Paradise Reclaimed

by Raymond Harris

  The food was strange and delicious; the drink was alcoholic, some sort of wine. Her senses became overwhelmed as the dakini played their strange polyrhythmic music and performed a vigorous dance.

  The dakini called Bjorn bowed formally before her, a cheeky smile on his face, and gestured for them to display their singing and dancing skills. A handsome young man from the north impressed them with throat singing. When her turn came she chose a plaintive love song sung in the high, pure voice of a sky singer. The dakini were entranced. They finished with a folk dance of gentle swaying movements. She blushed and almost faltered when she noticed a female casually sit astride a male, both of them facing forward, the female deftly allowing his erection to enter her without it distracting her attention from watching her performance, as if she were simply adjusting to a more comfortable position. Out of the corner of her she saw two males in an intimate embrace. She blushed. She had not expected the dakini to be so affectionate and so shameless. She wondered when the males would have sex with them, but they seemed in no hurry.

  When she returned to Bjorn she was impatient with desire. She took his hand and placed it under her robe on her breast. She pulled at his other hand to suggest they leave to find somewhere private. Instead he indicated for her to sit and as she followed his directions he undid her robe and let it fall to the floor. A female dakini sidled up to her and introduced herself as Pauahi and kissed her on the mouth. She was shocked and almost retreated. She had never kissed a female. Pauahi stopped and sat back, a puzzled look on her face and she blushed and looked down. Bjorn said something soothing and stroked her face. She felt embarrassed by her reaction and muttered “Sorry” in Tibetan. She looked back up at Pauahi, she seemed young, her breasts not fully developed, her body masculine because of her pronounced musculature, her large, green eyes filled with compassion. She had been hand-picked to please the dakini. She looked quickly around her. There were more dakini than local consorts and they seemed unconcerned about gender. She saw a male kissing one of the boys as a female gently fondled his erection. If this was their custom, then so be it. She leant forward to kiss Pauahi and reached to feel her breast. They were both gentle and playful as they explored her body. She had thought she was there to please them but they seemed more concerned to please her. They both brought her to orgasm through gentle oral stimulation. By now Bjorn was fully erect and she held onto his magnificent member as she shuddered with pleasure, the sounds of lovemaking all around her.

  She was sitting astride Bjorn, savouring the sensation of his length deep inside her, kissing Pauahi who was also astride Bjorn so as to allow him to perform oral sex, when the Kumari appeared beside them. She thought she was dreaming. She had lost all sense of time and even of space. She thought she was floating. She had never experienced such wanton, playful pleasure.

  “Good,” said the Kumari. “You have entered a higher plateau of arousal, but there is more to come.”

  She was startled to hear her voice and she became immediately ashamed that the Kumari had caught her mid coitus.

  “Shush,” said the Kumari softly, “it is okay Jinpa. I want you to experience this pleasure.”

  Her attention became more focused. The Kumari was real. She was actually standing before her, dressed in a diaphanous silk and gold thread robe, the outline of her juvenile body rendered in silhouette by the candles behind her. Beside her stood three dakini, but they were of a different kind. They were hairless and their skin glowed, one had an erection. They were beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

  “Will you carry a special child for me Jinpa?” asked the Kumari.

  She nodded. She would do anything for the Kumari.

  “Good, then will you allow Riku to impregnate you? You are at the most fertile part of your cycle.”

  The strange, glowing dakini with the erection came forward and spoke in perfect Tibetan. “Hello Jinpa, my name is Riku and these are my identical triplets Sun and Mae.”

  Identical? She must have misheard. Identical triplets were real but rare. Surely they could not be identical if one was male, and yet they were all the same physique and height. They surrounded her and she felt a new wave of ecstasy overwhelm her. Bjorn extracted himself from under her and they gently guided her onto her back. The alien entered her and immediately she shuddered with an orgasm. The Kumari stroked her face and repeated a strange mantra. Her head was filled with light and her heart almost burst with wave after wave of bliss. Was this the essence of yab-yum? The last thing she remembered was the words of the Kumari. “You will give birth on another planet. You are one of us now Jinpa, a sky dancer.”

  Postscript:

  Raven

  She woke in the middle of the night in a pool of sweat. She suppressed a scream. No one could know. Everything had to be kept a secret. The hands had returned: grabbing at her, tearing at her clothes, slapping her, punching her, probing her.

  The morning light filtered in through the dirty window. She was back in her little room. The women in black would appear soon. These ones were kinder; although hands still reached for her to undress her, bathe her, redress her and push and pull her to where they wanted her to be. At least she had food and she had puzzles. The puzzles absorbed her waking hours, obsessively, until hands took them away and waved about trying to communicate.

  She understood what they wanted. She could read their expressions and predict their behaviour. She understood their language. But she needed to know more. She needed to know why they behaved the way they did. It would make them angry, the way she stared at them blankly, trying to understand why they were doing what they were doing. They seemed insane to her.

  She had never liked people much. She had much preferred to play in the woods by herself. She still had vivid memories of the woods, every inch. The woods were a large puzzle. She knew all the creatures, large and small. Where they went, what they did, why they did it. She had to know everything about them. She was never scared. She understood that things could bite and sting, but she had a way. She had learned to be still and patient and observe. They would only strike you if you startled them or threatened them.

  It was humans she never understood. They attacked for no reason she could fathom. They had come from the north with guns. They killed her mother and left her body without eating it. What kind of creature killed another creature for no reason, just leaving it to rot?

  They made her work. It was stupid work, endless, pointless work. Lifting things and putting them in a place, only to be told to pick them up again and put them in another place. She was made to sweep away dirt that would only return the next day, or scrub clothes that she would have to scrub over and over. And when she resisted the hands would come, pushing her, punching her, beating her with switches and straps: harsh hands, painful hands, not the soothing hands or caressing hands of her mother and grandmother.

  In the few hours she had for rest, on Sunday when they went to church (which was forbidden to savages) she observed and waited. She knew all the creatures on the farm, and all the nooks and crannies. One day it turned very bad when the boy found her, the son of the master. He used her for sex (she accepted it because she knew it was nature’s way and sometimes he rewarded her with extra food). She had found the nest of a pregnant scorpion and when he found her she had three baby scorpions in the palms of her hand. The boy was terrified and she laughed at his stupidity. They said she was a witch and she was preparing a potion. When he confessed that he had used her for sex, they blamed her and said she was a sorceress who had bewitched him using black magic. They said they were going to burn her.

  She escaped in the early hours of the morning. Silently. She survived for two weeks until she made a stupid mistake and was discovered by hunters: a naked native girl, a stray, dirty and wild like a dog. These men were different. They spoke a different dialect and wore different clothes. They took her north to a big city with big buildings. They fed her, forced her to wear clothes. Different men, men in black dresses, came and prodd
ed her and asked her questions. She remained silent.

  Then one came, a kind one. He said his name was Brother Francis and he gave her puzzles. Simple ones at first: blocks of wood of different shapes that went into holes of the same shape. When she completed them he brought more complex puzzles. She would have left, crept away in the night (she had already worked out how to escape), if it hadn’t been for the food, the warm bed and the puzzles. The numbers were the best. She saw the repetitions, sequences and patterns easily. It was a language she could understand because it said exactly what it meant. Each time she succeeded he rewarded her with a more challenging puzzle. It was the happiest she had ever been.

  The woman in black called Sister Mercy had tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry Maria, but you have to go with the Cardinal and Sister Providence.”

  Hands reached for her and pulled at her, she resisted.

  “Please let her take her books. They keep her pacified. You’ll have nothing but trouble otherwise. She’s surprisingly strong,” Sister Mercy pleaded.

  Sister Providence held up one and flicked through it. Her hands twitched. She had hard hands, hitting hands, claws. “Satan’s scribbles,” she said, tossing it into the corner.

  She struggled to free herself to rescue the book, but hands held her tight.

  “Let the little witch have them. I have been instructed that she is to arrive in good condition and well fed. They will check for any sign of ill treatment. Do you understand Sister?” said the man in black with a low growl that indicated he did not like being in this situation.

  Sister Mercy retrieved the book and packed it in a bag, along with a few clothes and other books.

  “Now Maria,” said Sister Mercy kindly. “Behave yourself; do as they say. I am sure there will be better puzzles where they are taking you.”

  She stared blankly as hands dragged her away. Her name was not Maria, it was Raven, but she would not tell them her real name, because her name had power. Instead she would remain silent, watching like her namesake, waiting for the right moment to swoop.

  She was shoved into a windowless cabin on the back of a biofuel-combustion truck with the bad Sister. She was treated roughly. “Do not move or make a sound or I will hurt you. I assure you, I know how to do it without making a mark. I am used to dealing with the devil’s spawn,” snarled the Sister with a cruel smile.

  She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. In her mind she thought about mathematical problems. Numbers came to her easily. Brother Francis had been impressed that she could do the most complex calculations in her head. She could remember Pi to fifty thousand places. It was easy. Brother Francis said she was a prodigy and that God had given her a gift, but she did not believe in his God.

  They headed east to the coast where they boarded a cargo schooner. She had never been at sea and a part of her hoped they might allow her on deck, after all, how could she escape? Instead they shoved her below deck into a tiny cabin that smelled of rotten fish and stale piss. It was a nightmare journey of rolling waves and perpetual seasickness. The food they served her was slop that she could barely hold down. She lost track of time. She guessed days had passed. Her only respite was her puzzle books.

  They docked mid morning and she was blindfolded and again hands pushed and pulled and poked and shoved her into another vehicle, her blindfold removed just before the doors were slammed shut. She was utterly disoriented but in the chaos she thought she heard Creole. It meant they had travelled south. But how far south? She was filled with dread. Was she being returned to slavery?

  After a journey of around four hours they stopped by the side of the road for a break. The door was opened and she squinted in the harsh sunlight. The Sister had removed her habit and was wearing a black military uniform; on her upper arms was an insignia of a white skull on a red cross. The woman’s claw-like hands grabbed her arm and she was hauled out. She fell and scraped her knee. It was then she caught sight of the driver and the guard. They were clearly soldiers, armed with assault rifles and dressed in black uniforms with the same insignia. One walked to a bush at the side of the road to take a leak.

  “Best take her into the forest so both of you can relieve yourself. We’ll have a short meal break when you return.” The man spoke in a thick accent she had never heard before, neither from the north or south. He was blond with green eyes, tall and strong with a deep scar cleaving a mangled left ear.

  “Undress the little bitch to discourage her from attempting to escape, remove her shoes too,” he ordered sharply, giving the woman no chance to protest.

  The woman sneered and pulled at her dress until she was standing before them naked. The soldiers laughed and said something crude in a language she had never heard. She stood before them with her arms crossed, defiant, daring them to look, expecting them to use her for sex. The woman again squeezed her arm tightly and dragged her roughly into a copse of trees out of sight of the men. She slapped her hard across the head. “You little savage; you have no shame. You did not even attempt to hide your sin. If they decide to have their way with you it will be your fault.” The woman slapped her hard again. “Turn your eyes away; at least I have some decency. If you wish to relieve yourself now is the time, we will not stop again until we reach our destination.”

  The woman unbuckled her pants, pulled them around her knees and squatted on the ground, wrestling awkwardly with layers of unnecessary clothing. She on the other hand, let go where she stood and quickly assessed her surroundings. The forest trees were familiar, which meant the animals and insects would be much like the ones from her home. It was late spring and good rains had reinvigorated the forest. If she ran she could find food and survive. They were in a small gully; to her left the forest rose on a gentle incline. The country was hilly, which meant the line of sight was restricted. If she kept to the gullies and densely wooded areas she could keep out of sight. She looked quickly at the ground around her. She was in luck; there were rocks and fallen branches she could use as weapons.

  The woman started to pull up her pants, leaving her momentarily distracted, unbalanced and exposed. She hit the woman hard from behind. She crumpled immediately and lay on the ground twitching and moaning. Another blow with a rock caved in her skull, silencing her. She searched the woman’s clothing and found a silver skull on a chain; it was of no use to her so she tossed it aside. She was tempted to run immediately but she remembered that the satchel carrying her puzzle books was back at the truck. She took a deep breath. Think. She had a few moments before the men would become concerned and come looking. She realised that they would assume she had made a panicked run into the forest on this side of the road. If she circled around, she could confuse them and expand the search area from one-eighty to three-sixty degrees. So she headed along the road and found a vantage point where she could see the truck. The men were sitting eating and talking in their strange language. She waited until one shouted out angrily for the woman. When there was no reply he headed into the forest, cursing to himself. In a short time he came running back shouting expletives and the other one, foolishly, ran to help him.

  She had to act quickly. She bolted along the road to the truck and recovered her satchel. She was about to cross the road and make a run for it when she heard the shouts of the men getting fainter. Her simple ruse had worked and the men had gone deeper into the forest to try and find her, falsely assuming she would not get far naked and shoeless. She took the time to grab a few mouthfuls and rehydrate. She searched the cabin of the truck and found more containers of water and food. She looked in the glove box and found a torch, matches, a first-aid kit with scissors and a scalpel. She put what she could into her already bulging satchel; aware that if she took too much to carry it would slow her down. Then, under the dash, she saw a high-powered rifle in a sling. She knew about guns. She had never fired one but she had a perfect memory of watching others. She understood that if she wounded one of the men, the other would be forced to tend to him, thus giving her valuable escape time. She
searched around the seats and was again lucky, they had sheathed a hunting knife beside the driver’s seat as an added precaution. It was clear these men were used to attacks by bandits or had other enemies, which meant there were probably others like them, a militia group of some kind.

  Finally she thought she had everything she could take, but still she paused and thought through her escape. If she disabled the truck it would delay their ability to alert others. She looked under the steering column and found electric wires. She used the scalpel to cut them at either end so they could not splice them back together; she kept the lengths because they might be useful for binding. They had a shortwave radio so she disabled that too. When she had finished she heard their voices getting closer. She had a moment to dress but she hesitated. It was warm enough not to need clothing. Unprotected she might suffer scratches but they would heal; a tear in the material would not. If she got muddy it would be easier to wash her skin than soiled cloth. It would be best to keep the cloth in good condition until she really needed it: cut into strips it could be used for binding. She certainly didn’t need it for modesty because she planned to remain unseen, so she shoved the clothes into her already bulging satchel, heaved the satchel over her shoulder, grabbed the rifle and ran into the forest across the road. She found cover in some bushes and watched carefully. Every cell in her body told her to continue running. She saw movement through the trees and her fingers trembled on the trigger. Wait. One the men came into clearer view. She aimed low. She had always had good eyesight and reflexes. She exhaled and steadied her aim. The rifle jerked back hard and she jumped in fright. She heard one man yelp and when she dared to look she could just make out the other man running for cover. She knew that if she fired the gun again it would give away her position. She kept low and crawled away out of sight and then ran as fast as she could, leaving the rifle behind, knowing it would be useless once it ran out of ammunition.