What Is The Black Lament?

“What’s that bloody thing on your back?”

The inquirer had unfastened the top two buttons of her blouse, revealing her well-formed cleavage and black lacy bra. Her gleaming silver tresses spilled over her slim shoulders as she released them carefree from a neat bun. She took off the coat of her skirted business suit, neatly folded it, and laid it across the tacky pink love seat next to the door. Her transformation was swift and methodical, but drew to a close with a gentle sip of a sparkling glass of red wine on the bedside table.

Sitting on the other side of the king-sized bed, Delilah tried not to focus on the defrosting ice-queen behind her. It really was not that hard; it helped to focus on the discrepancies between the somewhat cheap hotel they were in and Mammon’s enormous bedroom, with its naked golden female statues and perfume fountains. She suddenly realized that she was trembling uncontrollably. Something was nagging her.

“I asked you a question, little princess.” The stunning ebony-skinned woman said coyly, her smooth Scottish brogue erotically accentuating her words.  Nursing her wine, she sauntered seductively around the bed to where Delilah sat quivering.

The young African-American woman could not react negatively to the “little princess” remark. With her brown hair in a high ponytail braid, and dressed in only a tiny brass brassiere fastened around the neck and back with string, and a brass thong g-string panty attached to a veil-like microskirt, she looked every bit an escapee from a sexual space fantasy. Her small frame and pixyish physique did little to belay the image.

“It’s okay…” the other woman whispered empathetically, kneeling before Delilah’s gaze and staring into the younger woman’s stormy gray eyes. “Relax. I won’t hurt you. Ever.”

But Delilah looked away, towards the peeling wallpaper covered in strawberries. Who decorated this room, Fruit of the Loom? Why was she feeling this way? And why could she not look directly in the woman’s face?

Because the woman’s striking jade eyes were drawing her in, like a ravenous bee to precious nectar. Delilah wanted to press her lips against the woman’s, to become trapped in her arms and lost in her embrace. But another image always fell upon the woman’s gorgeous features, superimposing itself in her mind’s eye.

It was the silver-haired visage of her precious Master, Mammon.

Now the young woman was confused. She was supposedly not like the others, who were “shaped” under the Mammon’s guidance and then sold, becoming new lifers in many a foreign dictator’s harem. She was just supposed to serve Mammon as his one and only lover. Yet, that night, she had been given to this beautiful woman without as much as a thought from her Master. Granted, this female was one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, but what sway did she have over Mammon to cause him to part with her prized pet?

“Please…” Delilah’s glittering red lips parted with a whisper. She was off limits to everyone but the Mammon!

The other woman gently caressed Delilah’s willowy legs, starting from her glowing Silver Slippers and ending under her veil microskirt. “So. What is it?”

“Excuse me?” Delilah blinked rapidly in confusion.

The woman’s lush ruby lips morphed into a melancholy smile. She gave one of Delilah’s knees a kiss before rising and settling on the bed next to her. The younger woman felt her body freeze in stalemate. Part of her wanted to dive into those shining emerald eyes and luscious lips, while the rest of her wanted to scramble for freedom. It did not help that  Mammon’s silver visage continued to materialize over that of her present companion.

“This.” The woman said, her voice temporarily breaking with bitterness. Delilah felt a soft hand pat the small of her naked back. She jumped instinctively, as if burned.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” the silver-haired woman gushed, nearly spilling her wine. “I didn’t know it was still sore-”

“It…it isn’t.” Delilah admitted, embarrassed. She could do nothing but stare down at her shoes, wondering why.

The woman placed her wine glass on a small table, next to Delilah’s untouched one, and slowly draped an arm around the smaller woman’s shoulders. “C’mon! I told you to relax, and I’m in the mood for a story. What do you call it? I’ve never seen anything like it before…”

Delilah knew what the object was. But in such elegant company, she was suddenly surprised by how she loathed uttering its name. Silver was its primary color, strangely mirror like, but also able to radiate a bizarre glow without a light source. Glossy red stamped a bold outer border around the silver, dripping at some points to symbolize bleeding. Stark black angel wings framed the silver and red, stretching from the design to the edges of her small back. A golden halo completed the odd design, encircling the silver and red core.

To the unknowing eye, it was simply an elaborate tattoo: a silver heart with a bleeding red border, framed by angel wings and encircled with a halo. However, its true nature was one that Delilah detested sharing with the woman. She initially chalked this up to first time jitters. She had never been “in play” like the rest, having shared her bed with only Mammon.

Yet this woman, waiting patiently with her head slightly cocked, a playful but compassionate expression on her face, had fully ensnared Delilah with her charms. Her heart was throbbing, and her cheeks were hot and flushed. Her palms were sweaty, and her own full red lips quivered with nervousness.

She had never felt this way with Mammon. She had not felt this way in a very long time.

“The Black Lament” was Delilah’s words that shattered the lengthily silence. She fought to drain them of as much emotion as possible, but failed miserably. The other woman’s face radiated sadness as she gently caressed the jeweled gold choker around Delilah’s throat. Her slender fingers tensed claw like around the shimmering symbol of oppression, as if resisting the urge to tear it off.

“Here.” Her hand suddenly dropped from Delilah’s choker, returning to the table with the two bubbling glasses of wine. She elegantly grasped Delilah’s glass and offered it to her. “This will take the edge off things…”

With some semblance of a reluctant smile, Delilah took the shimmering glass and took a small sip of wine, wincing slightly as the somewhat sweet liquor singed her throat.

“The Black Lament?” the woman picked up her own glass and mirrored her. “Sounds like a name with the most positive of aspirations. What is the origin of such a cheery concept?”

It was something that Delilah had never learned. Her earliest memories of the Lament involved the reception of it…cowering naked before the literal throne of Mammon and being held down by his robotic women soldiers, the Witchhunters, as he placed a deathly cold hand on Delilah’s back. The pain had been devastating, a haunting combination of burning and slicing of flesh.

But, the young woman did not remember seeing a single needle or canister of ink…the essential ingredients of a normal tattoo.  While the excruciating procedure was over before it begun, the mental scarring outweighed the physical evidence. Mammon’s subsequent words had become burned into her brain as a fresh wound that never truly healed.

“Since you don’t care for your life…” she repeated them aloud for the other woman. “It is now mine to have forever.”

“How sad…” the other woman whispered sympathetically, polishing off her wine and returning the empty glass to the bedside table. “However, I wonder what did she mean by ‘since you don’t care for your life’?”

Delilah stared down at her own wineglass in her lap and bit her lower lip anxiously. “I…used to…take everything for granted. Party all the time, having sex non-stop, drinking, using drugs. I look back now…and I see. I…was an embarrassment to my family…to my daddy…to myself. If…if it was not for the Mammon-”

The other woman’s face turned grave, her green eyes widening in recognition. “Oh my God. It’s you. You…you were the ubiquitous face of the tabloids until…a year ago. Then, you just vanished without a whisper…reality show canceled, endorsements vanishing…it was as if you dropped off the face of the very Earth.”

“Mammon saved me.” Delilah looked up from her wineglass, her stormy gray eyes locking onto the woman’s jade ones. “He gave me a purpose in life. I…I was directionless until…”

“We both know that isn’t true.” The other woman said soothingly, wiping the fresh tears from Delilah’s cherub cheeks with her thumb. “Everyone…every single man, woman, and child on this planet has the potential to make life-altering mistakes…and to overcome them and move on. It is the one thing that humanity shares.”