Crossings
1. Departures
California gets so many fires, especially in late summer. This was earlier than peak season but fire crews know all about rapid response and containment, especially near populated areas, even in foothills like these. Fortunately for us there were also back roads, some unpaved, and our route from the trailhead with the nice lake view was not the same one the fire crews were using. We stopped at a coffee drive-thru 10 minutes later in one of the small Interstate-exit suburbs just north of Redding. We would go to Weed, return the Kia, then meet over lunch.
I drove the Kia with Callie beside me and Dani behind. No one else knew how to drive a stick, and remembering Sati’s divination not so long ago, thinking that made me sad.
“I saw about ¼ of the dark mage’s book,” I said. “I didn’t understand it at the time, but I can recall parts now, and I keep remembering more. I want to share it all.”
“Helluva way to ask to get laid, Bob,” Dani said, smiling wryly.
“You know what I mean,” I said softly.
“Sorry, I’m just being a smartass, sometimes I can’t help it,” Dani said, still smiling, kind of a doleful smile, but she reached to caress my neck and shoulder.
“Are you sure?” Callie asked me.
“Everything,” I said. “Even what we didn’t share before. Dani, and everyone, needs to know how to make a portal.”
“What’s a ... oh yeah,” Dani said. “That’s how you got away from me with Jess that night. I was really pissed, it was like the first night I figured it out about Sati, and I wanted to be on your team.”
“It’s also how we got inside that house with Taylor and Mariano today,” I said, and she nodded. “I’ve only showed Callie and Jess before now. I’m sorry ... I should’ve shared with you, too.”
“We thought you were Sati’s,” Callie said.
Dani nodded. “I probably was,” she said. “Being with Sati, it was like she sent a kind of madness. I wanted to think she was all about love and our best interests, but ...”
Her voice broke. Callie reached back because Dani was crying.
“I’m so sorry,” Dani said between broken breaths. “I wanted to believe ... I wanted ...”
“Dani, honey,” Callie said, stroking Dani’s lustrous black hair, “it’s OK. It’ll be OK. We all wanted to believe, and she took all of us in. I’m sorry, too, about so many things.” She was almost but not quite looking at me.
“I wanted to believe,” I said. “In a way, Sati saved me. She literally pulled me from the gutter at the lowest point of my life, and she brought me to you, which may be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Callie patted my leg, slid her hand up and down near my knee, then nodded to me, sadly, which I took to mean that she agreed to share everything. Dani continued stroking my shoulder, which felt really nice, then leaned forward to Callie and kissed her slender, strong neck.
“I expect you to make it up to me,” Dani whispered to both of us but reserved her neck kisses for Callie, which was probably a good thing because it was giving Callie goosebumps which turned into wild shivers when Dani’s tongue touched, which wouldn’t have been such a good thing for me while driving.
Jess drove Mariano in Callie’s crossover SUV. “I’ve got you now,” she said, grinning.
“Thank you, Jess, for doing ... what you did back there,” he said. “You saved my life.”
“It wasn’t just me,” she said. “You being open is what made it possible. I don’t honestly understand everything that happened, it was like something just came over me, but I liked it, and I’m so glad I could help you.”
“I’m in your debt,” he said, his eyes on hers as much as they could be with her driving.
“I have some ideas about how you might pay me back,” she said, grinning again. “I’m guessing we’ll both enjoy them, but it might mean something coming over me again.”
“Anything you want,” he said. “I’m yours.”
She was silent a minute, deep in thought. He could see some echo of those thoughts play across her expression. “It’ll mean you’ll have to do as I say,” she said, “sometimes do things my way even though you might not want to.”
“That’s what my teacher at the sanctuary said.”
“I’ll make sure you don’t regret it,” she said. “I’ll take good care of you, but you’ll have to trust me even if it gets weird, maybe more than it already has.”
Mariano took a deep breath. Jess could tell he was thinking about what had happened at the sanctuary, from which he’d been taken and enslaved.
“You saved my life,” he repeated. “I’m in your debt.”
“I need more than that ... this isn’t something I’ve done before, not the kind of thing I’m used to doing, you can help me fulfill a fantasy I’ve had for a long time. The magic I’m learning will help, but there’s more. I need you to want me to be doing what I want to be doing with you.“
“There’s already more,” he said, taking a deep breath. “When I asked back in that house whether it was too soon to say I loved you, I meant that.”
Jess looked at him, recognized his hopeful expression for what it was, felt herself smiling, felt something warm within her respond, felt something else warming.
Mariano continued: “If this is something you want, I’m yours. I’ve met your friends, they are good friends and true, and I’ve always known about these things. I’m sorry Taylor is gone. But I trust you.”
Jess hadn’t realized she was tense, took a long breath of her own, relaxed her shoulders. “It’s too soon for me, Mariano dear,” she said, “but ... likewise.” Then there was silence between them for a minute. “Excellent,” she said quietly.
Mariano took another deep breath. “In the house, you mentioned wanting to take Tlazolteotl’s part. At the sanctuary we knew her by a different name, an older name, gentler like all our stories: Chalchiuhtlicue. I wonder if she acted through you?”
Jess shrugged, her mind on other things. “In the car with either of us driving isn’t the best place to start, but if you’re ready I can maybe take a little bit of a shortcut.”
Mariano nodded.
“I need for you to look at me and say it aloud,” she said.
“I’m ready to do anything you want,” Mariano said, she glanced at him and caught his eye.
“Excellent,” Jess said again, whispered something under her breath, then said to him “To start with, you won’t be able to remove your seatbelt. Go ahead, try your best, I want you to.”
Mariano reached for the release, his hand getting partway there before a feeling permeated him, a kind of fuzzy buzzing dizzy tensing sensation, as if his reality was bending, his mind bending with it, stretching, looping, his vision clouding over. Then the sensation faded and he found his hand back at his side. He tried again with the other hand and the same result, and then again, concentrating harder, with both hands. He couldn’t remember anything that happened between when the sensation started overwhelming him and when he found his hands back at his side. One more time, faster, but all that did was make the fuzzy sensation come faster, too.
“Good boy,” Jess said, smiling.
Mariano looked at her like he was utterly lost.
“Is this OK with you?” Jess asked.
“What have you done to me?” he asked.
“Just the seatbelt,” she said. “You’ve given me your trust and I want to keep it, I don’t want you to ever wonder whether anything I do with you will be something you won’t want, even if it’s at a level you don’t realize yet.”
“I guess it’s OK with me then,” he said. “This is so strange.”
“Good,” she said. “Ready for more? Right now you’re in a place where you’ll do anything I ask, but I want to go slow, to make it safe and good for you. I won’t make you do anything unless you ask me to, and I’ll ask if you’re ready each time. If you don’t want it, for any reason, at any time, I’ll stop and you’ll be back in total control of yourself.”
Mariano nodded.
“You need to look in my eyes and say it aloud,” she said.
“I’m ready,” Mariano said.
“Ask me nicely,” she said, “even if it might be uncomfortable at first.”
“Please tell me what you want, and I’ll do it,” he said, and Jess glanced over, smiling, caught his eye again.
“Good boy,” she said, “you’re doing very well. I want you to unzip your pants.”
For Mariano it was like someone else unzipped his pants for him. His hands moved and made the necessary motions outside his conscious control.
“Now pull your cock out,” she said, and as his hands started moving, he said ‘Stop’, and his hands stopped. He looked at her, reached to his crotch, his hands under his own control, and slowly pulled his cock out.
“Is this ...” he began.
“Are you OK with this?” Jess asked. Mariano’s cock was already at half mast.
“I don’t ...” Mariano began, and trailed off.
“You’ll stay like this until you answer that question, yes or no,” she said.
“Isn’t there some other way?” he asked, but she was silent. He thought about everything she’d told him. He already knew she had powerful magic but this went way beyond anything he thought he understood about her or anyone else, she might have even channeled a goddess for his benefit, and he hadn’t been lying when he told her he trusted her and even that he felt love for her, and she hadn’t done anything she’d said she wouldn’t, always giving him the option to decline, even stopping when he asked her to.
“Yes,” he said.
“Good boy,” she said, smiling. “Don’t do that again ... I appreciate that you want to help, but if you want to do this, you have to do it my way. Ready for more?”
“Yes please,” he said, looking into her face. Jess glanced to see that his eyes were in hers.
“Good boy, you’re learning,” she said. “Now close your eyes. You’ll find that you can’t open them again. And get fully hard.” She snapped her fingers.
His eyes slammed shut and his cock rose to full mast.
“Try to open your eyes, try your best,” she said.
Mariano did as Jess asked. His eyes stayed firmly closed. Mariano exhaled strongly.
“I know, it is strange, isn’t it?” she asked. “I’ve never done this before, either.“
Mariano nodded.
“You have to answer aloud,” Jess said. “I know you can’t look in my eyes now, but you still have to do your best, within my instructions, to do anything I tell you. Yes or no?”
“Yes,” he said quickly. That was a really easy answer.
“I like it when you tell me yes,” she said, and saying so caused its own surge of arousal for her, as if it were returning from him. “Now I want your ears to hear only what I say to you, nothing else, not the car, not anything. Tell me when you feel that.”
Mariano’s hearing faded quickly. “I can’t hear anything,” he said. “I can’t even hear my own voice.”
“But can you still hear me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Good boy,” she said. “Any time I say ‘Good Boy’ to you, I want you to feel pleasure, to enjoy when I say that to you, to look forward to the next time I say it, to know that I will only say it if you do something I approve of, but only when I want to. Anytime I snap my fingers, I want the pleasure you’re feeling to spike higher. Say ‘Yes mistress’ if you understand.”
“Yes mistress,” his voice said, louder than before, as if trying to hear himself.
“Are you still OK with this?” Jess asked.
Mariano exhaled sharply. His arousal was getting in the way of conscious thought.
“Yes,” he gasped.
“Yes mistress,” Jess corrected.
“Yes mistress,” he replied.
“Good boy,” she said, and he felt a warm wave flow over him.
“That’s so nice,” he said.
“No talking unless I tell you to,” she said, but him saying that felt so good for her, another thing she hadn’t expected.
“Yes mistress.”
“Good boy,” she said again, and she could see his reaction.
“Are you ready for more?” she asked.
“Yes mistress.”
“Ask me,” she said.
“Please, mistress, anything you want, I’ll do it.”
“Good boy,” she repeated, and glanced at him to see the wave wash over, Mariano wriggling in pleasure. Their little caravan with Kelsey and Bob was coming up on a clump of I-5 traffic.
“I’m going to put my hand on your cock,” Jess told him. “You’ll remember what that feels like, it’ll feel so good, you’ll remember how hot I can make you, you’ll remember that I won’t let you come until I’m good and ready.”
“Madre de Dios,” he said under his breath. “Yes mistress.”
“Interesting choice of words,” Jess said, “but I didn’t give you permission to talk except in response to my question. So now you’ll have to wait. Feel your hard cock throb as it waits for my touch, so gentle, so pleasurable. You want that again, don’t you?”
“Oh yes mistress,” Mariano said immediately, gasping.
There was a truck in the left lane ahead, passing another as the interstate wound its way uphill, a line of cars stacked up behind, waiting. It took two more minutes before they slipped past that lead truck, Mariano’s cock throbbing, leaking precum now. Jess’ breathing was getting uneven, like Mariano’s.
“I want you to feel only my touch, nothing else, and only when it touches your cock,” she said, her eyes on Bob’s rented Kia ahead of her, slipping behind it into the right lane. “You may not move your hands or arms to touch yourself.”
“Yes mistress,” Mariano said.
“Can you feel anything right now ..., wait, don’t answer that, just ...” She moved her hand to his neck, his shoulder, dragging it down his upper arm to his upper leg, then finally just a single finger to the tip of his cock, which wasn’t so simple since it was throbbing every few seconds, dodging unpredictably. He didn’t seem to react to her touch until then. “Can you feel my touch?” she asked.
“Yes mistress,” he said through a little gasp.
She removed her hand. “Tell me every place you felt it.”
“Only one place, my penis,” he said, “just one finger, on the tip.”
Jess smiled. She leaned over, wrapped her hand around him, but he was small, much smaller than Bob, and she wanted more room to play, so she grew him more than an inch. He groaned.
“You’re having the biggest erection of your life ...” she said.
“Yes mistress,” he agreed, though she hadn’t finished speaking. She let it go.
“... because of what I’m doing to you. But you don’t get to come until I say,” she said.
“Yes ... mistress,” Mariano said, his voice and even his body shaking.
“The only thing you can feel is my hand on your cock and the only thing you can hear is my voice,” she said. “These are the only things in your world right now.”
“Yes mistress,” he said.
“You’re shaking,” she said. “Stop that. Stop moving. My hand on you is the only thing that gets to move.”
Mariano struggled with this. Jess wasn’t moving her hand just then but he was more than an inch longer than he’d ever been in his life and every inch of him was hard, close to the edge. Jess pinched the head between her thumb and forefinger, hard, and he moaned.
“Yes mistress,” he said, and now, away from the edge, he was calmer.
“I’m establishing control over your autonomic systems now, do you understand?”
Mariano hesitated. He didn’t understand, he could only guess, he wanted to say “yes”, because she liked it when he said “yes”, but couldn’t do so honestly, so what came out of his mouth was just a groan.
“Autonomic functions are those you have no voluntary control over,” she said, “but I’m going to take control of them. Do you understand now?”
“Yes mistress,” he said.
“Good boy,” she said, satisfaction in her voice, moist heat in her center. She glanced to see him writhing in pleasure, then pinched him again, eliciting a deep groan.
“Quiet. Stop moving.” She removed her hand. There was a stack of paper napkins in the console between their seats, she wiped her hand with one—Mariano was slick with precum.
He breathed slowly, in and out, visibly trying to still himself, which made Jess want to just squirm.
“Let your body become still, let your reactions to my words, my touch, be separate from your body even as they overwhelm your mind. You will feel exactly what I want you to feel, what I tell you to feel, but only in the way I tell you to feel it. Do you understand? When you tell me, honestly, that you understand and are ready to comply, say ‘yes mistress’.”
Mariano’s body slowly became still, but remained tense.
“Let your body relax,” Jess told him. “It’ll make all of this so much easier. Just let it happen, it’s something I want, it’s something you want.”
Mariano was trying, that was abundantly clear, but equally as clear was that he’d never done anything like this before and didn’t know how.
“Start with the muscles in your feet,” Jess suggested. “Let all the tension there drain out.” This is exactly what she’d hoped to avoid by using a spell rather than an induction ... she was afraid she might get too sleepy herself, a very bad thing while driving. But he’d committed to her and she could do no less than fully return that commitment.
“Explore your feet, thoroughly, find any tension there, seek out and release it, moving upwards to your ankles.”
Mariano was relaxing. Another clump of traffic was coming up ahead. They crossed over a bridge and started uphill again, waiting for the truck traffic to clear. She reminded herself that truck drivers were professionals and did the best they could, sometimes she just had to be patient. Deep breath.
“Your calves,” she said, her voice deliberately calm and steady. “Your calves are relaxing, that rising wave of relaxation is coming up over your knees, to your thighs. Let it come, let your muscles relax. You’re doing so well. Now flowing over your hips, your belly.”
Mariano was lean and well-exercised, short by the standards of American men but still half a foot taller than her. She liked him and he liked her, a woman and a man. Goddess, she was horny.
“Your chest, your heart, such a nice place to relax, so much there to relax. Feel everything, feel my words echo in your mind, feel that wave of relaxation flow up your body to your shoulders, down your upper arms, past your elbows, your forearms, your wrists, so many muscles in your hands, let them relax, let them quiet, let them hear my voice, feel my voice, respond to my voice. Then your neck, your chin, your jaw. I like your jaw, Mariano, I like it very much, and it’s relaxing so well for me now, into your cheeks, your eyes. More muscles around your eyes, on your face, your very expressive face, your strong hands, your feet, than anywhere else in your body. Let them relax. Your forehead, your scalp, let them all relax, flow into each other, let my voice flow into them, take residence there, so relaxing.”
Jess felt like she’d been gazing into Mariano’s eyes intently for at least 20 minutes, like she’d done in a senior thesis psychology experiment just over a year ago. It’d gotten so intense for her, so intense for her partner. They hadn’t been intimate, but she’d absolutely gotten herself off that night.
Mariano was completely zonked. As the driver, she was trying not to be. “Can you hear me?” she asked him.
“Yes, mistress,” he replied immediately.
She was tired of driving. She touched a hand to his cock, which wasn’t as hard as before but was still mostly erect. Snapped her fingers.
Mariano’s body spasmed.
“Separate your body’s reaction from your mind,” she said. “Feel your reaction to my voice, my touch, feel it permeate you, separate it from the muscles of your body, so relaxed now except for whatever I stimulate directly.” Mariano was completely hard again. Her finger gently circled his tip except when she had to recapture it when his cock jumped away.
“I want you to feel my hand on your cock, as if it’s physically touching you, exactly the way you want me to touch you most, but you can’t come, you don’t get to come,” she said, then withdrew her hand.
Mariano wanted to say something, he really did, but couldn’t.
“Do you want to tell me something?” Jess asked.
“Yes mistress,” he replied. “but ...”
“Tell me everything you wanted to say, even what you might think is embarrassing, you don’t get to judge, only I do.”
Mariano took a deep breath. “Thank you, mistress,” he said. And that was all he’d wanted to say, Jess could see that. She was now consciously trying to keep from touching herself, this was so hot, so much hotter, in so many other ways, than she’d ever imagined.
“Feel my hand on your cock, the rest of your body so relaxed, so still,” she said. “Feel my fingers circle your tip, so gently. Feel my hand, my nails on your balls, squeezing so gently.” The truck traffic was clearing, but intermittently ... several cars would pass but then the truck driver would jump back into the left lane to pass a truck going 35 kph slower. Jess had both hands on the wheel.
“You are getting so hard,” she said, “but you can’t come, not unless I want it, not unless I tell you to. Your cock is under my control. Your body obeys my voice without thinking.”
“Yes mistress,” Mariano said. Jess hadn’t been expecting a response, but she loved that one. She put a hand between her legs, right THERE, zipped through the narrow space between the passing truck and in front of the truck being passed, a crazy stupid reckless thing to do but she was impatient and increasingly distracted. The passing truck had a passenger who turned to the driver, and three seconds later, those two trucks in her rear view, Jess heard a very loud “HONK HONK” from that driver’s horn, plus he stuck his hand out the window, but whatever the driver wanted to communicate was already lost to distance.
A phone rang. Jess’ phone, which was in the glovebox. Ring Ring.
“Mariano, dear, please reach into the glove compartment, get my phone, answer it, and put it on speaker.”
Mariano reached around in front of him, blindly.
“You can see again,” she said.
Mariano opened the glovebox, took the flip phone out, opened it, scanned the face, pushed a button, then another. Callie’s voice came out.
“... ess, are you OK?”
“Never better. Seriously, we’re doing great back here,” she said.
Jess heard Bob’s voice in the background. It sounded conciliatory. She also heard Dani laughing.
“I guess you’re OK then. But you should know that apparently you flashed that trucker you just passed, maybe you didn’t know it, but he’s on his CB now telling everyone within range about you.” Dani was laughing much louder now. Jess glowered. Then she felt Mariano’s hand on her leg, stroking lightly, up and down with the back of his fingertips, and then his other hand, a hand for each of her legs, and she was feeling what he was doing, all the way to her core, oh fuck yes.
Fucking Callie and Bob and Dani ... how the fuck would they know that trucker was on his CB when they don’t have a fucking CB?
Jess passed another truck. The driver honked twice, loud, stuck his hand out the window and waved. She heard him yelling, a sort of “Woo-Hoo!” kind of yell.
Jess’ rage was faltering in the face of Mariano’s stroking. “I’ll get back to you,” she told Callie, then indicated to Mariano that he needed to hang up. Thank goddess, it only took a moment, and then his hands were both stroking her again. But she was still pissed because this was not what she’d intended, not what she wanted, except ... it felt so good she that didn’t want him to stop. Which made her angrier.
She passed another truck, a third loud honk, another encouraging yell from another excited driver.
“Call back,” she told Mariano, and he did. “We’re going to pull over for a few minutes,” she told Callie. “See you in Weed. We’ll talk more on the way.” She told Mariano to hang up again.
There was a state park just off the interstate. It had its own exit, nothing but a lonely gas station at the bottom of the off-ramp. She followed the signs to a deserted parking lot almost completely surrounded by forest, pulled in near a picnic table, switched off the ignition.
“Get out,” she said, and he did, and she did. “Picnic table,” she said, pointing, and they walked over. Just as they arrived, she angled to the opposite side, the table between them. “We are going to fight,” she said. “No hitting, only grappling. Do you understand?”
“Yes mistress,” he said.
“I want you fully aware ... this is not a drill,” she said. “You will do your best.”
Mariano’s eyes lowered. “Yes mistress,” he said.
“You are going down,” she said, then came around the table and attacked. He went down, then she got up. “Two out of three,” she offered. “Do your best. This is not a drill.”
Mariano got back to his feet, his eyes rising to meet hers. “Yes mistress,” he said.
She took him down again. Mariano was not a wrestler, not much of a fighter except maybe with a handgun or the crossbow he’d nearly killed Stu with just a few hours earlier, that was clear. He might’ve been trained to protect a sanctuary, but whoever trained him had done a shit job, and she was going to rectify that, someday if not today, because she liked him, liked him a lot, actually, which she didn’t fully understand, but it was what it was.
She pretzeled Mariano into immobility. His arms and one leg were pinned by her legs and ankles and hips and torso and arms, his head just under her sex, exactly as she’d intended. He had a 50 pound advantage and a leg free but no leverage.
“I submit, mistress,” he said, and a jolt of arousal coursed through her.
“You can’t move,” she said, and he froze. She slid his pants down his legs, then his underwear, then hers. Climbed atop him, straddling his belly, fingers splayed on his chest, flexing, digging in. “I control my response, not you,” she told him. She took off her shirt, then her bra. Her new breasts were shapely and full, nipples proud and prominent, and Mariano, who hadn’t seen her nude before, felt it.
“I control your cock, I control your response, I control your body,” she said, and waited.
“Yes mistress,” he replied, which was what she’d been waiting for.
“You are my servant, Mario,” she said. You are not fit to nibble my nipples, or lick my labia, you are not fit to suck my clit, or even my ass.” Jess touched herself. “You are definitely not fit to be inside me, but ... oh fuck,” and she mounted him, taking him deep. “I am going to make you fit,” she said. “Look into my eyes, don’t look away,” and he did, and gazing deep inside, her eyes seeming to expand in his vision, she grew him more, shaping him until he was exactly right inside her, lowering herself on him to be closer until her hard nipples were brushing against him, the swell of her unborn child, her manifest fertility pressing into him, his eyes filling hers as hers filled his. She swirled her cervix and wriggled her hips, and if she hadn’t forbidden it he would’ve come 20 times already until eventually he was going to come whether she willed it or not without her active prevention and she’d already had half a dozen small orgasms, each bigger than the last, and Jess felt it.
“I’m going to teach you ... to come as often as I do,” she said, breathless, their eyes so deep in each others’. “I’m going to make you strong ... teach you to fight until you are ... such a badass. And whenever I want ... you will match my orgasms, one for one ... or you will pay the price ... In your mouth, up your ass ... or mine ... anywhere I will it. ... You. Are ... Mine! Oh, fuck.” And her on top, going round and round, she said “Come now, my beautiful boy,” and released him into a shattering orgasm, by far the biggest of his life, as she had the biggest of hers.
“Oh fuck,” she repeated a minute after, lying down with her full breasts smooshed atop him, but he was silent. She took a deep breath. “Everything I’ve compelled you to do is off,” she said, and the sound she made was deeply satisfied.
He breathed for a minute. She could tell he was weighing his response.
“Is it too soon to say I love you?” he asked.
She smiled. “I think I love you,” she said, took his head between her hands, and kissed him tenderly.
They were back on the road 10 minutes later, Mariano driving. Jess called Callie to give their new ETA. She’d already compelled Mariano to be a good driver, staying preternaturally alert to everything happening on the road no matter what she did to him, and she was merciless, one hand on his cock and the other on his throat, squeezing one or both occasionally, telling him he must keep the car at exactly the speed limit or pay the price, his hands magically glued to the wheel, painfully pinching him off whenever she felt him getting close to orgasm or whenever she felt like it, part of him feeling exactly what she wanted him to feel and nothing else, while a completely separated part of him did exactly what she told it to and nothing else as if on autopilot, the second of many lessons he must learn.
Kelsey and I drove to the rental agency and returned the Kia. From the parking lot I saw the risen moon, low on the horizon, almost full. It was still just noon. Then I drove Kelsey’s econobox because Kelsey wanted to wedge herself into the back seat between Callie and Dani. There was an alehouse on the periphery of the college in town, and I headed there before the three women in the back got so cozy with each other that, well ... Stu and I stood with our backs against the car’s rear windows while Stu called Jess to let her know where to meet us. The car was swaying and jiggling behind us. Eventually that stopped and I felt the door opening against me. I moved away, Stu doing the same. The women staggered out. Dani’s rich red lipstick was smudged. I had a napkin in my pocket and dabbed her with it. She took it from me, pulled out a compact mirror and a tube of lipstick which she languorously reapplied, her gaze alternating between the mirror and deep into my eyes, challenging. Kelsey, smirking, let Stu wipe away the smudges on her lips and cheek and neck, and .... lower. We walked inside. Summer quarter hadn’t begun at the college, so the lunch crowd was light. Kelsey and I ordered house IPAs and Dani ordered a blonde, which made Callie smile, but they didn’t have one, then she declined the golden and approved the amber.
“I looked up Mariano’s Hidalgo sanctuary,” Stu said. “I think he’ll be interested.”
I was on my second IPA by then, our food orders already sent, including for Jess and Mariano.
They walked in, Jess leading. She seemed elated and he looked like his world had been imploded, not necessarily in a bad way. I looked forward to hearing that story, the latest in Jess’ metamorphosis.
“They don’t have beaver on the menu, sorry ... I looked,” Dani told Jess, laughing. Jess scowled, but I could still see inside her a little, and she actually thought that was pretty funny, though she wasn’t going to acknowledge it in front of all of us. She felt me at the edge of her awareness, and we sparred there one last time, playfully, lovingly.
Stu told his story. A group of recently converted Christian cultists were reportedly responsible for defiling Mariano’s sanctuary, some artifacts destroyed, though of course the cult leaders denied it. Those converts had previously practiced the old ways there but now found the place offensive to their new God.
“It was the dark mage,” Mariano said. “It doesn’t matter what the cultists say, they wouldn’t have been responsible anyway, but you saw what he could do, even to someone who was supposed to protect that sanctuary, like me. I want to go back.” I noticed Jess’ expression go slack, then forlorn.
“I’ll go with you,” I said.
“Me too,” Callie said.
“We need a safe place,” Kelsey said. ‘To have our babies’ she didn’t say out loud, but I heard it anyway. “I’ve always wanted to see the Lost Coast, I hear they have new-age-y retreats and lots of Wiccans.”
“Mostly women?” Dani asked, already knowing the answer.
“Of course,” Kelsey replied, smiling coyly.
“I’ll go with you,” Stu said.
“I’d like that,” Kelsey said to him softly, turned to him, put a gentle hand on one of his cheeks and kissed the other. Tenderly.
“Dani?” I asked.
“I want to go with you, but I also want our baby to be safe,” she said.
“Keep him safe,” Mariano said, from left field or wherever random thoughts come from now that not so many still follow baseball. A non-sequitur is what I thought it, then.
“I’ll come back soon,” I said. “Within a month, I’ll try my best. But there’s someone else I also need to be with.”
“Wiccans and New-Agers would welcome healing and birthing magic,” Callie said. “I bet you could find a house to stay in together long enough to birth your children and then for a few more months. At least. You might pick up some students.”
Kelsey smiled.
“Where will you go?” Jess asked Callie.
“After Mexico? I really love Newberry,” Callie said, “more than anywhere else I’ve ever wanted to live in my life, and I love teaching. Anyone else who wants to go back there would be so, so welcome, I loved it there with all of you, so much, it was the best time of my life. Of course I’ll visit wherever you are, whenever I can, but I’ll understand if you don’t, or can’t.” She looked at me.
“Jess?” I said. Jess looked truly sundered. I really wanted to hear the story of her and Mariano now.
“I want our baby to be safe,” she said to me. “I want that very much, but I’m torn. You know I love you, Callie, Bob, all of you, you know it’s true and it’ll never stop being true, but maybe now would be a good time to tell you that I’m becoming very fond of Mariano, and I would like to be with him even more.”
“I love Jess,” Mariano said.
“Will you love me for a year and a day?” Jess asked him.
“Longer,” he replied. “Much longer.”
“A year and a day is a good start,” she said, smiling.
“Then yes, I will, with all my heart,” he said.
Dani had a long blue silk ribbon in her handbag even though I’d never seen her beautiful long black hair constrained in any way. The ribbon matched her eyes, because of course it did. Callie requested candles and lit them when they came. The food arrived. Everyone rose, Callie prompting me and Jess prompting Mariano ... the women and Stu all seemed to know.
Jess put her hand on Mariano’s and Dani looped her ribbon around both, binding them together.
“I will love you truly, wholeheartedly, I will teach you, I will take good care of you,” Jess said, looking deep into his eyes.
“I will love you truly, with all my heart and soul, I will do my best to learn everything you want to teach, I will take good care of you, any way I know how, however you want me to,” Mariano said, looking deep into hers.
She fed him a bite of her vegetarian panini, he fed her a bite of his Cubano. We raised our glasses, drank our drinks, formed a circle around them, holding hands, blessed them and their union, they hugged and kissed long and deep to scattered applause from the thin crowd, then each of us held their free hands in turn, kissed them gently on the lips. They’d met less than six hours ago. I took Callie in my arms, saying “I remember this ... I love you,” and I held her close and kissed her deeply, and as unsure as she might’ve been feeling, she melted into me a few moments later, and I into her.
Stu would drive Kelsey’s little hatchback to Newberry. We left a nice tip for our waitress, blessed the building, a droplet of oregano oil into a lit candle. I got Sati’s athletic bag from the car, then we walked behind the building, opened a portal to the gear barn at Newberry and walked through. We would learn, share, and pack while we waited the three hours it would take Stu to arrive by car.
Mariano had nothing but the clothes on his back, so Kelsey stayed with him in the gear barn to pick out some things that might fit. There wasn’t much, but it was more than what he had.
Callie, Jess, Dani, and I went into Taylor’s old suite to meditate, at first, leaving the door open. I sent out my awareness, sharing every stray thought, every recollection I could with them, all of us helping to weave threads of memory together. We sat immobile, seldom touching for nearly an hour until I was no longer remembering anything new, then we came up slowly, gently, together. Jess said “I want to be first” and we all knew why, and we all approved. With Callie and Dani standing together nearby, hip to hip, breast to breast, sharing warmth and light touch while they watched us, Jess commanded me to fuck her like an animal, me knowing this might be my last time with her, giving her something she wasn’t likely to get again soon, holding her ankles up, my shoulders behind them, her sensitive fingers doing something astounding to my temples, and even though we all knew she’d already had a full day’s worth of sex with Mariano, she came hard several times, and then I did, that girl is so incredibly wonderfully tight, and now she knew everything I’d learned. When her legs worked again, she stumbled out to her love.
Dani wanted to go next, but not just to get fucked and then go see someone she loved more. Dani wanted back and forth. She wanted Callie, not just me, maybe she wanted Callie even more than she wanted me, sensing she was more likely to spend time with me in the future than with Callie. I don’t really know, she’s a very perceptive, intuitive woman and I couldn’t possibly hope to follow the kinds of things she works out long before I ever could. She kissed Callie’s neck, and before long Callie was a puddle who I got to watch melt into ecstatic non-sentience, and I was as hard as if I hadn’t just spent myself in beautiful Jess. Damn, I was going to miss this: Jess, Dani and of course Callie, even Kelsey and Stu (and Taylor, and Sati and Ingrid, said the ghost of an echo), this had been the best time of my life, too. Jess hadn’t told us yet that she wouldn’t be driving to Mexico with us, but Dani wasn’t the only one here who knew it.
Dani wanted me inside her from behind, wanted her mouth to be on Callie, who was in no shape to contribute a differing opinion, and while I wanted to be in Dani’s mouth more than anything, knowing what she was capable of, being deeper inside her was almost as good, and as I watched her long, dark hair swish across her lovely back, brushing her delicious sacral dimples while she adored my love Callie who was completely out of her mind in ecstasy, my poor overwhelmed inadequate neurons trying to organize sense from how wonderful this had all been, how wonderful it was right then, I released everything I knew, a tiny fraction more than I’d already given Jess, and Dani fucking screamed as much as she could with her mouth full of Callie, and Callie was way too far gone to scream, but the puddle that was Callie sloshed against the boundaries of her self as that self went over the fucking moon.
Dani seemed pretty damn pleased with herself. She moved to one side, no longer between Callie’s legs, looked up at me, raised a leg and passed it over me, and now I was facing her, still inside her, and she reached for me and I came closer and she took my head between her hands, and commanded “You be good to her.”
“I love Callie more than my own life,” I said, and knew it was true, and maybe that was a little scary. Dani moved her hands to her tummy, which was just a little rounder now, our child inside.
“I wish this for her,” she said. “Not because I don’t wish it was ours, I’m so happy we made him together, I didn’t know he was a boy until Mariano told us, but he was right. Sometimes I get delirious when I think about him, I have no idea how much more happiness he’ll bring me, but just because ... I know how much you and Callie mean to each other, and I wish she had this to keep you close.”
It would’ve taken me a lifetime to fully parse what she’d just said. Whose lifetime, how many lifetimes, these were not answerable questions just then. Damn but Dani had beautiful eyes. I spent two full minutes completely lost in her before I slipped out and she released her hands from my head and grabbed a towel and pressed it to herself and rolled partway over.
“Callie’s turn,” she said, and I lay down behind her, spooning, my arm across her, her arm on mine. “I love you, Bob,” she said.
“Oh Dani ...” I began, but she reached a hand behind her to my mouth, shushing.
“I know you love me too, Bob, I know it,” she said. “You’ve tried to say so before, and I know what you meant to say then and I know it’s true, and really, I mean, how could you not?” She turned her head to me and smiled.
“But I’m not done with you, Robert, you’d better know that,” she said, and reached an arm behind her and over my head, turning back into me. And kissed me, and well ... you already know how I feel about her kisses ... by the time I regained something like awareness, Callie was riding my cock and Dani was riding my face, and I had one hand on a perfect, yes perfect, sacrum, and a thumb on another woman’s perfect, yes perfect, button, one of her strong, slender long-fingered hands clutching me close, my body and hers fitting absolutely perfectly where they were right at that perfect moment and Callie was going to come, and Dani was already coming, again, and I was going to come, and, fuck, is there anything in life that could’ve been better?
Then, Kelsey. She’d been so supportive for as long as I’d known her. I wasn’t her type except under very specific circumstances, but that hadn’t ever stopped her from being the woman of someone’s dreams, which could’ve been mine if they’d also been hers. It didn’t matter. She came into the room, more than half an hour after my next-most-recent epiphanies, carrying some kind of ... accessory.
“Put that away,” I said. I was still prone, not looking in her direction, but I knew.
“Just you and me now,” I said, turning my head to her. “Kelsey, I love you, I truly do.”
She struggled with that, I think for more than one reason.
I rolled over. “Lie with me,” I said, my body on one side of the bed, my arm indicating the emptiness of the other.
“Do you know how that sounds?” she asked.
I replayed my words in my head. I could see what she meant, maybe. “How do you want to do this?” I asked. “Just you and me, and whomever else you want, however you want it, except ... no toys in me or on me.”
She plopped onto the bed. She was such a badass, just as much in her way as Callie. But more than that, I did love her. She was such a part of this place, the best place I’d ever known, orthogonal to the part of the place where I normally existed in just one way but nonetheless integral to it, to its energy. She spooned me. I liked that very much.
“I like a big cock,” Kelsey said, reaching a hand to play with me, which had exactly the effect you might think. “It fills me in a way I just love, it feels so good inside me, it just does, no excuses. I like you. I do, Bob, I really do, despite what you might think, despite what I might say or want to say sometimes. I don’t know what love has to do with it, but you’ve made me come dozens of times, or more, and I didn’t think that could happen, but I fucking loved it when it did. Bob, I like you very much and that’s not normal for me, but it’s maybe a place I can grow into ... you are a good person, a good man.”
I like to think the way she said it suggested more capital letters towards the end of her last sentence.
“I also like Stu,” she said. “Because, he, um ...”
“I get it,” I said. I wanted to reach back and put my hand on Kelsey’s cheek, but I wasn’t as flexible as Dani. Or any of the women here. Or half the women in the world. I settled for reaching back towards her, touching her cheek, and was very happy I could do that much.
“Au naturale,” she said, and rolled onto me.
In the other suite, Sati’s suite, Jess whispered breathily into Mariano’s ear, levitating above him, her tongue touching his earlobe: “His method doesn’t work on men. I’m sorry.”
Kelsey turned around, reverse cowgirl, not looking at me. Took me into her. Rode me.
“I’m not used to this,” she said.
“No worries ...” I said.
She was shaking her head. Shaking off what I’d just said. I’ve been told I can sound too imperative. Unlike some other languages, English doesn’t have much of an imperative form, but, OK, I need to ditch that kind of thinking sometimes.
“Please take it, use it, however you want,” I said, as unimperative as I could think to be at that moment, which, if I thought about it more then or now, her riding me, was pretty lame, but at least it wasn’t the exact opposite of what I’d intended.
“Bob ...” she said. I knew I needed to just shut up. I felt like everyone seemed to prefer the Bob I’d been when I first arrived here, the Bob who couldn’t string more than two words together.
She rode me, up and down, side to side, circling, working herself, and I was getting pretty damned close.
“Bob,” she said, a little breathless.
“Yes?”
“I love you, too.” And she squeezed me, something she’d never done with me before, and as astonished as I’d been when Mari, and Ingrid, and Taylor had squeezed me before, Kelsey’s was new, and different, and wonderful, and I’d already been close, and I saw stars and totally fucking came, really fucking hard, and she was already coming, and I gave her everything I knew to give, and then she came again, harder, whispering unsteady moans of her pleasure, and I came again with her.
“Not through Redding,” someone said, because ... duh. I’m thinking that someone must’ve been me, but I was still reeling from Kelsey.
Stu had found lodging on the coast, already established a rapport with the owner. He, and Dani and Kelsey and Jess, had a place to stay for three weeks, with the door open for more if everything worked out. It was a Wiccan house, spare and simple, welcoming. Ocean view, from a grove. Big outdoor sheltered decks and a garden. It looked and sounded really nice.
We worked out our routes from the dining room table, avoiding Redding, because who knew what the fsck might happen in Redding. We needed to get out of here. We’d stopped for an hour in Weed, plus at least a 10 minute head start at the trailhead minus time at the coffee shack, depending on how long it took Sati and Ingrid (with Lashe) to find a vehicle, if they were coming here at all. I didn’t think it would’ve taken long for them to find something, if that’s what they wanted. Callie and Mariano and I would be overnighting in Nevada City, past Mt. Lassen, Susanville, Reno, and Truckee. Callie made the arrangements. Two bedrooms, lots of privacy. I do so love her.
I opened Sati’s athletic bag onto the table. Stacks and stacks fell out, hundreds, fifties, twenties, some smaller bills, each stack containing exactly $10,000. “We found this in the car,” I said. “We think this is part of the money Sati got for selling Taylor to the dark mage. I know she went to a bank once, before ... this morning, so she probably deposited most of it already. I think we should decide what to do with it, each with a share to do with as we please. We don’t need to decide what that’ll be now ... but you should all know about it.”
I started separating the cash into stacks, one for each of us. No one else was saying anything. Everyone but Callie, who’d already known, seemed in shock. We’d lost Taylor just this morning.
“I can’t,” Kelsey said, her eyes shining. Stu’s eyes were downcast.
“We can’t let this come between us,” Callie said. “Taylor wouldn’t have wanted that. No judging, it’s a decision we each have to make on our own.”
“Decisions don’t have to be final, either,” I said. “If someone doesn’t want their part right now, we can keep it safe until later.”
“Mariano should have a share,” Jess said, and we all knew she was right. He’d almost met the same fate as Taylor, from the same source, for pretty much the same reason. Seven stacks now. It didn’t take that long to sort—while it seemed like a lot of money, split seven ways it seemed like a lot less.
“$410,000”, I said. “Almost 60 thousand each. Not enough to change anyone’s life, but it could make a difference for someone or something we believe in. It could help buy or rent a place on the Lost Coast.”
“It could help me found a healing center,” Dani said. “Taylor would’ve liked that.” Callie nodded.
In the end, Kelsey and Jess gifted their shares to Mariano, to help restore and maintain his sanctuary. Mariano accepted Kelsey’s but asked Jess to let them think longer about hers. Jess agreed. Mine would go into an account for Joanna and our kids. Callie’s would go towards Newberry, which maybe would become hers though questions about that were likely to persist ... none of us knew legal ownership details. Stu would hold onto his share until he thought more about it.
Kelsey’s farewell was brief but wonderful. She hugged me, long and deep, kissed me softly on the lips, said “be safe,” then shared a more passionate embrace with Callie. I would only see Kelsey twice more, neither time for long. I missed her already.
Jess levitated to my height, hands caressing my newly hardbodied self through my shirt as she rose more than a foot off the ground, took my face in her small strong supremely skilled sensitive hands, pressed her amazingly full firm new breasts into my chest, her nipples hard against taut muscle, saying “Bob, dear, I’m going to miss you,” kissed me deeply, her beautiful eyes on mine, once so shy but now so effortlessly sensual, lowered herself, those nipples delightfully poking into me, far enough to give my cock and balls a squeeze through my pants, saying “and I’m going to miss this, and ... I know you’re going to miss me, too,” because of course she was making me hard, fingertips stroking so lightly, my hands resting gently on her tummy where a swell heralded our child, and on her strong bottom.
“I love you, Jess,” I said, “I will miss you, everything about you, very much.”
She smiled in a self-satisfied way that suggested she’d anticipated me saying those exact words, then turned, pointed to Mariano, said “Don’t keep my new man away too long, we’ll have a lot of lost time to make up,” kissed me on the cheek, gave a little slap to my cock, levitated her bare feet to the floor, walked over to a visibly anxious Mariano, took his hand, told him “you’re coming with me,” and led him back into Sati’s suite, the door closing firmly by itself behind them. I’d come to love Jess ... seeing her walk away with another man, perhaps permanently, was a phase shift.
But Dani, oh Dani ... deep blue eyes flashing, long straight shining black hair framing such a lovely face, white teeth, clear pale skin, full red lips, flushed cheeks, she kissed me so deep that I would’ve lost track of my own name if she’d kept on. “I love you, Bob,” she said when there was time and space for breath. And as close as we were, I hugged her that much closer. Between Callie and whatever this was becoming with Dani, filling any void Jess left behind might not be so difficult ... they say sometimes love means letting go, whoever “they” are, and maybe I’ll be fortunate enough to be living proof. Again.
“I’m so glad,” I said, “because if you didn’t love me back, that would be ... awkward.”
Her smile answered, a brilliant ray of sunshine, and then I did forget who and where I was and who I was with because, have I mentioned, that girl can kiss? When I came to my senses, this lovely young woman and our baby inside her filling them completely, filling my arms, me somehow backed all the way against the wall, Callie had hands on my shoulder and the small of Dani’s back, and she said “Dani, don’t make me hurt him,” but she was smiling when she said it.
Stu was collecting his things. We needed to get going, so what time Jess and Mariano had left together here was running out. Stu came to shake my hand but I hugged him instead, forcefully but gentle. Callie did the same, with closer contact down low and an intense kiss. No tongues. I think.
“Don’t kill anyone I wouldn’t,” Stu told Mariano as they hugged goodbye, and all of us laughed, which made Jess cry, and then Mariano was tearing up, too. They shared a final, loving embrace, Mariano seeming a bit shellshocked if not overwhelmed, such a petite pixie-ish woman nonetheless so easily able to dominate him magically, physically, sexually ... the rest of us had a pretty good idea what their story was by now.
Of course I brought my grimoire. My however-many-times grandmother wrote it, and had so much more to teach me. We had a five- or six-day drive ahead, and Callie would give me the time I needed. We also brought our half of the remaining elixir ... only two liters remained, plenty to de-age me a few more years. It didn’t seem to de-age the women the way it did me, something I didn’t understand.
We reopened the portal to the back of the alehouse in Weed, Callie and Mariano and me walking through with our belongings, then popped inside to get sandwiches for the road. It was 4:45 PM before we got going and it would be almost 10 PM before we reached our rental house just as full darkness fell, except for that crazy wonderful almost-full moon. Callie drove her little SUV while I alternated looking through my grimoire and contemplating the landscape unfolding around us. The drive to Susanville, past Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen, through all that Forest Service land, was wonderful ... it is truly beautiful country. After Susanville I got more reading done, but it was still slow going ... a matter of letting the text sink into me and find its way to a place it could snuggle in. I could only process about a page an hour and there were now 100 new pages to read, so this was going to take awhile.
At 9:00 PM Dani called from Crescent City on the California coast, where they would overnight at a B&B. The sun was going down for us near the top of Donner Pass. She asked us to call once we arrived—she and Jess wanted to discuss an idea they’d had. It took us another hour to get to Nevada City, where we had a house of our own for the night. Callie called back while Mariano and I carried bags in.
Callie was laughing into her phone. “They want to open a portal to Weed and meet us there,” she told me. “Jess wants Mariano to go with her to Crescent City for the night, and Dani wants to be here.”
“We miss you!” I heard Dani and Jess say together, through the phone.
I was grinning like a fool. “Hell yes,” I said.
“Want to spend the night with Jess in Crescent City?” I asked Mariano.
He gulped. He’d given us an outline of what he’d done with Jess on their drive to Weed.
“She’s a very loving person,” I said. He nodded but still looked a little overwhelmed. He’d taken a turn behind the wheel of Callie’s SUV, demonstrating how Jess had taught him to drive, and he was almost a machine. A little experience at a driving school, learning from experts, and he could be a professional, a really good one, easy. He was still so young, just 20, even younger than Jess. It’s good to have career options—he’d never considered college, though maybe we would talk more about that later.
Mariano picked up his bag, then Callie and I opened a portal to the back of the alehouse in Weed, our third of the day, and waited for Dani and Jess. And waited. Callie’s phone rang.
“We can’t open a portal,” Jess said. “It’s like it takes too much energy. It didn’t feel this way with you, before.”
“That’s weird,” I said. “I think we’re farther from Weed than you are.”
“Thank you Mr. Hands Tied Behind His Back,” Dani said.
“That could be arranged,” Callie muttered.
“It might just be physics ... we’ve only ever tried smaller distances or between places mostly on the same longitude. Part of making the extradimensional portal means adjusting for the different angular momentum. It was easier to do with Callie because we did it together, but you’re several hours west of Weed, which might require more energy.”
“Geek,” Dani said.
“So what do we do about it, Mr. Smartypants?” Jess asked.
“Was there any place on the way you could make a smaller jump to?” I asked.
“We only stopped once, for gas and to freshen up. I wasn’t paying attention the way you seem to,” Jess said.
“Same here, actually,” I said.
“Did you try it with Kelsey?” Callie asked.
“She and Stu are, um ... busy,” Dani said.
“Is there any way to feed them energy from here?” Callie asked.
Mt. Shasta loomed white and huge just to the east, light from the nearly full moon shining off the snowcap.
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe we can tap the energy of the volcano.” I took Callie’s hand and sent out my awareness, and there it was, magma deep down, geothermal as hell. Callie joined me there. Then we reached out for Dani and Jess, hours away, more than a hundred miles, seeking their familiar presence. “This is very good trick,” I heard inside my head, Sati’s voice. I felt a little vulnerable, exposed, like maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but we found them, sipped energy from the volcano, feeding it to Dani and Jess, then more.
Their portal opened, Jess walking through and straight to Mariano, taking his hand between hers and smiling like she’d been away for weeks or months rather than hours. Dani came to me, levitated to press her groin to mine while leaning back to better see into my eyes.
“Mr. Smartypants is about to learn how it feels to lose his mind.”
“Been there, done that,” I said, smiling.
“Better him than me,” Callie said, kissed Dani deep, me getting to watch two gorgeous women I loved, my cock growing right into Dani’s groin, still pressed so close against me, both of us holding each other closer.
Dani took our hands and led us through the portal we’d made to Nevada City, where we learned just how flexible Dani and Callie could be; me inside Callie from behind while she drove Dani wild with her tongue, all of us levitating, Dani’s mouth on mine. I honestly have no idea how our night went other than that I was a larger mess than usual and felt extremely well-fucked in the morning, while Callie and Dani both seemed more deeply sated than I’d ever seen them before. If this counts as losing my mind, I’m all for it.