Laura Broderick was named for her mother. Most Americans wouldn’t recognize that because her mother’s name was Lowri. But if you were from Wales or knew any Welsh history, you would recognize that Lowri and Laura were the same name. Names aside, there was no doubt that Lowri and Laura were mother and daughter. Both had the very fair, burns-red-in-the-sun pale skin common of someone with Celtic heritage as well as pale green eyes, and reddish-orange hair. According to her father, Thomas Broderick, Laura also shared her mother’s temper and determination.The most recent showing of that determination– and to some extent her temper– was when Laura and her father disagreed about having the Serene Sisters of Sibyl at the house for a Halloween Party.“You know your mother is going to be home visiting relatives,” her father argued. He had met Lowri while studying in England. They fell in love and were married before he finished his year of study. She agreed to return to the states with him with one provision. She claimed that she was a descendant of Gwenllian Ferch Gruffydd, the Welsh Joan of Arc / Maid Marian / Queen Guinevere, and had to be free to go back to Kidwelly every year for two weeks to visit family and participate in some ceremonies of remembrance. The two weeks she needed to be gone were always the last week of October and the first week of November. Thomas thought that was a small price to pay for marrying such a beautiful woman. He wouldn’t know until long after the wedding day that she was also rich… very rich.“And you know that I will be on duty all night,” he continued. Thomas was a police officer in Wexford. It was a relatively quiet town and the small police force made it a point to know the people who lived there, including the students at the local college. Such close relationships between the people and the police leads to a quiet, peaceful town. But Halloween was always a trying time with teenagers up to this or that and some of the college students getting a little excessive with their partying, so all officers were on duty overnight.Laura was a senior at WCC – Wexford Community College. The college was originally a two- year, all commuter college, but had grown into a full four-year college in recent years with a significant number of students living in dormitories and apartment buildings in and around the campus. There were no official fraternities or sororities, but there were several “special interest groups” that used Greek letters to identify themselves.One such group was the Serene Sisters of Sybil, known on campus as the Triple Sigmas. Laura was the president of the Triple Sigmas. Actually, she was their Chief Wise Woman, but for purposes of representing the Sisters to the outside world, she was their president.The Serene Sisters were dedicated to the wisdom of nature. In the past, they would have been called witches, but they eschewed that designation and preferred to think of themselves as modern-day wise women. Since they also did not adhere to many of the religious aspects normally associated with wise women, they did not use the term “Wiccan.” They did, however, recognize that many of the mystical and magical practices normally associated with wise women had some basis in reality. As Laura said to all new members, “There may not be a scientific explanation for them… yet… but that doesn’t mean they don’t work.”One of those practices that seemed to have some efficacy was the “Witches’ Sabbath.” That practice can be traced to the Dark Night celebrations held in Ireland, Wales, and to some extent, in England in the old days. Dark Night was a time of renewal. Everything was made new. Homes and barns and storage areas were totally cleaned. Fires were extinguished and hearths and chimneys cleaned out. Then on the first dark of the moon following the autumnal equinox, a sacred fire would be built by the local shaman. There would be dancing and celebrating around the fire and then at midnight, after the bonfire had burned down, the people would take a glowing ember home in a carved-out turnip to relight their home fires.People who did not follow those practices often encountered disease and misfortune over the winter. People became sick. Houses burned. Women miscarried. Today we would say that the careful cleaning of homes and storage places was what prevented the diseases and miscarriages, and the thorough cleaning of the hearths and clearing the build-up of creosote from the chimneys was what greatly reduced the likelihood of chimney fires over the winter. There was nothing necessarily magical about Dark Night. There was nothing necessarily sacred about the bonfire, but the people who followed the practices of Dark Night benefitted greatly from what they did.Laura and her fellow Sisters knew that there was nothing magical about their Halloween ceremonies– which were based on Dark Night– but somehow, something about opening oneself to the sky and each other allowed an increase of consciousness and knowledge. And there was, of course, the sex.Again, from a purely scientific point of view, being able to create the personal courage necessary to dance naked in the moonlight would enable a woman to find the courage for many things as she journeyed onward in life. Standing open and receptive… and naked… around a fire trained a young woman’s mind to be open to many things in the future. And what better way of forming lasting bonds than becoming intimate with someone in a ritualistic setting. Most of the Serene Sisters of Sybil had boyfriends or significant others. Most went on to marry and raise families, but the relationships they formed as a part of Triple Sigma were with them forever. The good ol’ Demetevler Escort boy network may have once ruled the boardrooms, but networks such as the Triple Sigmas were becoming just as strong.It had taken Laura a lot of convincing to get her father to agree to the party. It had taken even more to get her fellow Sisters to agree. Normally they went out of town to an alumnae’s farm or large estate and held a bonfire. This year, besides being in town, Laura wanted the fountain in her backyard to be the center of their dance. Even in Wexford, known for its warm weather, the end of October tended to be cool. Midnight on October 31st would tend to be downright chilly. The fine spray of a fountain as they danced around it would not help. After much discussion, a compromise was reached. There would be a fire… in the corner of the Broderick’s walled in back yard. But the ritual dance would take place around the fountain.Laura’s house was not ostentatious. From the street it looked very much like many of the other homes in their suburb. But the back yard, walled for security, composed several acres. It was as quiet and secluded as any of the farm fields on which they had built their bonfires in the past. The walls on the outside were surrounded by a pasture which was used by a local woman who raised goats and sold boutique-style goat cheese. People in town wondered how she could afford to rent such a large area of land right at the edge of town, but in reality, she paid nothing in rent. The land had been purchased by Lowri to ensure privacy and the goats, themselves, paid the rent by keeping the grass cropped short and discouraging trespassers.The evening began on the spacious back deck of the Broderick house. Thirteen young women sat sipping drinks and talking of this or that. Before sunset, they took turns answering the front door for trick or treaters. After sunset… after the wee bitty ghouls and goblins had returned to their homes to luxuriate in their yearly sugar high, two of the women poured more oil on the wood of the bonfire and added crumpled newspaper at three points equally spaced around the carefully stacked wood. Thomas had brought in three pickup truckloads of wood for the fire and carefully arranged the fire according to the directions set forth in the Serene Sisters’ handbook. There was a large pole buried upright in the ground in the center. Around that was stacked three cords of firewood. Then long logs, split into quarters and leaned against the pole in a conical form, were placed over the inner core of firewood. Finally, the entire pile was soaked with cooking oil. The instructions actually said oil rendered from fat, but Laura had told him, “Just use cooking oil.”If someone were to fly a drone over the Broderick’s back yard– which, by the way, was illegal in Wexford– they would wonder if someone was going to be burned at the stake. No person or effigies was tied to the stake, however. It was primarily to prevent the fire from collapsing and injuring someone. Though the stake rising above the conical fire did make a powerful image which served as a reminder to the Sisters of the dangers of being a wise and powerful woman in this world.One final bit of preparation was done by the Sisters themselves. It wasn’t that this particular part of the ritual was super secret, but there are some things that a daughter does not want to have to explain to her father–like a sacred circle in which she would be stretched out and bound naked while her twelve Sisters repeatedly took her to orgasm.When the sun was over the horizon and the yard was dimly illuminated by a combination of twilight and the anti-insect torches which surrounded the deck, three of the Sisters walked out and lit the bonfire. Although it wasn’t specified or required, they each used a camper-style flint and steel to create the sparks which began the fire. Then once the fire was caught and spreading through the pile of wood, they used some tightly-rolled pieces of newspaper to light the five torches which surrounded the Circle of Wisdom.You or I might call the circle drawn with flour on the grass with a five-pointed start in its middle a Pentagram, but the Serene Sisters of Sybil called it the Circle of Wisdom. And the symbols which they drew with flour on the grass around the Circle were not ancient symbols calling forth the Devil or any spirit good or evil, they were symbols of things important to each Sister in her life. Thirteen symbols surrounded the Circle of Wisdom. The one at the top peak of the star within the Circle was a snake coiled around a staff. That was Laura’s symbol. She wanted to be a doctor and perhaps some day be in charge of a children’s hospital.Laura waited for the second star to be clearly seen in the night sky before declaring, “It’s time.”The twelve Sisters followed her silently to the fountain in the middle of the yard. Laura had explained the significance of the fountain to them when she convinced them to do their ceremony here. The stones which formed the meter-deep pool at the base of the fountain had been quarried from the same cliffs as the stones used to build Kidwelly Castle… or Cydweli Castle, as her mother called it. The English and Welsh words were pronounced the same so the difference wasn’t noticeable when you spoke, but Lowri never spelled it Kidwelly.The water in the fountain was local… mostly. Every three months a fifty-five gallon barrel arrived from Wales. It was a new barrel and it contained water drawn from Maes Gwenllian– the field of Gwenllian. It is there that a modern pool– also made of Cydweli stones– holds water from the spring which sprang Otele Gelen Escort from the ground at the spot where Gwenllian’s head first touched the ground after being struck from her body by the Norman leader, Maurice of London.Once the thirteen Sisters had formed a circle around the fountain, Laura began a slow mantra chant. As the chant was echoed by the Sisters and grew in volume, the fountain slowly began to glow reddish-orange, as if it were on fire. That wasn’t magic either. There were underwater lights in the fountain and Laura and her father had changed the white bulbs for red ones. That meant draining the fountain, but that was done four times a year anyway for cleaning when the new water arrived from Maes Gwenllian. The fountain would glow red for the next three months until a new shipment of water arrived from Cydweli.The thirteen women broke their circle and began to sway with the chant which flowed randomly from the group, building slowing in volume and speed. The chant occasionally changed pitch, but somehow each voice stayed in harmony with the others as they became deeper or more shrill. Soon someone, not Laura but one of the sisters, started moving slowly along the Circle. Again, the thirteen seemed to sense the movement and remained evenly spaced around the fountain as they danced and twirled and leapt around the glowing red fountain.If you were to interrupt their dance and ask any one of the Sisters what they felt or what they were thinking, you would hear a variety of answers, all of which basically said, “I felt like I was becoming one with the universe. I was thinking about how I fit into our great cosmos.”After many minutes of dancing, Laura slowed and raised her hands high above her head. The other young women followed her lead. She continued to slow until she was standing in place with her hands held high above her head, her fingers reaching toward the sky. Despite the coolness of the evening, her body was now damp with perspiration and the red glow of the fountain reflected off her pert breasts and taut abdomen. If you were watching from the trees along the wall, you would have seen that her back and wonderfully-rounded ass glowed a slightly different color as it reflected the light of the bonfire.“I am ready,” she said softly, but firmly, and turned to walk toward the Circle of Wisdom.The twelves Sisters followed her. One made a quick detour back to the deck to pick up two rather large metal sphere-like objects. Laura lay on her back in the center of the Circle with her head at the top point of the star. Her hands reached out to the two torches at the next points of the star. Two of the Sisters guided her feet into the lower two points.One of the Sisters, Klarissa, gathered Laura’s long, red hair in her fingers and pulled it tight above her head. She then began tightly winding a flat leather strap around the hair forming it into a long ponytail-like prong sticking straight up from Laura’s head. If Laura’s hair had been any shorter, this configuration would not have been possible, but if her hair were shorter, Laura would not be the Chief Wise Woman. Already Klarissa– the Chief Wise Woman in Waiting binding Laura’s hair– was letting her hair grow out. It had not been cut since she was elected as the one to take over when Laura graduated in the spring. Many students at WCC speculated as to the reason the Chief Wise Woman’s hair was so long. There were many great theological and religious reasons given, but no one guessed it was so that she could be properly bound into the Circle of Wisdom.Klarissa completed winding the leather around Laura’s hair and then laid a looped piece of rope against the leather-bound ponytail. Opening the loop, she quickly wound the leather back down the ponytail, binding the rope in place. After flipping the other end of the loop back up, she again wound the leather back up to the tip of Laura’s hair, using the last bit of the leather to tightly tie everything in place. She then wound the other end of the rope around the base of the torch at the peak of the star and pulled it tight.Klarissa stood up and nodded her head. The two Sisters at Laura’s hands quickly wrapped leather restraint cuffs around Laura’s wrists and tightly tied her arms pointing out toward the next set of torches. Then two Sisters wrapped similar cuffs around Laura’s ankles and four Sisters– two on each leg– pulled those ropes very tightly and wrapped them around the stout posts supporting the torches on the bottom two points of the star.Klarissa again nodded her head and the twelve Sisters moved to stand on their symbol surrounding the Circle of Wisdom. “Junie,” Klarissa said, “you are the most senior member of the Sisterhood. You shall roll first.”Junie walked over to the two strange spheres lying on the ground and brought them back to the Circle. The spheres, each about the size of a softball, were actually large, metal, dodecahedron dice. The twelve-sided dice had originally been intended for a Dungeons and Dragons game, but a Sister in the past had taken them to an autobody shop where the numbers were ground off one of the die and several coats of high-gloss paint were applied within the hexagons which formed each side on both dice. The brass borders on the hexagons and the remaining numbers within them were then highly polished and a coat of lacquer applied to the whole. The die without numbers had only two colors on it, white and blue. The other had twelve shades of red from a very light pink to a deep, deep red. The lightest pink was number one, the deepest red was twelve.She rolled one die out onto the ground. “A three,” she Balgat Escort said glumly, “I was hoping to be able to do something more intense.” She then rolled the second die onto the ground. Several voices murmured, “Come on blue,” while one voice said flatly, “It’s going to be white.”“Pain, level three,” Klarissa said loudly. “Hands only.”Junie walked into the center of the Circle and lowered herself down so that she was kneeling astride Laura’s body. She continued lowering herself so that she was sitting on Laura’s hips. She ground her sex slightly into Laura’s and Klarissa called out, “Pain only. No Pleasure.”“The pleasure was for me,” Junie answered softly, then she reached up and grabbed Laura’s nipples between her thumbs and the side of her index finger. She pinched very hard while rolling the nipple up and down on the side of her finger. Laura squirmed in pain and groaned slightly. Junie again ground herself slightly against Laura’s squirming hips.“I think that will do,” Klarissa said firmly.“I would have preferred giving pleasure,” Junie said as she stood up.“I think you receive pleasure from giving pain,” a voice said. It was the same voice that had said the die would be white.“What do you know, Cassandra?” Junie said smartly.“Everything,” Cassie replied, “but no one will believe me. My parents cursed me with this name… and with my gift.”“Cassie, you are next,” Klarissa said.“It will be a blue four,” Cassie said as she picked up the dice from the grass. Everyone laughed, but became silent when the first die stopped. A pale red hexagon with a bright shiny 4 in the middle of it was on top. No one spoke as Cassie rolled the second die. They knew… and yet would not believe… that it would come up blue. It did.“Pleasure, level four,” Klarissa said. “Hands and mouth only. No genital contact.”Cassie smiled as she stepped into the Circle. She knelt alongside Laura and said, “Let’s see if we can make those nipples feel better.” She leaned forward and began lightly rubbing her hands around the base of Laura’s breasts. After several circles, her fingers began moving up toward the areolae and after more tight loops around those bright pink circles she moved her fingers in to lightly pull upwards on the nipples.Laura sighed slightly, opening herself up to the pleasure. Her sigh became a gasp as Cassie kissed each nipple and then stuck out her tongue and lapped lightly at just the tip of each pink nub as it began to stiffen. Cassie raised herself up so that she was looking straight up at the stars and then stiffly lowered herself back down so that only her mouth and lips touched Laura’s body. She suckled strongly on first one nipple and then the other. Klarissa had just raised her hand when Cassie moved higher and kissed Laura squarely on the mouth.“Time,” Klarissa said quietly, but Cassandra was already rising from her knees and walking back to her place in the Circle.One of the Sisters leaned over to another and whispered loudly, “How in the hell does she do that?”“Know when to stop or know how to suck titties like that?” the other replied.Both Sisters laughed, but quickly straightened up when Klarissa said harshly, “Sisters! Keep your mind on what we are doing. The Circle of Wisdom is not just for the Chief Wise Woman. We all learn from what happens here tonight. There will be time after the Circle is completed to enjoy each other’s company.”After the Sisters quieted, she said, “Melinda, you are next.”As Melinda was picking up the dice, Cassandra turned to Klarissa and said, “It will be blue. Blue shall flow until the final roll, then it shall be darkest red and brightest white, but even that will be eclipsed by what shall follow.”“What?” Klarissa snapped and Cassie suddenly looked confused.“Did I say something?” she said in a slightly shaky voice. “Did I say something wrong again?” she added almost fearfully.“No, Cassandra,” Klarissa replied, much more softly this time. “You were just being you. And we have come to accept you for what you are.”“Thank you,” Cassie murmured back.Melinda cast both dice together and Klarissa announced, “Pleasure, level seven. Hands and mouth only. Genital contact is allowed.”Melinda knelt alongside Laura and gave her a long kiss on the lips. Then she moved to the bottom of the star and knelt between Laura’s legs. As she lowered herself down to Laura’s sex, several of the Sisters gasped. They had never seen Melinda’s tongue before. One of the Sisters who had seen Melinda in action before described it as “She can’t quite lick her eyebrows, but she can reach the top on the tip of her nose.”Melinda ran her long tongue along the edges of Laura’s labia and then began penetrating slowly. She almost looked like a cat lapping at a bowl of milk as her tongue darted deeper and deeper between Laura’s nether lips. Laura was just starting to moan slightly when Melinda moved upward and speared her clit. That is the only word to describe how Melinda’s tongue shot out of her mouth and pressed against the very tip of Laura’s sensitive love bud.Laura’s response was a rapid intake of breath combined with a moaning gasp. Three more gasps and moans followed before Klarissa said, “Time.”As Melinda rose to her feet, she looked down at Laura and said, “I wish I had rolled a nine. We would have had much more time together.”Yvonne rolled a six and, of course, a blue. “Pleasure, level eight,” Klarissa said. She really didn’t need to add, “Hands and mouth only. Genital contact is allowed,” but she said it anyway because it was her duty as Chief Wise Woman in Waiting. Actually all of the Sisters knew the basic levels for pleasure. One through three were hands only; four through six were hands and mouth; seven through nine allowed genital contact; and ten through twelve allowed the use of toys. If a twelve was rolled, a strap-on could be used, but was not required. Actually, if one of the Sisters thought she could do a better job without the toys, they were not required. Melinda was the only Sister who had ever forgone the use of toys when rolling one of the high numbers.