Chapter Eight: Smoke on the Wind
“So what do we do now?” Lisa asked as the TV fell silent. “Wait it out crying or trying to ignore what we feel?”
“Neither,”
Cathy said, rolling to her feet with a sober look on her face. “I plan to offer
a healing ritual.”
“What?”
“Say
a prayer for them.”
“A
kind thought never hurts,” Lisa said. Religion hadn’t been a subject between
them. In all truth religion really didn’t appear in her universe except as a
warning flag of neurosis. To many of the most afflicted used it for
smokescreens of self deception trying to justify remaining blind to things they
didn’t want to think about.
“What
should I do? I don’t want to... contaminate... your moment.”
Cathy
paused, looked back. In so many ways Lisa’s life was so rich, and yet in others
she was all but destitute. “Just a kind thought hon’, and understand what you’ll see goes back a long, long ways.
“No
two of us will do this exactly the same way, but the elements mean the same
thing. What you’ll see is how I clear
and cleanse my focus, keep my problems put away so my thought goes to the
Goddess carrying nothing but my hope she’ll set strength and wisdom in Jason
and George, that she’ll set soft the turmoil in Jeddi so she’ll find medicine to
lead her to freedom.
“Not
to worry, in all truth love if I don’t unplug the battery the smoke detector is
a lot more likely to contaminate the moment than you are.”
Lisa
said nothing beyond a short smile as Cathy left the room. There would be fire. No,
there was already fire she corrected herself, the fire that warmed Cathy’s
heart. There would be flame, to represent that fire.
When
Cathy returned she dimmed the lights to a single lamp. From a corner she pulled
a set of nesting tables into the room. From
behind the table came a long bundle wrapped in native leather. A smaller bundle
of the same material hung from the laces of the longer. She untied the laces securing the bundles,
left them leaning against the table. The
table unhinged, swiveled out to become an arrangement of small platforms stepping
down near the floor.
On
the highest platform rode a wooden rack that carried painted clay bowls. Each
bowl was set carefully centered on it’s place. Last was small woven rug she
unrolled while backing away.
When
she turned back to where Lisa sat there was soft smile on her face. “If we were
in my village this would happen in the lodge, I’d wear my dress. But this is home, you are beloved, so I go before
the Goddess as she made me.”
So
saying Cathy slid out of what she was wearing, what little there was to take
off landed over the arm of the chair where Lisa sat. The elastic came off, her hair fell free. When
she turned away nothing went with her that hadn’t grown with her. She walked to
the edge of the rug, with palms pressed before her face drew three deep
breaths. For a moment she glanced back to nod at Lisa before stepping onto the
rug.
In
later times Lisa would meditate on what that final glance set within her heart,
what the minutes to come set beside that moment, in the moment she had nothing
by which to understand the sentiment and the sensation she felt as Cathy knelt.
Opening
the larger of the bundles she extracted a shock of tall grasses that were
crumpled into the bowls. The smaller pouch yielded up wood chips, bark and dried
leaves, small twigs, no more botany than Lisa knew it was obvious a great many
species were represented. Fingers practiced and quick arranged them in the
bowls.
A
hinged flint and steel appeared from the smaller bag, but there were words
spoken before it was used, words in a language Lisa didn’t know. Cathy was
speaking the language of her grandfather’s grandfather. The words were
gratitude to the sun, to the rains and the lands that had nurtured the plants that
they might carry the memory to the moment, that the memory returning open the
moment to the goodness of their creation.
The
litany of gratitude ended, Cathy struck fire. In only seconds a column of soft
gray smoke was rising from the first bowl. A soft breath and flame appeared, from
the flame she lit two long tapers of bundled sage, from the sage lit the others. A long moment passed before she lit the
fourth and final bowl.
With
smoke rising to the four winds she blew out the flame of the tapers, passed
them rapidly around herself. Backlit by the single lamp the smoke made a rising curtain around the space enclosing
her. She laid the tapers still smoldering in the only bowl where fire did not
burn, the last and largest bowl, the bowl with the ring of symbols around the
rim, folded her hands and bowed her head.
For
several very long minutes Lisa watched Cathy at her prayers trying to
understand what came before her perception.
Her
education had covered this of course. Rituals of fire and smoke, primitive peoples trapped by ignorance in superstition
the message the university intended. For the most part Lisa had accepted that
message, in her life there had never been anything to contradict it. How could
such behavior be anything else?
But
in the moment that message fell away and shattered like thin ice falling on
rock. It simply could not be only that, there was more here than that. She
could see it, she could feel it, she had the evidence of her own eyes and
heart.
Cathy
was anything but primitive. Superstition had no hold on her life, she was
rational as rational could be. Everything had a reason, she could tell you
chapter and verse where to find a great many of those reasons, she was a
scientist. A scientist who prayed in the nude. Gloriously nude, shamelessly
nude, never had Lisa seen her more beautiful. Any of the great sculptors would
have taken her to model womanhood personified: Michelangelo, Rodin, the
legendary Daedulus himself would have stood in awe of the vision, shivered at
the challenge of capturing such beauty. For all that the perfection of flowing
muscle blending with the softer flesh of the feminine implied motion there was
no motion, there was simply a young woman kneeling in prayer.
The
scent of the smoke entered her thoughts, and with a start Lisa realized this
wasn’t the first time she’d smelled this scent, far from it. This, this was the
scent on Cathy’s hair that night the litany had failed, that night the ...something had been forced to retreat and allowed her to
see, for the first time truly see, the other half of the world as fully human. There
were things from that night she was still trying to understand, to find a place
for within her understanding of herself, and the scent of the smoke was
bringing the questions and the quest back before her thoughts at full
resolution.
It
was bit of a shock to realize the scent
she’d thought a most seductive cologne was actually the scent of Cathy’s
prayers. The realization brought a shiver of fear. This is who I’ve been playing
with? Making love with? Has taken me with nothing but tenderness to where I’m
beyond thought writhing in orgasm only to shelter me heart and soul as I
reclaimed myself free of the hunger? The woman who has given me to see her in
her most vulnerable of moments when I did the same for her? The fear spread,
thinned, blended with the wondering to take on the overtones of awe. For a time
thought lost words and became sentiment set in sensations and tones of emotions
that had neither name nor history.
In
that moment Cathy’s universe was, in some ways, much simpler than Lisa’s. In
her universe there was only the glow of the Goddess that really didn’t have a
color, just the glow of her presence, and three other points: the steady strong
reds and ambers of George, the flickering bright blue white of Jason, the
younger life, and the tumbling terrified kaleidoscope of Jeddi. The three points floated, the only thing of
Cathy was the hope that they would float higher, closer to the Goddess, closer
to her mercy.
In
time the vision began to blur, she could no longer hold it in her mind. The
glow of the Goddess was obscuring the points, enfolding them, she had done what
she could. With a bow of reverence she closed her prayer, returned to the world
to open her eyes and close her ritual by lifting the final bowl where the
tapers burned.
She
turned the bowl in her hands, tilted it so the smoke of the tapers would flow
out across a symbol for a time before again turning the bowl to a new point on
the medicine wheel for the smoke to cross on its’ way to the winds. Three times
she turned the bowl, and then set it back level, set it on the table. One bowl
at a time, one wind at a time she emptied the smaller bowls into the larger,
rubbed out the smoldering herbs with the tapers. Last was the bowl of the west
wind, the wind that had brought her purpose, again she paused to offer
reverence. When the bowl was cooled she lifted the tapers and rubbed them out
between her palms letting the ash fall into the bowl below.
*** *** ***
“I’m
gonna try and sleep a little bit,” George said.
“Yea,
me too. She’s doing better, she calmed down a bit ago. She’s not kicking
anymore, pulse is down to like 75. She said goodnight to me, and she knew who I
was. I’m gonna throw my pad on the floor by her bed so if she wakes up she’ll
wake me up.”
“Good
man,” George said, his tone the one reserved for those who go above and beyond,
his voice sincere salute. “Phone’s by my head, otherwise I’ll see you in the
morning.”
“G’night
George. And hey... thanks.”
*** *** ***
The
scent of the smoke lingered, in the scent was an expanding memory. Within the
memory the ...something that governed Lisa was shifting side to side
in a fearful confusion. There was a guilty arousal burning in her belly, anger
in her heart, and she couldn’t explain any of it, not at all. Cathy was always desirable, that was a given,
but this, this wasn’t about Cathy. This was about something else, and it, it
just wasn’t right.
The
bowls had been gathered up, wiped clean with a soft leather and returned to their rack, the bundles retied,
the tables nested back and restored to the corner before Lisa moved. When Cathy approached the chair to reclaim her
shorts and T-shirt her first motion was a flinch as Cathy reached down. Cathy
saw the flinch, the tension, stopped her hand and backed away a bit.
“What’s
the matter hon? What is it?”
Lisa’s
eyes went wide, and wobbled. “Bang? Bang bang bang bang?”
“Oh
my goodness,” Cathy said softly with a tiny smile laid over a sudden concern.
Behind the smile was her second and equally sincere prayer of the day: Oh good
Goddess, what have I opened here totally by accident?
The
answer to her second prayer was almost instant. A soft shiver passed down her
back, left a warmth where it had passed, curled around her hips to settle into
her tummy. As far as Cathy was concerned it might as well have been the Goddess
speaking in Dolby stereo, the meaning could not have been more clear. What you’ve opened is what she needs your
help in understanding, the reason I led her to you in the first place. Faith my
daughter, have faith. I would not ask were you not able.
Cathy
held out her hands, Lisa just stared, shook her head a bit. “I’m… I don’t want
to touch you.”
When
Cathy cocked her head, hurt in her eyes Lisa added “I’m afraid I’ll... rape
you,” she finished suddenly, to suddenly, her eyes falling to the floor as she
spoke.
Cathy
laughed. “You can’t rape the willing my friend. And I’m plenty willing. But
sweetheart, you’re not in any shape at the moment. What’s going on? Talk to
me.” She kicked the flip and flop up against the TV hutch, got it situated and
settled onto it looking up at Lisa with nothing but kindness on her face.
*** *** ***
Jason
was on the floor, Jeddi was on the bed. He settled onto his pad, pulled the
corner of the light sleeping bag up over his shoulder. He’d tucked the sheet in
tight, on this side of the bed, left the other side loose. If she woke up she’d
be more likely to get out of bed on the other side, he wouldn’t get stepped on.
The room was dim, not dark, the last thing in the world he wanted was to have
her wake up lost in the dark. That was scary, she didn’t need any more scary.
A
deep shiver took the boy as he took in the fullness of his situation. Scary,
things were totally scary. He didn’t need any more scary either. Humper was an
asshole, a total asshole, but he’d been between them and the world. Now there
was no Humper. If Mom didn’t really wake
up in the morning it was going to be just him, and he’d have to face Grans by
himself. Mom couldn’t take her, she lost every time. Grans being God crazy was
such a fucked up joke. Would he have any chance at all? She’d want to put Mom
somewhere, he had that painted down solid. Where would that leave him? Not
here, not likely anywhere good.
Goal.
Resources. Threat. Response. And no airlocks, not this time.
Terribly
alone the boy did the most courageous thing anyone can really do. He admitted
to himself how scared he really was, and set about deciding what was scariest.
He’d defend against that first.
*** *** ***
Lisa
forced herself to take back her moments. The lost feeling was painting out swaths
of reality, it was hard to hold a thought, keep track of who and what was before
her eyes. Cathy, not Renee, not CC, Cathy. This was out and away the worst it
had ever been.
“Cathy,
I’m getting scared. I’m so mad and I’m so
horny and I don’t know why it’s both at the same time,” she began. “The only
thing I know right now is that I want so bad to bend you over and just fuck you , fuck you begging blind...” her voice trailed off, words wouldn’t go any
further in that direction. She looked up
and away, bit off a breath forcing herself to look back at Cathy. “I don’t even
know what I’m mad at. But that’s what I feel. Just angry and horny. This isn’t
my angry and it isn’t my horny. And it isn’t going away.”
Cathy
nodded slowly. Lisa was under attack, the inside of her friend attacking her
outer self most likely, but still an attack on her lover’s well being. She had
more than one war chief in her heritage, things became stern in places the
world didn’t see.
“You’re
right Lisa, not you, not you at all. I see that.”
“Wha...
how?”
“That
word. Fuck. You don’t use that word as a verb. Adjective, maybe, but not a
verb. Not your word at all. Question is whose word is it?” Cathy’s voice was a
mechanic’s matter of fact question. Ok, so what’s broke?
Strangely
the question and the tone allied to provide Lisa a bit of relief. One damn good
question. She put a bit of focus on the word. Fuck. Just whose word is it? Who
uses that word? A moment later she sighed. Besides just about everyone, one way
or another. Better question is who doesn’t use that word? she thought, and
shivered. As the shiver passed she looked Cathy in the eye, and shook her head.
She didn’t know.
Cathy
saw the shiver, noted that for a moment she relaxed, but only for a moment. Her
second sortie rode out, cavalry light and lightning fast. Catch me if you can,
and while you’re trying show me where you came from.
“I’m
getting kinda’ kinky curious,” she said, voice uptone mischievous, momentarily
tensing her bottom enough Lisa would almost have to notice.
“What
do you mean?” You could see a new force challenging Lisa’s anger, challenging
the hornies, and that force was love suddenly standing a fierce defensive perimeter around what was loved,
which was Cathy.
“What
do you have in mind? By way of fucking me begging blind that is,” she added. “Something
for tonight, or something for when there’s a been stage set?”
“Cathy,
no. Don’t even go there. Please. What
I’m feeling isn’t right, it’s wrong and wrong ruins things. Please. I like what
we have.”
“So
do I sweetheart. But you’ve got doors banging in the wind. So I say we go find
those doors, and fucked begging blind is the only real lead we’ve got.”
*** *** ***
Chair
was going somewhere, and it was taking little Jeddi with it. The dog dick thing
was gone, now her only problem was finding pants, and finding her way home.
Pants she could borrow, lots of people hung clothes out on a clothesline. She
didn’t have to steal them, she could take them back later when she had her own
pants and say thank you to the other little girl for letting her use her pants.
But finding her way home might not be easy. They were still a long way up in
the air and from way up here she couldn’t tell at all which way they were
going.
I’ve
got to remember my address. I live at thirteen
twenty one Embassy St
I’ll
tell the policeman about the dog dick thing too, she decided. That way he could
tell the other policemen. That dog thing really shouldn’t be running loose. It
was mean, it liked to bite, and it wanted to sting. The policemen could arrest
for stealing her pants and put it in jail. Or put it back in it’s yard, which
was really about the same thing.
It
all came down to just remembering her adderess. Thirteen
twenty one Embassy St.
Her
son, sleeping on the floor beside her bed, was instantly awake. From the
mumbles and fragments Jason locked two things into his memory: mean dog thing, and
thirteen twenty one Embassy St
*** *** ***
Lisa
was suffering. Cathy’s words had set the anger to washing her with adrenaline
shots, and the hornies were making each feel like an orgasm aborted just as it
began. Having that happen once was a
total annoyance, but having it happen every five seconds hurt.
Her left foot thumped the floor as she squirmed in the chair trying to
get her belly to relax. After watching her for thirty seconds Cathy rolled off
the flip ‘n flop to spider walk six feet and go to her knees by the chair.
“Sweetheart,
may I...” she began, waiting until she had her eye before finishing her
question, “touch you?”
“If
you want to,” Lisa replied. The remainder of her thought was all over her face:
but I don’t know why you’d want to, not
right now...
Cathy
laid her hands on the trembling leg, strong fingers working deep into the
muscle. As the leg oh so slowly relaxed
she drew a deep breath and looked up. “We’re going to tag team this,” she said.
“I’m going to deal on the hornies, and you’re going to work on back tracking where
the anger comes from. Just that simple.
Don’t let it get away, Lisa, don’t let it get away or it will just come back
later. Now c’mon, out of the chair and tummy down on the flip ‘n flop for me.”
Lisa
stood, drew Cathy up with her. They stood face to face for a moment before Lisa
put her hands on Cathy’s shoulders and moved her back to arms length. “Ok. Ok. Just give me a minute. Go get the
toys. All of them. When you get back don’t say a word. Not one word. Just sit
on me if you have to, drive me hard and don’t let up until I start talking, ok?
Deal?”
Cathy
looked, saw the resolve, saw the price she paid for the resolve. “Deal,
sweetheart. Deal and done.”
*** *** ***
Chair
was going lower, Chair was going slower. Jeddi could see the ground again.
Houses and trees, yards and cars. Big streets and little streets, busy streets
and empty streets. She was flying over them all.
She
started leaning her legs to steer, Chair didn’t seem to mind, it turned the way
she pointed her toes. She was watching the ground very carefully. She was
looking for clotheslines, she was looking for a pair of pants.
That
was the first thing. Find a pair of pants. You didn’t find pants on a busy street where all the people would laugh at you
for being bare bottom, you found pants in a back yard. She was much more
interested in backyards than streets.
They
came to a busy busy street, beside the street was a big store. Jeddi pointed
her toes up. Go higher, Chair! Go higher! Chair went higher, and Jeddi giggled.
All those people, and nobody saw her bare bottom because she was to high in the
air. It was funny, she had to laugh, and chair laughed too. When Chair laughed
it ticked, she laughed more.
*** *** ***
A
deal is a deal, a worried Cathy thought. I can’t back out. But if she doesn’t
start talking soon the only thing she’s going to get from this is sore.
Lisa
was sprawled on the flip ’n flop, she was kneeling on the floor astride the pad
with her shoulders getting used for stirrups as she worked the toys. In an hour
Lisa had said exactly one word, and that was “more.” Four times she’d grunted
“more” through clenched teeth. More. As if more would help.
She’d
switched toys twenty minutes in, trading the glass dildo for the funky pink tickle
pickle. It was a vibrator, but more importantly it was softer, pneumatic, it
wouldn’t bruise no matter how hard she pumped and clenched with the mauling orgasms
that were giving her no relief.
Ordinarily
Lisa was a popcorn girl, happy and playing she’d pop little ones right and left, grin, giggle, and keep right
on going. But these weren’t little, these were back bending belly grinders any
one of which should have put an end to things. But they weren’t, they were
twisting her through so many expressions of desperation it hurt to watch, and
still demanding more.
She
switched hands, changing hands changed the angle, almost instantly Lisa was shiver
humping. Number five arriving. She was getting close, again. Lisa was metronome
predictable in that regard. When her
clit hit a three second cycle she was on the edge, point of no return, any faster
she’d go off in only moments. She was close, her clit was throbbing out half an
inch every five seconds.
Lisa
was even closer when she suddenly froze, her bottom lifted up quivering in mid air. “Stop. Oh god, stop,”
she panted. “Stop. Please, I’m begging you, stop. Get the toy out of me. Touch
me human, give me head, suck it out of me now or you’ll leave me crazy,” she
pleaded.
Words,
at long last words. Cathy smiled, leaned down to blow a stream of cool air on flesh
worked to scarlet as she eased the toy out. Not that I’m going to be saying
much with my mouth full, but she can talk and she needs to talk. “Ooooh yea, my
pleasure,” she said, getting the big bolster pillow under Lisa’s bottom before bending
over to let her down.
“I
know what the mad part is...” Lisa got out before her voice became an open
throated cry to the sensation of Cathy inhaling clit and labia into her open
mouth settling forward onto her elbows, skilled fingers playing accompaniment
to Lisa’s voice on the inside of thighs.
Cathy
lifted up enough to ask “Oh?” before curling her tongue in as far as it would
go for an anchor so her lips could do guppy laughs.
“I’m
still so mad,” Lisa said, her words spaced wide to allow the shivers of what
Cathy was doing to pass between, “I’m crying mad. They robbed me Cathy, they
stole it. The bastards, they robbed me and tried to blame you.”
*** *** ***
Chair
was getting tired, Jeddi could tell. They were going lower and slower all the
time. Sometimes her feet were almost
touching the tops of the houses. They
fell down and down, now they were going down an ally. The wires were going over them. She tried to
tell Chair to stop, to rest, but Chair kept going. Chair knew where it was going. They crossed a
street, there was no one on the street, no one saw them. The next ally wasn’t the same as the last
ally, the next ally looked, oh my goodness, it was her ally! This was right
behind her house!
“Chair,
Stop!” she said. And Chair did, it stopped right behind her house! And then
Chair dropped her, just dropped her. It was only a little ways down, she landed
with a thump on her feet by the trashcans right by the gate.
“Oh
Chair, thank you thank you thank you!” she exclaimed as Chair slowly floated
around in front of her. “Thank you for bringing me home!”
Chair
bounced up and down, and then shot up into the sky so quickly it went out of
sight almost all at once. “Bye bye
Chair,” little Jeddi said for a second time. “I’m going to miss you.”
She
looked around, there was no one in the ally. She was still bare bottom of
course, but there was no one to see. This adventure might not end all terrible
after all. She put her eye to the crack by the gate and peered into her
backyard. Oh, this was just better and better. There were pants hanging on the
line! One, two, three, four, five pairs of her pants she counted. They were all
right there, all five pairs of her new school jeans were right there on the
line.
If
she didn’t open the gate all the way, if she just slid through she could snatch
a pair of pants and get behind the big bush to put them on. It wasn’t to terrible late, the sun was still
high in the sky. It might be that Momma might not even see her! Sometimes Momma
didn’t notice her coming in the house, sometimes. Momma might think she’d been there all along
playing in the back yard! Hope was growing by the moment.
*** *** ***
Robbed?
I can easily believe robbed Cathy thought . Her hands slid along Lisa’s thighs,
pushing away and pressing down in the same stroke, opening her wider before
returning to the center, thumbs closing the outer behind a curled tongue zipper
closing the inner. With her clit locked
in the tongue curl she set a bit of suction with her mouth and hummed an
ascending, questioning tone.
She
was rewarded by a gasping cry and a surge that pushed her tongue back. As the surge retreated she shifted her hands,
pulled her wide open and nodded laying long dog licks that made legs shake all
the way into her bottom. Three, four,
five swirling slow licks bottom to top and then wiggly squirmy back down with
the bottom of her tongue, and... enough. Don’t let her come, not yet. Her body
was begging ready, it had been ready for a long time, but the rest of her
wasn’t.
“Who
are they, what did they steal from my lover?” she asked, pillowing her cheek on
a thigh as she spoke so her breath would be a caress in it’s own right swirling
cool across the burning canyons of Lisa’s terribly conflicted arousal.
“My
father. And my dipshit dumbfuck uncle. His twin brother. Those two pompous
over-educated assholes made me a pawn in their ego game. If it wasn’t for you I
would never have known.”
“I’ve
got a feeling there’s a story there really needs a telling,” Cathy said, lifting
up to go back to giving head. Before she’d done more than set her tongue down
Lisa’s hands were on her head moving her away.
“No
hon, no more, not right now. I’ll share you anything you want later, but right
now I need to rest, and I need to talk. I want to see more of you than just the
top of your head, ok?”
*** *** ***
Little
Jeddi was staring at the gate. Something was tickling at a thought, but she
couldn’t quite pin it down. Through the gate, behind the bush, put on the same
pants she’d left in and she was home free.
What was she forgetting? She looked around, decided she didn’t have time
to ponder. Pants first, ponder later. At any moment someone might be in the
ally, and with her luck it would be Terrible Timmy from next door who would
tell everyone he’d seen her without her pants. Timmy was the deciding factor,
it was through the gate she went.
Big
Jeddi thrashed in her bed, her head rolling side to side. “No, no no, don’t,
no...” she muttered, her agonized voice loaded and overloaded with horror. But
then again, she knew what was waiting for little Jeddi. It wasn’t available to
her waking self, but she knew.
For
little Jeddi plans were proceeding exactly on schedule. She slipped through the
gate, closed it behind her and sprinted for the clothesline. A grab and a roll
and she was behind the big bush where no one could see her. The feel of clean
denim sliding over her legs felt like heaven to her. She stood up, was only
mildly surprised that her panties and shoes were back. She snapped her blue
jeans and stepped into her back yard. Everything was going to be fine, the
adventure was over. She couldn’t tell anyone, of course, no one would ever believe
her. But what an adventure it had been.
Tears
leaked out of big Jeddi’s eyes, rolled off to wet her pillow. She knew, and she
was helpless. Little Jeddi couldn’t hear her. She was going to walk through the
door and straight back into hell.
*** *** ***
The
chair pushed into the corner plus the flip ‘n flop on the coffee table plus the
couch made a fine cuddle pit, it offered quite a few fine ways to share
pleasure as well. Cathy had installed
Lisa on the arrangement and then gone for huge tumblers of lemonade. Lisa had
been panting so much for the last hour her mouth had to be desert dry. Lemonade,
and a hand towel soaked in ice water. Her girl parts were still scalded red, a
bit of cool would be a good thing.
“Comfy?”
Cathy asked as Lisa settled against her. There was no telling what she’d spent
to do it, but she’d won her beachhead.
The first order of business now was to
support her girl while she was facing the foe in close combat.
“Yea,
as much as I can be right now,” Lisa answered. “All of a sudden I have a lot
more sympathy for nymphomaniacs,” she added with a wince, flipping the towel
over to where it was still cold. This was miserable.
“Tell
me the story hon’. What did they steal? What tipped you off?”
Lisa
was beneath Cathy’s left arm, she reached up and pulled Cathy’s hair in front
of her face, took a deep breath savoring the smell. “It was your hair, the smell of your hair.”
“The
smell of my hair?” Cathy asked. This she hadn’t expected at all.
“Yea,
the smell of your hair. Cathy, you and I? We’ve shared some deep things, we
really have. We play a lot, tickle giggle games, but we’ve made love too, more
than once. I mean, sweet soul love where we shared so much more than just grins
and ‘gasms.
“Every
time we really made love your hair smelled just like it does right now, and
every time that happened it ended up you, you’d taught me something, you‘d shown
me something that helped me. I mean me-me on the inside. Loves honor sweetheart, because of you I’m
twice the woman I was that first afternoon we hooked up to share a little play
time.
“When
I really noticed the way your hair smelled I thought it was some super subtle
perfume, I was wondering where you got it. Honest, Cathy, I thought it was
perfume. It wasn’t until today I understood what I was smelling. Those times
you were opening me to things so much bigger than sex? Those times I came away
changed, grown, trying to understand what had happened? I wasn’t smelling a perfume. I was smelling the scent
of your prayers. I was smelling your faith riding the scent of your prayers
riding in your hair. That’s what I just learned, just now, this afternoon.
“That’s
what’s been kicking doors open, leaving them to blow and bang until I had to
sit up and take notice, being lost made me understand what I’ve been looking
for.”
Lisa
snuggled lower as she spoke, turned her face to set a kiss over a heart before
her lips traversed the rise of breast. As Cathy’s hand found her head she
nuzzled working the nipple closer, when it was beneath her lips she set a
lingering suction kiss that enlarged to the limits of areola as her hand eased
down Cathy’s belly. A little push and Cathy let her legs relax and open a bit. There
was no attempt to open, to penetrate or stimulate, just a warm hand pressing oh
so slightly as fingers rippled with the shifting suction on a nipple.
Releasing
the now firm nipple to the air she cried “Cathy, don’t you see? You can feel
her, your Goddess, you feel her like you feel my hand, she’s always there for
you. But me? For me the only way I even knew she exists at all was seeing her working
through you, her loving and so very faithful daughter.”
“I,
I don’t really know what to say,” Cathy uttered, taken totally aback. After a
moment she added “All I can say is the Goddess is very subtle when she wants to
be. If good things happened it was way
more her doing than mine.”
Lisa
looked up, for a moment the emptiness there was so severe you could have
dropped skyscrapers into her eyes with room to spare. Her eyes fell back before
she spoke, her voice the tone of a confession.
“I’ve
been with a lot of women, probably to many women, and I was never with anyone
where I even began to feel her, not like she is in you. A bunch of them went
through the motions, but it was just the motions. They were hypocrites just
like the TV christians, all they did was cement down what I’d been told when I
was robbed.
“That’s
what they stole from me, all of them, my father, uncle, those women, they stole
believe. All they left me was this, this
damnable aloof intellect thing and emotions that escape the cage sometimes so I
get to feel them as sensations. They stole the rest, locked it up in their contradictory
bullshit arguments I was supposed to referee for them with my life. That’s all
the bastards left me, just enough to see how it is for you so I have to know
how little they left me.
“They
stole believe from me, and when they took believe they took so many, many
things away at the same time. The bastards. But knowing you has made it so I can’t
not believe and I don’t know what to do anymore. Damn it Cathy, I feel so raped
right now,” she said, and for a time tears took her voice.
When
her voice returned she whispered against the side of Cathy’s breast “It wasn’t
you, I’m so ashamed I ever thought it was you. It was never you, it was them.”
*** *** ***
Father
Ryan reached over and patted Sylvia’s hand. “All things happen in God’s good
time, Sylvia. We may not understand it, but there’s nothing God can’t turn to
goodness if his children will let him.”
Sylvia
smiled and nodded. He was doing it again, that if-his-children thing. This is God we’re talking about, no one lets
God do anything. God lets them.
“So
tell me,” Father Ryan continued, seeing the sentiment in Sylvia’s eyes
hardening like fast epoxy, “did Harvey and Jeddi share a faith? Would there be
a tradition appropriate to their beliefs?”
Sylvia
recoiled, her nose climbed a full inch, her eyes flashed. “No,” she said
emphatically. “Harvey was the most godless man I think I’ve ever met. And if my
daughter has been to confession in twenty years I’d be very surprised.”
Sylvia
ended her reply with a distinct sniff. Father Ryan shook his head, and dropped softly
into Latin. May angels guide your way that angels may restore any whose way crosses
yours. When Sylvia’s eyes widened in
curiosity he shifted the moment knocking a knuckle on the table with a smile
and said “Just a very old prayer for times like these. Possibly Saint Patrick,
but I’m not really sure.”
*** *** ***
Cathy shifted, sat up a bit, shifted Lisa to
lay across her lap where she could hold her. She put her on her right breast,
lifting and rolling her shoulder until she’d taken the nipple between her lips.
Lisa was crying, soon enough she was taking back her tears as she suckled.
“I
am so proud of you,” Cathy whispered, stroking Lisa’s hair and rocking.
There
was an arousal in her, glowing warm and aching deep, but it would wait. It was
an arousal of the heart, it could not be satiated in the flesh until the needs
of a heart had been met. It was not a thing she thought, it was a thing she
knew without thought: the arousal was how her body responded when the Goddess
was awake within her, the ecstatic heights of pleasure later the Goddess’ thank
you for hosting her into the mortal moment where she was needed. When the
responsibility had been satisfied the pleasures she’d know could light the
aurora borealis, but not until the need was met.
The
focus of Cathy’s thought was Lisa mourning the years of soul famine, starved by
her culture. In the name of progress she’d been denied the right to believe in anything
beyond the moment. What a cruel loss, and what a shattering way to gain an
understanding of that loss.
From
no more than what Lisa had just said so many things were shifting, condensing,
coming into focus about her. In Cathy’s
world to be a lover was to understand, return the understanding as the
intimacies allowed. In the moment she cuddled Lisa to her breast feeding her
heart with the understandings gained from the moment. It was a full circuit
thing, one could not happen without the other.
She leaned forward, lifted Lisa off her nipple to kiss a cheek, pat her
bottom, caress her back.
“You’ll
find it sweetheart, you’ll find it,” she whispered into her ear. “They stole
the years, but they can’t steal any more than that. You just hid the rest so
they couldn’t get to it. It’s just hidden hon, just hidden. You’ll remember
where you put it, you’ll find it. You will, I promise.”
*** *** ***
The
door didn’t really want to open. It did, but it didn’t want to.
Little
Jeddi slid into the house and door changed its’ mind. It shut itself behind
her. That was strange, back door liked to stay open. You had to make sure back
door got closed or you got scolded.
The
house was so quiet. No TV sounds, no radio sounds. She took herself through the
kitchen, no Momma. She went into the front of the house, into the back of the
house, her room, momma’s room, the laundry room. She was nowhere to be found.
Where was Momma?
She’d
made it home from her adventure, and no Momma? This, this wasn’t right.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Maybe Momma was outside, in the driveway.
Maybe she was getting groceries, maybe she could help carry them in. Jeddi turned for the back door, she’d go look
in the driveway.
Before
she got turned all the way around she froze in heart stopping terror. The pug
dog was standing by the back door staring at her! Oh no Oh NO! He’d followed
her home! The red stinger thing was already poking out and his grin was just as
evil as the last time she’d seen him.
*** *** ***
Sylvia
closed the snap on the suitcase, hoisted it up onto the little wheels, rolled
it out to wait the night with it’s brothers by the front door. There was no
telling how long she’d be gone, she’d loaded the full kit. Carol could look
after the shop, she’d trade her day for day when she got back. That was no
problem.
She
had other and bigger fish to fry. She was contemplating her daughter Jeddi, and
her grandson Jason. Now if ever was her chance to bring them back into the
flock, now while the doors were open to her. But for now it was time for
bedtime prayers and sleep. She’d depart with the rising sun, it was a four hour
drive. That would give her four more
hours to think and pray and have something for a plan.
*** *** ***
“You
awake?” Cathy asked, sounding more than a bit foggy. When she got back an
affirmative nod she finished her question. “Tomorrow is closing in fast. Sleep
here or sleep home?”
“Here
with you,” Lisa replied instantly. She wanted to stay, did she ever want to
stay. Stay forever. She was still intoxicated from what they’d just shared,
smashed in point of fact. With Cathy it didn’t seem there was an upper limit,
it just got better and better. What had
just happened would have been the stuff of legend six months ago, she couldn’t
have imagined feeling like this.
As
the angry tears had faded for a time words had faded with them. There was no
need for them. She’d lifted, kissed the hand cradling her head, and turned her
thoughts to returning to Cathy a bit of what she’d given so selflessly
earlier. She had no thought for herself
in that moment, her only thought was parity for her lover. She’d given so much,
she always gave so much. It was time to give something back, some token of
appreciation for the depth of her love.
As
she bent to press a kiss onto the curves of her tummy a dizziness swirled
through her, she took it for having moved a bit to quickly, just a blood
pressure thing. She moved south, as she’d expected Cathy was ready and
receptive, a bit open. But how could she not be after spending an hour working
her into one orgasmic frenzy after another? And then setting aside the carnal
to nurture, and nurse? She set her mouth
over the rise of mons, let her tongue fall into the salty sweetness of her.
A
moment later she squirmed, her bottom clenched, she couldn’t help it.
She’d
felt what happened for Cathy as her tongue made contact, felt it as if it were
her own body, and that was just the beginning. In only moments Cathy had moved
her bodily over her to pull her down onto her tongue, strong arms holding her
hips motionless, strong fingers deep in the muscles of her bottom spreading her
legs and bringing her open.
Before
the end she couldn’t tell what was Cathy and what was what she was doing for
Cathy being echoed back from her lover. It seemed she felt both in the same
moment, the sensations Cathy knew from her hands, her tongue, her rigid nipples
pressing into her tummy just as vivid as
the soft torment of Cathy’s tongue on her where she was already so tender, the
feel of her hands holding Cathy’s ankles against her thighs as visceral real to
her as the grip of Cathy’s hands on her bottom that wouldn’t let her even try
to escape. It was sex in a sensual stereo,
a surrealistic ecstasy so intense it challenged consciousness in the odd
moments when the sensations synchronized. Those moments would arrive and things
went timeless, the horizon in her head ran out to eternity and all of life was
beneath her gaze. Nothing had ever even begun to feel like what she’d just known.
The
more she tried to understand what had just happened the more mind boggling it
became. “Cathy, was that, was that something special for you?” she asked,
extricating herself enough to sit up against the back of the couch. Cathy matched her posture against the back of
the chair, legs intertwined they were face to face as Cathy answered.
“Way
special,” she said. “It’s never been
like that for me. You too?”
“Uh-huh.
It felt, it was like I was feeling me doing you as much as you doing me. Crazy
good.”
Cathy
nodded, her eyes wide and young for a moment. “I’ve heard of this before, but I
didn’t put a whole lot of stock in the idea it would ever happen for me. Not
then.”
“Where?”
“Hannah.
Grandpa’s last lover, and my first lady lay.”
Lisa’s
eyes went wide with amazement. “She... was your first lady lay? Wow. I’d say oh
boy,” she said, “but truth is it was oh girl. What did she say?”
Cathy
claimed her glass, finished the last in a long sip. When she put the glass down
there was a look on her face Lisa had never seen: reflective, still wondering,
still sorting the bits and pieces.
“She
said a lot, Lisa. A lot. Truth hon? We, you and I, we’re together because of her,
because of what she said.”
“Oh?
How so?” Lisa said, settling back in listening mode. Equality, parity,
understanding. It was her turn to listen to Cathy, understand if she could. “Now
I’m really curious. Tell me the story.” Phooey on work, it was just staff
meetings until noon, and her week was already full, there wouldn’t be much for
her anyway.
Cathy
chuckled. “She was getting interested in Grandpa, and I was the easiest way to
find out about him. She used me, a bit, but she gave back more than she took, a
whole lot more really. No complaints on my part.“
Lisa
set her hand on a thigh, patted softly, noted it only echoed a tiny trifle into
her flesh. “Yea, old-young affairs are like that,” she said. “No matter how
gentle you are you’re going to take a bit of innocence if nothing else.”
“Innocence,”
Cathy said, and soft snort preceded her smile. “My innocence was in tatters
about then. Saran had just enlisted and I was a walking case of the bad baby blues.
I’d been shit face drunk twice that week. When you’re barely twenty a six year
hitch looks like an eternity.”
“I
can only imagine,” Lisa said. It was true, to want a man so badly as all that
was pushing the edges of her imagination, but for Cathy it was memory.
Cathy
laughed. “That’s what she said that first afternoon. That she could only
imagine.”
“She
was good to you, wasn’t she,” Lisa said.
“Yes,
she was. She had this recipe for Italian squash Grandpa wanted so I went to her
apartment to get it. That’s how they got started, talking about cooking. So I’m
in her kitchen and we start talking, about Grandpa and then just general girl
stuff. I held out about thirty minutes and burst into tears. I don’t know what
she said, it just happened. I was hurting so bad it didn’t take much.”
Lisa’s
smile was nothing but sympathy distilled. She could already see it happening,
see it coming. How the unicorn got her horn was now a transparent question.
“Next
thing I know she’s got me cuddled on the couch talking to me and I’m bawling my
eyes out, soaked her shirt, off comes her shirt and she’s got a bath towel over
her shoulder and talking about how she had so much respect for someone who would
cry as much as I was for being so in love.
“I
couldn’t understand it, not at first. She’s as lesbian as you are Lisa, everyone
including me knew that, and she was nothing but good with me being crazy in
love with Saran. It was confusing. I’m hanging over despair and she’s talking
me up for being so determined to wait for him. It was crazy. Two weeks later half
the town was in a panic she was going to ruin me, and she could have, she had
an open path to turn me hard. But she didn’t, not even. She was total respect
for me as I was. She never even tried to turn me. I went to her.”
“Oh?
C’mon hon. Honesty time sweetheart. If she was your first lady lay? Unless
you’d already been thinking in that direction and just hadn’t found anyone
right for you how can you say she didn’t?”
“Because
most folks would say we started with her mothering me, but she really wasn’t. A
mother can’t do what she did for me that afternoon.”
“And
what was that?”
“Well,
let me put it this way. I still don’t know how she got my pants down without me
noticing, I just know that after a little while, well, you know where her hand was.”
“Didn’t
it bother you? That she was doing that?” Those first touches, such a delicate
moment. All the evidence said it had been done perfectly, but the question
needed an asking.
Cathy
shrugged. “It did, but I was still lost and punch drunk from sobbing and I didn’t
have enough left to say please don’t. By then she was talking about what was
going to happen when Saran got home, talking about family, children, you know
what that did to me. My imagination was going crazy in the background.
“Then
she started talking about how to wait for someone so those things could
happen, how to store a love so it doesn’t die, go sour in your heart and poison
all your love. I was terrified of that, I really was and I’d barely even begun
to put words to it.
“I
was so desperate for what she was saying I wasn’t going to gripe about
something that felt good. She was gentle with me Lisa, it’s hard to imagine
anyone doing better by someone. She talked me right through four or five, hell,
I don’t know how many, I wasn’t counting. I’d start getting off and she’d just talk
slower until I’d finished. When I quit loading right back she kissed my cheek
and pulled my pants up for me. It was for me, not her.
“So
yea, that time it was first aid, it really was. It took me a while to
understand but truth is she did the right thing. The hornies were driving the
tears and the tears lighting the hornies, I couldn’t get out of the circle, not
for trying. She gave me what I needed, gave it as a gift. Lord knows she didn’t
get anything out of it, not that time.”
Oh,
I think she got plenty out of it, Lisa thought, caressing the breast where
she’d been given sanctuary, the back of fingers rippling a nipple on their way
to touch a cheek. She got plenty out of it, and because of what she gave in
return I’ve gotten so much from the love you learned from her. I owe Hannah one
really big thank you.
“She
got me calmed down, got me back on my feet and pointed towards the door with
ruined mascara and a recipe card in my hand. Just before I got to the door she
turned me around and gave me a hug and told me if it got bad again I should
come see her. Just that, an invitation. Nothing more.
“A
week later I’m walking desperation again, starting to think about crawling into
a bottle. But, but damn it Lisa, by then I’d already seen what that bottle can
do. I walked to the party house and just
as I got there there’s two of them start puking off the porch. I just kept on
walking to Hannah’s place. I figured what the hell, it’s better to have people
think I’m going lez than have them know I’m a drunk. Right then those were my
choices. Ten at night and I walked up and knocked on her door.
“She
opened the door in her robe. When I walked in I was just six shades of grim. I
walked right into her, put my head on her shoulder and said show me what I can
do for you, I’ll do anything you ask because I don’t want to think about what I
almost just did.”
“Good
lord Cathy, talk about being up front with someone. So what did she say?”
Cathy
shook her head with a sideways smile. “The obvious. Told me what felt good to
me would feel good to her too. Gave me a hug, poured hot chocolate in me and made
me talk to her. It went from there.”
Lisa
chuckled. Not hard to believe, not at
all, Cathy being Cathy. “How long were you with her?” she asked.
“Call
it three months, give or take. By the time we ended she was with Grandpa, we
actually overlapped by a couple of weeks. It was so funny, knowing she was his
lover just like she was mine. Quite possibly for a lot of the same reasons. But
they were so happy, I couldn’t think anything bad about it.
“Long
and short of it was we ended about the time Saran got out of boot camp where we
could start talking again, where I had a chance of surviving on my own. By then
she’d taught me what I needed to know. She’d taught me how to live love so love
doesn’t starve to death waiting.
“That’s
a big lesson Lisa, one I’d never heard a
whisper of anywhere else. That’s not to mention teaching me how be with a woman,
letting me convince myself it was all right to love a woman so I could love someone
and not have to choose between them and Saran.”
And...
that would be why we’re here covered in sweat and sweet dreams, Lisa thought. It
put a soft sad smile on her face as she realized the deep truth of their
affair. I’m safe because I’m not a man, I’m safe to love because since I’m not
a man I can’t compete with Saran. No woman can, not where
Cathy’s concerned. And yet such a sweet love Cathy shares, so very different
from the hundred other lovers who’d said something similar. They’d been so
shallow by comparison where Cathy was so deep, and so genuine. Unicorns. They live a different world with
different rules.
“So
have you been with any guys since then?” Lisa asked, still processing the deep
meanings. “I mean, not wanting a score card, just curious about, well, how you
hold your balance.”
Cathy
smiled, shrugged, offered a short nod. “Yea, a few. But here’s the thing about
them. They’re all good men Lisa, sweethearts every one, a lot of fun. But I make
it a point to pick guys where there’s no way I could ever live in their world
with them, and I wouldn’t ask them to live in mine. That was the essence of
what Hannah taught me. I can love anyone as long as they don’t fit my life the
way Saran does, like I fit his. Love
them for who and what they are knowing what they are isn’t what I am.”
“You
are one lucky girl to have had such a wise woman as Hannah for your first lady
lay,” Lisa said. God, how many girls had
she entertained for an evening, a weekend, where that was all it took to see how
much harm had been done to their heart and life for no better a reason than putting
another notch on the bedpost? More than
she wanted to count.
“I know,” Cathy said. “Believe me, once I got
out into the world it didn’t take me two weeks to realize that. There’s a lot
of solid wisdom in that woman Lisa, a lot. And a few things that reach way, way
out there. Including some things that tickle up against the edges of what just
happened with us.”
“So
what was her way out there idea? I’m totally curious about anything to help explain
what we just had. It was awesome, and kind of scary looking back.”
“Well,
you kind of have to know a little of her history for this to make sense. For
all intents and purposes Hannah was a widow when we met, Kate died of cancer. They’d
been together thirty years. Neither of them ever had kids, only a few men and
none of them good relationships until Grandpa. But she’d been around a lot of
kids, done a lot of surrogate mothering.
“She
and Kate were known for taking on the tough foster cases on a wink and a
look-away well before it was accepted, particularly when it looked like there
were gender problems. After working with those kids trying to keep them between
the bar ditches and alive she’d decided the only way to explain what she’d seen
was a case of telepathy gone awry where no one expects it.”
“Telepathy?
You’re serious? She was serious?”
Cathy
nodded, and her face was sober. “Yes, she was, and I’m getting there. What she said will hold water Lisa, it’s just
something that would be almost impossible to prove in a scientific sense.”
“Ok,
lay it out for me. Let’s see what I think,” Lisa said, bringing her brain full
on line.
“Well,
if you think about it the one place where from nature’s perspective it makes
perfect sense to have telepathy is between momma and child. First thing the
little one has to learn is how to work the most complicated thing known, his
own brain. It just makes all kinds of sense for momma to help the little one
with the, well, call it formatting and configuring work to borrow some terms from the computer folk. This would be in late utero, early infancy
working on things way low, way below personality down where the primal things
live. Down with the memory mapping, and even more important how the emotional gets
coded to tag it to the memories.
“You
know, down in the places where the psychosis begin that you can’t get behind
for them because you can’t get down to where they began. She said she thought
those functions had been corrupted somehow for so many of those kids. What
should have been remembered as happy got coded as miserable. That sort of thing.”
“Fascinating
theory, very plausible, and you’re right. It would be almost impossible to
prove. I could roll with that, give me a twenty million dollar grant to study
it. So... how does that fit with what we just shared?”
“This
is the mind bender of it all. She also said she suspected that link could be
re-opened between adults under certain circumstances. Late in the affair we
were cuddle-stroking one afternoon, just floating along trading easy when she got
kind of misty eyed nostalgic, said I reminded her of an early lover she and
Kate had taken between them to nurse a badly broken heart. This woman had gone to
the girls after losing her man and her children to some accident. The way she
told it hers was a terribly sad story, said it was all they could do to keep
her from suicide long enough to help her heal. They went way deep with her,
they had to to save her life.
“Anyway,
Hannah swore that while she was healing there were times she could feel her touching her, heart and
soul, at depths others she cared about just as much couldn’t begin to reach. She
said at times making love with her was like making love to a mirror that made different
love back. Does that sound familiar?”
Lisa
gasped, went wide eyed. “Yes, oh god yes, that’s a perfect way to describe it!”
“She
was veteran Lisa, she knew herself, inside and out, knew herself well enough to
know someone else and not get lost in them. I didn’t think it was just a story
then, and I damn sure don’t now.”
“I
wouldn’t call bullshit on the idea, not now,” Lisa said, “and apparently you’ve
been a unicorn for a long time if you reminded her of that woman. But fact is
neither of us have ever been a mother.”
For
a long moment Cathy was silent looking away at the far wall where her prayer
bowels rested: thinking, sifting, sorting and searching. It was a funny look on
her face when she turned her focus back to Lisa, one part mystic wise woman and
three parts frightened little girl.
“You’re
not the first person to call me something magical,” she said. “Several of the
tribal elders had started calling me a medicine woman before I left to come to
school. Particularly after they saw Hannah with Grandpa after she’d been with
me. That’s kind of scary Lisa, it’s a
really big thing in our world. A big
responsibility. If you want to know the truth I’m kind of worried about living up
to what it means.”
Lisa
smiled, leaned forward and took Cathy’s head in both hands to kiss her
forehead. “Sorry hon, I’m on their side. You qualify for that name more than
anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Gee,
thanks,” Cathy replied. “And you’re right, neither of us have been a mother.
But I’m about to believe there’s been a mother in this room recently.”
“Oh?
And who would that be?” Lisa asked.
Cathy
smiled, nodded across the room towards her prayer bowls. “Gaia, mother earth.
The original mother of all mothers. I think she heard you hon, I think she was
here with us for a little bit to hold your hands when you were working so hard.”
There
was nothing Lisa could say, she simply stared at Cathy with wide eyes suddenly
full of tears, gestured for her to keep talking.
“Do
you remember I told you she can be very subtle when she wants to be? She can,
and then there’s other times she’ll make it totally obvious what she thinks.
Opening that channel between us for a little while so we could feel it deep and
remember what we felt? Something we’d almost have to notice? That would be
right in character for her, her way of saying to you her beloved daughter that
you’ve turned the blow, survived a full human being, that you have every right to
have some peace where she and the father are concerned. She was telling you your
long famine of the soul is over.”
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