Crouching behind the boulder flanked by three loyal pit bulls, the hunter watched the naked figure on the rock with grudging awe.

For, while every hunter occasionally appealed to the rain or the wind while tracking his pray in the lonely woods, asking them to cease or turn, none ever commanded a river.

But when the virgin called the waterfall, the rapids changed their course at once to do her bidding, defying every law of nature.

A colossal jet of water came, horizontally, and struck the virgin right between her spread legs at skull-crushing speed. Others split into thousands of crystal droplets, feathery foam, caressing and teasing. The hunter watched as her solidly curvy behind clenched in rhythm with the pounding stream.

Reluctantly releasing his cock, the hunter started creeping around the pond. The hounds followed. Narcis in the lead, Cleo and Brutus behind.

If he could reach the laurel bush on the other side, the hunter would be well positioned to strike. And finally get a glimpse of the virgin’s carnivorous orchid.

Coming this close was risky. He might have been able to get her with the bow from his first hiding place, sending the arrow whistling into her throat, or lower, puncturing the lungs. But being speared from behind, up close, like some sluggish sow, would be, for the huntswoman, the ultimate humiliation.

Onwards he crawled, behind the rocks. There was a gap, about two feet long, between the last boulder and the laurel bush. Crossing it, he would be entirely exposed. The hunter waited. As the sun climbed up, sending dappled light pools through the autumn canopy, the virgin’s skin seemed coated in iridescent membrane. She omitted a moan, and half turned towards him.

The hunter caught his breath. There it was, shamelessly glaring at him: the virgin’s jealousy guarded mossy cunt, glossy and inflamed under the rapids’ assault. Wherever the jets slammed against her gamey meat, steam hissed. And it wasn’t just water that ravaged her. Dangling tree roots, black, hairy, and dripping river mud, twined themselves around, and inside, the naked virgin.

On and on they came, the massive roots and foaming water, swaying her entire body. She held on to a couple of thick leafy branches, head thrown back, writhing on the rock at the edge of the pond, moans gradually turning into a keening caw.

The hunter’s cock, humping the slippery rock, was aching under his leather tunic. But he was a huntsman, the best in the land. And this was his chance to strike a fiercely flighty beast.

The hunter signalled to his dogs, knelt, one leg folded under his fabled rear, and steadied his grip on the spear, watching the convulsing maiden on the throne-like rock hanging over the water. Blue crabs dangled from her nipples and lips, their pincers tightening as her body shook, rainbows evaporating with her thrashing. What the hunter mistook for a film of iridescent sweat were hundreds of dragonflies, flapping their wings and dragging sharp claws all over the blushing skin.

The hunter pounced, through the ice cold spray and steam. Flanked by his blood hounds. In three agile strides he was upon her, landing right behind the virgin, the spear at her quivering throat.

‘Release the water!’

The dragonflies took off, as one. The hunter tensed: they were mere insects, but, there were so many of them, if they attacked his eyes, or the dogs…but they just hovered above the virgin like an ill-tempered glittering cloud, blue, green, and tarnished gold.

Taking care to keep her torso and head absolutely still in order to avoid slitting her own throat on the sharp edges of the spear-head, the virgin raised her left hand, palm out.

The rapids fell back into their rock bed, then hit the pond’s surface with a deafening sound. Roots retreated into humid soil. The virgin remained motionless, squatting silently on the rock at the hunter’s feet, head bowed right under the hem of his tunic, and his straining cock.

The hunter grabbed a wriggling crab, tore it from her nipple and shattered the creature’s shell against the rock. The starved dogs drooled. He nodded to Brutus and the stocky grey pit bull closed his powerful jaws on another crab. His brother and sister joined in the feast , devouring soft salty flesh, licking the sticky remains from the virgin’s puckered skin. She shivered, ever so slightly.

Keeping his spear pressed against her neck, the hunter stepped over the virgin, standing between her and the water.

‘You style yourself the mistress of the hunt? Even the most dim-witted peasant-girl would have sensed me approaching, and fled.’

The naked maiden sprawled on the green rocks said nothing. Her magpie feather eyes gazed upon the hunter, travelling up the shaft of his spear. Droplets of amber blood blossomed on her savaged nipples. Was that a hint of a smile on her wet lips? Cleo growled.

The hunter trailed the sharp bronze head of his spear between the virgin’s breasts, her stomach, all the way down, to the mossy mound. He let it rest there, between engorged fungal lips.

She didn’t flinch. In a sudden, smooth, motion, the virgin locked her thighs around the shaft, and looked up, staring him full in the face. Now there was no doubt about it: the wench was smiling.

‘I know that you mean to do, hunter. Beware. Have you forgotten? I am the virgin. I can not be fucked by any living man.’

The hunter chuckled, pushing the spear head a little harder into her.

‘I had spied you before, there, in the water. And on this very rock, wanton harlot. You are no virgin.’

‘And yet, I am.’

‘You may be right. Consorting with dead matter you are still a maiden, by some accounts. It is high time you were had by a real man. I will take you, and your bow as proof of this conquest, and it shall be known that I am the finest hunter in the land, and the tamer of the hunts-tart.’

The virgin lifted her hips, and pressed herself against the fire-hardened wood shaft. She arched her body, sullied with crushed shells, red ringed white flesh, broken insect wings and blood of many colours.

‘Very well. Do it, hunter, if you dare.’

With his free hand, the hunter grabbed the virgin’s Scythian warrior’s hair, and pushed her against the rock. The virgin didn’t struggle, just stared at him, steadily, as the swarm of dragonflies hovered closer.

Harder then he ever was before in his life, the hunter rammed his giant cock into the virgin’s cunt.

She laughed.

The hunter swore. Her cunt was muscle-bound, tight, yet infinity elastic. It felt as if the walls were flexing, milking, almost breaking the long wide shaft, then receding. Making him feel, for the first time in his life, small, lost. He pummelled, with all his might. The virgin’s body bounced, but her mirth grow even greater.

‘Are you in yet, hunter?’

The hunter swore, pumping away, sweat forming on his brow. Was she yawning?

‘You, you are not a virgin! You have the cunt of an old dancing slave, worn and used up!

‘Ah, but I am. Did I not warn you? I can not, and will not, be fucked by a man,’ said the virgin, smirking. ‘Do you truly believe your pathetic twig of maggoty meat can TAME me? I, who have fucked rushing rapids and mighty woods? I, who mounts the wild beasts?’

The hunter’s cock was growing soft. This happened before, when he was in his cups. But not often. Not with anyone who lived to tell the tale, at least.

The hunter thrust even harder, to no effect what so over.

‘Enough!’

The virgin roared. The wind in her voice. Not a warm summer breeze, a gale, the kind which topples great old trees in the night.

She pushed him off her, effortlessly, and with a flick of her foot, off the rock shelf and onto the bank, under the laurel shrub. The dogs cowered.

‘You, hunter, have spoiled my morning pleasure. For this, you must make amends. But let it not be said I am unjust. I shall provide you with tools more equal to the task.’

The virgin bent, and trailed a hand in the water. Was the grime under her short nails black, or scarlet?

This did not matter. He told himself to bide his time, like the celebrated hunter he was. He had lost his spear, but his bow, with the special arrow, the one blessed with the power to pierce her, was still slung across his back, and the virgin was naked, and unarmed. He must keep her talking. Buy time to stand up, grab both, and aim. At this range, he couldn’t miss her blind-folded.

‘You propose a contest? A splendid notion. Let us settle this matter once and for all. There is a wily old boar rooting up the hill. The one who slays him will be declared the superior hunter. And we shall speak no more of your…virtue.’

The virgin laughed again. Carefree and merry like the first loose pebbles of a landslide, as she playfully splashed the hunter with rainbow-laced water.

Only a few drops reached his suntanned face. Refreshingly cool. And yet, they hissed and bubbled as they touched skin.

His head, his head was exploding. Zeus must have felt this way when he gave birth to Athena. You have a nasty migraine and before you know it some self-righteous cunt with an owl pops out and makes your eternal life sheer hell.

The hunter massaged his temples. No, he didn’t. The intended action wasn’t followed by motion. His bulging biceps and thickly veined forearms, rendered in marble for at least a dozen admirers, weren’t working right. He staggered up, on all fours. The dogs were barking, a strange sound, yet hauntingly familiar. Water slid from his shaggy fur.

The hunter shook his great head. It felt heavy. Was he wearing a crown? The crown of the lord of the forest? The crown he came here, to the forbidden woods, across the sacred river, to claim? At any rate, he felt better. Strong, and fast. No longer lost. He shouldn’t be kneeling.

The virgin stood up, and extended her right hand. Her bow came to her, carried by the glittering cloud. Then the dragonflies swooped down, raiding the hunter’s quiver, and flew back to their mistress with a prize: his special arrow.

Something howled, deep in the woods, and was answered by multitude others. Things rustled in the browning orange foliage.

She plucked the airborne arrow, his arrow made for her, then aimed the bow, stepping forward. One step, then another, until her cunt was right above the hunter’s bloodshot eyes, dripping mud, and a couple of stray eels.

The hunter tried to speak. No words came. Never mind, he was a man of action. There was something wedged between two rocks. His spear! If he could only reach it. But the virgin was circling him, armed, and smiling.

‘Look into the water.’

The hunter did. The pond’s surface was calm now, more reflective then a polished shield. How could he miss the animal standing right behind him? A majestic creature, but timid. Why was he shaking?

‘I told you, hunter. I won’t be fucked by any man.’

And the virgin smacked the hunter, hard, on his rump. The stag ran.

Someone, or something, whistled. The hounds, such well trained animals, leapt ahead.

The stag ran, great big hooves pounding the mossy forest floor, as the dogs, hot on his heels, were howling like banshee. Cleo sounded nearest, but her brindle coat blended perfectly with the shifting shades in the woods. They shouldn’t make such a racket. He trained them to stalk large pray stealthily.

But there was no need for stealth, was there?

The hunter pressed on, sprinting through heather, jumping over fallen logs covered with blue spongy toadstools. And everywhere, he could feel them, hundreds of animal eyes, gloating. He leaped across a deep ravine. Back legs nearly slipping, but he made it, to the other side. And he knew his dogs: they couldn’t jump this far, they’ll lose his scent.

The stag stopped, great chest heaving. Something buzzed passed his alert ear. He knew that sound, too, so wasn’t entirely surprised when an arrow pierced his heavy swinging testicles. The pain was blinding, but he could stand it. And this wasn’t a mortal wound. But the stag was still enough of a hunter to know what this means. No matter where he hid, the hounds will track him, following the call of the blood.

So he kept running, as fast as he could. The hounds’ barks getting wilder as the light turned into treacle, then wine dark. The stag galloped, heart nearly bursting, until he saw the white flash, Narcis, over taking. The hounds surrounded him, just like he trained them to.

The stag lowered his head. Those mighty horns were sharp, he had witnessed dogs gored to death by cornered males in their prime.

But then, he heard her laugh. He knew he shouldn’t look up, exposing his jugular, but he did, anyhow. And there she was, straddling a tree brunch.

The dogs waited, panting. She blew him a kiss, and dropped, wrapping her legs around his wide back. Brutus whined as the virgin grabbed his former master’s antlers.

‘Now, hunter, that’s what I call an adequate member.’

And the virgin rode the hunter, while the dogs sank their fangs into his flesh, first going for the soft stomach, then other parts, no longer soft, his great stag cock, almost as stiff as her blade. She kept riding, while the hunter was torn apart, from within and without, by his faithful dogs, and the mistress of the hunt.

Mad with agonising pain and mortal dread, he finally understood: she was goddess of the hunt. Both the hunters, and the hunted.

The stag fell to his knees. The hunter prayed.

The end

*This story was Inspired, of course, by the ancient Greek myth of Artemis and Actaeon.

Eris