Pagan Dreams Read online

  My decision is nearly made.

  We leave for the beach thinking about where we’ll go for our vacation.

  After two hours in the beating sun and all the salt water we can stand, we drive up the Pacific Coast Highway for awhile, threading our way through a sprawl of beach towns. Peach driving, she takes a quick left down to the center of one small burg. I’m not sure at first exactly where we are. She spots a parking place, an ice cream store; and though I don’t realize it, something else she wants to see.

  After ice cream, we walk down the street, the sun is beating on our backs. We’re not holding hands because our palms get too sweaty, but we’re so close we can feel each other’s atoms passing back and forth. At last she puts her arm around me because Peach cannot help herself. She arouses me with her warm touch, and my hand drops to feel her rear end lightly. Now, I want to be in bed with her, to turn her back against me so I can feel the smooth softness of her ass pressed against my groin. I want to make a journey around all my favorite places. The thought of it consumes me, it always does. I wonder if we can find some semi-public place to get each other off. The idea already has me wet between my legs.

  We pass by a shop and Peach stops, standing at the store window looking in. There’s a clutter of bright colored clothes hanging there, and jewelry of odd handmade designs, and artful pottery. I wonder what’s caught her eye.

  “They do tattooing, let’s go see.”

  She drags me by the hand inside. I’m reeling by the sudden turn, though abrupt changes are common in Peach’s company. The idea of tattooing makes me almost nauseous but I have little choice but to follow her inside.

  The shop smells of incense, the air tepid and close, but erotic. Floor to ceiling, the walls are covered with art, and clothes, and things it would take an hour to inspect. I can’t stop staring at everything, though my eyes are confused by all the colors. There’s too much, so I focus on Peach instead, as she moves from rack to rack, counter to counter in wide-eyed wonder. I watch her sumptuous movement, thinking only of how much I’d like our bodies close now. The shop has only made me hornier, my need for her kisses and her cunt more immediate. I can feel the stickiness between my legs where I’m naked under my long skirt.

  Following my lover from place to place, I realize she’s distracted by the bright colors and baubles that make the shop look so much like our bedroom at home. I imagine Peach could live here, and I suppose I could too, once I got used to it. I can’t live around unfamiliar things. What surrounds me needs to comfort me, not threaten me; and though these things seem innocent enough, there’s something menacing about this place.

  At the back counter Peach stares inside a display case, wanting to see closer. She tells the clerk to pull out a small tray of rings for her to see. These are piercing rings and studs, not for ears, but other places. Her eyes light, as if her imagination has fired off a rocket in her brain. I know her well enough to know what’s on her mind. She talked about it once, about piercing a ring through her nipple or at her belly button, or even through her cunt lips. She’s thinking of it now.

  This feels dangerous and that scares me.

  The way Peach operates, on the spur of the moment, I know that something’s going to happen.

  “You really want this?” I ask.

  “A ring?” she says. “No, all I want is a tattoo.” She waves the tray of rings away.

  “You do?” I register surprise. Why all the business with the rings? I wonder.

  “Yes, a tattoo, a little one,” she tells the tall no-nonsense woman behind the counter. “I want rose petals like tears on my thigh.”

  The picture that comes to mind is really lovely, especially since I imagine tattoos of skulls and crossbones, knives and vicious faces. Rose petals. How delicate and defining, so like Peach. I wonder why I didn’t think of something so fresh and simple.

  The woman smiles thinking Peach’s inspiration as novel and appealing as I do.

  “Back here,” the woman tells us, and she shows us behind a curtain where Peach will sit. I notice now that the place is surprisingly clean. I’ve always figured these places to be crawling with vermin, but this is spotless.

  I watch as my lover pulls up her skirt and shows the woman where she wants the tattoo: at the top of her right thigh just a little off center towards her side. My mind wanders to more lewd thoughts, of placing a tattoo on shaved labia, close to the pussy. I say nothing, or Peach might think I’m interested for myself.

  I don’t want to watch the operation, but Peach continues to look at me. I see a little trepidation in her eyes, as if she needs me there for support. I don’t think myself as very supportive at moments like this, but I remain dutifully next to her while I feel all cramped and frozen in the tiny room.

  The tattooing is painstaking. I watch the needle and then watch Peach’s expression. It hurts, but not much. She relaxes half way into the process, and smiles at me, as if she were beckoning me to get one too. I’m too much in a trance to smile back. I don’t want to encourage her in her fantasies.

  When the woman finishes, there are three rose petals descending on Peach’s creamy olive thighs. They’re so pretty, so perfectly placed. The woman is a fine artist; I can respect her for her craft. I wonder if Peach knew about her and her shop all along; was our coming here as impromptu as Peach led me to believe? I’m beginning to think it wasn’t chance at all that we passed by this place.

  “Now you,” Peach says to me, looking as though she’s daring me.

  “Me? Oh, no. Not me,” I protest. I know right off that I won’t do this. There’s no way she’ll talk me into painting my body with something that won’t wash off. Besides, I’d have too much trouble deciding what kind of tattoo I’d want. I’ve always considered that my body is a statement of myself; one false move and I’ll ruin the portrait and perhaps my whole identity. This sounds too ridiculous to even mention.

  “For heaven sakes, Cass, why not? You’ve thought of everything sexual, including this. I know you, don’t lie to me.” There is an unpleasant edge in her voice. She doesn’t want to be denied.

  “Maybe I have, but fantasy is fantasy, and reality is something else.” And this, I fail to add aloud, reminds me too much of things past, that while I refuse to even think of them now, I know lie lurking ominously in my psyche.

  “Suit yourself,” she says haughtily, though I know that she’ll not let the matter drop.

  Returning to the outer shop, she stares into the display case, at the jewelry once again. She turns to me with wicked thoughts written all over her excitable face.

  “What?” I say cautiously. I don’t trust her.

  “A ring,” she states, as if she’s made up her mind.

  “I already have two sets in each ear, I don’t need more.”

  “Not in your ear, silly, on your cunt.”

  “NO!”

  She doesn’t ever take no for an answer. Certainly not the first time. That naughty smirk remains on her face. “Let’s do it.”

  “Please, Peach, I’m not ready for this,” I insist.

  “Hey, love, you’re the one with the erotic spiritual connection. It would make a perfect statement of who you are.”

  “To whom?” I ask, still too dumbfounded to accept what she really wants me to do.

  “To me,” she says without thinking. “Who else would you think?”

  I breathe deeply, trying to frame words suitable to end this silly notion.

  “That one,” Peach says pointing to a small gold ring with a tiny filigree that looks like roses or ivy, something I don’t want to recognize.

  The clerk smiles. “And where do you want this placed?” she asks.

  Peach considers for a moment. “On her left labia, high up by her clitoris.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” I gasp, all calmly rendered protests forgotten for a simply stated but most adamant refusal.

  She takes my hand, and whispers in my ear, though not so quietly that the woman at the counter doesn’t
hear. I know she wants her to hear every word. That’s the exhibitionist in her being totally indiscreet. “Do it for me,” she says, “my tongue will have a jolly time playing with it.” I blush, glancing toward the clerk.

  The woman at the counter smiles at me, not surprised by what she hears.

  I pull Peach aside. “I can’t do this, not here.” Gazing around the room, it suddenly feels like some spooky dungeon, and I’ve just been asked to sacrifice myself. It’s too close, too close to a sordid past. I can’t let her insist on this.

  “Here? What’s wrong with here?” Peach asks. “You saw them do my tattoo, it’s a perfectly respectable place.”

  “It only takes a few seconds, much quicker and easier than a tattoo,” the woman at the counter interjects.

  I didn’t want to hear that. Of course, it would take less time. They probably use one of those quick piercing guns.

  “C’mon. Stop being such a spoil sport, Cassidy,” she says firmly. “It arouses you, don’t you dare deny it.” She looks meaningfully toward my cunt, her expression lascivious. “I can feel you, you know. You’re turned on. You’ll have to tell this body of yours to quit giving you away.” I’m scared even more now, since I know she’s in a mood that is never dissuaded by any protest I make. She’s utterly ruthless with her will at such times. And I cannot, for all my terror, deny her anything she wants this much.

  “C’mon,” she says, taking me by the hand. Again, we follow the woman around the counter to the room behind the long velvet drape. I scrutinize things even more carefully this time, seeing the clean table, the simple instruments, a welcome bottle of disinfectant. There’s no piercing gun but a very nasty looking needle.

  “You really want this?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Peach says with a terrific smile on her face. “And you do too,” she assures me, “I’ll wait for you outside.”

  “What? You’re staying. I stayed all through that tattoo.”

  “No, I’m not staying. I want to be surprised when I find it tonight,” she tells me. How can she think of sex at a moment like this? The woman listens as transfixed by Peach as I am. My lover’s sense of drama is acute.

  “But show me where,” the woman tells her, realizing that Peach is in control of this adventure.

  I lay back on the table and pull up my skirt. My nakedness embarrasses me in front of the woman, though it doesn’t seem to bother her. No doubt she’s seen other naked cunts like mine.

  “There,” Peach says taking a pinch of my outer labia in her fingers. She wiggles it a little, giving the woman a good look at where the ring will be. In spite of everything else going on with me, her touching me there is arousing. I wish she would stay, but once the woman nods, the spot clearly pinpointed, Peach walks away, and I’m alone with a stranger.

  At least she’s gentle and quick, as she promised.

  Minutes later I’m on the street again, at Peach’s side, walking arm and arm with a ring now piercing my cunt.

  “Can you feel it?” she asks.

  “A little.”

  “I bet you’re wet,” she says. “Tell me what it felt like when she did it.”

  “Erotic? Is that what you want me to say?”

  “Was it erotic? I want to know.”

  For the first time I smile, because she’s so right. My sexual energy is sky high and I want to dive into her flesh. She’s right about the statement this makes. It’s as much for me as anyone else. Like a talisman of great portent, it affirms what I say about myself and my life. It’s so completely fitting to mark myself this way, I’m surprised that I haven’t thought about it more than I have. I’m surprised that I haven’t done it before now.

  It’s all the more reason to suspect that bringing Peach into my bed was a stroke of genius; for what I’m unable to implement myself, she joyously creates for me. How could I have suspected that she’d have this effect on me? If I had, I might not have pursued her. This has to be one of those profound bondings, spirit to spirit, one of those soul level things that are handled by a benevolent deity that knows what I need better than I do myself.

  Happily, I chose to forget about the other woman: the other side of me that long ago traipsed about my life leaning to the dark sides of sex. The shop, the ring, the piercing all remind me of that for an instant; and it’s strangely liberating that I can have done this simple thing, and not felt the past suddenly chasing after me as it always has before. Perhaps this is a double triumph.

  The day takes a lewd turn, as my impulses take charge of me. I can tell because I’m looking for some place where Peach and I can hide together and not be seen, while we get each other off. I know that we won’t survive this frenzied sexual heat all the way home. This time I take the lead, and we duck between two old buildings, into an alley that seems dark, even though the sun is still high in the sky. The shadows protect us as we find the perfect spot, where a sheltered stairwell appears behind the building as if it were calling to us. It’s cool sitting here on the steps, and deserted enough so we can play in peace.

  Peach likes taking chances like this. I like taking chances when I’m as aroused as I am now.

  She reaches to the hem of my skirt and I feel her hand explore until her fingers are at my cunt door and poking through.

  “How does the ring feel to you?” I whisper to her.

  “Oh, not now,” she says. To my disappointment, she’s suddenly perfectly happy to finger me until my crotch explodes and I buck against her hand. She always laps my cunt, but not now. Still it surprises me that she ignores my new jewelry altogether. I know without her telling me, that she’s waiting for her special present, until we’re home again. I can only imagine now what she’ll do with it. I absurdly think of her hanging things from my cunt, making the obvious protrude even more, making my labia out of kilter with the other side, by attaching something heavy to this ring. That might please her sense of the bizarre.

  After I climax, I press my lips against hers and flick my tongue inside her mouth. My own hand roams about her thighs and she begins to gasp. Just playing with her body, not even finding exposed skin, she’s alive with a powerful need. Before I even reach her cunt to play with it, she jerks. It’s a short quick orgasm. I call them her public orgasms because they happen so quickly. I’m often amazed by her easy performance. When we take our time, she has long rolling endings that I think will never stop. She swears mine are longer, but we’ve never kept time.

  The sex makes me languid as we ride home in the heat. But my body has not been satisfied. My greatest pleasure is knowing we’ll spend the rest of the day and most of the next in bed together. I couldn’t have planned it better, even though I’m still angry that she takes such bold steps with me.

  “Was there some reason for the choice of rings? It seems so deliberate.”

  “I have petals, you have the rose,” she answers.

  “Is that symbolic?” I wonder aloud.

  “Perhaps,” she answers guardedly.

  “Sometimes I don’t know what to make of you,” I tell her.

  She chuckles. “You’re too cautious, you think too much,” she replies. She’s said this so often I’m sick of hearing those words, even when she’s right.

  I drag Peach into bed when we get home. Familiar territory and I’m even more bold. It doesn’t have the same thrill as a semi-public place, but there’s a lot more possibility inside our four safe walls.

  I’m lying back on the water bed, she’s between my legs. With her face staring up at me from my cunt, I catch the expression when she finds the ring on my cunt. Like a kid opening a birthday present, her eyes are wide with glee. Then her tongue playfully flicks the funny thing. I’m gasping, realizing that I need more and more and more. She pulls at the ring just a little; but it’s sore, and I wince. She takes my naked labia in her mouth and sucks it hard. Then she sucks my clit, and it burns; the pressure she uses hurts, though it nonetheless arouses me even more. These are just preliminaries. She would like it rough tonight; and I�
��d like it that way too, except I’m careful with my tiny wound.

  Three fingers press their way into my sloshy gate. I squeeze them as hard as I can, seeing her smile, seeing infinite pleasure written in her expression. I close my eyes and imagine even more, more jewelry, more fingers, more women, my imagination taking off into a crude flight of extremes, tricking my body into thinking that I’ve disappeared into a world of carnal creation where nothing but sensation matters.

  I cum.

  This long wave of pleasure grabs me deeper than I’ve been grabbed in some time. Peach is touching heaven with her skillful disregard to form. She breaks rules well, when I don’t. And now I’m grateful for every slap and pinch and bite, as the last waves finally break on my cunt’s soft shores.

  I give her everything she desires thereafter, with my hands and tongue. Her body rises and falls, riding a crest of waves that seem as unending as the ocean itself. I watch her firm strong thighs when they clench; I see the rose petals move as if they are waving in the breeze. She looks like raw lust, a bawdy obscene whore. (I imagine she’ll like my appraisal of her when she hears it.)

  I often think that though I have the corner on shadowy sexual fantasy, she has the daring essence to see it materialize. Times like this, she scares me.

  She finishes, and we’re spent, at least until midnight, or whenever, when our bodies are aroused again.

  Chapter Four

  Peach storms into the apartment, her wild eyes flashing. Often so easy going, I’m always scared seeing her this way. I’m packing, but soon I’ll see my efforts completely dashed, when she overturns the luggage, and spills the contents of the cooler and picnic basket all over the floor.

  “What the hell is going on?” I demand to know.

  “You’re going to get spanked, you little brat!” she vows.

  “What the fuck?” Her anger ignites my own. But seeing her like this, I’m also scared. Never in eight months has there been such fury written on her face, in her eyes, and all over her lush body.