We head north on the interstate. The radio is on, playing something classical, but neither of us is really listening. He keeps his eyes on the road; I look out the window without paying much attention to what I'm seeing. We don't talk, nor do we brush hands like we usually do when we're in the car. I'm afraid I'll start to weep if I so much as open my mouth.

Or worse, that I'll make him weep.

Midsummer Eve.

We drove to one of the massive suburban parks that circle the larger metropolitan area to the north like a long emerald necklace. Like any other park, it's closed to the public after dark, and patrolled, which is why he parked the car in a parking lot about a half a mile away from the park entrance we accessed, and why we've been walking in shadows to our destination, a formation of three hundred-million-year-old ledges and boulders that overlook a lake.

When we reach them, I look up in awe. The boulders are huge - some of the rocks are the size of small houses. They're dwarfed by the ledges themselves, which soar above the trees.

He says quietly, "This used to be an ocean bed. These sandstone ledges used to be mud and silt; when the ocean dried up, the stone was lashed by wind until the boulders and ledges you see here were made. The rock formations, made of conglomerate sandstone, a soft and brittle rock if ever there was one, then somehow managed to survive multiple ice ages, and glaciers three miles high and as wide as the continent they covered, glaciers that flattened the terrain and left not just till behind when they melted, but also deep grooves in the earth, and a series of massive lakes. These rocks and ledges remained through it all. It puts a certain perspective on things, doesn't it? Eromene, are you certain you want to do this?"

"Yes."

"What we do will be permanent. These are not just vows. We are binding our souls together."

"My Erastes, our souls are already bound."

"They will be more so, after this."

I don't see how that could even be possible. How could the two of us be more knotted and interwoven than we already are? I smile and swallow past the lump in my throat. "I accept. This is what I want, my love. I think it's what I've always wanted. I'm tired of running. I thought we had this discussion."

"We need to be certain. There will be no undoing what we do. Not in this life, nor in what is to come. It will be forever. You are certain, then, that this is your Will?"

"Yes."

He falls silent for a moment. "It is mine, too. For a number of reasons, I do not think this is sensible or logical on our part, nor do I think it even remotely wise, but it does feel right, and inevitable, and I believe that, not common sense or rationality, is what operates here, and what aligns our Wills. And may all that Is witness our intent. Well, then. Let us move on."

We begin to pick our way uphill, weaving our way through stone and trees, finding a path that will take us to the top. It's a good thing the waning moon is still a few days away from being new. The ground looks treacherous.

Eventually, we scramble to a high spot and find a good place to lay down the blanket. It's surrounded by just enough scrub brush and sapling trees that we don't stand out in silhouette to the casual eye, so if there is a park ranger or a police officer on patrol, we probably won't be spotted; meanwhile, our location is just exposed enough to the air that when we look up, we get a good view of the moon's crescent, and what stars we can see through ambient light. We're too close to the city to see much more than the brightest heavenly bodies.

My book bag has been temporarily converted into a picnic carrier. After the blanket come the teacups, which are from a Japanese tea set and hold about half as much liquid as their Western equivalents, and have the virtue of being sturdier than the antique shot glasses we use for drinking absinthe when we're at home, or any other kinds of receptacles made from glass; a box of sugar cubes; a slotted silver spoon; and our bottle of homemade absinthe, which after two years still has several shots left in it, because we only bring it out for our magickal workings which rely on heightened concentration and awareness - guided visualizations, dream work, scrying, seeking conversations with our higher Selves.

And now, performing a Hieros Gamos. Our personal circumstances couldn't be more in conflict with what we are about to do. Our souls, however, disagree with our personal circumstances.

I think we could have skipped the spoon, the sugar cubes, and the fancy teacups, and just made do with a thermos with some absinthe and simple syrup mixed into it, but he likes the quasi-ceremonial trappings of absinthe served the Victorian way. It must be the romantic in him.

Silently, I watch him put a sugar cube onto the spoon and pour absinthe over it, letting the resulting mixture drip into one of the teacups. The dripping becomes a pouring as the sugar cube eventually dissolves.

"There," he says, "that's yours," then repeats the process.

When he is done, he lifts his cup, and we drink to each other.

I cast the circle myself when we have both drained the cups. It's more practical this way; we're outside, in a public park, and all the trappings he'd be using if he was the one setting it up would have been cumbersome. Now that my magickal training has been completed, I am no longer under silence, but I keep my silence anyway. It's still how I focus my energy.

I walk slowly, stopping at each cardinal point as I invoke the elements; when I call Air from the east, a slight breeze kicks up, bringing a welcome chill to the hot summer night.

Fireflies dance in the distance.

Heat lightning flashes.

He reaches for me, and I ground the energy through him, palm to palm, lip to lip, feeling the ancient sediments of the ledge holding us fast. We are two, in the process of becoming one: man to woman, Shakta to Shakti, heaven to earth, priest to priest, god to goddess. Soul to soul, self to self.

Will to Will.

Our hands begin unfastening each other's clothing. It doesn't take long; soon we are naked to each other and to the flaring night sky, our flesh warm and electric as we move over each other, caressing all the places we know so well in each other and never tire of rediscovering.

He kneels and covers my genitals with his mouth, flicking me with his tongue. I gasp but manage to avoid making any actual noise. Just. Even after four and a half years of practicing silence in a cast circle, it seems almost more than I can bear to keep my voice inside myself.

His tongue is so sweet, so gentle.

Eventually, my climax overtakes me; my knees collapse, and I find myself trembling against him, grinding my pelvis into his mouth and tongue, held up only by the strength in his arms. A strangled noise escapes me.

When I open my eyes and look down, I see him smiling one of his rare softer smiles.

He lets me down slowly - it's the only way I can move at all, short of falling onto the ground, my knees are still shaking so hard that they don't support my weight - and onto his lap. I almost cry out as I feel myself impaled on him, and instinctively start to writhe back and forth, my breath hot against his shoulder.

"Hush. Stop," he whispers. "Or it will be over before we've begun to weave our souls. Focus on me. Breathe with me. Focus your energy on mine and be still while I braid. Don't move."

His lips are as hot as fire when they meet mine. Our tongues brush against each other; lightning travels up my spine as he reaches into me with his breath and pulls, and despite myself, I find myself moaning and rocking my hips against him. He tightens his grasp on my hips and pushes me down further so that I can no longer ride him. He's in me so deep. I hang on edge, keening, as my body burns.

A wry smile pulls at one corner of his mouth. "I know the temptation is very great to only concentrate on the sex. Believe me, I am quite tempted, myself. Please. Focus on me instead. Meditate until we are both in trance. I need your cooperation in this, or I won't be able to perform my own role in the work we do. You're... starting to get very distracting."

I listen for his breathing pattern, breathe in deeply, hold it, exhale. Repeat.

Eventually, my own howling need seems to not so much die down as fade into the background and become unimportant. I listen to his breath and feel my own breath start to synchronize itself with his. I pay mindful attention. My hips still seem to be trying to rock of their own accord, but no longer urgently or quickly. He punctuates his breath with kisses; every time his lips touch mine, a little current of lightning tickles up and down my spine. Mostly, though, we just breathe in and out.

Wind swirls around us. The sky flickers with light.

At some point in this sighing of wind, the absinthe lucidity comes into our minds, enfolding us with green fairy wings; we look into each other's eyes, and in one accord, our mouths meet once more. I reach with my breath for the core of his being as he breathes me in, and soon we are burning in fire, sailing in stars, free of our bodies, rising into the multifoliate rose of the heavens as we dissolve into each other; we dance in flame, our passion a starburst in the darkness, witnessed by all the stars of the cosmos. God and goddess, we love.

We explode as one, we cry out as one, we burn together and are One.