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The whistling wind tugged at Anactoria’s hat as she pounded her way up the snow-covered cliff. She reflected on the irony of bundling up tightly on this particular mission, considering what she intended to do, but she supposed she was merely obeying a primal urge to stay warm. Her most primal urge, however, had failed her.
Finally, she reached the top of the cliff. Sucking in a deep breath, she peered down at the canyon that yawned invitingly beneath her. Tears trickling down and stinging her face, she reviewed what led her to this point.
She had braved many risks earlier in life--confronting at the age of six a broad-shouldered third-grade girl who threatened to steal her lunch money, begging a stern-mouthed eighth-grade math teacher to allow her to make up a test she had slept through, protesting the Vietnam War where the police could swoop in at any moment--but her belated self-realization clawed at her heart more than anything else. She could tell no one the truth about herself: not her classmates, not her family, not any prospective employers. If she revealed the most vital part of the core of her being to anyone, she risked ostracization. Even if she found a job, she could easily lose it through no fault of her own. Then she began to lean forward.
“Halt!”
The sudden voice almost startled Anactoria into executing her jump prematurely, but she turned around just in time to see the most beautiful woman she had ever met emerging from the mist.
The strange woman’s black hair billowed out behind her in the wind. Her heart-shaped face bore a dainty aquiline nose and a pair of eyes that glowed like green flames at the heart of a sacred polar cavern. Her olive skin seemed to suggest origination in some Mediterranean paradise. Most dazzling of all was her clothing. She wore a fluffy white-and-brown fur coat that extended to her ankles, a short white tunic that left her legs bare below the knee, and a pair of silver slippers. Over her shoulder lay a leather strap, and Anactoria discerned a quiver of arrows hanging across the woman’s back. At another time, Anactoria might have asked why anyone would wear bedroom slippers on a snowy cliff, but this situation was like no other she had ever experienced. She thought she detected a pale yellow glow emanating from the newcomer--or was it only her imagination rendering the woman with a superhuman cast?
“Who are you?” said the woman, whose voice sounded like the tranquil meandering of a brook. She walked over to Anactoria, whose breath caught in her throat.
“Who are you, my dear?” she repeated.
“Why do you want to know, ma’am? I’m no one who matters, I can tell you that.”
The green-eyed woman pressed two fingers under Anactoria’s chin and lifted her face up to her own.
“How ever did you come to believe that?”
“I’m a mere mortal at the whim of an urge I cannot change, and no one will accept that. I wish I could live a life honestly proclaiming who and what I am, but that isn’t possible, so I have to die.”
The beautiful stranger withdrew her hand from the underside of Anactoria’s chin and wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulder.
“Speak to me of this secret of yours, and I will accept you with open arms. I will divulge it to no one.”
“Do you mean it?” The loveliest people to behold were not always the most trustworthy.
“I swear it by the moon."
A Shakespearean quotation suggested itself, but Anactoria declined it. After taking a few moments to clear her throat of phlegm and constriction, she said, “I love women as a man loves women, and I can’t let anyone know.”
Her companion gave her a squeeze. "Nay, I would say that you love women as a woman loves women."
Anactoria sniffled, but she burrowed the side of her head into the other woman’s shoulder.
"How amusing it is to think that the name of Sappho's splendid nation would live on in golden glory even to this day. Now, come with me, my dear, and I will show you why you must live."
For a while, neither of them spoke. They walked away from the cliff’s edge and back toward the forest whence the strange woman had emerged. The pair continued to cling to each other as they entered the woods. Anactoria burrowed the side of her face into her companion's fur coat, hoping that her tears did not stain this magnificent woman's immaculate attire.
Eventually, they reached a glade in the heart of the forest, whereupon the stranger sat upon a log and bade that Anactoria do likewise. When they had both taken their seats, the woman in the fur coat said, “You will find that bliss still exists in this world. You may not wish to enter the next one so soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“At the other end of this forest, you will find your heart’s desire.”
“My heart’s desire is to live freely and openly as my true self.” And to share my life with one as lovely as you, she thought.
“That may be. But the heart has other desires, ones that it can never fulfill except in dreams—and that you can enjoy on the far side of these woods. Come, I will take you there.”
They walked on, arms around each other’s shoulders, until they saw a log cabin, complete with a chimney belching smoke into the air.
"I don't remember there being a log cabin on my way to the cliff," said Anactoria. "Should I trust this? Am I going crazy?"
"If you doubt your senses, I will enter the cabin with you."
Anactoria stared at her. With a chuckle that sounded like the tolling of brazen bells, the olive-skinned huntress pushed the door open and walked inside the cabin. The younger woman sniffed and caught the scent of some festive spice within, so she followed the embodiment of humanoid loveliness. What she saw nearly made her jaw drop.
In the center of the massive room stood a steaming hot tub, but more interesting to Anactoria were the young women inhabiting the cabin. The hot tub itself claimed a single occupant, a blonde in a one-piece black bathing suit, and on the couch sat three laughing, chatting girls whose hairstyles were all varying shades of brown. A slightly older, though still evidently college-aged, woman who had done her hair up in an Afro reclined in a beige easy chair and sipped a mug of hot chocolate. From an adjoining room emerged a woman carrying a tray of golden brown cookies. The three brunettes sprang from the sofa and made a beeline for the cookie tray, but the fourth woman said, "Wait a bit, they're still hot," and set it down on the table next to the couch.
Anactoria turned to the huntress. “Is this house a mere illusion, or is it real?”
“If it is but an illusion, then so are you. You are part of this scenario and therefore free to enjoy it.”
She started for the hot tub but stopped in her tracks. Turning back to the other woman, she said, "You never told me your name."
"Call me Diana," she said with a smile. "Now, go on. Luxuriate. I have boars and foxes to pierce and skin."
A final farewell formed in Anactoria's mouth, but the huntress vanished.
For a moment, the young woman froze. She cleared her throat and walked toward the hot tub.
"Did you just see that?"
"See what?" asked the blonde.
"The woman who brought me here just disappeared into thin air!"
"No, I can't say that I noticed. Maybe the water's just too fine." Anactoria thought a smirk began at the corners of the bathing beauty's mouth. Nonetheless, she stepped out of her snow boots and socks.
Then she sat at the edge of the steaming pool and dipped her toes into the water. The heat made her wince for a split second, but within an instant, the sensation turned to one of pleasure.
"As I said, the water's great. Come on in."
"But I didn't bring my swimsuit."
"Doesn't matter. You can always skinny-dip."
Anactoria blushed, and this time she knew the blonde woman smirked at her.
"Ah, don't worry 'cause it's in front of people. Nobody here will care."
"A-are you sure?"
"I've been with these ladies for years. We're all used to seeing one another naked. One more person won't send us into fainting fits. There's no one here but us--no one's going to see you through the windows. And if you leave your clothes on the floor, one of us will pick them up."
With her heartbeat accelerating, Anactoria unzipped her heavy coat, doffed her mittens, unbuttoned and threw aside her flannel shirt, unhooked her brassiere and let it fall to the floor, and peeled out of her trousers, leggings, and thermal underwear. Finally, she remembered to remove her hat. The blonde woman looked at her with a new appraisal, and Anactoria took the plunge into the beckoning pool.
Again, the initial heat spreading over the entire surface of her body shocked her, but within seconds, the discomfort blended seamlessly into sensuous delight.
The scents of cinnamon and cocoa wafting from the kitchen, the feminine laughter ringing around her, and the warmth of the water all melded into one concoction of bliss, as though some invisible alchemist had created a perfect formula for happiness and scattered it into the air.
She turned and looked through the window at the vast expanse of snow-blanketed woods. Had she really thought she deserved to die out there? More importantly, had she had a religious experience out there and not even realized it?
***
That night, Anactoria discovered to her surprise and great relief that the other side of the cabin contained two bedrooms, which between them contained enough beds to sleep all of the cabin's inhabitants. After finding a spare pair of wool pajamas and a few more hours of chatting with and confiding in her hostesses, Anactoria settled comfortably into bed. If this experience were only a dream, then surely she would not be going to bed just now, would she? The thought turned over multiple times in her mind before she finally drifted off to slumber.
Some time later, she awoke to find herself alone. She sat up, clutching the blankets to her chest, and then looked out the window.
Right in front of the entrance to the woods jogged Diana. She wore the same attire as when Anactoria met her--and close behind her followed the young women with whom she had shared the cabin! Gasping, Anactoria noticed that they had all changed into tunics and fur coats. The blonde wore a black tunic and matching slippers with a coat of red fox fur, and the woman in the Afro decked herself in yellow tunic and slippers with a gray-white wolf's pelt across her shoulders. The three brunettes, meanwhile, clad themselves in shades of purple, and each one wore the hide of a brown rabbit. Other women followed, each in her own color and fur.
She could hardly sleep again after such a sight. In the hopes of witnessing Diana and her posse once more, Anactoria stayed up with her face pressed to the window. These huntresses, as she came to think of them, did indeed run by the cabin again.
In the morning, the other women appeared inside the house as though nothing had happened, although Anactoria could have sworn she never saw or heard them come in. I must have fallen asleep again, she thought.
As much as she would have loved to stay in this mountain hideaway, the spring semester bellowed its demands for obedience, and Anactoria eventually rode the crosstown bus back to the city. When she resumed her course of study, she quickly found another woman to nourish her soul and ignite fires within her body. But whenever she saw a rabbit or deer step out of the woods and bound across the fields of a park or heard the wind rustle and caress the branches of a thicket of trees, she found her vision clouded by a mist-shrouded goddess.