Epilogue: Consecrating Gaia’s Temple

Sherry didn’t wait long to put her hunting license to use, proposing to Jasper about a week after Ali wed Joss, her down on bended knee and everything!

Sherry and Jasper were one of those opposites-attract couples: she’s politically left of center, he to the right. She leans hippy-hedonist, he leans law-backed libertarian. They were both reasonable about it, which I supposed was why they got on so well.

I tell you that as a prologue to this: he got to choose the wedding attire — traditional Western — after she flipped that same Western tradition on its head by proposing to him. But he then let her have the next major decision, where to have it: our house’s back yard, after asking us first. ’Round it went, the pair trading turns making key decisions, whipping social conservatism and liberalism into a delightful airy meringue, simultaneously stiff and sweet.

---

They’d asked me to marry them, returning Jasper’s favor to me since he’d officiated at our wedding, but that left me wondering what I’d be a minister of. I didn’t really want to be High Priest of Gaia; sounded too much like work to me, and I had enough of that already. More, I was constitutionally unwilling to get one of those sketchy Internet ordinations from a religious organization I didn’t believe in.

…Which made the solution obvious.

---

We were in our vegetable garden gathering our second harvest and planning a third, our mage-accelerated growing cycle looking like it would just barely allow it before the first freeze, expected a few months hence.

“Carlo called; he and Kristen are all moved in now,” I reported.

My wife asked, “They say what they’re planning as far as their wedding?”

“They said they didn’t want one, that they’re as good as married already.”

Kaitlyn knew what I meant: when a couple makes love in a Gaia bond, it’s impossible to hide the depth of one’s feelings. They knew they’d gone beyond desire, beyond lust, beyond attachment. They’d developed a love so deep there was no more point wondering if they’d found their life partners. They knew.

Oh, muggles say that sometimes, but for mages, this isn’t some wooly-headed emotional state, it’s a straightforward declaration of certain knowledge. The only reason they needed a wedding was to placate the state bureaucracy.

With that in mind, I addressed our shishya breezily, “All right, let’s go marry them out at Mage Arch, then. High time we took you out there anyway, Chanel. As the First Mage of the modern era, I hereby ordain you High Priestess of the Moab Ecology.”

Rapidly chewing and swallowing a kiped cherry tomato, Chanel said, “I was pretty sure I didn’t fall in among cultists. Was I wrong?”

“Yes, he’s joking,” soothed my wife. “Mage Arch is a holy place to us, but there are no Sunday meetings, no tithing, no blood sacrifices.”

I added, “And absolutely no virgin clergy!”

After the smiles I’d earned faded, Chanel asked, “What’s this Ecology stuff?”

Circumlocutiously, I answered our cherry tomato thief, “I don’t think Gaia has dioceses, synods, bishoprics, and whatnot. No, I think the natural divisions are the ecologies, the self-contained areas of interlocking life. These are fuzzy boundaries, one ecology blending into another until you get to Planet Earth, the complete ecology, but until we’ve circumscribed thousands of these regional ecologies, they aren’t going to push up against each other hard enough that we have to start getting precise in our definitions.”

Kaitlyn saw my line of thinking. “Right. There’s zero functional overlap between Moab’s ecology and that of, oh, Australia.”

I added, “Right, and we can also be reasonably clear about the difference between the Moab ecology and that of the mountains just over the Colorado border, the Great Salt Lake desert ecology, the Glen Canyon ecology, and so on. There’s gotta be hundreds of them in the US alone, maybe thousands.”

Chanel asked, “So I’m priestess of all this area around Moab, just because you say so?”

I informed her, “I looked it up after Sherry and Jasper asked us to preside at their wedding: Utah doesn’t require that you register an ordination or anything like that. You just show up at the county clerk’s office, tell them you’re a minister and that you need a marriage license for Mr. and Mrs. X. You go off and do whatever ceremony it is your ministry requires, then turn the signed license back in with the required filing fee before the 30 day expiration is up.”

Kaitlyn told her blithely, “Davie asked if I wanted the title out of precedence, but I can’t take it, because I’m already the scientist. I can’t be the priestess, too.”

Our shishya asked, “What’s that make you then, Davie?”

“I’m the Igor,” I stated simply.

“The Igor?” she replied, befuddled.

Clearly not a fan of old black and white monster movies or the Discworld novels, I judged silently, but rather than answer her directly, I hunched my posture, lolled my head, and replied, “Yeth, miththrettth” in a lisp so exaggerated that I let fly a bit of spittle.

“Yech!” she replied, rapidly wiping her hands comically over her face.

I laughed, considering it Mission Accomplished.

Kaitlyn just sort of grinned tolerantly, then explained, “It means he does my bidding, building scientific apparatus, acquiring lovely young girls for my experimentation…”

Chanel pasted a 1950s horror movie poster look onto her face. “What, now I’m getting strapped to a lightning table or something?”

Ah, so she had some education in the classics after all, I thought, gratified. Aloud, I chuckled at her joke, but I also sent through the bond, «We haven’t tried to harness lightning yet. But never mind that, let’s get back on topic: my ordination of you solves two immediate problems, being these upcoming weddings. How about it, shishya?»

She replied, «I thought I was the Sex Priestess of Gaia.»

Kaitlyn offered, «Informal title. Sex is one of the key drivers of an ecology, so it’s a necessary part of your duties as High Priestess of the Moab Ecology. Think of it as one of your hats.»

Chanel joked, «I have to wear a hat while having sex now? What, like a miter or something?»

That thought sent us into gales of laughter.

---

The High Priestess of the Moab Ecology wed Sherry Hina Poulsen née Richardson to Jasper Abel Starling Poulsen the following Saturday.

(And now you know why he insists that all but his closest friends call him Poulsen!)

It was a small ceremony, this being the second go-round for both of them.

The wedding party was garbed all in suits and dresses, our sandy massage area covered by a low portable stage to keep from scuffing all that polished patent leather. This was not to be another of the nudist weddings as practiced by the Gutierrez clan.

Only thing is, Chanel insisted on wearing her “Disrobes of Office” before agreeing to perform this wedding. She shocked a few of the invited attendees, but when a goddess shows up to officiate a wedding in the nude, no one dares tell her she’s gotta get dressed.

Not anyone polite enough to get the invite in the first place, at any rate.

---

The next morning was one of the late summer ones where it barely dropped below so-called “room temperature” by sunrise, the sort where we slept without even a top sheet covering us, windows all open to exhaust the prior day’s heat built up inside the house, ceiling fans running through the night.

We woke before dawn, made a fresh garden salad from the final few pickings from this harvest, then drove out to meet Carlo and Kristen at the Devils Garden Trailhead as arranged the prior evening after the Poulsen wedding party broke up.

I suppose they had some inkling about what we were up to, but all they asked was whether we were going to ride nude again.

“No,” Kaitlyn’d told them, “Chanel’s trying to keep off the law’s radar for the next few years.”

That suited Kristen, since she’s with the NPS, who run Arches National Park. As the new transfer, she was assigned ranger duties in a different area park, not the main attraction, yet she remained wary of breaking her employer’s rules so soon after moving up here.

For the same reason, we hiked the trail this time rather than ride. Tourist traffic was falling off by this point in the year, with schools about to start up again, but not so much that we could bomb down the trail on our mountain bikes without appreciable risk of attracting the ire of the ranger on duty.

It was a lovely change, the desert dawn burning off the light dew the cactus and sagebrush collected overnight.

---

On arriving at our local red sandstone cathedral, clothing long since stowed in our day packs, we decided to have the salad for breakfast, being unwilling to let it wilt in the desert heat, as it would if we let it wait for lunch.

Our shishya said, “Garden-fresh veggies taste so much better than store-bought!”

I observed, “This salad is even better than the one we made for Joss and Allison’s wedding.”

“Chanel added a few special touches,” my wife revealed.

“Ah!” I replied. After some thought, I added, “It’s strange to think that we didn’t even know you until just after that wedding, shishya. It feels longer, in a good way. You’ve been more than a student, a renter, or a friend. We know you so deeply now…”

Chanel grinned and said, “Yeah, about seven and a half inches and three fingers deeply!”

Kristen looked mildly scandalized by this, Carlo amused, but Kaitlyn just grinned along with me, knowing we had not actually made any excursions across the guru/shishya line.

We only ever demonstrated sex magic techniques by bringing her into rapport while we performed various feats. It was fun to show off to an appreciative audience, but we didn’t tease the poor girl. As far as we knew, she still hadn’t found a boyfriend. The last time she’d gotten any to my knowledge — one-on-one, physically, I mean — was when curing Ramón, most of a month back, and that was a job, not lovemaking. We only brought her into rapport for such lessons when we had something genuinely new to show her. It was the only way to pass on what we knew of the art while keeping the guru/shishya bond chaste.

And yet, being in rapport, Chanel felt everything I did to Kaitlyn, everything she did to me. She was not merely passively watching an educational sexual skills demonstration, she was there within our sex show.

The distinction was stark, even more visceral than the feelings of watching a sporting match from a seat just off the sidelines. You can say you feel the impacts between colliding players, the exultation of making a goal, the deflation of missing one, yet you aren’t out on the field with them. With Chanel, it was more like she was a virtual extra player on our team, never able to control the ball herself, but there with us as we made every play nevertheless. As we moved, she moved in sympathy, miming to an invisible lover, exploding into a three-way simultaneous orgasm with us at our completion.

In that sense, she had indeed had my seven and a half inches and three fingers inside her.

It was just as true, however, to say that she’d possessed those seven and a half inches herself and that she’d plunged them and her own three fingers deeply into Kaitlyn.

It certainly wasn’t a one-way relationship. Chanel was now teaching us, integrating our magic lessons with her own bed-sport mastery, showing us things we’d never even considered before!

Thus it was that as Chanel’s gurus, we’d repeatedly made love to our shishya, and we’d also never touched her sexually.

Shrug. Way it is.

---

The frequency of Chanel’s final parting gifts to past clients was dropping; we were on the long tail side of the graph now, clear enough. Too many of her johns had graduated, transferred to other schools, or dropped out. Of those that simply hadn’t crossed her path again, many were one-offs, guys desperate enough that they’d pay for a one-night stand, so they didn’t make much of an impression on Chanel, who hadn’t exactly kept detailed client records. With all the easy contacts chased down, it was looking like she was going to go weeks between encounters.

And besides, cleansing her former professional contacts’ STIs wasn’t lovemaking, either.

---

All of this in mind, I told her, “You know what we mean, Chanel.”

Our shishya’s teasing grin faded into a solemn look. “Yeah, I do at that,” she replied. “It’s probably all this linking in rapport, studying with you two. I can feel our relationship get deeper each time.”

Kaitlyn pronounced thoughtfully, “I suspect you’re in for another deepening today.”

We let that dangle, expecting her to take that and run with it, but Kaitlyn eventually got impatient and gave her a nudge. Addressing the group, she sent, «Chanel has an announcement to make and a question to ask.»

Our shishya looked a bit embarrassed, sending, «Yes, it is time for that now, isn’t it?» Chanel took a deep breath, then announced, «My fellow mages, I am the High Priestess of the Moab Ecology.»

She didn’t need to justify her claim in that bonded state. She spoke truth, we knew it, there was no dissent, and that was the end of it, so she simply added, «Carlo, Kristen, we brought you out here so that we could formally offer to wed you in the eyes of Gaia and the State of Utah. Right here, right now. We have the marriage license and everything. Do you two wish to be wed here today?»

«We do,» they sent.

No equivocation, no uncertainty.

«Then let us begin.» Chanel stood and led us away from our backpacks and breakfast things. She hiked up to the base of Mage Arch, then stopped, but sent a sense that the unwed couple should proceed up into its saddle.

Kaitlyn and I stayed back, just as clearly directed by Chanel as Carlo and Kristen were, no words needed.

Once they were in position, standing bare beneath the red sandstone arch, Chanel asked, «Do you take each other to espouse, to have and to hold, to love in sickness and health, to protect and defend for the rest of your days?»

We noted that there was no provision made for divorce in these vows, but it felt right. We weren’t sure that two mages could divorce in any meaningful sense anyway, certainly not while there were so few of us.

Carlo and Kristen therefore replied in unison, «We do.»

«Then so mote it be. You may consummate this marriage before Gaia and her witnesses.»

There was no hesitation, no embarrassment, no shame. Carlo erected within seconds of his priestess’ command, and Kristen fully lubricated before she’d finished laying down in the arch’s saddle, legs apart, receptive.

On completion of Carlo’s first gentle stroke into Kristen’s love channel, Chanel pronounced, «Carlo and Kristen Dellai, be thou wed before Gaia.»

And the land rang with the power of it.

---

As their passion built, Kristen pulled herself up into a boat pose on core muscle power alone, kissing Carlo deeply as he plunged into her coital cavern, making slow love to her, the couple scarcely aware of their audience.

It was then that Chanel joined their lovemaking, adding mage-sex stimulation, not to hurry them along, but to pour Gaia’s magic into their reserves, to pack them tight. Within a minute of beginning, neither of the newlyweds could contain any more magic.

Yet on they screwed, soft and slow, shedding power like a nuclear reactor core.

Kaitlyn and I wordlessly resolved to build a containment dome for them, sending the sense that they needn’t contain themselves.

And so Carlo and Kristen lit the area up with their magic, pressing outward on our shield until it encompassed the whole area from just off the Devils Garden trail out into the deep desert beyond. Kaitlyn and I would attempt to contract the shield, and the newlyweds would redouble their efforts to push it back out, and all the while, Chanel was feeding her mage-sex working back in, egging them on.

We transcended.

Desert and sky we knew, but it was because we were the land, the sky our clothing. We were not separate human entities, standing between them.

Once it was clear that nothing more could be done, Carlo released, lancing his new wife with the energy he’d contained, Kristen bouncing it back to him, he to her in crystal bell reverberations.

Bonded with them, Chanel caught the overspill and sent it around the triangle again and again until it finally dissipated.

And they bloomed.

---

That’s how Chanel characterized it later, after the earthquake: blooming.

The three independently reinvented our magical reserve expansion trick that morning, trying to contain the orgasmic explosion the same way Kaitlyn and I had back in The Furnace, only they did it three-way.

The thing is, that left all that excess power still bouncing around inside our shield.

The five of us — now deeply bonded and having equal magical reserve capacities — pulled as much of it inside ourselves as we could, then grabbed the rest and threw it into the land, strengthening it in every meaningful way we could think of.

We fertilized the plants, healed injured animals, banished diseases in flora and fauna alike…

…and in a sizzling machete strike felt through the bond, Kaitlyn and I joined their three-way orgasm, prolonging and expanding it into an epic, catastrophic cataclysm. Chanel ascended from her status of shishya into the priesthood, and Carlo married Kristen in the most total sense imaginable.

Kaitlyn and I were not simply along for the ride: we contained the megaton magical paroxysm, squashing it down into a pancake disc a hundred times the diameter of anything we’d ever done out here before, centered on Mage Arch.

And we pulled.

All around us, the random calcite and silicate bonds making up the sandstone tightened like a twanged guitar string, shrinking slightly into a tighter crystalline arrangement along their surfaces, compressing the material beneath into echoes of the same structure.

By later calculations, our resident scientist found that we increased the density the Arch’s sandstone by 8.3%, making it as tough as granite. This decreased logarithmically down to zero at the limit of our spherical shield, so you had to hike a fair way from the direction of Arches into the newly consecrated Mage Arch Temple to notice the difference without taking samples and making careful measurements.

What Kaitlyn found more scientifically interesting was that the law of conservation of mass meant the affected land shrunk by the same amount.

We were beyond logic in the instant, but somehow we chose to apply the effect in such a way that the cliff marking the boundary of Gaia’s Moab Temple moved toward Arches National Park, rather than shrinking the effect radially around the center point, Mage Arch. This created a fissure in the flat land beyond, out where almost no one goes, which soon filled in with sand and dust.

The geologists noticed it from their university offices for sure, this minor 3.2 Richter event on their radio-reporting remote seismographs, scattered thru the hinterlands. None of them even considered the possibility that this one was caused by five mages a-bonin’ rather than random tectonic activity.

Half the population of Moab felt it, too. Just a little tremor, rare for Utah, but not unheard of.

It made the local news, then became one of those odd little stories people tell each other, the one about that time Uncle so-and-so napped through an earthquake and suchlike.

No one trekked out into the deep desert to investigate.

Why would they?

---

As we came back to ourselves, I found my cock jammed root deep into Chanel’s expert pussy, Kaitlyn’s settling vaginal spasms pulsing on my tongue, our former shishya’s pulsations in time on Kaitlyn’s tongue. I had no memory of our arrangement into this triangular configuration, but it felt right, and so we held it for a time.

The first coherent words were Chanel’s, sent through the bond. «It is done.»

Kaitlyn and I saw that she was right: our combined working, led by her but designed and implemented by her new congregation strengthened every sandstone formation for hundreds of meters around. As my eyes came back into focus, I realized the rock looked a bit different now, too: darker and a bit shinier.

Thus did the High Priestess of the Moab Ecology, Chanel Brantley decree: «There will be no more breaking boulders off cliffs in my temple, you naughty children! Got it?»

The four of us mage-kissed her solemnly, then in unison obediently replied, «Yes, priestess!»

Then we busted up in laughter under the warm mid-morning sun.