Marcus unfurled a blanket in the center of the bed of grass, and they picnicked on homemade bread and a light red wine of fine vintage. Venus said, “What kind of tantric practices did you learn in the Hindu monastery? Or am I about to find out?”

     With a smile he said, “You are, and action is better than words for the introduction.”

     Once again she blushed, to her own surprise. She said, “My only concern is that I’m getting close to the fertile part of my cycle. Did you happen to bring a prophylactic?”

     “I have a much better method of birth control ~ it’s one of the tantric arts.”

     “Ah! How does it work?”

     “By means of a dry orgasm. There’ll be no sperm to make any babies.”

     “Wow, you blew my mind again! What happens to your sperm if it doesn’t come out your penis when you come?”

     “It goes the other way: up my spine and out the top of my head.”

     “Aw, you’re joshin’ me now! That’s a physiological impossibility.”

    “It’s not physiological. I’ve learned how to transmute my seed into its spiritual essence, an ethereal substance that’s lots more potent than the original form. I can send it up your spine too, and amazing things can unfold when it gets to the top of your head.”

     “Oh ~ like what happened to me at the creek?”

     “That was a foretaste.”

     Words failed her. They got the victuals out of the way and prepared for love. “Should we use the blanket?” asked Marcus.

     “I think the bare grass would be nicer ~ more natural, and maybe more sensual.”

     Soon they were as naked as the grass, and entwined upon it. Marcus gently caressed Venus’ entire body with his hands and mouth and erect phallus in a continuous flux. It made her feel like a flower being fondled by the wind and the Sun. Her mind indeed had regressed to a vegetative stage, and the response of her limbs to the strokings of Marcus were mere tropisms of leaves and stems and tendrils. By some vestigial spark of consciousness she realized that she was in the embrace of some great exterior power, a force of nature. She was moving ever closer to a precipice, and when she reached the edge she was overwhelmed by a sense of anticipation. It was quickly fulfilled as Marcus penetrated her, giving rise to waves of glory from within as well as without. She felt like a puppet into which a hand had been thrust, a lifeless simulacrum in its own estate but now filled with the living form for which the cloth and baubles of her puppet-body had been crafted to receive. How wonderful it was to be an instrument of such a divine presence!

     In what seemed like an aeon of egolost ecstasy, Venus felt herself expand and become a piece of the very Earth, an island in a wine-dark sea. Her Vesuvius rumbled and was about to erupt when suddenly the mighty driving pillar of flame was gone, the hand of her puppeteer withdrawn. She shrank back into a human dimension, and struggled to make sense of the voice that was saying, “Sorry, it was too soon for the climax. Here, let’s shift into a special position.”

     Venus slowly became lucid and followed the promptings. They sat up, and she settled herself into Marcus’ lap as at the creek, except this time with his phallus inside her. “This is the dual lotus position,” he said, “the most conducive for circulating divine energies through our bodies.” And indeed it was already happening. Marcus locked his mouth onto hers in a delectable kiss, and she distinctly sensed that she was sucking in energy from it in a continuous flow that went down the center of the front of her torso, curled up around to the base of her spine, and then slowly but steadily began to rise up her vertebrae. She began to expand again, and reached a new quantum of

magnitude every time the ethereal fluid hit a node. When it touched her heart she was overwhelmed by love for Marcus, and felt as if they were physically bonded together. Up it went ~ she felt it in her throat, then the center of her brain, and at last the crown of her head.

     The two lovers were now a conjoint towering presence, and the world around them changed into a realm of the same magnitude. It was similar to the event at the creek, but this time complete ~ they really were on Olympus, or perhaps the Palatine in Rome. No longer a mortal woman, Venus knew herself as the Goddess who bore that name, as well as Aphrodite. She embraced not a man but a God: Mars, even Ares.

     Without breaking the magical flow of their eros, they communed in an ecstatic telepathy beyond the mere words which here signify the thrust of their converse:

     Like yesterday, yet so long ago. This was their mutual thought, evoked by the wonder of their reunion and the sense of their last encounter. Then Venus said/thought: The power of this man you overshadow has wrought the miracle. How is it so, and can it continue?

     Mars replied: The Magisters of Thule have called him forth; he is a vehicle for divinities even beyond our pantheon. Unless he is thwarted by our adversaries, he will grow into an Hypostasis and fully incorporate a Supernal God.  And surely this new door to the mortal realm will still avail us, because this act of love which has opened it marks the beginning of a liaison between these twain which will endure for a lengthy term.

     Venus said: Let us assure it; let us invest their union with the adamantine bond of our agelong love. Let them be wed in the climax of their first conjunction, in accord with the primordial custom. And let us now adjure our celestial kindred as the officiants and witnesses of the rite.

     So mote it be! said Mars. They gestured upward and heaven opened ~ and behold, there were all the Gods and Goddesses of the Greeks and Romans, each with one face and two names. They were assembled around the lovers singing paeans, and then Zeus/Jupiter began a divine litany as the climax neared. Enwrapped in their Godforms, the souls of Marcus and Venus beheld the Supernal Sun, reminding them that they were Solarians, its special children. The Sun was the One, the singular Source of love and light and power.  Marcus gave himself up to the radiance and it became his own, and thence shone forth upon his beloved. She surrendered to the glory in turn, and they were One.  They teetered on the brink of a magnificent spasm just as the Father of the Gods reached the penultimate part of the rite, equivalent to when an earthly minister says, “If there be anyone who knows of a reason why this man and woman should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”

     There was no word or sign of “nay” from any of the worlds around them, but suddenly Venus flinched. It made a harsh ripple in the surge of passion, though she had only pulled back a hairsbreadth. She said, “Why must I worship the Sun only through you? I can see the Sun plainly myself ~ it shines upon me too.”

     Marcus was astonished, but gathered himself and said: “The way of our people since our genesis in Thule has ever been that the man bears the weight of the match and transmits the light to his wife, who bears the children and transmits the love.”

     Venus scowled at this answer, and her features darkened ~ literally. Her face and form became suffused with a blue cast, which quickly deepened to cerulean and then ultramarine. At the same time her visage contorted from its Venusian beauty into a grimacing demonic mask which soon grew hideous, as the skin of the creature turned abysmally black. Marcus struggled mightily for self-possession as he found himself locked in carnal embrace with Kali, the deadly dark Goddess of the Hindus.

     Her voice was a shriek from Hell as she said: “I know a reason why you cannot wed that Western strumpet-Goddess: you are already married to me, milord Shiva! Deny it if you can to these Gods you cherish.”

     A flood of harsh realization swept over Marcus. He felt abashed and confused, caught on the horns of conflicting myths that had come all too real. He said, “Yes, I incorporate Shiva. He has given me his fiat to destroy the adversary.”

     Kali erupted in blood-curdling laughter. She said, “Little you know of adversaries, O man! Prepare to meet thy doom ~ for I am she, and you are for me, and we are bound together, forever.”

     And for the first time since his combat initiation, Marcus felt fear grip his heart.