“Mrs. Prendergast’s Gift” Part 2

Mrs. Prendergast’s Gift Part 2

© 2010  MikeKimera  All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in
whole or part without written permission from mikekimera@yahoo.co.uk

We walked together in silence, as if it was something that we had done many times before. I had no idea where I was going or what strange rites were about to be performed but the warmth of Mrs Prendergast’s arm on mine seemed to convey to me something of her calm strength. Ishut my mind to what was about to happen and focused on the soft susurration from Mrs. Prendergast’s silk dress as we walked.

Aisha was waiting for us at the end of the corridor. She bowed to Mrs. Prendergast and then to me.

“Mr. Carstairs wishes you enlightenment,” she said, smiling. “He is taking a nap and asks to be woken when you are no longer yourself.”

I had no idea how to reply to this.

“Freddy knows very well that the purpose of this ceremony is to make you more yourself than you have ever been, Tom,” Mrs Prendergast said, taking both my hands in hers and turning me to face her, “But it is not in his nature to miss an opportunity for humour.”

Her hands were warm and soft and almost as large a my own. I wanted to look down at them; to see my hands in hers, but I could not look away from her eyes.

“I can see that you are a serious man, Tom. I know that you will take this ceremony seriously. In a moment, I will ask Aisha and Mina to help you to purify yourself in preparation for the ceremony. When next we meet, I want you to follow my instructions without hesitation or embarrassment and I want you to remain silent except when I ask you a question. Will you do those things for me, Tom?”

“I will try my best,” I said, trying not to think about why I might be embarrassed and what purification would involve.

She squeezed my hands gently and smiled at me. Her smile had no coquetry in it, only simple happiness.

“One last thing,Tom. From now on, you may call me Estelle.”

Estelle placed one of my hands in Aisha’s and then beckoned Mina, who had followed us along the corridor, to take the other. The two sisters lead me away from Estelle and into a warm, well lit bathroom. A shallow tub was already filled with steaming water. One of the new water closets that the Great Exhibition had made popular stood within a small enclosure in a corner of the room. I began to understand what Estelle had meant by purification.

Aisha, who was behind me, reached around me to take my jacket from my shoulders. As she did so, I felt he breasts press gently against my back. The contact lasted only a second before Aisha moved away to pull the jacket off but it was enough for me to experience the first stirrings of arousal. It had been a very long time since a woman had touched me intimately.

I had just turned my head to speak to Aisha, when Mina’s small hands started to work on undoing my belt. My arousal became complete. I was deeply embarrassed at the speed and intensity of my response. It spoke too deeply of need and too plainly of a lack of control.

Aisha moved closer and reached around to remove my tie. Mina, having undone my belt, began to open  the waistband on my trousers. They were both desirable women. They moved in graceful silence and seemed oblivious of their effect on me. In a few moments my reaction to them would become shamefully visible. It was more than I could bear.

I grabbed Mina’s wrists and twisted sideways out of Aisha’s reach.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice betraying the beginnings of panic.

“Please release my sister, Mr. Thornton,” Aisha said, her voice calm but firm.

I had forgotten that I still held Mina’s wrists. Her eyes were large. She seemed shocked by my behaviour. I let go of her, stepped back and started to say that I was sorry.

Aisha reached out and put a finger on my lips to stem the flow of my apology.

When I had calmed myself, she lifted her finger and smiled at me.

“Do not apologise, Mr. Thornton. I should have explained the purification to you. You must enter the ceremony clean and relaxed and appropriately dressed. Mina and I are here to bathe and dress you. Most celebrants find our presence relaxing. It helps them to become more receptive to the ceremony.”

“I am not used to such attentions, Aisha. Mina, I apologise for the extremity of my response. I meant you no harm.”

“The extremity of your response was, for the most part, very flattering, Mr. Thornton, until you grabbed my wrists.” Mina said.

Her reference to my arousal, made me aware that the response had not entirely subsided.

“May we undress you now?” Mina asked, her hands reaching towards my waistband once more.

“I would prefer to undress myself,” I said.

Both sisters bowed to me and then waited for me to continue disrobing.

“I would prefer to undress alone.” I said.

Mina seemed to be struggling to suppress a smile. Aisha, maintained her dignity, and mine, and said, “I understand. We will give you a few minutes to undress and to use the water closet. Then we shall return to bathe you. Do not concern yourself. Your modesty will be preserved.”

Aisha took Mina’s hand and lead her out of the room.

As soon as the door closed, I wondered if I had done the right thing. I knew that bathing sometimes had a religious significance in India. My carnal reaction had been inappropriate. It had also been completely beyond my control.

I undressed, relieved that my arousal had subsided and went into the water closet to “purify” myself.  When I came out of the enclosure, my clothes were gone. Mina and Aisha were standing beside the shallow bath. I covered my nakedness in haste, letting out an oath I should not have uttered in the presence of young women. Their heads turned towards me and I saw that they were both wearing blindfolds made of white linen.

Still covering myself, I walked, naked, towards them.

“Thank you, Aisha. This is a most ingenious solution,” I said, as I drew close to them.

”Mrs. Prendergast recommended it.” Aisha said.

Seeing both women looking up at me, but unable to see me, was quite affecting. I could not resist regarding both of them closely. The blindfolds drew attention to the lush fullness of Mina’s mouth and the smooth elegance of Aisha’s cheekbones.

“Mrs. Prendergast also recommended that we offer you a cup of ‘Shiva’s Tears’,” Mina said, holding up a small cup made of burnished metal that contained a pale, sweet-smelling, viscous liquid.

“I thought Shiva’s Tears were the beads that are used in Hindu garlands?” I said, taking the cup from Mina’s hands.

“You know a great deal about our homeland, Mr. Thornton,” Aisha said. “The liquid is a mixture of the seeds the beads are made from and little poppy juice. Mrs. Prendergast describes it as an entheogen, which means…”

“… giving birth to the divine within,” I said. “Mrs. Prendergast knows her Greek.”

“Mrs. Prendergast’s father taught her many languages. Drink, Mr. Thornton. Let the Shiva’s Tears wash away your cares. It will calm your spirit, caress your body, and free your mind.”

I drained the cup. There was a fleeting sensation of warmth but no other immediately noticeable effect.

I set the cup on the floor and said, “What would you have me do now?”

“Step into the bath,” Aisha said. “but please remain standing.”

Moving past the two women sightless women, I did as I had been instructed. The water was warm rather than hot, and came up to just below my knees. It had been scented with something musky but spicy that intrigued my nose but which I could not identify. The warm liquid seemed almost to caress my skin. I thought I had never before stepped into such a pleasant pool.

Mina and Aisha, feeling their way, hands extended, heads up, also stepped into the bath. Although they were still wearing their saris and I knew I was shielded from their sight nevertheless I was still standing naked before two beautiful young women. I should have felt uncomfortable but the entheogen seemed to be doing its work. I had no anxiety about my nakedness. I was more concerned that Mina, and Aisha would get their saris wet. I started to warn them of the danger but was distracted by the scent in the water and asked what it was called.

Mina, who had positioned herself in front of me, the tips of the fingers of her right hand resting gently just below my sternum, said, “It is patchouli oil, or green leaf oil. It will relax the spirit while stimulating the skin. Let me show you.”

She reached down to dip a flannel into the bath and, stretching upwards, spread the oil-slick water across my chest, My skin tingled at the touch of her small hands. I let out a sigh of pleasure.

Mina, laughed, her unseeing face turned up towards mine. “It is wonderful, isn’t it?” she said “How little things can give so much pleasure.”

I wondered if she was referring to the oil or herself. Before I could reply, Mina was again bending towards the water.

“Let me take the tension from your shoulders,” Aisha said, from close behind me.

She used a cup to pour water over my shoulders and then worked her fingers deep into the muscles there. It was painful and pleasant at the same time. Her hands were strong, skilled and relentless. Soon a shiver of warmth worked its way from my shoulders down to the base of my spine. My stance relaxed and I might have fallen but Aisha bore my weight and held me in place.

“Strength can also bring pleasure,” she said quietly, so only I would hear.

Perhaps it was the blindfolds or the effect of the Shiva’s Tears, or simply the calmness of the women, but I was no longer felt embarrassment at being touched so intimately. Instead, I gave myself up to it, relishing the sensations from my heightened senses.

I straightened up, immediately missing Aisha’s warm strength against my back. She had moved on, lifting my right arm until it was in line with my shoulder, and then she working both her hands in slow spirals from my shoulder to my elbow, pivoting me back against her as she did so.

Mina focused her attention on my belly, which was stretched taught by the way Aisha held me. She ran her hands, fingers spread wide, down the sides of my stomach, making an O around my navel. She repeated the process in reverse, her fingers never leaving my skin, even when Aisha switched to my left arm and twisted me in a different direction. Both sisters seemed to be engaged in a dance and it seemed to me that I was the tune they were playing.

Aisha brought both my arms firmly against my sides, holding them at the wrists. She pressed herself against my back and said “Stay still, Mr. Thornton. The bath is small and we have much to do.”

Mina rested her forehead on my belly and pushed her hand down to the tops of my thighs.

“Much to do.” she murmured, as if she were not quite awake.

I was intensely aware of Aisha’s warm weight against my back and the pressure of Mina’s head on my belly but I was not anxious. The rhythm of the dance was moving through the three of us and I was content to flow with its tide.

My vision seemed to have become more acute. The drops of condensation that beaded in Mina’s hair shone like tiny diamonds. I wanted to stroke them but Aisha had told me to remain still so I waited.

At some signal apparent only to them, both women moved at the same time. Mina squatted in front of me, working on my thighs down to the knee, keeping her head upturned as if she could see me. As my thighs tensed in response to Mina’s touch, Aisha cupped my buttocks in her hands, parting and lifting them, forcing me up onto the balls of my feet.

“You are a rider, I think, Mr. Thornton,” Aisha said. “You have the seat for it,”

Reflexively I gripped Mina’s shoulders in an effort to keep my balance.

“He has a rider’s thighs and belly too,” Mina said, running her fingers across my belly and down my thigh as if to demonstrate her point. “It is clear he rides often and well.”

“I love to ride,” I said. “I take Mistral down to the beach and give her her head, until we are both wet and tired.”

In my heightened state of awareness, I could almost feel the motion of my mare between my legs, hear the snort of excitement the emitted when I no longer held her back, taste the salt spray splashing up at me as she plunged along the water’s edge. It was not something I would have acknowledged before my visit to Mrs. Prendergast’s house, but riding Mistral had, at least until this evening, been the most sensual experience of my life.

“Close your eyes, Mr. Thornton,” Aisha said, wrapping her arm around my chest and pulling me backwards. “Imagine yourself on Mistral’s back. Let her take all your weight.”

Aisha pulled me to her, her legs pressed against mine, her strong soft body supporting me at every point. Then, slowly and carefully, she started to rock us both in the swinging gait my horse would achieve at a slow canter.

My attention narrowed to all those points where Aisha and I touched. It was as if those parts of me were aflame and, instead of pulling away from the heat, I basked in it, glowing like a hearthstone in a winter fire.

Without warning, Mina cupped my gently swaying balls in her hands. I thought I heard her murmur, “beautiful” then Aisha, still grasping tightly around the chest with her left arm, pushed her right hand between my buttocks and moved downwards until the tips of her fingers were just behind her sister’s. The stimulation was so intense that my cock unfurled like a fern at the first touch of sunlight.

I opened my eyes and moved to look down at Mina. Aisha’s left hand slid up my chest and closed around my neck, forcing my head back.

“Focus on the ride, Mr. Thornton.” Aisha said, continuing to rock me back and forth.

“Let yourself become the ride,” Mina said, grasping the root of my ball-sack between her finger and thumb until she brought me to the edge of pain.

I closed my eyes again, and brought all my concentration to the one point of freedom I had: the swaying  tip of my erection.

Keeping hold of my balls, Mina knelt down in the water of the bath and wrapped herself around my leg, pressing her breasts against my thigh. My cock was bouncing next to her blindfolded face. Just the thought of that made my cock stiffen further until the foreskin started to roll back and my own musky scent started to compete with the patchouli oil.

Aisha withdrew her hand from between my legs, snaked around my hip, grasped my erection and then, in time to the motion of our ride, she worked her hand up and down the shaft. At the end of each stroke she ran her thumbnail across the tip of my cock setting it aflame.

Bombarded by sensation from every side, I let myself be carried up by the rhythm of the movement. I was literally pulsing with pleasure. Finally, I felt tingling at the base of my balls and a build up of pressure that I knew preceded a climatic release.

“He’s ready,* Mina said, releasing her grip on me.

The sudden absence of pressure accelerated the rush of fluid up through my shaft. Aisha stopped rocking me and slowed the movement of her hand. Mina detached herself from my leg and knelt before me, hands cupped together, arms extended, waiting for her sister to deliver my spend.

At the first explosion of fluid, I flung my head all the way back. There was a moment of familiar nothingness, like the tide flowing out from the sand of my mind, and then intense pleasure as Aisha methodically milked me into her sister’s hands.

As my cock softened it seemed that my whole body followed its example. Aisha helped me lower myself into the tepid water of the narrow bath, letting my back rest against her legs while my own legs slid either side of Mina’s kneeling form.

I looked up at Aisha. Her soaked sari was semitransparent. As she reached behind her head to untie her blindfold, her breasts pushed outwards and her nipples were clearly visible. It was a magnificent sight.

Aisha stepped out of the bath and returned with a small copper bowl, Mina emptied the contents of her cupped hands into it and then undid her own blindfold.

Mina smiled at me, washed her hands in the water at my feet and then also stepped out the bath.

I lay in the tub in a daze. I could not take in what had happened. I felt drunk with pleasure and, like any drunk, I was unable to think clearly, My manners had not entirely deserted me, I remembered to mumble my bemused thanks to both women.

Mina and Aisha had both pulled on spotlessly white hooded bathrobes of a heavy toweling cloth. Aisha held another such over her arm.

“So, Mr. Thornton, you have been bathed and thoroughly purified,” Aisha’s mouth twitched upwards into fleeting smile as she said this, “It only remains to have you properly dressed.”

Aisha held the robe up for me, politely but rather pointlessly, turning her head away as I stepped out the bath.

The women helped me shrug into the robe. It was warm and comforting and fell to my ankles but it did not fasten at the front. At this point I no longer cared. Perhaps I had indeed been purified.

Mina took my left hand and Aisha my right.

“Come with us, Mr. Thornton.” Mina said. “It is time for you to achieve enlightenment.”

© 2010 Mike Kimera  All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from mikekimera@yahoo.co.uk

“Mrs. Prendergast’s Gift” Part 1

Mrs. Prendergast’s Gift

© 2010 Mike Kimera All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from mikekimera@yahoo.co.uk

Had it not been for a chance meeting with Carstairs on the steps of his club, I might have left London without incident and returned the Colonial Civil Service with a greater quietude of mind than that which I was subsequently able to achieve. But tranquillity is not all of life. Chance led me to Carstairs, who brought me to Mrs. Prendergast and her acolytes. She opened my eyes to a world that I had previously only brushed against blindly in half remembered dreams and I remain thankful to her for that.

I am by habit a quiet man, comfortable in my own company, who demands no more of a day than that I reach its end without upset or disturbance. But, wiser heads than mine affirm that a man must touch his shadow from time to time; become, for a moment, the converse of himself, the better to know his own true nature. I had known Carstairs since Eton and he had often been the midwife of my transformation to my shadow self. He is everything that I am not: impulsive, gregarious, flamboyant and prone to eating, drinking and gambling to excess. In short he is a thoroughly bad influence and wonderful company for a man with but one day of his Home Leave left.

“Thorny!” Carstairs exclaimed throwing his arms wide. “My God, man. I thought you were still in exile in jungles of Wonga Wonga Land.”

I could not help but smile at Carstairs’ lack of seriousness. I spent most of my time with earnest and worthy men who labour for the Empire with a seriousness of mind that can sometimes be suffocating.

“That’s Junior District Officer Thornton to you, Carstairs and my jungle is in Ceylon.”

“I thought you were a tax collector or some such,” Carstairs said, shaking my hand vigorously.

“That was when I was a lowly Collector in a Colonial Station.” I said, my spirits already lifted by the sheer brio of Carstairs’ presence. “You, Sir, are addressing a man newly promoted to greatness in the District Office at Colombo itself.”

Carstairs stepped back and made a low sweeping bow.

“It is an honour to be in the presence of one so powerful while yet so young,” he said. “Let us celebrate your elevation with a splendid lunch and a few bottles of claret.”

We entered his club for what turned out to be a hearty meal and several bottles of claret, most of which Carstairs consumed. By late afternoon we were at the brandy and cigars stage and I felt thoroughly relaxed.

“I have been hearing much of your India lately.” Carstairs said.

I refrained from pointing out that Ceylon was not India, Carstairs is not a man for detail.

“I have made the acquaintance of a remarkable woman, recently returned from Calcutta, who speaks of the place constantly. Her name is Mrs. Prendergast, a rather fetching young woman who claims to be the widow of some military hero or other. He died in the Mutiny apparently. Left her penniless and all that. She lived in some very strange circumstances before her return to England.”

I knew Calcutta could be a hard city for a white woman alone. I wondered whether Mrs. Prendergast had become one of the innumerable camp followers that the East India Company tolerates amongst its Brigades and yet she had returned to England and apparently made a positive impression on Carstairs, a man with considerable experience of friendly young women.

“And is she now your latest mistress?” I asked, rather more directly than I would have before the claret and the brandy had taken effect.

“Ah, would it were so. Mrs. Prendergast will not give herself to just one man.”

“You mean she’s a harlot?”

“Thorny, try not to sound so much like a Civil Servant for once. Your disapproval is quite comic. No, she is not a harlot. She is beautiful and intelligent and has a mysterious gift that must be experienced to be believed.”

I raised my brandy glass. “To mysterious gifts.” I said. “And those agile enough to enjoy them.”

Carstairs did not lift his glass and I knew that I had offended him in that irrational but strongly felt way that only alcohol makes possible.

“I am serious, Thornton. She has a gift. She can see into a man’s future.”

“She holds séances? Reads Tarot Cards? Or perhaps she finds your destiny in tea-leaves?”

I’d spoken with more heat than I’d intended. As an educated man I was sceptical of those who claimed supernatural abilities and was irritated that my friend might have fallen prey to a charlatan, even if she was a pretty charlatan.

“I am sworn to secrecy as to her methods. They would not be understood in the wider world. But I am convinced that her gift is real.”

Carstairs was becoming passionate and I feared that a falling out might follow but his mood changed swiftly and aggression was replaced by enthusiasm.

“You must experience it for yourself, Thorny. At once. Tonight. I insist.”

He did indeed insist and was not to be placated by any means other than that we attend upon Mrs. Prendergast immediately.

I had expected Carstairs to take me east, towards the more desperate areas of London, but he gave the cabbie a respectable address in Mayfair. My surprise must have been visible for Carstairs smiled and said, “Tonight will be full of surprises, Thorny. Unless I miss my guess, the greatest surprise will come from you.”

I have never liked surprises but I was confident that I knew myself well enough that Carstairs’ prediction would not come to pass.

We were received into Mrs. Prendergast’s rooms by a beautiful Bengali woman dressed in a style that would have been considered modest and proper in her homeland but which, in a London, seemed designed to display more than it concealed. My eyes were drawn to the firm muscles of the woman’s belly and the fine dark down on her arms and it seemed to me as if I already knew more of her than was proper. She was lighter skinned and longer limbed than the women of Ceylon but had the same sumptuous plat of hair falling down her back and the same dark eyes in which a man might drown. The woman smiled at me briefly and then bowed to Carstairs.

“Mr. Carstairs, my mistress was not expecting you this evening.”

She spoke clearly and with no discernible accent. Hers was not the rapid pidgin English of a lower class servant but of a woman with some education. I was intrigued.

“Apologies to you and your mistress, Aisha but my dear friend here has but one night in London before he returns to serve the Empire in Ceylon. Let me introduce Thomas Thornton, a thoroughly good fellow despite his austere exterior. I could not let him return without the benefit of your Mistress’ insight, Aisha.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Thornton.” Aisha said, bowing to me in the Indian manner, hands held together before her. Her long slender fingers suggested grace. Her demure, eyes-averted, smile offered modesty. I also bowed in the Indian manner, adding “Namaste” hoping that I had picked the right Indian tongue to greet her in. I was pleased to see her smile widen.

“Good God, Thornton,” Carstairs said, “I thought you Colonial Civil Service chaps were supposed to teach the Empire English and here you are going native in Mayfair. What would your superiors say?”

“Mr. Thornton has a kind heart, Mr. Carstairs,” Aisha said “and offers a small reminder of home to a stranger amongst strangers. You could learn much from him.”

Aisha’s tone was light and playful but I thought her comment sincere. I knew a great deal about being a stranger amongst strangers.

“I would rather learn from you, Aisha, than from old Thorny,” Carstairs said, stepping closer to Aisha and trying to place his arm around her waist.

Aisha stepped gracefully out of Carstairs’ reach.

“If you are such an eager student Mr. Carstairs, how is it that you have yet learn what is yours to take and what remains mine to give?”

This time her tone was even and she looked Carstairs in the eye as she spoke.

Carstairs turned to me. “You see how I am chastised, Thornton? What have I done to deserve such treatment?”

“It is not my experience that people get what they deserve.” I replied.

The words came out with a gravity that I had not intended. There was a momentary silence during which they both regarded me with curiosity.

Aisha recovered her manners first and said “I can see that my mistress will enjoying meeting you, Mr. Thornton, I will make Mr. Carstairs comfortable in the Library and then I will let Mrs. Prendergast know that you are here.”

“But the Library contains a depressingly large number of books,” Carstairs complained.

“It also contains a comfortable chair in which a man might enjoy a good brandy.” Aisha said, leading Carstairs away.

Alone in the drawing room, I found myself unable to stand still. My agitation dismayed me. Coming back to London, the heart of the Empire, from which we rule a fifth of the world, should have invigorated me and refreshed my pride in being English. Instead I found that I was less at home walking along The Strand than I was on the streets of Jaffna.

My sense of unease had been increased by dutiful visits to relatives, most of whom had found a way to make it clear that, as a man in my thirties with a good rank in the CCS, it was incumbent on me to take a wife. Some went so far as to offer candidates for the position.

The idea of marriage was not disagreeable to me. A man must have a wife after all. But I knew in my heart that I was not ready. I wanted something… that I had no name for. Something that would make me complete. Something that I no longer thought I would find in London.

All at once it seemed to me to make no sense at all to be waiting to talk to a woman who did parlour tricks to tell the future. I needed to be moving. To be making my future not, waiting for it to be described.

I was on the point of summoning Aisha and making my excuses when Mrs. Prendergast entered the room. All thoughts of departure fell away.

Mrs. Prendergast wore widow’s weeds: a simple black silk dress, adorned with jet, that should have declared her status as a respectable middle class matron. Yet, despite her attire, my first impression was of a strong, powerful, passionate woman. Mrs. Prendergast was tall for a woman, almost my height and she carried herself with the assurance of someone who rides well and dances gracefully. Her regular features were unremarkable and might almost have been described as plain had they not been framed by startlingly red hair, like a halo of fine flame, and dominated by widely spaced eyes that were an impossibly vivid shade of green. In England she was remarkable. In India she would have been truly exotic.

“Good evening, Mr. Thornton,” she said, with a slight bow of her head. “I believe that you are a friend of Freddy’s”.

I smiled. Freddy indeed. Only Carstairs’ favourite sister was allowed to call him by the name he had left behind in the nursery; his friends called him Frederick or Fred. I revised my assessment of the degree of intimacy between Carstairs and Mrs. Prendergast.

“A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Prendergast. I apologise for calling upon you unannounced. Carstairs-, Freddy was quite insistent that I meet with you before I start my voyage out to Ceylon tomorrow. He is passionate in his belief that you can see a man’s future and that I must know mine at once.”

Mrs. Prendergast’s eyes held me as I spoke. I knew I was talking too quickly and too lightly but I was unable to make myself stop.

“Freddy is passionate about many things Mr. Thornton, it is his blessing and his curse. But I am not a fortune teller. The future is what we make it. It is not a book in which we may read ahead.”

Impressed by her forthright manner, I rushed to show my approval, like a schoolboy in performing for his favourite teacher.

“ A point of view with which I heartily concur,” I said. “A man’s fortune lies in his own hands but it is not written on his palm.”

I smiled at my own witicism but Mrs. Prendergast looked at me rather coolly.

“If that is your opinion, Mr. Thornton, then why are you here?”

“I’m not entirely sure. Freddy described you as extraordinarily gifted…”

“Did Freddy explain the nature of my gift?”

“He told me that he was sworn to secrecy but that it was something that I must experience for myself”.

“I see.” Mrs. Prendergast’s tone had become decidedly chilly.

“I am sure,” she said, scrutinizing my face more closely than I would have wished, “that in your travels in the service of the Empire you have encountered your share of bordellos and the women who work in them.”

Her words caught me completely by surprise. I knew Jaffna had many such places. Some of my colleagues frequented them. I had always avoided them. I did not want to find myself reflected in the eyes of those women.

“I…”

“Please understand,” Mrs. Prendergast said, speaking over my flustered attempt to respond, “that this house is not such a place and that the women who live here are not yours to use.”

The reproach in her tone was unmistakeable. Remembering my own remark about being agile enough to enjoy Mrs. Prendergast’s gifts, if felt the sting of shame. This woman, whom instinct bade me to impress, thought that I was a man who used women.

I bowed to her and said, “If I have caused you any offence, Mrs. Prendergast, I apologise. I am, I assure you, a respectable man.”

When I looked up from my bow, Mrs. Prendergast smiled at me.

“Your blushes speak well of you, Mr. Thornton. I have always preferred honest men to respectable ones. Please take a seat. We shall take tea together and then I will explain my gift.”

Tea: the English answer to everything. I sat in a comfortable chair, glad to have the opportunity to recover my composure, and let myself be waited on by a young Indian girl, dressed in a sari as Aisa had been. She was tiny, less than five feet tall, yet her broad shoulders and narrow waist made her seem strong and confident. She smiled at me as she handed me my tea. Her fingers were long and slender and warm to the touch.

“You may leave us now, Mina.” Mrs. Prendergast said. “Please make the meditation room ready.”

Mina bowed to both of us and then left, walking so softly that she made no sound.

“So, Mr. Thornton, let me explain my “gift” as Freddy called it. I practice an ancient technique that, if a man gives himself up to it, allows him to know his heart’s desire and find his way to fulfilment.”

I could not help but raise an eyebrow. This was a far grander claim than being able to predict a man’s future; his implied seeing into his soul.

Mrs. Prendergast sat calmly, waiting for my reaction to her statement.

“That would indeed be a gift, Mrs. Prendergast and one that could bring you considerable fame and fortune. Which prompts me to ask why you wrap your gift in a veil of secrecy.”

“Ah;” Mrs. Prendergast said, smiling slightly, “You suspect, perhaps, that I am afraid of scrutiny because it would expose me as a fraud and therefore I hide behind theatrics to perpetrate my deception.”

“You would not be the first to do so.” I said, keeping my tone light. I did not truly believe that the woman in front of me was set upon deception.

“I keep my gift secret for a far simpler reason. If the particulars of my technique became known, I would place myself completely outside society.”

“I do not bandstand.”

“Are you familiar with any Sanskrit texts, Mr Thornton?”

“I’m afraid my knowledge of the language is very limited. Its use is reserved for poetry and prayer and my focus is on commerce and politics.”

Mrs. Prendergast clapped her hands in delight.

“That’s exactly it,” she said, with some excitement. “In Bengal, all that is most important in life is expressed in poetry and prayer. The sutras, the texts, are written as verse and impart wisdom of all kinds.”

“You read Sanskrit?”

“My father was an enthusiast for the history of the ancient world. I grew up reading many languages. I first travelled to India with my him in pursuit of his research. I met my husband, Captain Prendergast there. My father did not approve of him. He did not approve of the East India Company in general: too much commerce and politics, not enough prayer and poetry. He refused to stay for my wedding. I regret to say that we parted on rather bad terms.

But I digress from the Sanskrit texts which are the focus of my story. Via my father, I had met various people who could provide ancient texts. One of them contacted me, unaware that my father had already returned to England, and told me that he had knew of someone who possessed one of texts my father had been looking for. He believed it to be a previously undiscovered version of the Kama Sutra.”

I was shocked. Even I had heard of the Kama Sutra. I did not think it a suitable “text” for a respectable woman to be seeking out.

“Your face, Mr. Thornton, explains precisely why I keep my gift a secret. A moment ago you were eager to hear my story, Now you seem to waivering between outrage and disgust. I will not burden you with any further details.”

Mrs. Prendergast looked had stood up. She looked sad rather than angry. She also looked dignified and quite, quite beautiful. I could not bring myself to leave her.

“I apologise,” I said, “I will try to behave less like a civil servant and more like a guest in your house. I have never read the Kama Sutra so I am in no position to judge its contents. Please, sit down and finish your tale.”

Mrs. Prendergast regard me soberly for a moment and then resumed her seat.

“The Hindu religion sees the relationship between men and women differently from the Christian faith. They associate deity with sensuality and enlightenment with joy. Physical intimacy is path to spiritual growth. It can be an act that celebrates the numinous.

The Kama Sutra is a collection of verses that contain advice on how best to achieve numinosity. Many different versions exist. Most have six chapters. My father had been searching for a version with a seventh chapter that described the ritual needed to perform lingamgnosis. This is the text that I discovered in Calcutta. It was owned by Aisha’s mother, Pavarti. She would not part with the text but she allowed me to visit her over a number of weeks and transcribe the verses. What I learnt from the text brought much joy and enlightenment to me and to my husband.”

Mrs. Prendergast paused, apparently lost in remembered happiness. I looked away. I had not understood everything that she had told me but I was struck by contrast between the almost religious zeal with which she described sexual relations and my own experience.

I was not a virgin. My father had seen to that. He was a man with a prodigious sexual appetite which he satisfied primarily with a succession of mistresses closer to my age than his own. On my graduation from Oxford he had arranged a woman for me. I should have said no, of course. Except that she was young and beautiful and extremely willing and I was aching with need. We spent a tumultuous weekend together at the end of which I discovered myself both sated and ashamed. Since then I have taken care not to involve others in dealing with my physical needs.

I looked at Mrs Prendergast again and said, “I understand your husband lost his life in the service of the Empire.”

“My husband was killed by his own Sepoys in the Mutiny in 54, a few months after I discovered the seventh chapter. I was young, isolated from the other wives and riven with grief. The East India Company was is disarray. My father was far away in London and had not corresponded with me since my marriage. I found myself alone and unprotected. Had it not been Parvati, I do not know what would have become of me. She took me in to her household. In return I taught her daughters, Aisha and Mina, to practice lingamgnosis and to speak and read English.

Later, I learned that my father had died on route to England. It had taken his executors a long time to contact me because they had been unaware of my marriage. Eventually they informed me that I inherited this house, so I returned to it with Aisha and Mina.”

So now you know my history and my gift, Mr. Thornton. Do you have any questions?”

“Just one. What is lingamgnosis?”

Mrs. Prendergast laughed. It was a pleasant sound that I hoped to hear again often.

“Having attended Eton and Oxford I’m sure you recognize gnosis from its Greek root as meaning to have knowledge, in this case spiritual knowledge. As for Lingam, well, I have a Yoni, You have a Lingam. It comes from Sanskrit. It refers to a phallus and sometimes to the God Shiva. Literally translated, it means “Pillar of Light”.The ceremony I practice focuses on enlightenment through that pillar.”

At that point, Mina re-entered the drawing room. She smiled at both of us and said, “The Meditation Room is ready for the ceremony.”

“Well, Mr. Thornton,” Mrs. Prendergast asked, “are you ready for enlightenment?”

I was still coming to terms with having a women lecture me on the Sanskrit meaning of my lingam. This was, a Carstairs had said it would be, a surprising evening. I had no idea if I was ready for the ceremony or not but I knew that if I turned away now I would always wonder what I had missed.

“I have one condition,” I said, “Please call me Tom.”

Mrs. Prendergast held out her arm. I linked mine with hers and she said, “Namaste, Tom.”

© 2010 Mike Kimera All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from mikekimera@yahoo.co.uk

In Jack’s Hands

“In  Jack’s Hands” stands alone as a story in its present form. In my head, I imagine it as a novella I haven’t yet finished. I hope to return to it someday. Let me know what you think of it.

Jack’s wife is younger than me. His “She’ll-be twenty-two-next-April”child-bride is almost young enough to be my daughter; certainly young enough to be his. I think about that sometimes when I’m alone in this bed that he pays for.

She’s his second wife of course; his first left him once their children were grown. She’d left his bed long before that. Perhaps she’d sensed my presence there, like perfumed sweat on the sheets. She is the kind of woman who would rather starve than share a plate.

It had amused me at first, when he’d taken me to their bed, then taken me on it, riding me with my legs spread wide and my ankles held high, not so much screwing me as nailing me to the bed, making me cry out with every swing of his hammer.

Back then I’d assumed my youthful form was the source of his vigour. Now, when I remember how, leaning over me, soaked with sweat and pink with effort, he closed his eyes just before he came; I wonder who he imagined spilling into, me or his wife?

It’s not in Jack’s nature to be faithful. He’s a strong, slightly selfish man who takes what he wants and expects the rest of us to do the same.

He took me the first time that we met, ten years ago.

I was twenty five, had just moved to London after a lifetime in the frozen North and was determined to enjoy myself in the big bad city. I had a good body, a great smile and a very sexy little black dress that would get me in to almost anywhere.

That evening my dress and I were at a cocktail party in an expensive gallery in South Kensington. I’d come because I knew there’d be free champagne and rich young men, not all of whom could be gay. To my surprise the art turned out to be more interesting than the men: large bronze figures of naked women. These were not the fantasy nymphs of mass-produced, middle-class, middle-brow, masturbation-art, but real women with imperfect bodies naturally posed, that I thought were intensely sensual.

I found myself walking around the figure of a slightly heavy woman who was lying on her side. She had that just-come look. Everything from the trace of a smile beneath her closed eyes, through to the way her top leg lay slightly in front of the other, told me that she was resting in post-orgasmic warmth, though whether from her own fingers, that rested on her soft belly just below her hips, or through a good fucking, I couldn’t say. How she got to her afterglow didn’t matter. This piece was about how she felt when she arrived and the answer was very clear: entitled to be there.

Without thinking about it, I reached out to stroke the smooth line of her thigh, half expecting to feel warm skin beneath my fingers. I’d just reached her hip bone when someone very close behind me said: “I could never resist touching her either.”

I whirled around, hiding my hands behind me and blushing as if I’d been caught shop lifting.

I recognized Jack at once. His picture had been in the entrance to the show, above a sign saying “Jack Cavanaugh: Artist”. The head and shoulders shot had captured the strength of his forty-something face but it hadn’t shown how big he was up close. He was a foot taller than me and with shoulders so wide that I couldn’t see beyond him to the room full of people. It felt like there was just me and him and the naked woman behind us. I should have taken that for an omen.

“The eyes lie,” Jack said.

I felt his eyes roam over me like a skilful tongue, from my thighs, up my belly, lingering for a second on the free motion of my breasts, along the smooth length of my neck and finally up to my mouth. It seemed to me that I was already naked in front of him. It had been a while since I’d been naked in front of anyone. My body was telling me that I liked the idea.

“But touch always tells the truth.”

Jack took a step towards me, bringing him so close now that I could smell him: an alcohol top-note and a hint of Bulgari over a strong base of warm male. It was a scent that made me want to inhale deeply.

The lust in his eyes excited me and I tilted my head up, waiting for the first kiss. I didn’t know then that Jack never does the predictable thing.

He leant forward but instead of kissing me he took hold of my wrist and placed my hand back on the hip of the bronze. “Her name is Angie,” he said, “and she likes to be touched.”

Jack put his large hand over mine and traced the curve of Angie’s belly up to the fullness of her breast. In the process he turned me around so that I was facing her and he was pressed up against my back.

I knew I should say something but I had no words. All my concentration was on the surface of my skin: my fingertips on the cold bronze nipple, Jack’s hard hand on mine, the heat of him behind me. No words passed my lips but my whole body was broadcasting, “Fuck me. Please.”

Jack pushed forward, pressing his chest against my back. I shivered and pushed back into him.

“Close your eyes,” Jack said, “let your fingers tell you all you need to know.”

I cupped the bronze breast gently, imagining the weight of it in real life. Jack placed his other hand on my ribs, just below my breasts. It felt as if he was burning me but I wanted to move towards the fire, not away from it.

“Feel the how her breast fills your hand. Imagine it heavy, firm, hot and responsive. Run your thumb over the nipple and feel her shudder with pleasure.” With Jack’s hand on mine I could almost believe that the warmth came from the bronze beneath me. I’d never wanted to touch a woman but I found that I liked the idea of Jack making me caress Angie.

“I like my hands to know a woman before I sculpt her,” Jack said, sliding his hand over my breast and cupping it. “My hands tell me the truth about who she is and what she wants.”

To my acute embarrassment, when Jack’s thumb grazed my lightly clad nipple, I groaned with pleasure.

It was, I think, the signal Jack had been waiting for.

“Don’t let go of Angie,” he said “and try not to make too much noise.”

Jack wrapped his arm around my chest, squeezing me until it was hard for me to breathe. I could feel his erection, hard and hot, against my arse. I parted my legs in anticipation.

I was in a public place with a man who hadn’t even asked me my name and yet I was ready to bend over and let him fuck me in any hole he could reach. It was insane and intoxicating and out of my control. My legs were tensed, my eyes were closed. I was waiting impatiently for him to fuck me.

Of course Jack didn’t fuck me; he was too controlling for that. He fed my hunger rather than sating it.

Taking his hand off mine he slid it gracefully up my thigh, under my short dress, over my hipbone and then down between my legs. When he closed his wide hand over my cunt it felt like he was claiming territory.

Pushing upwards, Jack lifted me up onto tiptoe, pressing me into his erection, bending me closer to Angie. I waited for his strong fingers to force their way into me, wondering if they’d hurt and if I’d care but he didn’t enter me.

He didn’t even move my panties aside. He massaged me through them, working my labia and clit with a skill that had me breathless in seconds and made me come in less than a minute. Then he let go and stepped away from me.

I slumped against the bronze, my head almost resting on Angie’s ample arse, waiting for him to continue. Looking behind me in what I hoped to e a provocative way, I saw Jack, smiling and holding his fingers to his nose.

“I’d like to do you,” Jack said calmly, making no move towards me “You’d make a fine bronze.”

I couldn’t believe Jack’s arrogance. He had my juice on his fingers and he was talking to me as if we were having a coffee. I pushed myself upright, one hand on Angie’s thigh and moved towards him.

“Perhaps, I could persuade Angie to pose with you. You look so suited to one another.”

That’s when I tried to slap him.

I’d never hit a man before. I’d never hit anyone. But he’d made me so angry that I wanted to smash his smug bastard face so that he could never smile again.

I put all my strength behind the blow. He caught my wrist in midair and held it tight. He was still smiling so I let fly with other hand. He caught that one as well. Then with great speed and apparent ease, he forced both hands down and held them at the small of my back.

“Bast…”

My words were stifled by his kiss.

I should have bitten him or kicked him or both, God knows he deserved it, except I was too busy discovering how much I liked being held totally helpless by a large, powerful man who kissed me as if it was his right.

My eyes were closed when I heard that distinctive upper-class throat-clearing sound that expresses disapproval and mild irritation without requiring words to be wasted.

A tall thin man stood behind Jack. He was in his thirties, casually dressed but with a “groomed by others since birth” finish that spoke of breeding and not just wealth.

Jack let go of my hands but did not move away from me.

“The Culture Vultures are waiting to be fed. These people are too well-educated to touch a sculpture. They wait for someone to explain it to them so that can tell their friends why buying my work cost them so much money.”

Jack stepped away from me and turned towards the tall man.

“Campion, give this woman the address of my studio and set up an appointment for a session when the dragon lady is away.”

Jack moved towards the crowd that was waiting to hear him speak. Without looking back he said “Oh and Campion, find out her name for me.” Then he was gone.

“You can take your hands from behind your back now.” Campion said.

Although Jack had released me, I was still standing as if bound. I refused to let myself be embarrassed. I held out my hand towards Campion and said “My name is Tracey Muir.”

Campion shook my hand briefly but politely. His skin was soft and dry. His face was carefully neutral.

“This is Jack’s address, Ms Muir,” Campion said handing me a card. “You can have your session with him any time from Wednesday noon onwards. If you call that number, we’ll send a car for you.”

Campion started to turn away from me to follow Jack. I wasn’t ready to be dismissed. Some of the anger I should have directed a Jack splashed onto Campion instead.

“Are you always, Jack’s pimp, Campion?”

He turned to face me, looking at me properly for the first time. He smiled.

“I see Jack has found a brave one. Jack can sense bravery from fifty paces. The only thing I always am, Ms Muir, is Jack’s brother. In any case, I believe the role you were casting me in was panderer rather than pimp.”

He stepped towards me, moving close enough so the he could speak without the possibility of being overheard. I wanted to step back but I didn’t want to look weak so I stayed put.

“Jack will be forty next week. You are somewhere in your twenties I would guess. Jack has been married for most of your life. His oldest child has just gone up to Oxford. You wear no wedding ring. Jack is a selfish, domineering, intensely passionate man who eats young women before breakfast. You need to decide who you want to be, before Jack casts you in bronze. And now, like a good brother, I must join the crowd in time to applaud Jack for being Jack.”

He left before I could think of anything to say beyond “Fuck you” which was in danger of sounding like an offer in the circumstances.

That night I lay in bed, thinking over the encounter. So Jack was a married man who ate young girls before breakfast. It sounded like a good way to work up an appetite to me. Besides, the idea of fucking a married man had a certain illicit thrill to it. And it placed a limit. If he had a wife then things could never get too serious.

I didn’t want serious. Not then. Then I was twenty-five and he was a good story I would tell one day to shock my daughters. “I once bedded a sculptor you, know – very good with his hands. Even better without them.”

I decided to conclude my day with a reprise of Jack’s finger fuck. I rolled over onto my belly, closed my eyes and slid my hand into position trying to imagine Jack’s weight on top of me. Annoyingly I couldn’t get anywhere near the level of arousal that Jack had produced. My own hand felt more like Campion’s than Jack’s. An image popped into my head of me, naked, hands bound behind my back, sitting on Jack’s lap with my back to him and his cock up my arse and Campion standing in front of us, face carefully neutral, waiting to applaud Jack for being Jack. My arousal peaked and I fell asleep determined to visit Jack on Wednesday.

 

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© Mike Kimera 2005 All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without written permission from mikekimera@yahoo.co.uk

 

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A story without a reader is incomplete. Please let me know what you think of this story by leaving a comment below.

Wolf Wakes

“Wolf Wakes” is complete in itself but is intended as the first part of a multi-part story. This story is a departure from my normal subject matter because it involves mind control. I’m a (slightly shame-faced) fan of mind control stories. I found Caesar’s stories always stuck with me and reached spots other stories didn’t. Try Disabled Powers or Tim’s Life if you want to know what I mean.

The problem with these stories is that they are a kind of rape fantasy. This isn’t something that I wanted to teach myself to write. “Wolf Wakes” takes up the challenge of Mind Control With A Conscience.

I hope the next stories in the series will show that it’s possible to arouse while still avoiding rape in Mind Control stories.

After the accident, my cock woke before I did. It stretched upwards, tenting the sheet, calling for my hands to bring it release. Except I couldn’t move my hands, or open my eyes, or make a sound.

Had it not been for the flesh-flagpole with which I was saluting the day, I would have assumed I was dead.

Panic ripped through me, leaving my flesh damp and my tongue coated with the taste of fear.

I knew that taste well. I grew up with it. It has been my companion even longer than the sometimes painfully insistent erections that have taunted me since puberty hit me like a punch in the stomach.

I searched my awareness for some sign of my mother, Annelyse, but I found nothing. I wondered if she had finally given way to her anger and had me dumped somewhere, bound and helpless. I know that this is something she has often longed to do.

My mother is beautiful and intelligent and rich and not entirely sane. It is part of my curse that I have always known her too well. I can literally read her mind. It is one of the reasons that she hates me. The main reason that she hates me is that I remind her of my father, the man who raped her, the man who somehow compelled her to carry me to term, to give birth to me, to suckle me and raise me. It seems that the one thing he couldn’t compel her to do was love me.

The part of my mind that is always searching for Annelyse, like a dog raising its nose in the air and breathing deep, found the nurse. Or rather, it found her mind.

This surprised me. I’d never found a mind other than my mother’s. Surprise was washed away by relief. I wasn’t dead and I wasn’t abandoned. I was in hospital and there was a nurse outside my room.

I tried to call out. No words came, but without knowing how, I moved closer to the nurse, pressing up against her mind, mentally licking it, sniffing it, looking for access.

I had no idea what I was doing. The only mind I’d ever touched was my mother’s and the door to her mind was never locked – at least not to me. The nurse’s mind was sealed, like a sphere, with a pliant but impenetrable surface. I could poke at it, get a sense of its shape, but I couldn’t get in.

I picked up surface stuff – the sort of background conversation most of us have with ourselves when we’re alone: her name was Alice, she was tired, she hated working nights, if it wasn’t for her kid she wouldn’t be here at all. She loved her kid but hated what the birth had done to her body. Spread her hips, made her boobs droop. No wonder her boyfriend was gone. Useless piece of shit. Except in bed. Never useless in bed. In bed he’d been Captain Fucking Fantastic. Yeah. Oh yeah. God, what she’d do for a piece of him right now. And she knew exactly which piece and where she’d put it. Just… here. Like that… Yeah.

I tumbled into her mind then. The membrane that had been keeping me out parted, slick and smooth, and I slid in.

Alice was masturbating: legs slightly spread; two fingers working her mound; one hand cupping the weight of her breast through her uniform; eyes closed; mind spinning around images and desires that rubbed against each other and combusted.  It was disorienting but it was as hot as hell.

Back in my body, my cock twitched. It was still the only part of me that could move. But something stirred at the back of my mind. Something that had been curled there, dormant, and was now spreading across my consciousness like a grin.

I wasn’t disoriented any more. I’d found my balance and I was making myself at home. The pulse of Alice’s first mini-orgasm swept over me, a ripple of pleasure that made my cock seep pre-cum. There were no images in her mind any more, just sensations: warmth, release, and… caution.

At first I thought the caution was because she knew I was in her head. Then I realised that the responsible part of Nurse Alice Simmonds didn’t think it was right to wank on duty and was about to make herself stop.

“NO”

The word hit Alice’s mind like a slap. Everything stopped. Alice held her breath. I tried to disengage. Then the part of me that was yet to introduce itself took over.

Calm flooded Alice. Her mind relaxed and her body tensed. She chewed her lip. At some level she wanted to resist except she had no idea what she was resisting.

Then I found her lust, like a ribbon of still damp silk, only partly pushed back into a drawer. I pulled, hard and all the things Alice had ever wanted spilled out across her brain.

It was a stupid thing to do. I could have killed her, letting that much lust loose at the one time. The response was immediate. She went into a fit, heels kicking against the floor, eyes rolled back, heart pounding.

“Help her.”

I was speaking to myself. No. Not myself. To the thing I’d woken.

“Wolf. My name is Wolf,” it replied and I knew that it was enjoying watching Alice suffer.

“HELP HER.”

Wolf sneered at me but started to roll up the lust and push it back into the drawer.

The fit stopped. Alice was coming around. I wanted to leave.

“Not yet.” Wolf said. “This we keep. This we want. This we want a lot.”

Wolf was holding something. I couldn’t see what. Something he hadn’t put back in the drawer. A memory or a desire.

An image blossomed in Alice’s mind. A boy. Her first boy.  He was beautiful and hard and grinning at her.

I felt Alice’s nipples rise. She slipped one finger into herself. So hot and wet and so not enough.

“Fuck boy.” Wolf said. “Fuck boy. Fuck boy in room. Fuck boy. Fuck boy in next room. Fuck boy. Fuck boy now.”

Simple, primitive words, but powerful.

Alice responded with one word that came out like a sigh, almost a caress: “Yes.”

It was a shock to see myself through Alice’s eyes when she switched on the light in my room. I looked so small. Except for my cock, tenting the sheets. It had always been too large for me. There was damage to my head. Bruising. Bandages. Then the image changed and Alice saw her first boy on the bed in my place.

“You’re tricking her.”

“Yes,” Wolf said. “Good trick. Fucking good trick”

Alice had pulled back the sheet and climbed onto the bed. Her boy grinned up at her when she grasped the base of my cock.

“Stop this.”

Wolf ignored me.

“STOP THIS.”

Wolf grinned.

“Can’t stop me.”

Alice was astride my hips, pulling up her uniform, positioning herself over my cock.

“Both want.” Wolf said.

Alice rubbed the tip of my cock along her wet slit.

“You want. I want. Both want. Won’t stop.” Wolf said.

And he was right. I wanted to fuck Alice. I wanted to push my hips up and split her and fuck her and spill inside her. Except I couldn’t move my hips.

Alice sank onto my cock.

Wolf panted.

I was lost in the dual sensations of entering and being entered.

Hands resting on my chest, Alice threw back her head and drew a figure of eight with her hips.

Dear God in heaven.

I couldn’t distinguish if it was my thought or Alice’s.

It was easy to let her fuck me. She was so good and having so much fun.

But it was also so not a good thing to do.

“I WANT OUT” I shouted.

Wolf let me go.

I was back in my body.

But Alice didn’t stop. She was riding me with her eyes closed and she was smiling.

I still couldn’t move. Wolf had known that. And I could feel everything that Alice did to me. Wolf had known that too.

Alice lifted my hands and pushed them up against her breasts, pressing down on me, pressing me into her. I couldn’t move my hands but she didn’t seem to care. She was lost in fucking her boy.

And the thing was, it felt great. I’d dreamed of this. Wanted this. But I’m not a pretty boy or a confident one, so Alice was my first. I gave myself up to her. She was grunting now. Pressing against my groin hard enough to bruise. When my cum shot up inside her she dug her fingernails into my chest and her whole body shook.

She looked wonderful. I could have fallen in love with her then. I wanted to smile and to kiss her. Except I still couldn’t move.

I remembered the damage to my head and wondered if I was paralysed. Fear flicked through me. My cock shrank and Alice opened her eyes.

“What the fuck…”

I think the fear in her eyes made me do it. I was back in her head in a second, shutting her down, making her calm.

Wolf leared at me. “Good fuck.”

Yes, it had been a good fuck and one of the worst things I’d ever done. I wanted to have it undone. I wanted to have never met Wolf.

“You want Wolf make her forget?”

“What?”

“You want Wolf make her forget?”

“Yes.” I said.

Wolf grinned and then started to push things around in Alice’s mind. Alice climbed off me, straightened up her clothes, went back to her chair and slipped into a light sleep.

Then I was back in my mind. And Wolf was with me.  I wondered if he would always be with me now but I didn’t dare to ask. I wondered if I was a cripple now or if I would get better. Most of all I wondered if my mother had known about Wolf all along. I wondered if she’d met Wolf before.

It was too much. I needed to sleep, had to sleep, but something was nagging at me.

“I can still feel Alice,” I said.

“Good Fuck,” Wolf agreed.

“No, I mean I’m still connected. I still know she’s out there.” She was dreaming of her boy and she was happy.

“Yes.” Wolf said. “Anytime you want now, you take. Alice always yours if you want”

“But what about what Alice wants?”

Wolf grinned, curled into a ball and went to sleep.

I lay there, physically and morally paralysed. I needed my mother, but I was dreadfully afraid that she would know what I had done. That she had always known what I would do.

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© Mike Kimera 2005 All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without written permission from mikekimera@yahoo.co.uk

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A story without a reader is incomplete. Please let me know what you think of this story by leaving a comment below.

Han’yō

I’ve never been to Japan but I’ve admired the culture from afar. I’m a big fan of both Manga and Japanese horror such as “The Grudge”

The  Japanese seem to me to take a less narrative-driven approach to stories than English-speaking writers do. The emphasis is on experiencing the story, not on explaining it. If I was being true to the Japanese style, I could finish this story at the end of part 2. My western mind wants more, wants at least the suggestion of an answer.

I know where I’d like to go with this story in parts 4 and 5. Now all I need to do is find the time to write it.

Han’yō 半妖

* 1 *

“I’m not ashamed. I refuse to be shamed. The truth is, I like it.”

Miko looks up at me as she says this, letting her hair fall backwards, revealing blue eyes that seem almost like a mutation when set in her classically Japanese face.

Small and vulnerable, she perches on the edge of a hard metal chair, her knees tucked up under her chin, her thin arms wrapped around her legs. Yet her young voice is strong and clear and her outsider’s eyes shine with a defiant pride.

She is showing no obvious indications of mental confusion or distress. Had it not been for the video, I’d be wondering why the Takata Clinic had asked me to see her at all.

The video had taken my breath away: grainy, silent, black and white, security camera footage, made compelling only by its content.

“I regret that you must watch this, Anna,” Dr. Sato had said as he pressed play on the remote control, “but it is necessary.”

Sitting uncomfortably close to Dr. Sato in his tiny office, I struggled not to show my reaction to the soundless, joyless scenes of sex we watched.

When the video finished we sat together silently, staring at the blank screen, carefully not making eye contact with each other.

“Her name is Miko,” Dr. Sato said quietly. “Her father, a respected man, felt something was wrong. These images are from the hidden camera he installed in her bedroom.”

“He was spying on his daughter?”

“He was concerned for her. He says Miko has always been a good girl. And now…”

“…She is ill.” I said.

“Yes,” Dr. Sato said, finally bringing himself to look at me, “Miko is ill.”

Now the living, breathing Miko is in front of me and she does not look ill.

For a moment the memory of Miko’s startling eyes staring at me from the screen as she twisted and sweated her way to orgasms that looked painfully intense, fills my mind. I shift uncomfortably in my chair. I do not want to admit to the guilty hunger those images rouse in me.

Leaning forward across the bolted-down metal table that separates us, I reach out with one hand out towards Miko.

“I didn’t mention shame,” I say, trying to sound reassuring and unshockable.

“You were thinking it. I can tell by your face. You think I should be ashamed. You think I should feel guilty.”

“But that’s not how you feel?”

“No. I feel… special, privileged, chosen.”

In Japan, it is seldom a good thing to be special. Individuality is treated as an aberration here. To stand out is to invite retribution, “The tallest nail is hammered the hardest” they say. I wonder how often this young woman, barely more than a girl, has been hammered on her way to this private clinic’s “therapy room” that looks so much like a police cell.

Miko lifts her chin off her knee and searches my face for the impact of her words.

“I understand” I say in a neutral tone.

“No,” she says. “You don’t.” This is a flat statement of fact with no emotion behind it.

Miko looks down, hiding her face behind a curtain of hair.

I wait a second to let the silence build but the only pressure seems to be on me.

The room is a square box, over-lit at the centre and dark at the edges, where the attendants lurk. To me, it stinks of despair and indifference and I feel tainted by it. It is time to move things along.

“So,” I say a little too loudly, “If you think I don’t understand, show me. Isn’t that why we’re here? So someone else will understand?”

I know I’ve misspoken the moment her eyes meet mine but the anger in her voice still scratches at me.

“I am here because my father placed me here to help him deal with the shame he feels at what was done to me. He would rather think of me as ill than see me free. You are here because you are a half-breed, like me, and it makes sense to them that one half-breed should investigate another.”

I flinch at the vulgarity of her response but I can’t deny the truth of it. It takes considerable control to prevent myself from touching the freckles on my face that mark me like a scar. My mother is Japanese. My father was American. In Japan that makes me something less even than an American; it makes me a damaged Japanese.

I should respond to Miko, try to ground her anger with soothing words, but I cannot speak.

“Besides” Miko says, placing both feet on the floor, spreading her legs wide enough to put her hospital gown under pressure, “you think you already know. You’ve seen it, haven’t you, the video my father made of ‘his little girl’?”

When she places her hands behind her head, legs still spread, leaning back in the chair, I realize that she is recreating a pose from the video. An image of her naked, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, nipples jutting up from her tiny breasts, forces itself to the front of my mind.

She smiles at me, then licks her lips. It is my turn to look down.

“Yes,” I say quietly, “I’ve seen it.”

“And?”

I lift my eyes at the challenge in her tone. I will not let a patient brow-beat me.

“And what?” I ask.

She loses the lascivious pose. With her legs demurely closed and her hands clasped politely in her lap, she looks quite virginal. Then she launches her next question.

“Did the video excite you?”

There is no sneer in her voice. She seems genuinely curious.

“Does it matter?” I say. This is the wrong response. Too evasive. Too defensive. It makes me wonder what I am defending myself from.

“To me or to you?” she asks.

I pause for a moment wondering how to regain control. Miko presses her advantage.

“Oh, I see,” she says.”I shouldn’t ask questions about you. You are the psychiatrist and I’m the patient. I see you wear a wedding ring. How western of you. Do you still share a bed with your husband? You look like the kind of woman who would, the kind of woman who would need to.”

I let her continue, fascinated by the energy behind her words, even though I find them hurtful.

She leans forward, hands on her knees, her breasts just grazing the edge of the table, looking up at me as if she’s ready to pounce.

“When you’re in your bed, when he is in you, and you are sweating over him, I think you will remember that video. Do you think he will know, your husband, when your breath grows short and you grip him tightly in your wet embrace, that it is me and what was done to me, that you are thinking of?

I force myself to smile in the face of her rudeness and say, “My husband is dead.”

It is a phrase I still have to repeat to myself. It is too recent and too final to be true.

Miko is not cowed by my response. Instead, she relaxes, sliding back against her chair, her arms folded casually below her breasts. When she smiles I want to slap her.

“So that is why you are here,” she says.

“Because I am a widow?”

I manage to sound calm and detached but it costs me more effort than it should. My hurt is too great. Perhaps my counselor was right and have come back to work too soon.

“No.” Miko says, quietly, “Because you want him back. Because you hope I can show you how to fuck the dead.”

Her words astonish me. Dr. Sato has said nothing about necrophilia.

She stands so suddenly that she knocks over the chair. Leaning over the table she shouts into my face. “Understand this: I don’t fuck the dead. They fuck me. The dead fuck me.”

The attendants are on her then, pushing her back into the chair, holding her there. She doesn’t struggle. She just repeats the phrase, “The dead fuck me,” quietly to herself.

I wave the attendants away and move around the table to get closer to this angry woman who has just reminded me that she is my patient and needs my help.

I take her hand, small and warm, in mine and squat down beside her.

“That is what you meant when you said that you were here because of ‘what was done to you.'”

Miko nods but doesn’t look at me.

“Miko, you were right, I have watched the video, all of it, and in the video, you are alone. You do know that, don’t you?”

Miko grips my hand tighter and turns her head towards me.

“Alone like you, widow-lady? If you really thought my bed was a cold and empty as yours, you wouldn’t be here,” she says. “Despite what those around you whisper about your tainted blood, you have a Japanese heart. Have the courage to put aside the western ideas that you wear like a mask and look closely with your Japanese heart, you will see what is done to me.”

“Is done to you?” I ask, standing and taking a step back from this strange, compelling child-woman. “These things are still happening?”

Miko’s laughter bounces off the walls of our tiny meeting place. “Of course it’s still happening.”

Miko twists around so that she is facing away from the table, her arms over the back of her chair and with her legs spread on either side of it. She stares at the two attendants who have returned to the shadowy edges of the room.

“Ask those large men with the hungry eyes and the guilty hands who are set to guard me. They’ve seen.”

I look at the attendants, who had so easily held Miko down a moment ago. They look uneasy. They look guilty.

“And now they see it every time they look at me,” Miko says, staring at them.

“Now they want to be the ones between my legs,” She juts her hips against the back of the chair.

“They want to be the ones pushing themselves into my forced-open mouth.” She stretches her mouth wide, chin up.

I have seen her do this before, in the video. Then I didn’t understand what I was seeing. It showed Miko on her back, her head hanging off the edge of the dressing table she was spread on, her mouth was open unnaturally wide and yet she seemed to be choking. My skin prickles with the realization of what she thought had been happening.

“But you can’t pleasure me the way he does, can you?” she shouts at the attendants, “You can’t even get close.”

The attendants stay in the shadows, not trying to silence Miko. I resolve to ensure that Miko is attended only by women in future.

“It’s ironic really,” Miko, says, turning her attention to me, “When my father brought me here and had me strapped to that narrow bed ‘for my own good’, he made things so much easier for the dead one to fuck me. I could not even try to cover my breasts or my sex. I lay open to his tongue and his fingers and the thick, hot strength of his cock. God, how I bounced under him.”

Holding out her arms, Miko shows me the bruises on her wrists. “You can still see the marks the restraints left.”

I’d been warned about the bruises, told that, unless she was sedated, Miko would pull at her restraints until she hurt herself.

She seems to see the knowledge in my face and suddenly Miko-the-slut is back. She reaches for the hem of her gown, saying “If you like, I’ll show you the bruises he made when he ploughed me. Would you like that?”

“Miko,” I say, trying to call her back to herself, “Doctor Sato says that…”

“…the bruises are psychosomatic,” The slut persona has evaporated. The Miko before me could be a grad student in one of my classes. “They are hysterical injuries, self-inflicted by a disturbed attention-seeking woman who is ashamed of her elevated sex drive and who therefore creates a brutal demon-lover to take the blame for her behaviour.”

The words are so close to what Dr Sato wrote in Miko’s file that I almost smile. Except Dr. Sato made no mention of demons.

“Did you know only women can be hysterical?” Miko says. “Hysteria is a label men use for truths that that they are afraid of. I’m not hysterical. I’m…”

“Special? Privileged? Chosen?” I say, repeating her earlier phrase to this later calmer incarnation of Miko.

“Yes,” she says, “I am all of those things.”

It’s clear that she believes what she says, even in this lucid incarnation of herself. I decide to push for a breakthrough.

“If you are all of those things, Miko, why do you struggle and cry out for help?

Her smile is tolerant, “Tonight, in your empty bed,” she says, “ask yourself that question. I promise you, the answer will come to you.”

So much for a breakthrough. Perhaps a more clinical approach will help.

I sit down on “my” side of the table, open my notebook, allow myself a moment’s thought and then ask my next question in a calm and detached voice.

“Miko, what did you mean when you said the dead fuck you?”

“Well it’s not always fuck. Sometimes it’s just lick or finger and on one painfully memorable occasion, fist. Ah but it wasn’t the fuck part of the statement that you wanted clarified was it? It was the dead part.”

Miko rests her head on her arms, laying forward on the desk with her eyes closed as if she is ready for sleep.

“You’re probably reaching into your Freudian tarot-card set and waiting for me to say that it is my ‘I-wish-he-was-dead’ father who parts my legs and fills me.” Miko says, so quietly she could be speaking to herself “But we’re in Japan, not Europe, Doctor and Viennese folk-lore doesn’t cut it here. The world above is not the only world. As a Japanese you should know that.”

She is silent for so long after this little lecture that I lean across the table to check on her.

My face is almost level with hers when she springs the trap. Her right hand grabs my pen from the desk while her left grabs the collar of my blouse and slams me down hard on the metal table. Before the attendants can react, Miko is up on the table, sitting astride my back, holding my head down with one hand and brandishing the pen like a weapon in the other.

The attendants are edging towards us, one from each side.

Miko brings the pen down close to my face and says, “One hard push through her eye is all it would take.” Her voice is chillingly calm.

The attendants step back to the edge of the room. One of them presses the panic button and a siren starts to wail.

Miko slides down my back until she is almost laying on me, and brings her mouth beside me ear.

“Am I making you nervous, Doctor? I hope so.” Miko’s tone is mocking and I should be paying attention to what she is saying to me, but my attention is focused on her right hand. Without look away from me, she is scratching letters in my book. English letters.

Miko lets go of the pen. Immediately the attendants move towards her. Instead of evading them she wraps her arms around my neck and clings to me.

I am released when one of the attendants pushes a syringe full of sedative into Miko’ neck.

“Are you hurt, Doctor?” one of the attendants is asking. I don’t reply. I let him lead me to my chair so he can help his colleague take Miko away. I am unhurt but shocked and a little frightened; not because of the attack, but because of what Miko whispered when she had her arms around my neck.

Her mouth up against my ear she’d chanted “He sees through my eyes. He sees through my eyes. He sees through my eyes.” When she’d heard the attendant behind her she stopped her chant and in a whisper that sounded like a warning she said, “He knows your name, Anna. Listen hard and he’ll sing it for you. He likes half-breeds. He was a half-breed himself.”

The chanting I could attribute to psychosis. It was not unusual. What was spooking me was that I’d never told Miko my first name.

Then I look down at the pen on the table. It was a gift from my mother on my graduation. She had my name engraved on it in Japanese. I sigh with relief. Miko is a disturbed woman with good eyesight and no more than that.

Reaching for my notebook, I see the word Miko wrote in it: HAN’YŌ. The letters are shaky because Miko was looking at me while she wrote them. I have no idea what they mean. I decide to head home for a much needed bath.

* 2 *

My apartment, which is small even by Tokyo standards, seems like a vast empty space without Jiro to share it with. His absence sucks at me constantly, like a recently stitched wound that any sudden movement could rip open.

On a day like today, he would have joined me in the shower, gently cleaning away the grime of the day before leading me to soak in the tub. I was slightly taller than him, another unwanted gift from my American heritage, but when he sat behind me in the tub and wrapped his arms around me, it seemed to me that he was huge and strong and I was safe.

But Jiro is not here. Jiro is dead and I must shower and soak alone. I shower efficiently, keeping my mind in neutral and paying no attention to my body, then I climb into the tub. When my back touches the enamel of the tub instead of Jiro’s warm flesh I feel so alone that I cannot hold back the tears. The tears turn into silent sobs. I will not let myself cry out. I do not want my neighours to hear my grief and pity me.

When I regain control, I climb out of the bath, wrap one towel around my hair and another around my body and head towards my bed. It is a Queen-sized bed that fills the room from wall to wall. Jiro had it imported all the way from America as a wedding gift.

The crying has exhausted me and it is all I can do to dry myself before I slip naked under the duvet. My hair is still wet but I make do with combing out the worst tangles and then rewrapping it in the towel.

I still sleep on “my side” of the bed. I tried to make myself move into the middle but the associations were too strong. The middle was where Jiro and I would meet in a tangle of limbs and lust. I cannot lie there alone.

Mercifully, sleep is tugging at me. I curl up on my side, facing towards were Jiro should be and let myself slip away from consciousness.

In my dream, Jiro is smiling at me. He is using his, “I’ve just slipped my hand between her legs and she hasn’t slapped me yet” smile. I clamp my thighs together, hoping to trap his arm. He retaliates by pushing up deep inside me with two fingers and working his thumb gently across my clit. His smile opens wider, anticipating that my legs will follow. Pretending irritation I lay on my back, spread my legs wide, and look away from him, letting him get on with it if he wants to. He will know this for the sham that it is. His fingers will tell him that I am slick with need. Playfully he lowers his head between my legs and goes to work with his tongue. I sigh at the soft wetness of his touch and spread my legs further. Jiro loves to bring me to orgasm with his tongue. He loves the power of it. He told me once that he feels like a fisherman struggling with a powerful fish that can only be reeled in with skill and persistence. It was not the most erotic of images but it was emblematic of Jiro’s approach to me and I love him for it.

In that state between sleeping and waking, when I am little more than a memory of myself, it is easy for me to imagine that Jiro really is between my legs. I cling to the imagined sensation as I would cling to him if I could. I do not have to imagine my arousal. It has been a long time now since I have let myself have any sexual stimulation and while my conscious mind dozes, it is easy for me to give myself up to lust. I am very close to orgasm before things start to change. The mouth working on me is no longer gentle; it is pressing too hard and pushing too deep. Then I realize that no tongue can be that long or that thick and yet this one is pushing into me strongly enough to part my labia. I try to move away but strong fingers press into the soft skin of my thighs, pinning me to the bed. Thick, hard and hot, a cock pushes into me, fast and deep. Filling me. Hurting me.

One word forms in my mind and pulls me up from sleep like fish on a line: NO!

Then I am sitting up, shaking off my nightmare, and realizing afresh that Jiro is dead.

Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I find that I am a little tender down below. Even though I am alone, I blush to think that I masturbated so hard in my sleep that I hurt myself.

My fear doesn’t start until I am in the bathroom. Reaching down to wipe myself I am astonished to see ugly, finger-shaped bruises at the top of my thighs. I know I cannot have bruised myself like that.. And yet the bruises are there.

The fear is as physical as the bruises. My gut twists and my nerves tingle. I tell myself that this is just delayed shock from being attacked by Miko mixed with continued grief. And yet I cannot bring myself to stand naked in my own shower to wash off my guilt-edged sweat.

I look up and see myself staring, wide-eyed and pale, in the bathroom mirror. I am afraid. Afraid that I’m not alone. Afraid that I am alone. Afraid of what might happen next.

Backing away from the mirror, unable to break eye contact with myself, I retreat until my back is against the wall. My mouth opens but no sound comes out.

Shivering in a silence that has fallen on me like a net I can feel my fear growing, spreading through me inch by inch. In the mirror my face is calm as I wait to be consumed.

* 3 *

Moments stretch past as I wait, naked, wet and unable to look away from the freckled-scarred Japanese face in the mirror. A shiver runs through me, breaking the spell and letting me turn away from the mirror and wrap myself in a towel.

I cann0t stand the thought of staying in my apartment alone. I throw on some jogging clothes, grab my laptop and my notes from the interview with Miko and leave my apartment as fast as I can.

It is part way between being very late and very early, but the streets in Tokyo are never empty. The noodle shop is a small island of fragrant brightness in the dying dark. I push into it, telling myself that I need to eat and that I’m not just seeking company because I am afraid to be alone.

After finding a table where I put my back against a wall, I order noodles, tempura and tea and then open my laptop and connect to the net. Ah the joys of wifi.

Even while I’m pulling up Google, part of me wonders whether this is just a displacement activity to distract me from my fear. Another argues that this IS how I confront my fear – by finding facts to combat it with. I compel both parts to silence and search my notebook for Miko’s scrawl.

HAN’YŌ

The word is vaguely familiar but has no strong associations for me so I wait, as millions of us do everyday, for Google to tell me what it means.

The list of links makes me groan. I am in the land of Manga and Japanese folklore: exotic demons called Yōkai and endless lists of manga and anime characters.

For me, this is alien territory. Of course, if I had grown up in Japan all of this would have been familiar, but my father wanted me to have “the benefits of a western education” as so I spent my school years in Boston, only returning to Japan to go to University at Kyoto. By then I was too busy to get myself involved in Japanese sub-cultures. No, that wasn’t true. The reality was that I felt overwhelmed by the culture and unsure of my place in it so cleaved to my books and my studies and pretended that I didn’t mind.

I had hoped that Miko had been trying to tell me something important but it seems that she is only channeling whatever was disturbing her mind into anime-based delusions.

The waitress arrives with my food just as I close my laptop, disappointed and annoyed with myself for ever having given credence to Miko’s scribble.

The smell of the food is greeted with a the discovery that I am suddenly very hungry and soon I have a ramen in one hand, chopsticks in the other and a mouth full of a delicious, hot, slippery, salty noodles.

I look up and find the young waitress looking at me with thinly disguised amusement. It takes me a second to process this, then I realize she thinks that my early morning hunger is linked to some kind of drug taking. Which makes me wonder if my hunger and the bruises on my thighs are linked. I don’t want to go there and to my surprise I find myself asking the waitress, “Do you know about Han’yō?”

“You mean like Uzumaki Naruto?”

I nod although I have no idea who she means.

“My favourite is Inuyasha. He’s so cute and yet so lonely. I feel sorry for him.”

“Why is he lonely?” I ask.

“Well because no one trusts him and he can’t trust them.”

“Why not?” I’m still sucking in noodles rapidly and part of my mind is savouring the crispy batter on the tempura as if I have never eaten anything so perfect.

“Well because he’s a Han’yō – you know half Yōkai, half human – so he doesn’t fit in.” Then the waitress, leans forward a little and says, conspiratorially, “Though with eyes like that, I’d let him fit in whenever he wanted to.”

I stop chewing. Suddenly, the fear is back.

The waitress is looking at me, wondering perhaps if she has caused offense. I nod at her and try to smile with a mouth full of noodles and she moves on.

“He likes half-breeds.” Miko had said. “He was a half-breed himself.”

I am no longer hungry. I feel alone and vulnerable and confused. It is then that I know that, despite everything, it is time to go and visit my mother.

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© Mike Kimera 2005 All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without written permission from mikekimera@yahoo.co.uk

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