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Thank goodness Shangri La was a warm little house. And thank goodness Una, for some reason seemed to weigh next to nothing when I picked her up. I’d learned how to do a ‘firemans lift’ years ago, in first aid and its one of those things I’ve never forgotten. Even so she was still an awkward bundle to carry up the stairs. Perhaps I had borrowed superhuman strength for I felt as weak as a kitten the moment I lay her upon the bed.

Oh Sweethearts I tell you for some moments she had me worried. As limp and as cold as she was convinced me she was dead. Yet she moved, jerked an arm, moaned and was suddenly and messily sick.

Both of us were filthy with mud and muck so a volume of vomit to top it all hardly seemed to matter. I held her head as she retched and spluttered then wiped her face with the corner of something when I thought she had done. Unbelievably she still wore the remains of her bra, a twisted, ruined, rope of a thing, hardly recognisable low down around her waist.

“Uugghhh!” she pronounced softly and heaved again.

……………


Looking back on that whole episode, as I can now with a rather more detached frame of mind, I think I can see what had happened. So far as my own meeting with an ancestor goes anyway. I know there is a lot of rot talked, and written, regarding the ways of doing it, regression, hypnotism, those kinds of things. No-one however seems to like talking about another way to alter states of consciousness – that of sexual frenzy. Una and I had been winding each other up anyway, towards the point where we might have done each other an injury, ones more serious than mere cuts and bruises with a lot of bloody scratches thrown in, had we not released the tension with our stormy session in that field. And I say stormy advisedly because that same storm raged for around thirty hours all told, bringing flooding to some areas and general devastation to many part of the country. That same frenzy took us to a place where ancient influences became apparent, to me in the shape of the man who had apparently fucked me and to Una inasmuch as she’d been frightened very nearly to death the wild primitive urge to follow me into that field.

…………


Sweethearts I do not exaggerate when I say Una had been affected deeply by what had happened. Our session alone had terrified her with it’s ferocity, what followed was almost more than she could bear. She spoke not a word to me for very nearly twenty four hours; it was early morning by the time we’d bathed and cleaned ourselves up, not a word until I offered her coffee for the umpteenth time at eleven in the morning of the following day. And all that time the storm continued to roar and rage outside the house. Oh we bathed together alright, sitting in the bath end to end with our feet and legs crossing over in the middle, too tired to do much more than simply huddle there while the water warmed our aching bodies. Warmed and soaked away the dirt and smeared bloodstains but neither the thought streams nor the aches and pains for one moment lessened.

Even after a bath I had no inclination or indeed energy to clean up the bedroom, the smell of bile more than anything else putting me off even attempting it. Which left the question of where were we to sleep.

In the end I took all the cushions off the sofa and a couple of the unsoiled pillows off the bed and made a sleeping place for us on the living room floor. Una made no comment when she saw the arrangements, taking one look then more or less throwing herself straight down.

…………


I listened to the roar of the wind as I cuddled her, listened to the beat of her heart as I comforted her, felt her tremble when the clatter of rain against the window brought some recent memories back. Her body lay limply, a collection of fears and worries which jerked and muttered incomprehensible words and phrases every now and then.

As the morning grew she did not sleep, did not even close her eyes for fear of the terrors that lurked close in her thoughts. When I attempted to get up she jumped and gasped and clung to me, so I cuddled her tightly, pulling her buttocks into my lap, heaving her body against my own while she shuddered and wept and I could do little more than cuddle her for the rest of that day.

Later that evening, with Una still mumbling and shuddering in my arms I managed to snatch a few hours sleep, sheer exhaustion and worry finally overcoming me. She was quieter and less lifeless in the morning, allowing me to get up without making a fuss. That was when I made coffee to take back to her.

“Lost my shoes somewhere” Una said abruptly, without seeming to care.

“So did I!” I told her, immensely relieved to hear her speak. “Mine came off in that gateway”

“I feel……lost……” she said uncertainly.

“I’m the one who is lost!” I said without thinking. “At least you live here”

“Where do you live?” she asked without looking at me.

That was a question I couldn’t answer but Una didn’t give me time to anyway.

“Are they always like that?” she went on “Your……your urges I mean. So……so primitive and frightening? I……I mean we might easily have……died out there!”

“Not always like that” I soothed “Sometimes they are worse……”

“Shhhhh” Una shivered.

There are many questions I cannot answer. Even to another who also carries the shell. Because if she didn’t know from experience it would not help if I told her and if she had to ask then she had no need to know. Those are the sorts of questions you have to find the answers to for yourself.

Even then she was not satisfied. Perhaps she was trying to make up for lost time.

“Who or what was that you went with?” she asked

“Hmmmm?”

“That……that……man?”

“Just a friend” I said “You mustn’t pay any regard to what you saw!”

“But…...but he……he “Una half said.

“You imagined most of it!” I told her firmly “Imagined most of it, of course you did!”

Somehow I had to convince her of that.

“I……lost my shoes!” Una told me her eyes widening as she saw it all again. “Lost them but……but I didn’t imagine that……that man. He was real and……and you made love to him…...”

“Mated with him” I corrected.

“Oh yes!” Una said. "That......... yes!"

“Imagination” I said quietly “Desire and imagination. Fantasy!”


“B……but……!”

“Wishful thinking!” I went on.

Una writhed. “No! Oh no! I’d never……”

She went silent after that. Silent and still for long enough for me to grab another hours sleep. It was mid afternoon by the time I awoke again by which time Una was clattering about in the kitchen.


“It has stopped raining” she informed me. “And the wind……you know I’ve been thinking……maybe I did imagine it all. Like you said……”

…………

She took it badly when I said I had to leave. Cried and cried like a teenager in love.

“I only came off the way because I fancied a bit of chocolate” I told her firmly. “I hadn’t expected to meet you, or anyone, hadn’t arranged……”

Una clung to me, crying onto my shoulder, squashing her breasts against my own wanting me to stay with her, stay with her.

“I must go” I said quietly, finally.

Dangerous ground again! The usual. Take me with you. I love you. Stay with me. Those sorts of things. Emotional blackmail and this time it was worse. Because Una was one of us, a wanderer, a Cowrie, someone who, for all her insecurities still carried the Lady’s shell.

Which should have made it easier for us both but it didn’t. We’d had some good loving in the week or so that we’d been together. Good loving and frightening in a way I did not want to repeat.

So I held her and kissed her, pressing my body against hers, squeezing her cheeks tightly with both hands.

It didn’t help, she still howled and sniffed and wanted me and oh Sweethearts its at times like this when I wish, I wish……I wish……
……………

The Way felt serenely vibrant after that. Maybe the storm had cleared the air, cleared the memories, the cobwebs, swept away the dross in the same way as the mud in that gateway had sucked off my shoes. I still had a small cut on one toe as a result of that! As for Una, poor Una, she went back to her high powered job where, if I knew anything about it, she’d soon be back up there again, banging her head repeatedly against that inevitable glass ceiling as so many women of her calibre must forever futilely do.

Serene and pointless now for I no longer desired chocolate. Instead I desired change and challenge of a different kind.

I wandered to the top of a hill and looked first ahead then back along the way I’d come. It went ever on, in both directions, one way not really any different to the other. Save for the sun in your eyes or the wind on your face, the cry of the gulls, the rooks or the sharp smell of wood smoke way off in the distance. Someone always has a fire somewhere, and when they do that someone often has some water close to boiling on it. Close enough to boiling to be able to produce a passable cup of tea.
……………

And there was the gateway, the doorway into change, and there stood the magicians, one two three, resplendent, while I, I stood still and waited.

And yawning vacuously, on that morning of the magicians, for they were just men. Men dressed in funny clothes trying to convince me they knew more than I did.

Magicians Ha! Small men in a small town, one I had not previously encountered.

So I bought some chocolate, nodding nicely at the serving girl, catching her smile and savouring it for I wanted nothing really, least of all those chocolate bars which I slipped away into my rucsac quickly.

The bustle of commerce passed me by, rustling like the leaves of an aspen. I took tea in a little café where an ancient couple sat slowly eating their meal of chips egg and beans.

Commerce clattered, cups, cushions, cutlery and somewhere over the next hill the grass was differently shaded and oh so much greener.
……………


Sometimes my wandering takes me uncountable millions of miles. Sometimes a mere half dozen. Timewise I might go as far as the old stone age, or to Ancient Rome, sometimes into a future century, sometimes across the street to only yesterday. Would you believe me Sweethearts if I told you I went to witness the crucifiction once, though they didn't call it that then so fiction it became with startling rapidity. And consider this for a moment: since the time man first squatted down to relieve himself upon the earth the pollution he caused began. When he split stone or burned wood or strewed the leavings of his meals in the grass so did his destruction increase. Wheels he had not of course, at first, but then, with the turning of the stars so they came to him and with them the ruts and grooves and soon the water worn hollow ways, for wherever man treads so do the hooves of his draught animals ever sure follow and the circles of his wheel rims cut through turf and tilth alike……

Typically he’d bugger up the things he most needed. Whatever it was his life depended upon he’d surely bring to ruin first. Still I found one of the magicians at the gateway, caught him as he was leaving and begged borrowed or stole a ride with him. He had to be paid of course; not even freedom is free these days is it? Paid in the way he most especially wanted and in the crudest way too, or at least so bethought him.

But he hadn’t withed naked in a muddy field in a rainstorm had he? Or struggled with a vomiting girl in a bed? On the contrary he’d arisen less than an hour beforehand, eager yet late to begin his adventurous day. And his adventure began with me, as I knew it would when I saw him, barely twenty and in his prime I would say. Sexually anyway. Oh yes, I am all for the joys of a quickie, provided mind you, provided the man can make it last all day! He couldn’t of course, being too eager and too energetic and too full of himself with his showing off. But he’d a nice body, new looking as if he’d only that morning unwrapped it and discovered his penis down there as an afterthought, so little did he know of it’s ways.

He reckoned I made a wonderful change from the girls of his own age that he’d had. Proper breasts, he said, grabbing them in both hands. Proper! I mean, is there any other kind? I let him do whatever he wanted without stopping, his actions sweeping away finally the burdens that Una had left all over me. The Lady’s shell lay quiescent and he made no mention of it, his attentions being concentrated in far better places. He was a man with a cock and that was all, a man too eager for his own good, fucking someone old enough to be his great, great granny, if only he knew it, instead of, as he thought, someone about the same age as his mum. But youth is wasted on the young, as has already been said. I enjoyed him while I was with him and thought no more about it. For all his thrusting and grunting he was only a boy.

“Have I fulfilled one of your fantasies?” I enquired lightly as he lay there afterwards.

He smiled shyly.

“How did you know?”

“A woman knows these things” I said.

And she does.

The next man was better, a self assured one, mature and by no means in a rush. I’d known him from a cheap city once before, in another story which you may already have read. He was rich with it, a trader no less in goods and chattels of all kinds. I spent some money and some time, three whole days, oh Sweethearts, lasciviously with him. And if the boy had been over eager to plunge deeply his long cock this man was equally as eager not to.

No I mean I lounged while he licked me and sucked me and delighted me generously with his fingers but it wasn’t until I’d cum several times and with increasing ferocity did he even suggest putting his cock into me. Yea, some men know how to do it alright, don’t they? Some men, a few and even fewer eager little boys. I don’t mean to appear ungrateful for I’d enjoyed them both equally. Except that I’d enjoyed the older far more than I’d enjoyed the younger. He’d nothing to prove for a start, no scars to hide or muscles to tout. Access all areas, I wore the badge and allowed him everything, as much as he could want. Best of all it was pure sex and nothing more. No shattered egos to sweep up, no talk of love or miss or want to see you again. Three days of casual cock and cunt and all the delightful variations that go with it and with a comfortable good long sleep at the end. Not to mention several boxes of goods, bought and paid for, with shipment all arranged. Oh yes, those two men were enough to be going on with once the decision was made. For a change, for the good of my health I was going to spend some time away.

New Continents, that was the place, or rather the planetary system. Where it is and how far away you’d better not ask me. We shook hands on the deal, lying side by side on the carpeted part of the veranda overlooking the park.

The sun was warm out there and the tops of the trees only a yard of so away waved at us lazily. London Planes I think they were. At least they had nice green leaves.

The sun was warm out there so I stood up and looked over the front of the veranda down into the park. I knew if I stood like that he’d want to do it again. And he did. Sometimes it is nice that way, leaning outwards across the void feeling the ripples run in waves from thighs to breasts, jumping and jerking in crooked semicircles in time to his thrusts. And if the people in the apartment next door saw us I don’t really care. Looking is free and I’d bought and paid for everything I wanted. Bought them and paid for them and now I was leaving, lifting for Africa 9B in the New Continents star system the very next day.



© Aahlu. 091110