. He yearned to make her forget the soul-wrecking past and surrender to their feelings. He wanted so much for her to embrace him, touch him, trust him with her body.

The Persian brushed his lips against her slender neck, tasting her skin, nibbling under her chin. “Yes… we are mad…and we have desired this from each other,” he whispered. A calloused hand slithered under her shirt, begging for closeness. For a moment, they ceased being the Daroga and the Mirage, they were nothing but a woman and a man.

She didn’t want to talk anymore. Erika pulled the pins from her hair, allowing it to fall across her shoulders. The metal pins were carelessly tossed aside, and Erika heard them quietly plunk into the black water.

A shiver ran through her as Nadir’s hand explored the skin pulled across her ribs and spine. For such a reserved man, it was a wonder he could be so effortlessly sensual. His wife had likely been the happiest woman in Persia. Not much information was known to her about the wife Nadir had lost, but she had always assumed she had been breathtaking in every sense. The fact he was now freely giving himself to someone like her…it meant the world. The universe.

With trembling fingers, she undid the buttons of her waistcoat and fearlessly bared her chest to him. She wasn’t afraid of being rejected, he had long since accepted nearly every aspect of her.

Nadir moaned at such sweet sight suddenly unveiled for his eyes alone, watching hungrily every button slip open, that lovely pale bosom spring bare. Such a contrast with her beautiful black hair now passionately loose. He caught Erika’s gaze, jade eyes glowing from passion, before leaning down and pressing light kisses to each of her breasts. Though his lips soon slithered up, tongue tracing her collarbones. He kissed her neck ardently and gently tugged on her dark locks from time to time.

The former Daroga did not even notice how his own hands tore his shirt and jacket away. Soon his scarred, warm mahogany skin was pressed against her cold naked torso. Caressing her breasts in each of his palms, he whispered: “You are so beautiful, my Erika,” and claimed her lips deeply.

Her whole body arched into his as he nipped at her neck. Their breath was being shared in the space between them, adding more silver mist to the air. The light of one-thousand candles lit Nadir’s face. The dancing shadows played across his body and the flames burned in his eyes. God, he was purely magnificent.

“As are you,” she said, and she gently pushed him back until she was able to climb into his lap, eagerly biting his neck as if she wanted to draw droplets of blood. Her hair fell over her back like a mourning curtain. Her hands traveled down his sides, coming to rest at his hips.

Nadir sat back on the cushions, gladly allowing Erika to straddle him. One arm wrapped around her waist to pull her closer. He tilted his head, allowing her to nibble on his neck. Gasping in delight, his fingers found her hair and tangled in those lush black locks only to slide down and grasp her thighs firmly.

A bit clumsily from both excitement and drink, Erika began to undo Nadir’s complicated belt buckle. His trousers were already tented out by his trapped erection. She could feel it throbbing under her palms, begging to be freed. “How…how long have you wanted to see me unclothed, Nadir?” she teased, kissing his face lovingly. “I’ve known of your affection since Mazandaran, but…how long have you wanted me?”

The tightness in Nadir’s pants was undeniable, aching and devious. He was longing to feel himself sink inside Erika’s warm moist core, to feel them two at last becoming one. “Does it matter now, my dearest? I will have you now,” the Persian purred. He returned the favor and undid her own trousers with the speed of an expert – all the while lightly biting down on her jawline.

Before long, Nadir’s pants (as well as the remainder of every scrap of their clothing) were tossed up onto the makeshift dock. Erika’s skin had gone from deathly white to rosy, making her look a bit more like a human being with a pulse. As soon as the two of them were perfectly bare, she pounced on him, nothing in her way to feeling his full coat of skin against hers. The air was crisp, but she felt the searing heat raging between his thighs.

“Or, rather, Nadir…” she whispered in his ear – as if they weren’t alone in a great cavern, “I will have you. Tonight, you’re mine.”

He could feel just how eager she was, no less than himself. “Then what are you waiting for, beloved?” Nadir whispered into her neck as he gripped her hips, bringing her entrance to the tip of his manhood. “Tonight, I am yours.”

Truth be told, she had been waiting for his permission. With it, she lowered herself onto him, finally solidifying the union they had wordlessly craved for years. She braced herself against him, reclining both of them onto the cushions as she took more of his length into her. She wasn’t afraid. She felt no shame, all she felt was the need to satisfy the two of them.

She caressed his face with the back of hand, looking boldly into his eyes as she began thrusting her hips. She opened her mouth to speak, but a small moan left it first.

“I still…hate you…you know?” She asked with a tease, her dark hair now falling over both of their faces.

Nadir allowed his back to be pressed against the cushions, a low hiss of delight leaving his throat once the grip of her womanhood sank around him. Heavens…it was such an overwhelming, blissful sensation! Their locked gazes let this burning feeling pulse with even more intimacy.

The Persian’s rough fingers brushed through her hair “And I…” he moaned faintly, replying in an equally playful tone, “still love you.” With those words, he wrapped his arm around Erika’s shoulders, pulling her close and kissing her passionately, other hand pressing on her lower back until her thrusts were forcing his entire length into her body.

Erika picked up her pace, clinging to him and panting into his neck. His fingers tugged on her hair, while hers sank into the cushions below him. Small sounds of pleasure fluttered from her throat. Friction began to build so she slowed her pace, wanting to stimulate herself a bit to make their lovemaking more comfortable. She bit down on the nape of Nadir’s neck. “Tell me how this feels for you,” it wasn’t a plea, it was a demand.

Nadir brushed his lips against her hair. With a much louder grunt, he lost control for a moment and threw his hips roughly into one of her thrusts. He groaned in pleasure when she picked up the pace afterwards. Long years had passed since he last knew such maddening bliss. He never had a woman after his wife’s death, and now he was with the one he loved like he never loved anyone before.

“You drive me insane!” he moaned. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he swiftly lifted her body and switched their positions. He laid atop her, nibbling her ear playfully before starting to thrust in a slow, torturous manner, stroking her pleasure spot with his hand while he kissed her fiercely.

She was surprised to suddenly find herself pressed against the gondola’s soft interior. Erika gave Nadir a mischievous look. He was still so full of surprises. “You bastard,” she sighed, rolling her eyes when she realized how teasingly slow he was moving inside her. He shut her complaining up with another long kiss.

She found it getting harder to breathe but wasn’t sure why. Alcohol often slowed her brain. That’s when she felt an intense shock go up her stomach and she realized Nadir’s experienced fingers had slipped between them, finding the folds between her legs and making quick work of them.

“Whatever you’re doing,” she said, biting her lower lip “…don’t stop.”

It was a stunning awareness he had. He suddenly found himself having the slightest hint of power over her for the first time since their first encounter. She always led, and he followed. This new…sensation…he beyond enjoyed it. At last, he was able to show just how much he loved and wished to spoil her.

A mischievous smile crept onto his lips, agape from groans and gasps of pleasure. Growing bolder from the approval Erika gave him, the strokes of his fingers went firmer. His thrusting became faster just for a moment. That sudden jolt in speed left her writhing in need under him when he slowed again. Licking his lips, he leaned down to kiss her neck fiercely.

She sank her fingers into the back of his neck with a desperate groan. One hand gripped his shoulder, digging into the soft flesh. She arched her hips into his thrusts, begging him to go deeper where she knew a hidden pleasure point was located.

“You…can do…better,” she panted. “I know…you can please a woman.” If she was going to submit, then she expected him to outperform her.

Nadir pressed their foreheads together, hissing when her claws dug into his back. Indeed, that was enough teasing and tormenting her. The thrusts remained slow, yet became deep and long, making sure to stab into her deep sweet spot each time. His hands had her shoulders in a vice grip, bracing himself so he could put as much force into each thrust of his hips as possible.

“Oh, God…” For a woman of no faith to call upon a deity likely meant she felt equal to one.

Erika was in a state of sublime ecstasy. For once, she wished to be no one else but herself. She wished to be nowhere else except beneath the one man she had ever longed for. His pace was perfect, his touches were perfect, his kisses were perfect, he was just…perfect. Such perfection, and he was making her whole with himself.

Erika ran her fingernails down Nadir’s scared biceps and down his back. She wanted to feel him in every crevasse of her body, even under her nails. Her jaw hung open with heavy breaths, each exhale carrying a whimper of overwhelming pleasure. She lolled her head back, shutting her eyes as she felt an orgasm mounting. “I hate…” she gasped, “I hate…that I love you.”

Nadir moaned lowly into her neck, the movements of his hips suddenly fast and firm. His length throbbed and swelled, the velvet walls of her womanhood like an addiction he couldn’t satisfy. His skin looked golden in the candlelight, glistening from sweat. It was like a dream come true. Overwhelming pleasure rippled through his nerves, boiling his blood beyond the point he could bear. The woman he loved in his arms, writhing and crying from rapture.

“I love… you…” Nadir groaned, clashing his lips on Erika’s desperately and pulling her close as he filled her burning core with his seed in another powerful movement.

The hot rush of his climax brought her to the edge of her own. She gripped his hips with her knees and rotated her hips, stimulating herself just a few more times while he was still hard. That was what she needed to at last reach her own orgasm. She broke off the kiss to take a sharp breath of air, her whole body tightening around Nadir’s member in an unbearable moment of melting bliss. When her body relaxed again, it felt weak. She hardly felt strong enough to speak.

Nadir collapsed on top of Erika, still inside her, breathing heavily, eyes closed as slowly, the Persian slipped into cloudy bliss of mind and complete limpness of body. He held his friend become lover close, lips pressed to her temple, heart beating against heart.

Erika finally released a breathless laugh, running her finger down the bridge of Nadir’s nose. “I’m hoping I won’t forget that when I’m sober.”

[theonyxpath]

Yes, I’d say the creation of the 2nd Edition of Scion has taken the most thought (and Thoth) of any of our projects to date.

From the years spent iterating the Storypath System that powers Scion, to the years and years we and the Scion community dissected and recombined the first edition rules and setting, to the extensive amount of care the writers and developer Neall Raemonn Price have put into improving first edition in every way they could.

Like the Netjer (Egyptian) pantheon pictured above, all the pantheons have been researched and re-researched and run past experts in the myths and cultures they represent. You don’t in any way need a doctorate to use and enjoy them in your game, but now they more accurately reflect our current understanding of the gods and their cohorts.

Neall goes into this in his interview with Eddy and Dixie on last Friday’s Onyx Pathcast, and it is well worth your time to check it out if you’re a Scion fan. He goes into his thinking on Scion, as well as some of the often torturous steps we have had to take to get the first two game books created. If you’re not a Scion fan, he also reveals how Beckett’s Jyhad Diary was developed and written, and so basically, it’s a great overview of how RPG books are created.

You can check it out on your favorite podcast venue or directly on PodBean here: https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

This Friday on the Onyx Pathcast, the Wraith Curse rears its ugly head, and the gang have to recreate an entire episode where they only mention Wraith in discussing TTRPGs and how they affect our non-game lives. Listen in to find out how the Wraith Curse manifests this time!

    Dragon-Blooded art by Yiyoung Li

    Now for myself, I too have thought a lot about Scion. From green-lighting the first edition and realizing that without something wahoo going on, the sales distribution system was going to under-order Scion: Hero, (“We need new games to sell!” “Here’s a new one we made.” “Wah? It’s new and has no sales history, how can we order that?”), to getting a copy of the book put into every retailer bag at that year’s GAMA trade show. Retailers who then ordered the game in such amounts that we had to do a second print pretty much before the book hit stores!

I’ve thought a lot about the dedication of the Scion community during the (very) lean years when almost nothing new came out, yet WW‘s old Scion forums were still getting more posts than entire other gaming websites. I read your posts you magnificent bastards, and incorporated that thinking into what we needed to do to elevate Scion for second edition.

I’ve ground my teeth in frustration during the time Storypath was iterating and while Scion: Origin and Scion: Hero have been incubating, and thought long and hard about the iterations and improvements that slowed things down. Were they worth it?

Well, the answer is yes, as far as I can see. Storypath is the simple base 10-sided pool system that can be expanded depending on your table’s interest in more shared storytelling that I hoped for. It is so flexible that we can add tweaks to it to emulate a post-apocalyptic scarcity game with zombies in Dystopia Rising: Evolution, and reflexive and meta humor mechanics in They Came From Beneath the Sea!.

And it enables play from man on the street to god levels of power for Scion and the Trinity Continuum.

    VtR2 Guide to the Night art by Sam Araya

      Scion has a built-in setting now, with the World, yet it is so designed that you can pull back on that and keep the god stuff hidden, or dial it to 11 and make the presence of the gods even more impactful on our normal world. I thought about whether adding the World was the right way to go – and had probably far more discussions with Neall than he wanted to have about it – but in the end, I think the default setting combined with the very easy options to alter that if you so choose hits the right spot.

It’s there and it’s rich and deep with history, but still open enough that your characters matter. Which is a big part of Scion, as I see it.

And one more thing that I’ve thought about A LOT, and have mentioned before, is that to me Scion is just getting started. The 4 book core of Origin, Hero, Demigod, and God is really the central spine of the possible ways Scion can be played. There’s the “Children of the Gods in Modern Times” that defines that spine, and we can provide a lot more projects that help build on that. We already have the Companion, Jumpstart, Ready Made Characters, and Bestiary being worked on.

But let’s change that to “Children of ____ in Modern Times”, or “Children of the Gods in _____ Times”, and we open up a huge range of possibilities if we start filling in those blanks!

Whew! I get pretty fired up thinking about all that.

Now, on to the Notes from our Monday Meeting today! We talked about:

1- We are all over the place online right now! It’s great! On this Tuesday night at 6pm Pacific US time, Pugmire: Homeward Bound begins on the Saving Throw Show Twitch channel. Here’s the intro video (it is amazing and beautiful!): youtu.be/qMpNHXjbZK8

And the link to their Twitch channel: twitch.tv/savingthrowshow

2- I did a wee little interview that surprisingly covered all sorts of Onyx Path and classic White Wolf stories and yet did not go into my love of pudding. Why is that surprising? Because the podcast interview was for Everybody Loves Pudding, and I was lured into this because I thought I’d be able to expound on the virtues and wonders of pudding. But, even without the pudding, it’s a pretty good chat – the guys were very on target with the questions. Not sure if you can say the same about my answers, but judge for yourself: http://www.everybodylovespudding.com/podcast/season-1-episode-22/

3- Eddy Webb is flying up to my neck of the woods and we’ll be going together to Save Against Fear, the convention that benefits the Bodhana Group, whose mission is to use tabletop gaming in their therapeutic efforts. Links are below in the Convention News section of The Blurbs, but we recently added that I’ll be there on Saturday signing Magic Cards and working on some artist proof sketches. So if you are near there and want your cards signed and to help a great group – come on by and meet me and Eddy!

4- On a related topic, Monica Valentinelli is working with Extra Life on a fundraiser where she’s playing D&D5e to help sick kids. Onyx Path has donated Scarred Lands PDF rewards at various levels of contribution, so here’s your chance to help a super cause and dig into Scarred Lands! https://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=326323

    M20 Gods and Monsters art by Claudio Pozas

    5- If you missed the Prince’s Gambit casual Vampire card game by Justin Achilli Kickstarter campaign, we have copies of the card set available to buy from Studio2 and your local retailer, see below, and the basic set and booster pack will go on sale on Wednesday from DriveThru. The retail card set is all the cards from the Kickstarter in one box, and the DriveThru cards take all the cards and divide them into a basic set, and then the added cards from the KS in a booster pack. And, because we are asked this, Prince’s Gambit is a different type of game than VTES, it is not VTES, was not intended to replace VTES, and lots of us here are VTES fans and glad that new VTES cards are being made.

6- Finally, we have a fantastic sale going on at IPR for our Deluxe and Prestige books from our Kickstarter print-run overruns! Half off until the end of October, it’s our HalfoWeen Sale! The Mummy: The Curse Prestige Editions have sold out as of this writing, which means there are no more of them available for sale anywhere in the world! (Except EBAY, I’m sure. But other than that…)

I’m not finding a clever way to lead in to out tag-line this time, no wait, I just did. Damn:

Many Worlds, One Path!

  BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Lo the darkness that lies like a pall over Chicago. The V5 Chicago By Night Kickstarter arises in October!

We’re also working on the Kickstarter for They Came From Beneath the Sea! (TCFBtS!), which has some very different additions to the Storypath mechanics we’ll be explaining during the KS.  They take an excellent 50’s action and investigation genre game and turn it to 11!

  ELECTRONIC GAMING:

      As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://theappstore.site/app/1296692067/onyx-dice

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onyxpathpublishing.onyxdice&hl=en

Three different screenshots, above.

And our latest, the dice for Werewolf: The Forsaken 2e:

  ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)

V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

  OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

And we’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

  Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://theonyxpath.com/press-release-onyx-path-limited-editions-now-available-through-indie-press-revolution/

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

    DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

  The Prince’s Gambit basic card set and the added cards from the PG Kickstarter booster pack will both be available on DriveThru this Wednesday!

        CONVENTIONS!

From Fast Eddy Webb, we have these:

Eddy will also be a featured guest (and RichT will be there at some point, too) at Save Against Fear (October 12-14) in Harrisburg, PA. He’ll be running some Pugmire games, be available for autographs, and will sometimes accept free drinks. http://www.thebodhanagroup.org/about-the-convention

Dixie Cochran will be at High Level Games Con in Atlantic City October 12-14, running a Women in Game Design panel, Eddy’s RPG Developer Bootcamp, and possibly making a surprise appearance at another event!

  And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Tales of Excellent Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion Jumpstart (Scion 2nd Edition)

Geist2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

  Redlines

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

  Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

  Development

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon (Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition)

Adventures for Curious Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

In Media Res (Trinity Continuum: Core)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Wr20 Book of Oblivion (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

  Manuscript Approval:

Aeon Aexpansion (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

C20 Players’ Guide (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

  Editing:

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

  Post-Editing Development:

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

Dog and Cat Ready Made Characters (Monarchies of Mau) (With Eddy)

Changeling: The Lost 2nd Jumpstart (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

  Indexing:

    ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

  In Art Direction

Dystopia Rising: Evolution

M20: Gods and Monsters – AD’d and Contracted.

Geist 2e

The Realm

Trinity Continuum (Aeon and Core) – Tracking down Core finals and going over Aeon Sketches.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Chicago By Night – KS art finals in.

Pugmire Roll of Good Dogs and Cats

C20 Player’s Guide

Aeon Aexpansion

They Came From Beneath the Sea! – Got KS artnotes out.

  Marketing Stuff

  In Layout

Trinity Core – Working on symbols this week.

Trinity Aeon – Fancying up my Opnet images.

Ex3 Dragon Blooded

  Proofing

Scion Hero – Inputting Neal’s 2nd proof changes.

PTC: Night Horrors: The Tormented – KT has Steffie’s corrections in.

Scion Origin – Doing Neall’s errata changes, and swapping out the font.

VtR: Guide to the Night – Danielle is getting me her p.xx stuff on Monday and I’ll be wrapping this one up for approval by WW shortly thereafter.

Fetch Quest – Package design done

  At Press

Monarchies of Mau and Screen – At Studio2. Dice and buttons getting ready to ship to Studio2.

Cavaliers of Mars – Backer copies all shipped out.

Wraith 20th – Printing the Deluxe interior, proofing cover.

Wraith 20 Screen – Printing.

Scion Dice – At Studio2.

Cav Talent cards – PoD proof coming.

Lost 2e Screen – Prepping files.

Scion Screen – Prepping files.

Prince’s Gambit core deck and booster PoD – On sale at DriveThru on Wednesday!

Changeling: The Lost 2e – Prepping files for printer.

  TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: OK, celebrate this one or don’t as you see fit. I know a lot of my South Philly buddies do and will. All I know is today I didn’t get my new fancy brush recommended by Jeff Miracola today because no mail on the Monday holiday. And the last kid has off from school, so I get to hear him shouting at his friends as they multi-play a shooter. Some holiday.

[thedancemostofall]

I was searching Linda Gregg

On influence - Carl Phillips

When I was first asked to write on this subject, I imagined discussing what I’ve learned from such poets as Cavafy, Olds, and Bidart, when it comes in particular to the body and desire and where that desire can lead and how to speak about that, where to find the necessary openness—the nerve that allows us to trust being open—about what’s forbidden, which is to say, what deserves to be shown—insists on it, even. Or I thought I might discuss how Robert Hayden’s determination to write about anything he wanted to—sometimes race, sometimes art, sometimes secrecy, sometimes myth—offered a multifaceted artistic self as a realistic option for a writer of color. Likewise, the Jamesian sentences of Graham, Brock-Broido’s painstakingly bejeweled syntax and diction—these became models for a resistance to governing modes of poem-making that was crucial for me when I first began writing my own poems.I certainly learned all sorts of things about craft from the writers mentioned above, but just by how I speak of them it becomes clear that I’m seeing them largely as psychological mentors, writers whose work showed what was possible in terms of how to think about the self, and about self-expression; writers who all have in common that they have shown me what courage can look like for a writer; or perhaps it’s not courage, so much as a belief that, for oneself, there is no other way than this way to be, on paper and in the life away from it. And though this is something that can be seen poem by poem, I find that it’s the body of work as a whole, over time, that has given me the guidance I needed. But I’m interested here in how individual poems often have their own influence, outside the larger career of a poet. What I mean is, when we speak of literary influence, we often give the names of poets; we point to specific poems less often, or so it seems to me. With this in mind, I want to point to a single specific poem by a writer whose entire body of work I’ve read many times, and yet I return to certain individual poems routinely. I’ve only just figured out why. I think it has to do with how to build a poem—I say build, rather than write, deliberately, in the way that, in the books of one of my favorite mystery writers, Joseph Hansen, the detective David Brandstetter is always stopping to build a drink, as opposed to making one. To build a drink speaks to the sense of layers, liquid over ice, but also vermouth, say, over gin, whatever garnish over all of it. To make such a drink reduces the process to mere combination, without nuance. Linda Gregg’s “Sigismundo” is an oft-returned-to example of a poem that continues to teach me so much about how poems can be built:

I want to point to a single specific poem by a writer whose entire body of work I’ve read many times, and yet I return to certain individual poems routinely.

The fete confused me. Guests played the part of gods.

There was a woman with white skin who stood

with her pale robe open all night throwing roses.

A lady found me in the only quiet room and demanded

I take her to him. I refused even when she begged,

and went down by the water to think of something else.

Sun rose that morning on the torches.

Cool air over the tepid sea. Sigismundo the Beautiful.

Out for himself. Torturer of doves. A killer of cities.

Killer of wife before breakfast. Sigismundo,

who built a church to a woman not beautiful,

with roses cut in the stone.

All through my boyhood I was told I’d walk hand in hand

with death. I chose the good, and cried

when they marred the statues.

But there is nothing, nothing to say about my life.

Unmerciful Sigismundo did many wrongs and his people loved him

and he will live forever. I who go down like Persephone

with my accomplishments of silence and weeping unrecorded,

even I if I were a girl would answer Yes, I know how to swim.

Lie for the chance to drown in that blue water of his.

Sigismundo.Here is a basic breakdown of the poem’s parts:Lines 1–7: We enter the poem’s situation, in medias res. There are characters—guests, a woman, a lady, and an I about whom we know nothing.

8–12: descriptions of Sigismundo in legend-like terms

13–16: We learn of the I’s childhood, and subsequent dismissal of his life.

17–18: Sigismundo, by contrast, via choices and the reputation they’ve led to, will live forever.

18–22: The I recognizes his inferiority to Sigismundo and his willingness to sacrifice himself to him (if the I were a girl).So, the poem opens with a dramatic situation that is essentially abandoned for a poem contrasting two different ways of being, two different psychologies. Another way to see this is that the poem is built by stacking part of a narrative poem on top of part of a meditative poem or dramatic monologue (perhaps most accurate, a dramatic monologue that contains a meditation). Perhaps other poems could have taught me this, but Gregg’s is the one that I found first. It took me years to understand that what kept drawing me to the poem was its refusal to be just one thing or the other. I can imagine a workshop, for example, that would have encouraged Gregg either to flesh out the narrative she began with, or to maybe delete the narrative entirely, and begin at line 7.Another way this poem is built is at the level of sentence and fragment. Lines 1–7 are all sentences; 8–12 is all fragments; 13–20, sentences; 21–22, fragments. Building the poem this way allows for variation, of course, but also unpredictability, since there’s not a steady alternation between sentence and fragment. Two things that are fairly steady throughout the poem are tense and grammatical mood. The poem is almost entirely governed by the past tense and the declarative mood, with the exception of the sentence that begins at line 18 (“I who go down like Persephone . . . ”), when Gregg shifts to the present tense, and the main verb of the sentence is in the subjunctive (“[I] would answer Yes”), both changes occurring precisely when the speaker acknowledges his negligible life and his willingness to sacrifice it. The shift I mention is another example of unpredictability that comes directly from how the poem is built—we are set up for a delivery that never wavers, until it does, just once.This unpredictability—in the poem’s genre, syntax, and grammar—is a form of not knowing, and it seems to me that not knowing is very much the theme of Gregg’s poem. Whose fete is this, and where does it happen, and when? If the guests play gods, their actual identity is unknown. The woman and lady are both nameless. Sigismundo himself, for all the descriptions, remains unknown, maybe finally unknowable. The speaker, for all that he tells us about his life, seems ultimately only to reveal his inadequacy, not himself.

This unpredictability—in the poem’s genre, syntax, and grammar—is a form of not knowing.

I say he doesn’t reveal himself, but he does reveal a strange relationship to gender. The speaker is genderless until we learn that he’s male with the reference to boyhood more than halfway through the poem. This is reinforced, toward the end, by the phrase “even I if I were a girl”—so he’s not a girl. And yet that sentence opens with the speaker comparing himself to Persephone, who’s not only female but is associated especially with daughterhood, wifehood, and more disturbingly, with rape by a god who forces her to be his wife. I can’t say what this means, exactly, about the speaker, but it is this mystery about gender, on the part of the speaker, that first got me to notice at least one more aspect of how this poem is built, namely, by fairly routinely punctuating the poem with female figures, in such a way as to generate a pattern:A woman with white skin with her robe open (pallor, exposure)

A lady demanding to be taken to Sigismundo (but denied, by a speaker who will turn out to be male)

The same lady, begging

A wife whom Sigismundo killed

A “not beautiful” woman for whom he built a church

Persephone

A girl as a simile, in a sentence that makes it clear that girls don’t swim (by custom/law), wherever this takes placeWhat we get is a pattern of women as vulnerable, subordinate, subject to male suppression, via—variously—denial, murder, judgment about external appearance, rape, and societal custom or law. I used to read Gregg’s poem as a kind of monument to Sigismundo, whose name is, after all, both the poem’s title and its final word. But if so, it’s a monument built in part of women who become the evidence not only of Sigismundo’s brutality, but of a more general male indifference to women as equals. It’s a world in which to be unmerciful wins the day, wins the people’s favor, even the favor of such people as the speaker who tells us that, despite his passive nature (compared to Sigismundo’s), he too (“even I”) would take the action of drowning for Sigismundo. The phrasing suggests that what prevents the speaker from making this sacrifice is that he isn’t a girl. Another inequality—to sacrifice oneself for a man is an option for girls and women only, not for men. Which is to say, masculinity and femininity, whatever we might think of those terms, are fixed spaces to which there’s little resistance, apparently, within the world Gregg conjures here.Gregg’s poem continues to influence how I think about poems, specifically how poems consist of parts, and how the order in which we put those parts together can be a way in which the poem reveals its meaning, another layer of argument or theme, beyond the immediately apparent one in the poem’s content. It has also taught me about the work of grammar and syntax, and how these can give variation and movement to a poem—muscularity, as I like to call it. Finally, Gregg’s combining of different poetic genres strikes me as proof that how we build a poem can be its own statement. Gregg takes the fragments of two stock genres of the English poetic tradition—i.e., the largely male-dominated tradition—and fuses them, into what? A monument to Sigismundo’s version of masculinity? If so, it’s an ironic one. “Sigismundo” is also an impressively built assertion of nothing less than female empowerment and artistic freedom