The Call of Distant Shores Page 18

  He could feel a slight ripple in the air around him, the familiar detached tingle that working with the cards always brought; but stronger than he remembered, and more intense. He was aware, on a level just beyond his concentration, that Madeline had moved closer, that her thigh was pressing tightly against his shoulder, and her long auburn hair was draped down, forming a framework around the cards. Her perfume was like incense.

  The next three cards he flipped in rapid succession: that which has gone before. The Fool, naive innocence and unshakable faith, walking into the unknown. The Ace of Cups, the fountain of malleable energies. The Four of Pentacles, stabilized power, completed work. An Earth card.

  The next three cards, bottom left corner of the cross. The cards that expressed the central focus of the reading. The first, the Universe. Totality. Understanding. The second, the Two of Pentacles – the infinite inevitability of change. The Hanged Man, upside down, head to the stars, the earth and its control falling away below. Images began to fill Alex's mind, as if the meaning of the cards had begun manifesting itself, via pure sensation. Instinct.

  Madeline's fingers touched his hand, and suddenly, his perceptions sharpened, heightening the sensation that he was observing the reading from a distance. The air felt heavier, moist and clinging. He made himself continue.

  The third corner, the method – the answer. The Hierophant – a spiritual teacher. The Two of Cups – partnership, constant blending. Lust – originally labeled Strength– passionate energy, primal desire. Her fingers felt like fire on his skin, moving over his body in a sweet caress, but he could not be sure of its reality. His heart pounded so strongly, so fiercely, with the energy of the card and the heat of her touch that thought fled on its own this time.

  Three more cards. One more corner of the cross. Powers that influence, but are beyond the control of the Querant. His hand, somehow, reached out and flipped the cards, three in quick succession, and they fell into place as though unseen hands had guided his. The Ace of Wands – Fire, unleashed energy, unchecked passion. The High Priestess – the mother spirit – the source of all growth. And Death. Not the physical death, but the end of one thing and the beginning of another. These last three cards danced before his eyes as he felt himself falling back.

  The chair was gone, but though he braced himself mentally for the shock, his head and back did not strike the floor. Madeline was pressed so closely against him now that they seemed one body, one being. Their clothing had melted away, and they drifted, afloat in some other-worldly bed of buoyant dream. There was a violent snap – a twist of vertigo that nearly drove him into unconsciousness. The walls of the room faded to green.

  The trees stretched out in front of him, and he could hear the rushing of the river's water somewhere to his rear. His knees scraped on the stone of the altar, rubbing into the soft fungus that grew there, but he ignored the pain.

  Madeline lay beneath him, her eyes closed and her head thrown back in ecstasy. Her long lithe body moved like slow, powerful swells on an ocean, undulating with relentless, growing ferocity. Alex could feel his own naked flesh sliding over hers, thrusting roughly, pounding to a rhythm that rose from deep within him, pressing in from the line of trees and rushing over them in the sounds of the river and the buzzing flight of insects.

  Madeline moaned, meeting every thrust with her hips, grinding back against him. Her cries blended in smooth harmony with the birds and the rushing of water. Dim thoughts invaded his passion, calling to him, calling him back but he cast them away with violent mental strokes, bending the energy to the motion of his body, and the heat of hers. The world around them, the impossible world of giant trees and primordial energy, ceased to exist. He bent his lips to her writhing form, slamming his tongue in to meet hers.

  The moment rose toward ecstasy, toward a dizzying peak of blended sweat and blinding energy, pulling them both into a spiral beyond thought, where each motion, each bend of muscle or twist of limb was primitive – instinctual. The feeling was of such completeness, such fulfillment that he knew that he wept, and he could see the tears running freely from her eyes as well. He moved his tongue over her face, cleaning away the salty droplets and wondering at the sweetness of their taste.

  They climaxed together, just as they had begun, one body blended of two psyches – trembling and quivering; his seed rushed into her in great spurts and his arms encircled her so tightly that he felt her tighten imperceptibly, then surrender to the moment, pressing himself into him as thought she might melt right through his flesh.

  Then, overcome by almost maddening fear, he pulled away from her with sudden, desperate strength. She clung to him, called to him with her eyes, molded her limbs around him, but he was moving shaking his head slowly back and forth. It was too much – and spinning now, losing clarity. He no longer felt the stone beneath him, or the silken sweaty touch of her skin on his own. There was nothing but haze, spinning and receding and a face, a familiar face, fuzzy, yet discernible through the mist.

  His head struck the desk with a sharp crack, and he slid to the side, dropping to the floor in a heap. The pain made it difficult to focus on his surroundings. He lay on beige carpet, huddled against the side of Professor Devonshire's desk. Although her perfume lingered tantalizingly in the air, there was no sign of Madeline. Shaking his head slowly, and regretting the action instantly, he rose to his knees, pulling himself back into the chair with great effort.

  The cards were gone, all but one, and it lay in the center of the desk. It was The Universe, but it was not one of the professor's cards. Alex recognized it as coming from the Crowley deck, his own favorite prior to creating his own. His memory sought and found the text from Crowley's Book of Thoth, and a sad smile drifted across his features.

  "We are come unto a place of which every stone is a separate jewel and is set with millions of moons.

  "And this palace is nothing but the body of a woman, proud and delicate, and beyond imagination fair ... "

  Alex rose, walking around the desk to stand once more before the window. They were gone, on to the next challenge, the next level – or beyond. He now understood his role here, Madeline's need for his energy, which had been fired and consumed in the final Tarot reading.

  But his own work was just beginning, for he now knew at least one of the answers he had sought; he was not ready. There were still things to draw him to this world, things that he could not take with him. He would follow, though.

  Someday, in some way, he'd yet to discover, he would open that window again, himself, and he would step through.

  Alex glanced over his shoulder at the desk, and the notes, and the work to come, but before he moved, turned once more to the window, gazing into its empty depths. Smiling, he raised a hand, and he waved.

  Rending the Veil

  "So," Gretchen breathed in Toby's ear, "why do you write that stuff?"

  "What do you mean," he returned, twisting his head to the side as her tongue slipped past his earlobe to the tender skin inside, "that stuff?"

  "You know," she breathed, "killers, monsters, vampires. Why not write about what's real?"

  "And what would that be?" he asked, pulling back and turning to gaze into her eyes. "What is real? What should I write about? Everyone is always telling me what not to write; suppose you do the honors?"

  "I don't know," she said, turning her face away from him just slowly enough for him to catch the expression that told him she knew all-too-well. "Why don't you write about what turns you on?"

  "You want me to write about you?" he grinned, reaching for her playfully. "You want me to write porn?"

  "No," she said, her face a mask of seriousness, "I mean what really turns you on, you know? What's inside here." She tapped his forehead with a long, lacquered nail. "Write about what takes you away, what opens the doors. Write about what really matters to you."

  "And what if it doesn't matter to anyone else?" he asked. "What if I empty it all out and nobody will read it, or worse yet, nobody even
wants me around? Have you thought of that?"

  "Have you?" she countered, her eyes narrowing a bit. "I'd read it."

  "Would you still want me around, though?" he asked, suddenly as serious as she was. "What if I'm not who I seem to be? What if you hate me?"

  "Oh, like you're the first to think of that one," she teased. "What did that old poet say, what's his name, ...uh, "all that we say or seem, is but a dream within a dream?"

  "Poe. The poet's name was Poe. He wrote a lot of stuff that nobody read until after he died, and most everyone agrees he was mental. Maybe that's what happens when you write about what's important. Maybe it's not meant to be written."

  "Maybe it's the only thing that is. Maybe he died because, once it was all out, his mission was complete. He was empty."

  The conversation ended abruptly as Gretchen either lost interest or changed tactics, moving forward to plunge her tongue between his lips and press him back against the couch roughly. She never fooled around; even sex was serious – never trivial – never without some hidden, subliminal meaning.

  As her fingers and tongue began to march across his skin, sending the world about him twisting away in waves of pleasure that insinuated themselves into his thoughts, then slammed through him like a battering ram, his mind detached itself, whirling off onto a tangent of its own. Or was it another of hers? He left his body, her body, all of it behind, left it in her eager, capable hands, and took off.

  What turns you on?

  The words took on shapes and substance all their own, pushing at him, nudging him, unwilling to release him without an answer. He didn't know the answer. He didn't know what it was that was important, and the sudden knowledge hurt worse than any physical blow, worse, even, than Gretchen's teeth, which he was vaguely aware of snapping at his nipples and tearing at his chest, more than her nails, which bit into his back and left little trails of plowed flesh and blood behind. Her mark. Her brand.

  She had stimulated his mind, but she held him on a leash of the physical – gripped him by the endings of nerves that could distract thought and dissipate the very answers she'd sent him in search of. She was like a witch, or a siren, dragging him ashore with her body, by the beautiful, tinkling lilt of her laughter, which became the tearing, searing heat of her passion when he drew too close. He knew that once her hands were on him, once their limbs were intertwined, everything he did or thought was attributable, in some way, to her influence.

  Were his thoughts hers as well? Did she want him to write about what turned him on, or about what turned her on? Did she know the answers, or was she seeking them through him? Maybe his answer lay in her eyes, or in her heart? Maybe she was that answer.

  If so, could he write that down? Could he bring the essence of her to his fingertips, controlling her as she controlled him, and divert that essence into the firmament of words? If he did, would she be trapped, revealed to the world, or would he? What would come loose if he opened up the gates of his mind? What turned him on?

  If he set it all free, would it even be he who was writing, or would she control that too? If he attempted to grab and hold her, blending her reality with his words, would he pour himself out instead? Would she take that as easily as she took his body, sucking it down and leaving him a dried out, empty husk? Would it matter?

  He was brought back to his senses by the haunting music of her cries, back into a sweltering inferno of flesh and sweat, twisting hair and animal groans. He saw her eyes for just an instant as they flashed past his own, and he grasped at that vision. As they climaxed together, their hearts pounding as one and their flesh as nearly fused as the physical world would allow, he held that image.

  He held her for long, sweet moments, letting his thoughts settle, holding the image of her eyes. He felt her damp hair brush across his face, felt the scent and taste of her sweet, intoxicating breath insinuating itself into his own. He could not see, not with his eyes, but he had visions, clear visions. He drew them from the image he now cherished, the clear depths of her eyes.

  He found answers there, too, or at least he believed that he did. Already his fingers itched, aching for the keyboard. The gates in his mind were bowed from the weight of words that must be released or drive him mad.

  "What turns you on?" she whispered once more, pulling back slightly and slipping to his side. They lay there, skin pressed to skin, his eyes on the ceiling and his mind far away, her eyes studying his profile and her fingers dancing idly over his body. He ignored those fingers as best he could. He was after her mind.

  He did not see her for days. Her class schedule and his own were so disparate that they seldom crossed paths. Too seldom, he thought, at times – at others far too often. He had not studied since she'd left him, had only been to one class – half a class, to be honest.

  What turns you on?

  His dreams were surreal, fevered landscapes that drew him in and sent him back to his own world writhing in frustrated fear and bathed in sweat. What was he afraid of? The answers he sought wove themselves into tapestries he could never bring to life before their threads unraveled. Secrets whispered from the darkness into his ears and slipped back out, leaving him clutching at their trailing edges – biting his lips in frustration.

  He had not eaten. He was not fasting, nor was he suffering for art's sake. The concept of food was lost to him. Coffee cups littered the floor at his feet. His chin was a small forest of grimy stubble. His eyes stared with fevered intensity, burning from too much use – the smoke from too many half-burned cigarettes, hunger.

  Trying too hard, he told himself. He was seated once more before the glowing green eye of his word processor, mesmerized and mocked by the blinking cursor, strobing like a solitary sentinel in neon garb.

  The caffeine was replacing his blood. The CRT was leaking it's mucous green glow out to engulf his world. It was slipping away – everything was slipping away. He did not feel as though he were in the same place at all.

  Trying way too hard.

  When she entered the room, he hardly noticed. Her perfume wisped past his face, imbedded itself into the patterns of his thoughts, wound around and through him. Her arms twined across his shoulders, which were trembling with denied fatigue. Her hair dangled, tickling his skin and caressing him with an electric field of sensual intrusion. He fought it. He saw her presence in that moment for what it was – an interruption – a distraction.

  Damn her, it was her fault. He was creating. He was writing what was important. He was doing nothing.

  "Interesting plot," she observed, gazing at the screen over his shoulder and nipping playfully at his earlobe. "I foresee laurels; your fame will spread far and wide. You need a shower."

  All true. He let her drag him to his feet, leaving the screen and the cursor to keep one another company as he dragged his sweat-drenched shirt and grubby jeans off in a daze. He staggered down the hallway in her wake, following the distant, jarring hiss of water steaming through pipes. She was waiting, naked in the steam, smiling at him with everything but her eyes.

  He did not want this. His head was swimming with visions – the threads were weaving themselves together once more, taunting him. Once his keyboard was beyond his reach, he ached for it – yearned for it. Once the screen no longer faced off with him, holding him at a creative impasse – blocking the stream of his thoughts – he could picture it filling, letters dribbling from the top down to cover its green surface with words and phrases and syntax of literary perfection.

  She dragged him into the tub, sliding the shower curtain closed behind him and drawing him close. Her skin was coated with a slick sheen of soap, and her lips were parted. She appeared hungry, needy – empty. He pulled away, trying to re-orient his whirling thoughts. Failed.

  She opened her eyes to him then, just for a second, just long enough. He met them head on, forced his knees not to buckle and ignored the pull of her flesh on his own, on his soul. He caught a glimpse of something in that instant, something that ran and hid, scurrying t
o the back of her mind and twisting from the assault of his eyes – fear. He was sure of it. Fear, and something more. Then it was gone, scurrying deeper into her mind. She knelt down, diverting her gaze, and drew him down beside her.

  The water washed over them. He could feel it streaming down, washing away his resolve, melting the tapestry. It was like rain across a sun-soaked beach, unable to quench the heat, misting to steam as it streamed across their joined flesh. He fought it. He reached back – only seconds, seconds that stretched like years – reached for that glimpse into her eyes.

  What turns you on?

  Not this, he thought. "Not this," he murmured. She did not hear him. She did not listen. His thoughts swam, whirled. He grasped at them, struggled to free himself – failed. They broke free, sloughing off and slipping away, joining the soapy water as it swirled on downward and passed through the drain.

  This time he clawed at her. This time it was his nails that bit, his teeth that found purchase in soft skin. It was her blood that flowed, her pain. He had no focus. He could not remember what he wanted – what was important. She sucked at him, drew him in, mocked him with the memory of her words – of her eyes.

  It ended in a flash. He was there – joined with her – yet he was not. His mind floated, pleasure shimmering through and over him, and the heat that passed between them was incredible – blinding. He tried to speak her name, tried to call out to her to pull her closer – to push her away. He heard her voice – laughter? Tears? Then nothing. Nothing.

  He woke with a start. She was there – beside him. He was still in the tub, but now it was filled with warm, bubbling water. Her hands splashed idly, running over his flesh with the soap, twisting in the hairs on his chest. She watched him as if from far away, watched him with deep, hollow eyes, eyes that begged to be filled, eyes that snatched hungrily at his innermost being.