The first time Lilith came to me I thought she was a ghost.  I was dreaming a terrible dream about being devoured alive by a horrible monster.  Lost in my dream-scape, I struggled to escape from something huge, amorphous, darkly multicolored and with teeth that gleamed in the night.  I stumbled across sand, my body unresponsive to the adrenaline pumping flight messages of “faster, faster!” through my veins.  I wanted to wake up but my eyes wouldn’t open, my limbs wouldn’t move.  I knew I was asleep, I knew I was in a dream.  I tried to fly, I reached up to catch the wind, as the monster gained on me and drew closer.  I pulled myself up, I was so heavy, the air felt so thick, I had to push up through it to fly towards the sky.  I pulled myself up, and at the same time tried desperately to open my eyes.  Finally, slowly, I awakened.  My eyes opened to the midnight darkness of my room as I pushed through the heavy mud of sleep.  I forced my consciousness back into my body and felt my limbs come alive so that I could move one finger, then another.  My breath squeezed painfully from my lungs and my heart thundered in my chest as I made my escape from something too awful to exist in reality.  Suddenly, I realized that my whole bed was shaking.  At first, I thought the bed was merely an extension of my trembling body.  But my trembling faded as I gained consciousness and the bed--the bed was still shaking.  I thought, is this an earthquake?  I looked around the dark room and saw the shadows of my things.  All were still and calm in their places.  The bed continued to shake and I knew that an earthquake would have ended several minutes ago.  My heart started to pound again as I realized the shaking bed had to be caused by a ghost.
 I believe in ghosts.  I believe in angels, in demons, in gods and goddesses, in fairies and elves.  So I had no trouble accepting that a ghost might choose to haunt me.
 “What do you want, ghost?”  I whispered in the darkness.  I heard a soft chuckle and just for a second, my heart stopped.  I added, “Who are you, what do you need from me?”
 “I am not a ghost.” The voice was musical and low; a woman’s voice.   I felt the soft touch of a kiss on my lips.  Then she added, “I am Lilith.”
 “Lilith!  As in Adam’s first wife?” I asked.
 “I am the first woman,” she stated proudly.  She, unlike Eve, was formed from the dust the same way as Adam and so had an equal status.  Adam complained that she wanted to be on top during sex, and tried to force her to stay on the bottom, while Lilith complained that Adam was an inferior lover and couldn’t satisfy her.  She finally used the magic word of God’s true name to escape from Eden. Adam’s second wife, Eve, was created to be much more docile.
 “Lilith, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a woman,” I told her.  Again, I heard her melodious laughter flow into the darkness and swirl all around me.  I felt the touch of a finger stroking my nipple.  A delightful shiver ran up and down my spine.  I felt the pressure of her lips as she kissed me and I kissed her back.  I strained in the darkness to see her but I saw nobody.
 “I have always liked women best,” she said.  “I only use men so I can make my babies.”  She kissed me again.  I felt her tongue dart in between my teeth to taste my own tongue.  I felt her hands squeeze my breasts.  A delicious thrill ran through my body.
 “Where are you?  I can’t see you!” I managed to gasp out between the moans of pleasure her hands and tongue were eliciting from me.    I could feel her firm body pressed against mine.  Her hair tickled my skin as she kissed my neck and face.  But I couldn’t see anything at all, she was invisible.  I brought my arms up to stroke her back, which I found by touch alone.  Her skin was silky smooth.  She seemed to have mountains of hair, thick and heavy.  I wove my fingers into her hair which curled into long ringlets that fell all around us.  I’d never felt hair like hers, which felt so strong and curled so tightly into thick ropes.  I wanted to see them, to fit what I felt into some reality I could identify.  Then, the pleasure my body felt in response to Lilith took over my brain and I left the reasoning human behind as I became purely an animal of sensations.
 Lilith was an artist, she played my body as if I were a great work of art in progress.  My nipples hummed, my lips swelled, my inner thighs burned, my buttocks stung and my vagina throbbed with something beyond pleasure or pain.  I could feel but not see, and I  could only lie there and feel one rush of feeling after another.  Pain and pleasure sometimes separated into distinct feelings and then blended into one mixed sensation that was neither but somehow transcended both.  Lilith!  I called her name several times, begged her to let me see what she was doing, to let me see her.  I wanted to touch her, to love her back, but she always moved away from my embrace and I never could quite grasp her.  And all the time, she hummed, she sang words in some ancient language I couldn’t recognize, and she laughed her deep rich laugh whenever I tried and failed to hold her.  I strained in the night to see her.  I felt my body rise up to meet an orgasm and then always, over and over, Lilith gave me a sharp pain which chased the orgasm away.  I was strung so tightly that my nerves felt like fine wire stretched taut. My breasts ached, they felt bruised and sore.  My belly was yearning for fulfilment and my vulva was swollen in anticipation of a release that never seemed to come.
 Lilith laughed.  “I have you just where I want you,” she said.  I felt her move her body up along mine, rubbing herself against me as she moved upwards.  I felt her breasts rise up along my chest and neck and stop when my lips touched her nipple.
 “Suck!” she commanded me.  “But be gentle,” she added.
 I licked her nipple and pulled it into my mouth with my tongue.  I rolled her tight little point of a nipple all around my tongue and gently, so gently, sucked on it.  I heard her moan in pleasure.  I nibbled softly on the tip with my teeth, and she gasped.  Then I noticed that I could just barely see her silhouette.  She held her head back, arching her back.  The long ropes of hair fell all around her.  She pulled her nipple from my mouth and pulled her body upwards, so that I felt her curly, tickly pubic hair as it slid up my belly, chest and neck, and landed right on my mouth.  I slid my tongue between the hair and found the soft, moist, secret places hidden within.  My heart beat faster with all the frustrated desire I still had, held at the peak and waiting to explode.   I stroked her with my tongue, sucked her button when I found it, and bit all around it as I sucked and stroked her with my tongue.  My own body ached to feel what she was feeling. I watched her silhouette writhe as she moaned and gasped in time to my lips and tongue.  She grew gradually more solid as she came closer and closer to her peak.  My body screamed in jealous frustration as I felt her come and  I saw her body materialize completely during the shudders of her orgasm.
 She was dark--so dark, except the inner part of her vulva which was still right above my face.  That was a delicious shade of pink.  The ropes of hair I’d felt I now saw were dreadlocks.  Lilith was Black.
 “I thought you were Jewish!”  I told her, for a moment so surprised that my frustrated body receded from my mind.
 “The Jews have been through many changes since the beginning,” she said, “and you know even your modern scientists now admit that Africa is the cradle of humanity.  I am the first woman, so naturally I am African, as was Adam, as was Eve.”
 She was beautiful, strong, proud, and she was still on top of me.  I smelled the rich musky scent of her and felt the familiar throb begin again in my loins.
 “Oh, Lilith, don’t leave me like this, please finish me,” I begged her.
 She laughed at me.  “Too bad for you, girl,” she said, as she climbed off of my bed and stood facing me.  “I’m done.” She smiled at me.  “But I think I’d like to watch you give yourself the pleasure you wanted from me.”
 I felt myself flush.  I had never done anything like that in front of another person.  “I can’t do it,” I said.  My body ached and throbbed, wanting release.
 “Do it,” she commanded.  She leaned back against the wall opposite my bed, watching me.  She smiled a slow, lazy smile.  “I want to watch you come,” she said.  “I will even tell you what to do.”  She pointed at me and continued, “Pinch your nipples.”
 Slowly I brought my hands up to my breasts, and pinched my own nipples.  It felt very good, but my whole body flushed in shame because she was watching me.
 “Good,” she said, “now squeeze your breasts and rub your nipples for a while.”
 I squeezed and then rubbed, squeezed and rubbed.  My body heated up and though I continued to feel shamed by her gaze, I also responded to the actions of my own hands.
 “Okay, that’s nice,” she said.  “Spread open your legs so I can look at you.”
 I opened my legs and felt the cool night air touch my innermost tender parts.
Lilith stood opposite me, smiling.  She rubbed her belly in a circular movement, slowly.
 “Stroke yourself,” she commanded.
 I flushed hotly, I felt a keen mixture of heat, pleasure, and shame as I slowly began to rub my vulva.  As my fingers moved over my clitoris I felt a sharp stab of pleasure shoot from my touch all the way up to the base of my skull.  It was so delicious.  I looked at Lilith.  She was smiling, and stroking her own genitals as she watched me.  I moaned and continued to rub and squeeze and stroke my own throbbing center of pleasure with one hand as I squeezed the nipple of my breast with the other.  Suddenly, I felt a whip strike me on my thighs, with stinging pain.  A welt rose across my tender skin as I cried out.  I looked to Lilith, but she was still standing there, smiling and stroking herself.  I saw no whip, but then I felt it again, across my breasts, and I heard it snap.  Just for a second I thought I saw a creature hovering above me. Wings, a long slinky tail, and another snap as the tail struck me across my tender breasts one more time.  I heard Lilith chuckle.
 “Turn over,” she said.  I obeyed, knowing what was to follow.  A little thrill of anticipation traveled up my spine, half of fear, half of pleasure.  I slid my hand under my belly so I could continue pleasuring myself, and just as my fingers found my silky pubic hair, I felt the sharp snap of the creature’s whipping tail across my bare buttocks.  I cried out with the intense pain I felt when the whip stung my soft flesh.  Then I found the spot my fingers sought and gave myself the pleasure I wanted so badly.  Snap!  The whip came down again, and Lilith laughed.  I allowed my imagination only a moment to wonder just who or what was whipping me before I became lost in the mixture of pain and pleasure my nerves were immersed in.  My buttocks reddened with the quick succession of snap snap snap From the creature’s tail.  My heart raced, my breath stopped and then panted furiously as each touch of the tail first caught me and then held me in the passion of pain.  Gradually the mix of pleasure and pain began to peak, pulling me higher and higher up a rugged mountain of alternating sensations, punctuated with Lilith’s laughter.  Just as I knew I could bear no more, that I must rush over the peak and either come or die, Lilith stopped me.  I felt her hands on me, pushing me over onto my back again, pulling my hands away from my body.  I fought her, I screamed at her, I begged her to let me finish--but she only laughed.
  “I have a friend,” Lilith said.  “I want you to pleasure my friend.”
 “No!”  I shook my head.  “I just want you, Lilith.”
 “You’ve got no choice,” she said, “and anyway, my friend has been here the whole time.  My pet has let you feel the power of her tail.  She tells me it has made her very happy.  But now  she needs something more .  You won’t see her, but right about now you should feel her!”
 I felt something very hot--almost too hot to bear, touch me.  Then, I felt strong fingers with sharp claws grasp my breasts and knead them as if they were two lumps of dough being turned into bread.  It hurt--my breasts hurt, my insides hurt, she was so hot, so rough.  She filled up my belly and I felt stretched to my limit.  Suddenly, she pulled away and then I felt something inserted into my rectum, hot, big, it was too much for me, I screamed.  I felt at that moment something hot shoot upwards into my body, burning me as it flowed up through my intestines.  I heard a gruff voice purring and for a second, a shape flickered into reality and out again, and I saw something red and gold, with wings and haunches shaped like a cat, a long tail, the head was feathered but had fangs like a lion and eyes like a woman.... no, my brain rejected it, I couldn’t accept the reality of the thing I saw.
 Lilith laughed.  Then she came over to me, and very softly, she began to lick my engorged little center of pleasure.  All my muscles relaxed with the acceptance of pleasure.  Lilith sucked gently and sent shivers of electricity racing across my belly and buttocks.  I felt the tightness spreading from the point of pleasure caressed by Lilith’s tongue and up my spine which signaled the rush of sensations about to burst free.  Lilith removed her mouth from my body and I moaned in protest, thinking she was about to deny me release.  She laughed softly and kissed my vulva before she licked my juices in an upward stroke which ended right on the center of all sensations.  Then she brought me over the edge with a soft little bite and a very gentle suck.  My entire being felt blissfully happy.    I snuggled down into my bed, exhausted and satisfied, and as I fell asleep I heard Lilith say, “I’ll be seeing you later.”
 In the morning I decided the whole thing had just been a really strange dream.  I went on about my life, went to work, to the store, to see friends, and tried to forget about Lilith.  I was a teacher, I taught English at the local Community College.  For awhile I was able to immerse myself in the reading, lecturing and correcting papers required by my job.
 One day, I was in front of a Freshman English class describing the process of revision.  This particular class had been reluctant to rewrite papers and as a result I read many essays in need of both editing and revision.  So, I lectured about the writing process and an assignment with revision built into it, along with peer collaboration.  The class was unresponsive, I could see they did not want to do this, so I stepped up my tone and tried to generate enthusiasm.
 Suddenly, I heard Lilith’s low laugh.  She was there, next to me.  She said, “Don’t worry, nobody sees or hears me but you.”
 I looked at the class, and they did seem just as poker-faced as before.  I felt Lilith behind me, she pressed against me and brought her arms around my body and squeezed my breasts.
 “Careful,” she said, “you mustn’t let the class know I’m here.  Just keep on with your lecture while I enjoy myself.”  She pinched my nipples and bit my neck as she pressed her body into mine.
 What could I do?  I continued to lecture as best as I could, while Lilith played with my body.  I discovered that she could slide right under my clothes, and not show a hint that she was there.  But I could feel her.  I felt her bite my nipples, stroke my belly, insert her tongue into all my various orifices, and lick my most tender and sensitive spots.  I tried very hard to talk about revision and collaboration all the while throbbing with pain and pleasure.  Finally I gave them an essay assignment to start writing in class.  Then I just stood there, as Lilith flooded my body with sensations.  I watched the clock, and just as the time came to release the class, my body thundered to a tremendous orgasm which I tried very hard to conceal from the exiting students.
 One boy lingered and asked, “Is this essay due tomorrow?”
 I just managed to answer him with a nod of my head, as wave after wave of pleasure washed over me.  I heard Lilith’s laughter fading away as I gathered my things up to leave.  “See you soon.”  She whispered.
  For the next week Lilith came to me every night and aroused me just to the point of orgasm and left me there, unfinished. I was worn pretty thin and was willing to do anything she wanted just to get the release my body craved.  Even so, I continued to work as usual, and on Friday I had to go out of town to a conference required by my job.  I drove to the conference, which was in a city two hours away from my home.  I checked in to the conference and wandered among the exhibits, gathering information on new textbooks and other products.  Then it was time for the keynote speaker to begin the address.  I found a seat near the back and settled in.  The chair was cool, and I squirmed a bit, trying to get some small relief from the aching horniness I felt.  Suddenly, Lilith was there, kissing me.  I felt the little friend watching, and knew the time had come, she wanted me to satisfy the Gryphon.  I wondered why Lilith always brought the Gryphon and wanted me to satisfy her.  I heard Lilith answer in my mind.
 “She has been with me since I escaped from Adam and took demon lovers. She is my favorite, she gives me the most pleasure, so she is always with me.” Lilith kissed my breasts and sucked on my nipples.  The little friend was next to my face, I felt her heat.  A man, a stranger, came and sat on my left, where the little friend was.  The little friend flickered into reality for a moment and I saw she was sitting on the man’s shoulder, grinning at me and stroking her feathers as her long tail slithered all around her.  The man didn’t see the Gryphon.  Two ladies sat on my right, they were talking about the pay schedule of their school district.  I saw Lilith pinch them on their breasts and grin as each in turn looked startled.  Then she turned to me.  I saw her perfectly clearly, and I felt uneasy because she was so visible to me I thought others must know she’s there. But nobody seemed to notice.
 She reached right through my clothes to stroke my breasts, my belly, and my vulva.  I tingled in anticipation.  But she stopped.  She kissed my face, and whispered in my ear, “First take care of my little friend.”  I sighed, and involuntarily my muscles tightened against the pain to come.  She was always so hot, so rough--she hurt so much--so I tensed, waiting.  “You must spread you legs wide,” Lilith said.  I looked to my side at the man.  Would he notice? He was right next to me; and the ladies, they were gossiping now but suppose they glanced at me, wouldn’t they wonder why I sat with my legs apart?  What if I made some sort of sound?  I would have to be totally silent no matter what.  Suddenly, against my lips, I felt the Gryphon’s hot tongue.
 “Kiss her,” Lilith commanded.  How could I?  I hated the very thought of it!  And also, my face, it would show, and what would these people think if they saw me kissing at the air with my legs open?  Lilith laughed.  “Kiss her!”  She commanded again.  I felt her hand reach down between my legs and start to stroke me gently.  I opened my mouth, and felt the hot scaly tongue enter and  twine around my own tongue.  I felt my lips spread as I tried to escape the heat of  the Gryphon’s tongue, and I started to kiss, moving my own tongue in a lover’s dance with the tongue of the Gryphon.  I was careful not to make a sound, even when she started to move her tongue faster  in my mouth, choking me at times, rubbing my lips raw with the heat and the scales.  I tasted my own blood as her roughness scraped my tongue raw.  Suddenly she was inside my vagina, pumping furiously as she squeezed and scratched and pinched my poor nipples, and whipped me on my back and sides with her stinging tail.  I felt her feathered head brush my cheek and then I felt the pain as she bit into my tender neck with her lion’s fangs.  And then, with the pain, I felt intense pleasure and shame that I could feel this way.   Lilith all the while, laughed.  I saw her move to the man next to me and stroke his penis.  He quickly covered his lap with his hands, trying to hide his erection.  She laughed again and moved her face right through his hands so she could suck out his sperm as he came.  She looked at me.
 “For my babies,” she said, “I have to make more than are destroyed each day as my punishment for refusing to return to Adam.”  The Gryphon was still pumping, pushing my legs further and further apart.  She was getting hotter and hotter, I felt my body blistering from the heat.  She clawed my breasts savagely, and bit me again on the neck as she came, shooting red hot fire into my body, burning all the way into my womb, hot, so hot, I felt a mixture of pleasure and pain so strong that I needed to scream but I couldn’t, I had to be silent.  The man next to me was slumped in his chair, covering his lap, looking straight ahead.  He had no idea what had happened to him, or why.  Lilith was again pinching the nipples of the two ladies on my other side, distracting them.  She stroked the vulva of first one, then the other, and whispered erotic messages to their subconscious minds.  She told me, “I am the one who subverts women away from the rule of men.”
 I wanted to ask her for details, ask what she meant, but there were people all around, the entire room was full of people, I had to be silent, and this time she did not answer my thoughts.  The Gryphon lifted from me and flew up to hover above us.  Lilith came to me.  She kissed me softly on the lips, and gently stroked my breasts.  “Mine,” she said, “you are all mine and always will be.”  Then she moved to the floor, and brought her face to between my thighs.  My whole body sighed in anticipation, and I quivered as I felt her tongue touch me softly and start to stroke, so gently, so softly, bringing me up and up and up to the highest point and then, just as I peaked, she bit me hard right on the tip of my clitoris, and sucked it hard, pulling a thudding, booming, earthshaking orgasm from me which I had to enjoy in complete silence, without moving a muscle.  Again she whispered to me, “You are mine--and no man shall ever satisfy you again.”  Then she was gone.
 I never discovered what the Keynote Speaker had said.  I never spoke to any of the people who had sat next to me.  I went through the rest of the conference dazed, bruised and sore, wanting only to get home and take a shower and look for the evidence on my body of what I’d been through.
 And I wondered, why did Lilith pick me?
 And I wondered, will she come again?
  Part of me hoped she never would return, that she would leave me in peace to live my life in a normal way.  But the other part, the secret part, was terrified at the thought that she might never return.  That hidden part of me longed intensely for the next moment her soft laughter would enter my head and her touch thrill my soul.  I belonged to Lilith, as she’d said, I was hers.  But what did she mean? No man would ever satisfy me again--I knew that. Still; as I waited for Lilith to return to me, I felt my body yearn to feel the touch of hands beside my own.  I found my eyes watching women on the street, and wondering, what would they taste like, how would their bodies feel next to mine?  As I imagined kissing a woman I saw on the street, I seemed to hear Lilith’s soft laughter.  Then I knew, Lilith may never return to me but I could still feel the kind of pleasure she had made me realize I needed.  As I passed by a colorful little bookstore I’d always known was there, I turned and went through the door.  On the floor, I saw stacks of free periodicals.  One was called The Lesbian News. I picked it up and carried it home. I knew that somewhere within the pages of this periodical, I would find just what I was looking for.  In the reflection of the storefront window, for just a minute, I saw Lilith smile.