The Rose Garden 6

Roused awake, Beth struggled to her feet with help from Andrea and two special volunteers who had also napped for an hour, but comfortably in hammocks slung between trees. They gathered around Beth, and Brian motioned for them to follow him. The women slung a warm cloak over Beth’s shoulders and spoke to her quietly as they walked.

The path from the rose garden continued on the other side of the clearing, its entrance between two enormous mahogany trees. They followed it through the night forest, a restless living thing in the dark. The sound of the forest stream grew louder, until they emerged onto its banks, its fresh waters running restlessly across rocky shoals, splashing and refreshing the night air. A warm breeze swayed fronds of tropical plants hanging over the brook.

Walking with Andrea and her companions, combined with the fresh scent of the forest stream, restored Beth’s spirits after the punishment she had endured. She turned over in her mind the pain and pleasure she felt as Riff whipped her. She knew that the orgasms it produced were the strongest and most pleasurable she had ever experienced. And she realized with shock that she wanted more.

The path wound a short way to the left along the brook and ended in another forest clearing, a modest one about the size of a large room. Tree limbs there had been cleverly trained to form a wall that faced the brook, curving toward the water like the hands of a priest reaching out to the gods in supplication. The limbs and leaves of the espalier wall surrounded a space of bare brown soils on three sides and supported a wild array of tropical vines and flowers. Spaced around the espalier living wall sat garden statuary of fauns and deer and naked humans in various poses that delighted Beth, each set apart in their own little displays of brilliant flowers and lush shrubs.

The night sky was beginning to lighten noticeably as dawn approached, but the little clearing was still in shadows. The statues along the living wall seemed to move and dance as the flames from the volunteers’ torches played on them, but it was the figure emerging from the night’s shadows in the middle of the clearing that made Beth catch her breath.

On a stone plinth, a large statue carved of red-brown mahogany wood loomed up, its human form that of a naked warrior with a tight torso and square jaw. Its large face gazing fiercely at her from under thick eyebrows turned Beth’s knees to water. As the group approached more closely, the sun popped up above the horizon and flooded the statue’s oiled mahogany surfaces with golden light. The intricately carved features of the statue’s face seemed to come alive and beckon Beth forward.

She stepped closer in the silent dawn, drawn to the fierce face but fearful of it.