Lily nodded. “It’s a male scientist thing–a rite of passage. For the brilliant ones, anyway. All men like Rain go through something like that.”
“What should I do?”
Lily sipped again, earrings swinging like feathery pendulums. Annie narrowed her eyes at them, remembering the Kaamo totems she had seen during Tiltu: feathers on Sola’s throne, tails of demon birds stuck to bare chests, bird skull-headpieces on the crowns of the warriors. There had even been a whole bird-skeleton stuck to the throne with blood, and feathers that swung like Lil’s earrings from the pigskin belt around Sola’s waist, between beads and polished bones, like a very morbid charm bracelet. A charm belt, actually.
Jesus. Annie caught herself. Lily’s outfit was probably from Forever 21, for Christ’s sake.
The anthropology life is getting to me, too.
“Men like Rain always go through a spiritual crisis,” Lily said finally. “A spiritual awakening. He’ll start to exhibit some strange behavior. He’ll have vivid dreams. You’ll hear rants about infinity, the source, new perspectives, and unity. Even God. He might start taking psychedelics.”
“You know a lot about this.”
“Both my dad and Rain’s went through it,” Lily repeated. “He’ll take mushrooms and mescaline. He’ll probably read Aldous Huxley and say all this crap about how our perspective is limited. Limited, man,” Lily drawled the last words, putting on her best stoned-hippie voice. “He’ll say that drugs open the doors of perception, letting you see everything, dude.”
Annie remembered the William Blake quote. “When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see things as they really are–infinite.”
“Yep.”
“So he’ll go crazy?” Annie flipped on her side, trying to appear casual, though her heart was thumping and her brain was doing flips.
“Oh, what does crazy even mean? He’ll go kind of… guru. And he may come back to reality, or he may not. Just don’t sleep with him again.”
Annie was silent.
“Ok? You?” Lily gave her a poke.
There was not a sound. Outside the window a warbling firetail was saying hello. Annie focused on the sound through the pane of curtain-framed hotel glass.
“Withhold sex. Do it for me, Ann. And for yourself. After all the crap Rain did to you. Crazy douchebag. Now he’ll grow into a bona fide crazy old douchebag!”
A tear wobbled into Annie’s eye and trickled down her cheek. She wiped it away, listening to the song of the firetail as Lily fell silent. She and the bird stared at each other as if both of them knew a terrible secret.
Chapter 18
Rain had been a bad, bad boy.
“Oh,” He gasped as the princess rolled her lips up his penis again. It turned out to be the final roll–the feeling was so luscious he came unexpectedly.
Rain Mistern loved those unexpected orgasms. They were clattering and spectacular, like a pile of bricks falling. His brain sent out a big, yes, thank you. Every fiber of his being gloried at the unexpected twist.
“Hwooh.’” He managed that noise before collapsing on his back. It was uncomfortable on Annie’s bamboo-backed foam mattress, but he was only letting Sola suck him off inside today. He had insisted.
The risk of photographers capturing his blow jobs with a telephoto lens was not one he wanted to take.
“Rain. I want you to take me.” Sola nuzzled him, breathing into his pecs and fingering his bicep with appreciative strokes. Her breasts felt so good against his skin. It would have made Rain hard if he hadn’t just come his brains out.
“Sola. You are a virgin.” He gasped. Rain could actually see the skin between his pectorals pulsing, like a drum skin just bashed with a stick. “I would be burnt alive for doing that.”
“You would be burnt alive for what we have done already,” Sola said, giving him a lick. He hated to admit it, but she was right. “Your trust is in me.”
“It sure is.” Rain still regretted it. He tried to treat the princess well, tiptoeing around her when she was in a bad mood and attending at once to her concerns. Treating her well came easily, thank goodness—Sola was a charming woman. “My ass…” He grabbed her wrist, relishing her giggle, and let it smack down onto his rear. “…is in your hands.”
“I want your hands on my ass,” she said. It was so animal Rain actually moaned. He turned to peer at the princess.
She was captivating. Sola had eyes like amber stones, flecked in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways. They were comprised of all the colors of a sunset—yellow and red and marmalade orange and dazzling, engagement ring-quality gold. All the colors of victory, and of royalty. He’d thought they were brown the first time he saw her. Nope–here in Annie’s dwelling, with the sun shining through the same window that had let a fresh breeze in as she sucked him off, he could see them clearly: eyes assembled from flecks of magic.
Her breasts heaved below her slim neck and angelic heart-shaped face. They were the color of mocha coffee and the texture of his wildest fantasies—womanly, wondrous, bite-able, bouncy, firm.
With an improbable stirring of his cock, Rain was ready to go again. He grabbed Sola by the wrists and pinned her to the bed, listening with a smile to her squeals. The sight of her startled eyes made him harder, especially when her mouth widened too, releasing a puff of hot breath.
Rain grinded. He thrust his cock between her legs without entering the sweet space. My God, how much he wanted to fill her: to hear her squeak of pain, as the barrier to her secret woman’s space was ripped. Every violent pocket in his being rejoiced at the thought. With every grind, his brain screamed: Do it. Really do it! Take her!
Sola’s fingers on her nipples were not helping matters. She fingered the buds, twisting them and letting her breasts bounce. She moved with Rain’s rhythm, surrendering under his body and letting him lead.
He watched, hypnotized, as a shining spot of drool gathered in the corner of her mouth. It spilled over, trailing down her chin, an echo of the cum that had spilled down her face when they 69’d on the beach.
He did not want to be in her mouth anymore. He wanted her. He wanted the part of her that only one man would ever take: her sweet virginity.
“Mmm.” Rain kept grinding, watching Sola’s face. Her eyes were squeezed shut now. Her bosoms were moving in a tiny arc on her chest, from one full moon-shape to another. They looked great at every angle. And–oh God–she did not even make a move to wipe her chin.
She was so primal. It really made him horny.
“Rain, do it,” she ordered, princess tone in her voice. “Take me.”
“No.” Maybe it was the bossiness, but he was turned off like a shot. “I am not going to…do that.”
The light was fading in the hut. Rain spotted Anne’s candle on her table, ready to be lit, and took that excuse to break Sola’s stare and shuffle away, erection still bulging. He mumbled something about nightfall and rose to his feet.
“I’ve told you I want it,” the princess’s musical voice trailed after him, filling the hut. Rain admired her voice, the way authority sat alongside girlish charm in her tone. He sparked Annie’s lighter, waiting for a good little blaze, and hung the flame over the scented candle. He did not turn around, although Sola’s words kept coming:
“I know I need you to have me, Rain. It has been told by the rain gods.”
“Your gods, not mine,” Rain told her, throwing cultural sensitivity right out the window. He kept his voice disinterested, even condescending, but the truth was Sola’s words worried him. If there was one thing that would make the princess spring into action, drawing out all her determination and wiliness, it was an order from the gods. Any pressure from the tribesmen she could dismiss with a wave of her royal hand. But the gods? Sola took their word very seriously. She was at the mercy of her silly dreams, as surely as those bronzed tribesmen were at the mercy of their princess.
Tight under her little thumb, Rain thought as the candle sparked up, waving and dancing
in the breeze. Was it because he’d just ravished Sola–well, her mouth at least–that he thought of a hot woman dancing? The candle wiggled and wobbled for him as if it was trying to seduce him. He waved his hand, trying to banish the smoke rising around the pretty light, and saw that all around him shadows had sprung up. Rain’s mouth tightened; it looked like the room was full of creepy things. As if dark figures—all the rapists and no-goodniks of the Pacific—had come out their lairs, attracted by the tiny dancing flame.
“Rain? You are a wonderful man.” Sola’s voice hit him. He stared at the flame sadly; how vulnerable it looked.
“Thank you, Sola.” Rain turned finally and crossed the room, resolving to spend more time journalling and less time fucking around with the world’s most innocent girl. There was one shadow on the roof, a great image of his forgotten journal, blown up to the size of a tapestry in a church, that really drove the point home. It seemed like a message from Sola’s gods.
* * * *
“I’ve been spending too much time with you, princess,” he said. “I am seeing messages everywhere.”
At that, Sola’s amber eyes widened, alert. Rain smiled sadly at her. The shadows had sharpened her petite features, bringing out her elegant bone structure and shading her chin so it looked even smaller than usual. Small chin, huge eyes: it gave her the look of a seductive alien.
Sola resisted his attempts to pull her beside him so her head was on the pillow. Rain peered between her spread legs.
“What are those?” he asked. The blanket was covered with dark squiggles. They looked a bit like cursive letters.
Sola shuffled back, giving Rain a better look at her stash.
“Magic mushrooms,” he marvelled.
Sola blinked. “We call it Tiltu Kaam Sil. Used on the evening after Tiltu. When the body is weary…” She smiled. “…and when we are ready to grow toward the gods.”
She brought one of the dried fungus strips to her lips and licked. She winked.
Rain returned her wink with one of his own, laughing. That was no a Kaamo gesture. She must have picked it up from me.
Grinning more at Rain’s obvious delight, the princess popped the mushroom in her mouth and chewed. Rain listened to the soft crunch and scrape of her teeth over the calls of the native coots on the water outside. He marveled, as always, at the beauty of Sola’s wide eyes, which caught the amber in the candle. They glowed twice as brilliantly now—
truly alien.
* * * *
For the next few days Rain buried his nose in his notebooks, munching occasionally on Sola’s mushrooms and recording the impressions that came to him in that drugged state. He had taken hallucinogens in New York so it was nothing new, but he was surprised by the potency of Sola’s stash. He couldn’t be sure if it was the substance itself or his surroundings—the peaceful ocean sounds and the grandeur of the forest panoramas—that made his trip twice as good.
Sola was with him every time he tripped. He insisted they always take the mushrooms together, or that he be sober while she was high. He did not trust Sola, with her slinky body, not to take advantage of him while he was at one with the cosmos.
Oh, man, the trips. He tripped outside, by the ocean, surrounded by birds and monkeys and trees, with his journal in his lap. Sola would slip him the drug and he would start writing, nibbling slowly, until his prose took on a Shaman’s tone. Or a mystic’s. Or maybe a psycho’s.
The vivid air opens to let you through, not to let you be, read one entry. Rain shook his head when he read it the next day. He had no idea that what that was supposed to mean.
Christ. Some passages he could not even remember writing. There were whole pages where he seemed to be trying to write from the point of view of God. I created people to act out the possibilities of infinity. All my many God-possibilities. Many arms spring from my body–high on my head, low and dirty on my feet, filthy on my genitals. You are all possibilities! Every person is a possibility. You are all my arms. He had to laugh at that one.
He didn’t read the words out to Sola. What if she told him that God was visiting him? She would probably look for clues that the lord wanted Rain to take her virginity.
One passage scrawled by the river brought tears to his eyes: Annie was created to bring you to your next place. She wants to evolve but people are determined to destroy her. If she is not to be destroyed, you must bring her with you. She is stained with the devils’ finger and looking for a cloth.
“Mmmph.” Rain made that noise as he read under a tree. Sola heard him and scampered up, catching the tears in his eyes. Rain wiped them away hurriedly.
“What is it, Mister Rain Mister?” she called. That was her new nickname for him. She had heard Annie call him Mister Rain Mistern once and thought it was the funniest thing in the world.
“Nothing.” Rain tried to fob her off, lowering his head and concentrating on wiping spots of banksia sap from his journal, but Sola paced around, feet falling softly on the sand of the riverbank. The shadow of her head appeared on the pages of Rain’s journal.
Rain snapped the book shut.
“Mister Rain Mister. You write too much when we are on Tiltu Kaam Sil.” She smiled, and then did a little dance to demonstrate that he should loosen up. “You should enjoy the moment.”
“I do. I am loose. I like to record my thoughts when I am loose.”
“You are not thinking of Miss Annie?”
Rain’s eyeballs shot up, taking in her figure above him. Her head was haloed by the midday sun.
How did she know that?
“Have you been reading my entries?” he demanded. Sola’s English was astonishingly good for a speaker of two years, but there was no way–no way–Paulo the linguist could have taught her to read so quickly.
“You mutter while you are in the Kaam Sil state,” Sola replied sadly. “You are thinking of the woman of your heart.”
Rain stared. He watched Sola shake her hips, stepping softly on the sand, doing a dance that would normally have turned him on.
She was far less affected by the drug than he. How could he be sure Sola had not already taken advantage of him while he was out of it?
“I have vivid dreams about many things,” he said. For a moment he considered asking Sola if he could examine her hymen, but dismissed it, ashamed of himself. He may have sunk pretty low—mushrooms and trysts with willing native girls—but he had not reached that level yet.
Taking advantage of natives? Check. Choking intelligent women? Check. Getting his kicks from their pain? Check.
But ultra-orthodox-Muslim-style virginity examinations? No. He was not there.
Rain stared at Sola’s sand-caked shins. He could not look up at her face but he could imagine her expression, staring at him with sad interest.
“Do you have any more Tiltu Kaam Sil, Sola?” Rain asked, using the Kaamo phrase for the mushrooms. He sensed her nodding at the top of his view, and then watched her feet running away, over to the satchel where she stashed them.
This will be my last trip, Rain promised himself. He opened his journal and began writing, waiting for her to return. It was always fun to read the way his uptight thoughts became grander and more sprawling as the afternoon wore on.
Chapter 19
Rain’s trip was magnificent. The tropics melted all around him. Time seemed to stop. He felt like he was a tack, pressed in place by the universe, marking all that was important.
Everything expanded. He became one with the forest, one with the sky. He soared above Sivu, seeing into the minds and souls and lives of the people below. The world became a network of rivers and islands and human lives. He could see how all people were connected. Life energy flowed like river water as people met and separated.
He saw history. History, like a river, had its arcs and twists and turns. Fashions changed and attitudes evolved as the great river flowed. He was high enough to watch it winding and gushing. He saw that we are all one, and that there is only love.
Ann
ie’s face appeared: a fearful face, ready and willing for him to hurt her. Her eyes flashed with pain. He saw what was behind those eyes: memories so vivid and painful they almost burst out like tears from her face. She needed to release that pain, he knew it. That was why she had come to him.
As he stared into Annie’s face, watching the transition from pain to pleasure, he became her for a moment. He felt her agony. Rain’s own tears welled up. It occurred to him that tears are hot because they are the body releasing hurt. In every system—engines, circuits, pumps, pistons—heat is a waste product. It needs to be released so that the system can function without exploding.
It will be okay, Annie, he said to her in the trip. He saw her face light up with joy and laughed with her. He felt his heart burst as he connected with her. Their arms wrapped around each other–his own sinewy, corded forearm, and her slender feminine forearm, adorned with that awful tattoo she got, aged fourteen, when her mother was betraying her and her father was abusing her, making her feel low and dirty. Rain remembered his own feelings of shame as a teenager–the time his mother walked in after a masturbation session with his sock and scowled at him. How awful he had felt.
I’m sorry. Annie. I know what that is. I’m sorry you went through that. You went through what I did and much, much more. He saw her face light up with gratitude.
Their arms were still entwined, winding around each other like two serpents. Rain watched as the tattoo on Annie’s forearm disappeared. He smiled at the fresh skin underneath—like a baby’s behind—and kissed it. He suddenly felt a hundred kilograms lighter. He knew that they were free.
* * * *
“Oh, boy.” He woke with a sigh and a luxurious stretch of his neck. That had been an epic journey indeed.
He was still not fully out of the trip, but he was lucid enough to see that Sola was dancing. Very, very sexily.
He watched her winding in and out from between the tree trunks in her earth-goddess way. “Don’t you do that, naughty princess,” he mumbled, experimenting with his legs. He could twitch them and roll them around, but could not lift them yet. That should come back in a few seconds.
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