I was invited for all hallows eve to the House of the Stone Garden (who does not know it though they do not advertise?) and that is how I found myself naked, chained to a stone altar their virgin sacrifice.  Difficult to say what pained me more, impending doom, the cold of stone against my utterly unclothed (had I ever been so naked?) body or my status, virginal as it was. 

Though surrounded by stone figures and dwellers of the house I had once thought so beautiful, this was but a burning awareness pressed on my rapidly beating heart.  I drew breaths that were sobs, unmanned by my predicament.  Through wild eyes saw only the sculpted perfection of my one angel; a graceful figure in stone, head inclined to watch over me.  Her pale marble skin smooth and polished glowed under the moon and she seemed almost alive.  I took her for my Madonna … until she moved.

“Haldis,” the dwellers hailed the ashen queen but her eyes were only for me.  Silvered now, not quite mortal grey, Haldis leaned forward, her garments slid away and her breasts were not of woman.  Closer the beautiful lips sank and now I shrieked with horror.  (I shrieked to find my woman a man.)  The sensuality turned and I struggled against the chains.  I foresaw the blade that would penetrate his sacrifice.  A premonition of anguish fell upon me as did perfect flesh, not stone but soft, warm and silk.  (By comparison my skin was base and unworthy though I ran from that thought.)  Haldis understood.

Time did not undo itself, but as he moved round the altar – marble smooth in the moonlight – he clothed his flesh in woman (again or so I made it for my sanity of mind).  She climbed upon me, laid her body over my prostrate form and moved that satin that silk against me.  I was ensnared, by silver eyes and pale full lips and supranatural skin.  Despite my audience, I was aroused. 

“I am the spirit of stone … stone endures … almost as long as forever.” Her voice was rock and stone, not cracked, not hard, but certain, eternal; commanding.  For how long I moved in her is a matter of perception, momentary or unending but when Haldis returned to manhood, I did not struggle and was pierced by wondrous stone.  I remember seeing them; the beatific figures of stone, daimones come to life and our fertility rite, the progeny of the spirit of stone. 

So I was sacrificed and so I endure, stone betimes and flesh among the dwellers at others and here it is another All Hallows Eve and an invitation must be delivered.  I will write your invite in my hand that you say is so elegant, so un-modern.  Afterwards, once you too join the daimones of stone, I will let you read my story as it happened the night I was the virginal sacrifice to the spirit of stone.