Ishtar Anomaly

by Natalie Gibson

  The great mother earth spoke with two voices in two languages. 'Bring her through Me and We will make her as you are.'

  ***

  Tara Kay woke to the sunlight on her face. She was on her side and a man's arm was draped over hers. She stayed still. She could remember waking up several times throughout the night. Each time she'd reached out to him, he'd been there. Her guardian. They'd had sex more times than she could count, each one blurring with the one before and the one after until it was just one memory. It was one of total bliss and total abandonment.

  She was slightly embarrassed to look her new lover in the face. What if he wasn't what she'd imagined. What if he was some crazy homeless man who took advantage of her drug induced euphoria. Well, not all of it had been her imagination. The finger tracing her tattoo was real enough. She might have imagined his evolution from tree to man, but his existence was not in question. He was a real live man. When he spoke, her fears were laid to rest. That voice alone was enough to get him into her bed, even if he was a hobo.

  “Darisam baltu oren.”

  He wasn't speaking English. She was going to need to see him, if she was going to figure out what the hell he was trying to say. She gathered her courage and turned. She was not disappointed. He was gorgeous; a real heart throb. He rested on his bent elbow and she mirrored his position, to study him a bit. As she watched he, and the world around him, started to glow. Those were some drugs last night, she thought. She'd had the 'sparkle' after a trip before but never like this. Everything looked so alive, especially the man beside her. Several things about him jumped out at once. He wasn't as giant as she'd thought last night. Though he was clearly pro-football player sized, he was just a large man, not a colossus oak. His hair was green, though a shade darker than hers, and his tattoos, which covered every inch of his body, were of vines. The vines were covered in leaves, not morning glory's.

  He gestured to himself and said again, “Darisam baltu oren.”

  “Oren? Are you trying to tell me your name is Oren?”

  He propped himself up on an elbow to look down at her. She was at once distracted by the curve of his arm muscles. She watched helplessly as her hand reached out to trace the lines of his chest. Again he gestured to himself and then made a sign of 'tall'. “Darisam baltu oren.” She tore her gaze from his form and put her attention on his face. He gestured to her and said, “Ma darisam baltu”.

  “I get it. Hello, Oren.” She gestured to herself. “Darisam baltu Tara Kay.”

  He seemed very relieved. “Tara Kay, darisam baltu.” He said her name like all one word and it had a weird accent on the wrong syllable, 'teRAkae'. She liked it. She smiled at him and nodded her head. He leaned over and kissed her. It was a soft pressing of his lips to hers, no more. He pulled away only far enough to see her better. He traced her eyebrows, cheek bones, nose and mouth with his thumb. He started talking but Kay couldn't keep her mind on it for long enough to figure it out. She was hungry.

  Seriously hungry with a capital 'H'.

  “I'm starved. You?” She made the universal sign for eat. Then showed him her teeth, making a movement for biting and chewing.

  He smiled. Good gravy, he was adorable when he smiled. He had lines like parenthesis around his mouth and a dimple outside those. He bent and kissed her again but this one was all passion. Kay allowed it because he was so damn good at it, but when he moved on to her chin and neck, she pushed at him. He clearly didn't understand.

  Confused, he pulled from her and furrowed his brow in question. Was it possible for every face a person made to be more attractive than the last, she wondered. She sat up and then stood, holding her hand out to him. Her move had brought his face close to her privates. He stared at the junction between her legs. She thought she even saw him lick his lips before he put his hand in hers. He stood without any help from her, though he kept her hand. He brought it up to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. Each touch sent a little shiver down her spine, into her stomach and a little further south. She couldn't help but notice his erection. He was hungry too but not for food.

  Tara Kay looked around and tried to get her bearings. They were west of the trailer and her tree, not far from the orchard and the old condemned house. She turned and started to run, pulling him along. She could not remember ever feeling so good. The wind on her face and naked body was stunning. Her hair, where it touched her shoulders, tingled in a most pleasant way. She could feel every strand. The grass where she ran, had never felt so soft. She laughed out loud.

  They reached the grove quicker than she expected. They walked through the garden and she showed him all his options. There were trees bearing apples, peaches, plums, pears, figs and even avocados. Low ground hugging plants and bushes bore blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and melons. Sweet and regular potatoes grew underground as well as the lesser known taro, but they should be cooked before eating.

  She enjoyed the way he looked at each plant. She was proud of this place though she never showed it to anyone other than Mamaw and Papaw. She was glad she could show it to him and happy he seemed impressed. Kay had started this garden quite on accident when she was five, so it wasn't more than twenty years old. She knew that her present company couldn't understand her, but she spoke to him any way. She told him all about each plant and how it had gotten it's magical start here.

  She told him she was a witch, an elemental earth witch, from a long lineage of witches. Her Mamaw had offered offerings of milk and honey to the great mother earth every year at planting season, until the year of her death. Sometimes her prayers were answered and sometimes not so much. Kay's offerings were always answered with rewards because she made offerings of her own blood.

  She paused to look at Oren. She hadn't told many about her secret and even though he didn't speak English, she was worried how he might react. He was watching her intently. She told him again that she used her blood to speak to the great mother earth and tell her what was needed.

  He nodded that he understood. When she lifted an eyebrow in disbelief, he lifted her arm and pointed to the greenish blue vein that was most often tapped for blood donation. He said, “Mu gishtil ina sinnis ina ummum zumru warki sessu sessum-esrum, TeRAkay.”

  She smiled and shrugged. His was the oddest language she'd ever heard. She had no idea where he was from. He kissed the very same spot, where her pulse was so close to the surface and her heart skipped a beat. She almost missed a step before she could start her story again.

  ***

  Tara Kay Woods hadn't had the best childhood. She knew people who'd had it worse but she knew more that had had it better. Her parents hadn't abused her but she suffered great neglect. She knew now that they couldn't help it. They were drug addicts, completely strung out on heroin by the time Kay had been born.

  She only survived infancy because of her older siblings. She owed her life to her siblings, people who's names she didn't know, but that was another story. She wanted to tell Oren about the garden and her magic, not regal him with tales of neglect and loneliness. She rushed forward through the intro of her narrative.

  The real life threatening problem with having junkies for parents is that they don't eat. They don't even think about eating. They certainly don't plan meals and go grocery shopping. One day in the summer after she'd turned five, she was so hungry that she tried something truly desperate and extreme. She cut her wrist with a sharp rock and sprinkled her blood throughout a clearing in the woods near her family home. She sang and begged for help. She needed a regular source of food. She had seen her Mamaw make offerings of milk and honey to the great mother earth before the planting season every year and her garden always made. The milk and honey were collected by Mamaw's own hands because she said the earth required a personal sacrifice before a reapable reward was returned. Young Tara Kay had no way to till or fertilize the ground, no seeds to plant, no knowledge of how things were grown. She needed the food now with no prep work. She needed a miracle. Her sacrifice had to be greater
than that of her grandmother's.

  It worked. Better than her five year old brain could ever have imagined it would.

  She didn't know how long she had slept. She'd just passed out on the ground from the blood loss. She prayed as long as she could before the darkness took her. When Kay woke up, she found the garden much as it appeared now.

  Tara Kay gestured around her at the mature trees and producing plants of the grove, showing them to Oren. “I ran around gobbling up one of everything, with no thought for the dirty gash in my fucking wrist. It wasn't bleeding anymore. In fact it had some type of wilderness bandage over it. I tore the plant material off and looked at it. It'd scabbed over and didn't seem infected. I know now that the leafy bandage was from a plant with a very high antiseptic content in all it's parts. All I knew then was a woman's voice had come out of my blood starved mind and instructed me on making the poultice, bandage and tourniquet. That was the first time I heard her.”

  Oren nodded as if he understood. “Kiyahwe nisme ma mala bat nisme Oren.”

  “Sure, whatever. From then on, whenever I needed something I just pricked a finger. Just a drop usually worked. Not until I started growing drug substitutes did I really need to make blood offerings again. There is always something growing here. It's not like the sacred fig grove of the Daughters of Women that grows fruit all fucking year. That's pretty damn creepy if you ask me. My grove follows the cycles of the seasons but there is something to eat for every season and the plants, even the ones that would normally be annuals, grow food every year and live through their off season. You're lucky to be seeing it at the beginning of summer. Almost everything is producing. We've got our pick today.”

  Chapter 2

  “Good choice! You've never had a peach as delicious as mine. I guaran-damn-tee it.” She ignored the hungry stare that said he was thinking of her metaphorical peach. She was probably just projecting, after all, he couldn't understand her. She selected the biggest, ripest, most perfect peach she could find and plucked it. She held the golden red peach out for him to take. “Here you can have this one. It's a good one, I promise.”

  He stared at her.

  So much for him understanding her. She got close enough to put it in front of his face. “Go ahead. Take a bite.” She held it to his mouth as he gingerly sank his teeth through it's fuzzy velvet skin and into it's yellow meat. His eyes went wide at the flavor and he chewed slowly, never taking his gaze off of her.

  She had a bite. It was riper than she'd thought and the juices dripped down her arm and chin. She stared at the fruit in disbelief. This was the best fucking peach she'd ever tasted. It was head and shoulders above anything she'd ever had and she, herself, had grown some pretty amazing things in this place. Before she knew it, she had taken a second bite and a third.

  It's flavors were so complex. It was sweet, but it was also slightly sour and acidic. It was deliciously and disgustingly delectable all at the same time. She could taste the dirt this fruit had pulled it's nutrients from, the family land she loved so much. She knew by it's taste that it had grown during a dry season, struggling, but that the earth had supplied the flesh. There was a hint of something else there, too. The slightest bit of syrupy sweet rot just starting. She took another bite. She could taste herself in the fruit. The blood she'd shed there all those years ago was still flavoring the fruit. She had never tasted that in her fruits before. It was more like she had never really tasted anything before now. The peach wasn't different; she was.

  “TaRAkay”, his beautiful voice brought her out of her mental ramblings.

  She held the peach out to him. He wanted some. She looked at her hand. The peach was gone. She was holding a pit out to him. She tossed it down and turned to the tree to pick another for him. She reached up to grab one and Oren stopped her arm.

  Oren held her by the elbow, then slowly licked all the sticky sweet nectar off. Carefully, he cleaned her forearm from elbow to wrist before moving on to palm and fingers. Kay couldn't believe what was happening. She was in some kind of fantasy. Every experience, every sensation today was enhanced to an almost painfully pleasant level. When he placed kisses on each of her fingertips, she dropped her head back and stared at the sky, convinced she'd see two moons or flying pigs or something.

  Her move gave Oren just the offering he wanted. He slipped closer, lapping at a drip on her neck. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders as his mouth worked wonders on her throat. The way he was pulling on her, she was going to have one hell of a hickey, but she didn't care. He lifted and then slanted his head, covering her mouth with his. He was devouring her just as she had hungrily eaten the peach. She tasted herself again, her blood, in his kiss. I must be tasting the peach, she thought.

  He continued to make love to her mouth as his hands roamed over her hips, waist and backside. She loved men's hands, slightly rough and callus. They made her feel delicate and soft. She explored the hard muscles of his shoulders and arms.

  His hands in her armpits, he lifted her easily and set her on a strong thick branch of the fruit tree. It was thick enough to hold her weight but not the size of a seat. He hooked her ankles around his elbows and added his hands to give her a bigger softer area to sit. When he spread his arms her legs went with them, and she realized what this position was for. His face was level with her peach. She had eaten his all up and now it was his turn.

  There was no nuance, no easing into it. He just put his face against her and went to town, like she was the most delicious thing he'd ever had on his lips. Oh, those lips. They were casting some kind of spell on her. It wasn't like the perfunctory cunt licking she'd gotten from other men, nor the ones she saw in porn. He devoured her up, not caring about the noise he was making or how it looked. He sucked her clitoris into his mouth and she almost lost her balance. When he used his teeth and tongue to bang out intricate morse code, she gasped and flailed her arms out. She held on to the branch above her as the feeling of falling slowly over took the heavy need in her.

  With barely a buildup, her orgasm took her. She exploded with an internal fireworks display that stunned her. She came to with the sounds of Oren making out with her blossom, slurping up everything her body had to offer. She realized then that she'd never had a man go down on her who knew what he was doing. Oren was no beginner. This man knew his way around a pussy. She relaxed, letting him handle her weight, and just soaked up the ripples of the afterglow.

  But Oren wasn't finished with her body yet. As soon as he lapped up every wave of her climax, he had her on the cusp of another. As Kay shattered for the second time by the magic of his mouth she wondered if this session was for her or for him. The look on his face, when she had use of her vision, said that he was enjoying it every bit as much as her.