Bacchanal Of Bones Chapter Seven

Even with their heavy outerwear, they could sense the temperature of the air around them dropping as they went deeper into the Earth.

They hadn’t had anything to drink in what they estimated to be at least two days, when they stumbled upon a wine cellar. All the bottles were gray with thick layers of dust, but who cared? They contained fluid!

“Why don’t you choose a bottle for us?” Pete suggested. “You know your wines.”

She didn’t spend much time deliberating before picking out a Bordeaux wine.

They set their lamps and backpacks on the floor, and sat down beside a door that stood opposite the one they had entered the cellar through. This one bore a carving of a skeleton that had “wings” made of bones. Rennie had to stifle the urge to make some sick joke about being at Death’s door.

Pete uncorked the wine, and raised it in a toast.

“Memento mori,” he said, and took a good swig. He then handed the bottle to her.

“Memento mori,” she responded, raising it for a moment before bringing it to her own lips.

Nothing had ever tasted so good. They knew that no matter how much of it they had, it would do a painfully limited amount of good in the way of re-hydrating them, but they were so desperate for the sensation of liquid flowing down their throats that they didn’t care.

They extinguished one of their lamps to conserve oil, and started taking turns sipping from the bottle.

Pete suddenly said, “The last time we slept, I had the oddest dream.”

“Oh?”

“You and I were walking through the tunnels, and we came to a gate that wouldn’t open. There was a statue of a female nude standing beside it. There was an opening between the statue’s legs, and we figured out that it was actually the ‘lock’ for the gate, and that the ‘key’ was a marble dildo.”

She laughed. “What did we find once we got through the gate?”

“I can’t remember now,” he said. Then, “Do you remember what you last dreamed about?”

While they continued passing the bottle back and forth, she answered:

“Funny you should ask. Usually I don’t remember my dreams all that well, but this one was really detailed. I was some sort of noblewoman, living in ancient Greece, and the Romans invaded the city where I lived. I was bathing, while playing with one of my servant women, oblivious to what was happening until the soldiers broke into the palace.”

“By ‘playing,’” he guessed, “I’m assuming you mean in a sexual way.”

“Oh, of course.”

“So what happened then?”

“The Romans captured me, and all the other women in the palace, and decided that we deserved to be humiliated– in as public a fashion as possible.

“Back at the soldiers’ encampment, they started to strip the servants who’d been taken from the palace. My servant and I, of course, were both already naked, having been surprised in the bath.

“We very soon learned that the servants were to be whipped. But for me and for the other women of royal blood, the Romans had something more elaborate in mind.

“Two soldiers took me into a tent. There was a doctor there, and he was laying some instruments and things out. The soldiers tied me down to a cot, and started roughly handling my tits.

“The doctor came over then and, with quite a bit more refinement and skill, stroked and teased my clit and pussy. Being the disgraced noblewoman that I was within the dream, I felt scared, ashamed, angry… but despite that, I was still quickly aroused by the feeling of his and the soldiers’ hands on me.

“Before I knew it, I was arching my body up for more, and trying to spread my legs even wider than they already were. I just couldn’t stop myself.

“But the doctor didn’t let me come. He only massaged me long enough to get my clit swollen and hard, and then he stopped.

“When I saw him pick up a needle, I started trying to struggle my way out of my bonds.

“The doctor told me that, considering where the needle was about to go, it would be in my best interest to keep still. I kept thrashing around and pulling at the ropes anyway, so he had the soldiers forcibly hold me in place.

“When he pushed the needle through my clit, I started to cry, as much in impotent outrage as from the actual pain. The doctor told the soldiers to keep me quiet, so one of them put a strip of cloth into my mouth. I actually felt grateful as I bit down on it.

“The doctor finished up quickly after that– he put a ring through my clit, sealed the ring shut, and then rubbed a clear, thick, cool substance onto and around the area. He told me it was a salve that would help the piercing to heal rapidly. He untied me, and I was carried out of the tent so the next noblewoman could be brought in to undergo the same procedure.

“Though the doctor’s attitude towards me was cold, his words proved true. There was no bleeding or bruising where I’d been pierced. It simply felt a little sore– and very, very sensitive.

“The soldiers spent much of the rest of the night making me and all the other women serve them sexually.

“Then, they took us back to Rome with them.

“When we arrived, they led us through the streets so everyone could see us– defeated, naked, and chained. Those of us who’d been pierced were led by leashes that the soldiers had attached to our rings.

“The weight of my leash, swaying, tugging at the ring through my clit, along with my exposure as I was walked through the jeering, leering crowd, was enough to make me come.

“To their shame, some of the other captured women came in front of everybody, too.

“And that was only the beginning of our punishment.

“After that, the servants were sold as bathhouse-slaves, while the rest of us were taken to an arena. There, we too were sold into slavery, but our ultimate fate was to be trained as ponygirls, and regularly used in chariot races.”

 

They polished off the whole bottle.

Then, out of nowhere, Rennie asked him, “Do you know when I first realized that you were the one for me?”

“When?”

“This one night, yeeears ago. You and I were making love, and after I came, you told me that my heart had skipped a beat right before I’d come. I asked you how you knew that, and you told me that you’d been watching one of my carotid arteries pulse. I thought that was so sweet! I mean, to think that you cared enough to pay such close attention to a detail like that! Don’t misunderstand, I had already known that I loved you well before that night. But when you said that to me, I felt a shift in our relationship. That was when I knew I couldn’t live without you.”

 

Having rested their legs for a while, they finally got curious about what was behind the door. But when they went to open it, it wouldn’t budge. It had no sort of locking mechanism, as far as they could tell– just a simple handle. But something was either blocking it or causing it to stick, and no matter what they tried– pulling, pushing, prying at it with tools– they just couldn’t get it open.

They gave up, and sat back down.

“How about we nap for a little while before figuring out our next move?” Pete suggested.

Rennie quite readily agreed.

For some reason, sharing the wine with him had reminded her of the lounge they’d chanced upon during their first night in Paris.

She remembered the song they’d heard that had caught their attention then, and felt moved to sing:

 

This is where I want to be,

here with you, so close to me,

until the final flicker of life’s ember.

I who was lost and lonely,

believing that life was only

a bitter, tragic joke–

I found, with you, the meaning of existence,

oh, my love.

 

He smiled, and kissed her.

Staring into the flame of the oil lamp, they fell asleep together.

 

They’d assumed they would feel awful when they woke up, between muscle fatigue, lack of food, and dehydration combined with alcohol consumption.

But they felt better than they had in the past few days. Wonderful, actually! Nothing was hurting, and they didn’t feel hungry, cold, tired, or thirsty.

“We’re going to have to load our backpacks with as many bottles of that stuff as they can hold!” Pete half-joked as they stood up and dusted themselves off.

“Well, before we do that, I was wondering… Look, I know it’s stupid, but before we turn around and move on, could we give the door just one more try?”

“That’s not stupid,” he said. “Let’s give it another shot.”

He tried the door, and it opened smoothly, with no effort.

They looked at each other, a little shocked.

“Huh!” was all she could say.

Just then, she noticed that the Ninshubur Unit was blinking on and off. She picked it up and tried to go to its menu screen, but the screen froze then.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “The Ninshubur is acting weird.”

“Maybe it just needs to be rebooted. I’ll look at it in a minute. I want to see what’s in here first.”

She put the Unit on top of her backpack. He shined the oil lamp into the room beyond. Peering over his shoulder, she saw that it was a foyer, and that there was a stone archway at the opposite end of it.

“That’s the entrance to a tomb, isn’t it?” she asked.

“It is. Let’s take a look.” He started to go in.

“Wait, what about all our stuff?”

Pausing, he replied casually, “It’s not as though anybody’s going to steal it.”

“Good point.”

She followed him through the entranceway.

 

It wasn’t a tomb. Or, if it could be considered one, it would be safe to say they’d just discovered the most unusual tomb on the planet.

“My God,” gasped Rennie. “It’s like that chapel in the Czech Republic that you told me about!”

Pete laughed quietly. “Nnooot quite.”

While the chamber before them certainly was elaborately decorated with bones, the similarities between it and the Sedlec Ossuary ended there. In the famous Catholic chapel, groups of individual bones had been arranged to form objects such as pillars, garlands, a chandelier, and more. All along the walls of the room which Pete and Rennie had just entered, however, were whole skeletons– each of which was contorted into some complicated sexual position with one (if not more) of the others.

“This is unreal! I wonder what’s holding these things together– not to mention what’s holding them up,” Pete mused aloud as they inspected two of the skeletons. “I don’t see any wires, or cement, or glue, or anything!”

They began slowly making their way along the edges of the room, which was quite large.

“Incredible… Incredible,” Pete would murmur from time to time.

Most incredible of all, though, was the sight that greeted them when they reached the head of the room. There, a pair of skeletons stood, serving as candelabras. Between them was an altar which consisted of a slab of marble miraculously held up by a circle of six skeletons, each one posed in a crouch beneath it and bearing its weight on their shoulders and hands. And on the altar rested a bound sheaf of parchment paper.