The man and woman were young -- so terribly terribly young.
And their love for one another was equally youthful. Merely hours old it had already given birth to laughter and a thousand kisses. Each touch was now a burst of passion and every caress bespoke of insatiable lust and carnal desire.
Spring, that time of lovers had begun and it had graced the night with warmth. Pleasant scents of flowers, new grass, and the odd reek of wild onion rose up to them with their every step. While behind them, in the near distance, the fiery sparks of the bonfire rose to caress the moon and make jealous the pale stars. They blazed so quickly those sparks. Like the lover's passion they burned.
The blanket was old, smelled faintly of horse and hay, but it was soft enough to pad the ground and keep away the growing damp from their skin. The midnight hour was upon the impassioned youths and that still distant dawn had not yet given its warmth to chase away the mists. Like silent mournful ghosts still draped in funeral white the velvety fog crept about the edges of the tree line. The old mossy oaks seemed to shiver delightfully at that touch.
Upon their blanket, amid the night-bloomed flowers and tickling weeds, under the open heavens, the young lovers began to shed clothing. With a careless abandonment, they disrobed, making light of the risk of eyes being upon them. They knew that the others at the party were equally unabashed about giving themselves to the pleasures of the flesh and sweet wine, and so they paid no heeded thought to watching eyes.
But not all the eyes that watched were so innocent.
Above the frantic pair, the clock of the sky turned and -- to eyes that can read such a celestial timepiece -- the last moments till midnight passed with nary a whisper.
Though not without a whimper.
Within their nest of shed cloth the young lovers joined body to body in a wild abandonment of concerns. Worries that they would, perhaps, both regret in the days and weeks to come but which, for the moment, they cared nothing for. Tongues sought tongues, and hands wrestled with hands. Bodies, soon slick with passion-sweat, moved with a slick caress against each other and the ancient rhythms began. From times immortal the simple cadence of sex, handed down in the very blood and bones of the offspring it formed, was taken up and helped to pace their hearts beating and their breaths gasping.
Within the edge of the trees, a figure stood watching. It only watched.
For now.
But all around it younger creatures -- though most were still ancient by the measure of the petty dominance of time so loved by mankind -- began first to smile, then to softly giggle. At first, one, and then another, and soon all of them were creeping forwards, hidden with fingers of fog. They caught hold of the wet mist and pulled it along with them. First one, then another, and soon all began to dance. Twas the mummer's dance of the old times. Steps not known to mortals now, but taught to them long ago on such spring nights.
This night of merry fools.
So rare and special a night.
With moans of pleasure that sounded so similar to pain as to reminisce the torturing of saints, the lovers gave vent to their animalistic passions. Gone now were the gentler emotions. Love, that tenderness and pleasant drape had been tossed off like their clothing and they were now en-wrapped in the binding of lust's demands. Passion gave way to self-need and the desire to share became the desire to take. A harder thrust met a snap of curved hips. A biting nibble was challenged by raking nails. Words of love became demands for speed.
Thus carnally entwined the young lovers did not notice the dancers. Be-ringed they soon were, in merriment and soft laughter. Surrounded by beings that both celebrated their lustful union and fed upon the heightened emotions they gave forth, so uncaring of the voyeurs.
Still, the Harlequin watched.
Unmoved by the frantically fervent steps as his younger kin and kine, the Lord of the Dance walked from the trees only once the humans' exertions had been spent. The impassioned screams given to the night that echoes back with distant laughter from the fire were his cue. The night seemed to darken and flow out from under the trees behind him. His steps bore about them a haughty regalness as if perhaps he too danced but to a secret cadence and to hidden rhythms. Dances that no others had the age to know. As the Harlequin approach, a shiver shook the naked young man and the youth quickly drew about himself his shirt and shorts.
"I want another beer. How about you?" The young man asked his spent lover as he tried to dress.
"Hmmm."
Smiling, boasting to himself about his prowess without words, he rose to his feet. "I'll bring you one."
"Mmhmm"
Leaving her lying upon the blanket -- still trying to get his leg into his shorts -- the grinning youth departed without his eyes seeing the circle of ghostly dancers. Spirits that watched him and giggling at his bare flesh. At a gesture from the Harlequin, several broke free and followed the young man. A merry hour of misdirection they would lead him.
It was the woman that the Lord of Shadows was interested in. For now at least.
