(Author’s note: This story was partly inspired by Mosaic Stains’ story Paper Cramp, which got me thinking about my own writing process and how much my writing really means to me. I hope that you enjoy this piece.)

It was there, the words were just flowing off the page as the voices and feelings of the characters in this world used her to tell their story. Her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry. She strained her ears for any hint of sound. She knew what would happen if she got caught…

Her parents… They didn't understand, they never did, because they didn't have this gift.

The fingers of her left hand flew across the keyboard, why bother fighting with her malfunctioning right hand when using her left hand was so much faster and easier? It was at times like this that she really wished that she had a voice program…

Shaking her red hair impatiently out of her face, she bit her lip, not feeling anything except for the burning of her fingers as she pounded on the keyboard of her laptop, trying desperately to get it all down at fast as possible.

Panting now, she knew that she was getting closer. The voices in her mind were louder now. Her blinking eyes no longer saw the keyboard. A tingling that wasn't quite sexual, but was very sexual at the same time began to creep over her body.

This was why she had given up her sanity, not all of it, just enough to make herself a servant, even a slave, to this gift that she called her profession; this was all that mattered to her at this point. She’d never given this a second thought, Tammy knew that without her gift, she’d be a lifeless empty shell only going though the motions of living… and that it didn’t bare thinking about.

As her fingers flew mindlessly across the keys, she pushed herself still farther, barely registering that she was now rocking back and forth rhythmically in her wheelchair. Cursing this fragile vessel that was called her body, she strained herself still more, trying to surrender herself completely to the power.

Dimly she smelled the longed for scent of aged ink on paper, as the sense of a Presence forming behind her caused a soundless moan to pass though her lips. Phantom arms wrapped around her body caressing it, but somehow not caressing her body, but her very soul.

"Are you ready to surrender Tammy?" Came the question, not spoken though sounds of mortal speech. Though asked quietly, she could feel the sheer power behind that one question.

"Seshat…" Tammy whispered, her mouth gone dry with a need so strong that it ached deep inside her soul. She didn’t need to turn her head to know that the Egyptian goddess of writing, and her personal patron, was now looking over her shoulder to judge the redhead’s current late night offering.

Soundless pleased laughter reverberated though the young mortal's mind. "You've found the Vortex… Now you are ready to finally embrace Me…" A soundless sigh brushed her ear, and Tammy found her body was trembling uncontrollably.

I…" She got out thickly, feeling as though she would die in pleasured excitement.

What are you still doing up?" came the angry shout as the light switched on, blinding Tammy.

A thousand pain filled screams filled her mind at the cruelity of the interuption as the pleasure suddenly turned to pain without any warning, the agony was almost unbearable, and it felt as though the redhead’s skin had been turned inside out with white-hot knives. Still, Tammy knew that she’d better put herself on automatic pilot before this got any worse. “Sorry mom, I was writing.” She dimly heard herself say.

“Get off that laptop right now! You are lucky I don’t throw the damned thing into the lake!” The blonde haired woman’s face was almost purple with rage.

Tammy mechanically saved her work, feeling the pain of the sudden disconnection in every fiber of her body and soul. Without a word to the woman that had given her life, she shut her laptop down before unplugging it and taking into her room, locking the door safely behind her. Now that she wasn’t in her writing state, she felt empty and cheated. Feeling the tiredness seeping into her limbs, she carefully put the laptop on her desk and rolled herself out of her wheelchair and into her single bed.

When she slipped into a dream, a surprised Tammy found Seshat was already waiting for her. Looking upon the calm exotically beautiful face of the Goddess that she had served since she was old enough to write, she knew that she’d do it all over again. Even now, the redhead felt her heart pound as she gazed into the slanted almond eyes of the Egyptian goddess that owned her heart and soul. In that moment, she knew that any other romantic relationships save this one meant little to her.

As though hearing her thoughts, the goddess smiled as she gently tucked a loose lock of red-gold hair back behind her priestess’s ear. “I am well pleased with you my little Kakra.” Seshat seemed amused when Tammy blushed, for the Egyptian name that she had just given her young priestess meant ‘twin’. “Indeed, you have been a very faithful and the most pleasing of my priestesses. You have my favor. Now it is time that I give you a very special gift my dear one…”

A few hours later, Tamara’s mother waspishly woke her still tired daughter. Tamara just smiled in content and shrugged off her mother’s temper. Already her mind was focused on completing the previous day’s offering. She ate her meal with only half her mind in this world. There was no talk between mother and daughter, but Tammy didn’t care. When her mother went into the living room to watch TV, the redhead escaped back into her bedroom.

Tammy guessed that she was a lesbian, she had dated some. More with women than with men, still, those relationships never lasted long. Not as long as Seshat gave her the gift of writing and creation. Her being belonged to a much higher power, a Goddess that made her soul sing and her mind come to life. If she was called insane because of this, then she supposed she was, and didn’t care either way.

Descending back into the Vortex within her mind as she began typing again, Tammy knew that this gift was worth everything she’d ever been though. To her, this was life. Feeling Seshat’s presence near her, Tammy had to smile.

She was Writing’s Mistress, and that was all she had to know.