When you are a child the world is an enchanted place, and that magic can be both wonderful and terrifying. On the one hand, a bottle found at the beach might contain a genie. Santa’s workshop might be working on your perfect gift right now. But at the same time, when you are lying alone at night, the noise under your bed or in your closet might be a monster. The black cat that scurries across the sidewalk as you make your way to school might foretell sickness or injury.

As you grow up the world loses that color. Time and space become predictable and mundane. There is nothing to make you shudder in anticipation, but likewise nothing to freeze the blood with dread. Until you come across something, or someone, that changes everything again.

I didn’t realize what I had encountered in Goddess Marquesa at first. I surely used the word “magical” about her in the many fawning emails I sent her, but I never intended it in the literal sense. I was using the cynical hyperbole of grownups. I did not really believe her capable of re-awakening the childhood awareness I had possessed of an enchanted world, in all its delightful and horrific splendor.

In retrospect it seems strange that I was so oblivious. Her effect on my libido was certainly eldritch- why didn’t I have some inkling of what would transpire? A middle-aged man, I was suddenly having erections constantly, like a teenager. If that does not qualify as magic, what does? But I suppose I put it down to biology and never thought on it further.

It was also perhaps because I fell under her spell gradually that I failed to recognize the supernatural dynamic at work. When I first encountered her online I merely indulged in her videos, savoring the intensely cathartic arousal and release that her voice and image could conjure. In a short while I could not be satisfied with passive adoration, and craved personal interaction with her. Talking with her on the phone awakened passions I had scarce imagined in earlier life. Knowing that we lived in the same city, in short order I began to book personal sessions with her as often as I could afford them.

My passion for the Goddess progressively encroached upon my daily life, though I was too distracted to notice. Friendships were lost, work suffered. But my happiness only increased as my yearning for Goddess Marquesa deepened and intensified. More and more of my leisure time was devoted to contemplation of or service to her. I saved to buy her gifts and made a close study of her tastes and desires. I wrote stories for publication on her website. My life descended into a blissful paean to her beauty and allure.

It was a kind of paradise, but of course Eden has its perils. For me the snake in the garden was jealousy. And pride. One day I was happily prostrate before the Goddess, kissing her feet in thanks for the fresh welts that she had just made across my back with her lash, when she remarked offhandedly, “I will be out of town for most of next week. If you want a session it will have to be the following Tuesday, or after.”

“Where are you going?” I asked in idle curiosity.

“I will be staying at the Plaza in Santa Clara. A loyal slave will be joining me there.”

“Oh,” I grunted disconsolately, unable to hide my emotions.

“Hmmm….” Goddess Marquesa mused, “I can tell that you think it should be you who gets to serve me on vacation.”

“Well…..” I drawled, hesitant to speak my mind.

“Well, what?” the Goddess demanded, her patience ebbing. “Spit it out. What do you think I owe you?”

Deep down I knew that I should be silent, but some perverse inclination drove me on. “Haven’t I been loyal?” I protested. “Above and beyond all the phone calls and sessions, I give you gifts….I write stories for your website…”

“And what do you get in return?” the Goddess asked, her eyebrow gorgeously arched in pique, which should have been a warning.

“Well…..” I began, tentatively, “….I get the same thing that your other slaves do. Your time….your attention….but I do so much more than the others, that’s my point….”

“Hahahahaha!” The gales of laughter that my answer elicited were so thunderous that my heart froze at the sound. “You little worm!” the Goddess fumed. “Do you think this is some kind of snake-oil transaction, like the little bimbos on the internet are selling? Have you learned nothing in the past months? Your money doesn’t buy My attention. I do what it please Me to do to you, nothing else. You labor for Me and tribute Me for one reason and one reason only- because I permit you to adore Me.”

“Permit me to adore you?” I echoed, sounding as foolish as I felt.

“That is right,” Goddess Marquesa confirmed, “and don’t for a second forget it.”

I should have saved myself there, but the demons of jealousy and vanity were pushing me from within. “But….you can’t stop me from adoring you….” I whined, for all the world acting like a petulant child.

A look of pure fury crossed the Goddess’s face that revealed her kinship to her namesakes of myth. “You have a hard lesson to learn,” she breathed, her tone terrifying despite her soft inflection. “Look into My eyes and listen to My voice, slave. You feel yourself relaxing…..”

The next thing I remember I was on the street, several blocks from Goddess Marquesa’s house. I don’t know how I had gotten there, presumably I had walked. I had made it to within a few hundreds yards of my bus stop without being sensible of what I was doing. Aside from surprise at the sudden shift of scene, I was aware of another change. Though I could still remember Goddess Marquesa and our whole relationship very clearly, I no longer felt the same yearning and love for her. In fact, no matter how intently I called to mind her beautiful face, gorgeous body, or alluring personality, I felt complete indifference. “Good,” I actually said out loud, “if her trance stopped my adoring her, she did me a favor.”

I actually believed that for a while. But as the days and weeks passed the foolishness of those words became clear. Though I no longer had the same yearnings for Goddess Marquesa, I could remember very clearly how desiring her had made me feel. When I had been her worshiper, the world had been a place of color and delight, a garden of sensual and emotional experience- some pleasant, some less so, but all stimulating and engaging. Now that my feelings for her were gone, by contrast with my life before the world had become flat and monochrome. There were no deep lows as I had experienced as the Goddess’s slave, but no real highs either.

My daily existence became plodding and routine. Music was dull. Food lacked flavor. Relationships were lackluster and dreary. Boredom drove me to gain weight and to drink more heavily. My personality changed. I was irritable and morose, unpleasant company at the best of times. Isolation deepened my dark mood. Depression set in.

After about six weeks I had had enough. As had become all too common, I was seated alone at my desk at home with only a bottle of whiskey and a glass for company. I opened the bottom draw and took out the .22 caliber pistol that I had bought for home defense. Laying it on the desk in front of me, I began to search for reasons why I should not put it in my mouth and pull the trigger, and was having little success.

At that moment something caught my attention in my peripheral vision. My computer had switched over to my screen-saver, which I had never bothered to change. Looking up, I saw Goddess Marquesa smiling at me over the shiny casing of the revolver.

Realization brought me to my feet and propelled me out the door. The bus ride felt like an eternity, but an hour and a half later I was at the Goddess’s door. Luckily for me she was home. As soon as she answered the door I fell to my knees. “Please, Goddess,” I begged, sobbing, not caring who among her neighbors might be watching, “please let me adore You again. Life is misery without the chance to worship You. Let me feel alive again. Let me adore You as i did before.”

Goddess Marquesa is as generous as She is beautiful. She granted my wish that day, and let me back into Eden. i am determined never to forget my lesson, and blissfully offer prayers of worship and thanksgiving to Her daily. Let all who read this take heed: if you don’t worship Goddess Marquesa yet, you will. Now that you know She exists, you will have no choice but to fall under Her spell. You will be glad you did, and once it happens, don’t make my mistake. Never forget how fortunate you are to be allowed to adore Her.