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.
***
Kay ran in the kitchen entrance of Dinner Diner where she worked during the day. She hung her purse on her hook, tied on an apron, and tucked the order pad and tiny pencil into it's pocket. She waved at the cook, who was looking at her in opened mouth wonder. “Hola Marcos!”
She peaked through the circular window into the dinning room. She was only a few minutes late but Margarete had her hands full. The other waitress was running around trying to keep up but every table was occupied. That was more than one staff member could handle even in this small venue. Ashley, Jackie and Will sat in Kay's section. Damn it!
She straightened her waitress dress and checked her hair and makeup in the reflective surface of the kitchen doors, but she hated herself for doing it. She didn't want to care what Ashley thought of her, especially after last night, but she did. She wanted him to want her even if she would never want him again. She wished that Oren had come with her. It would be easier to face her ex with Oren around.
She had slapped on some makeup in the car ride over, but hadn't been very careful. It was hard to see in the blurry reflection of the metallic door but she could tell it was good enough. Better than that, she looked really good. Lips shinny pink and plump, eyes adequately lined and accentuated with long black lashes and every green hair on her head in place, Tara Kay pumped the door with her rump. She backed into the room and spun around grabbing up the carafe on the way by.
“Sorry I'm late Margarete! I lost track of time.” She called out. The room that was bustling with activity and noisy with friendly clamoring was now quiet. All eyes were on Kay.
She moved around the room warming up the coffee of every truck driver and local alike, hitting Ashley's table last. She set the empty carafe down. “What'll it be?” she said, pretending not to notice who it was. When no one answered she countered, “Not ready yet, got it. I'll be back around in a few minutes”, and tried to walk away.
“You gotta be shitting me,” Ashley stammered out. Will reached out and grabbed her by the wrist. He jerked his hand back as if she'd stung him.
Tara Kay sat at the empty spot of their four top and let them have it. She said quietly through gritted teeth, “You three assholes think that you can try to ... force me and then show up to my workplace like nothing happened? We were all high, I get that, but no amount of drugs is an excuse for chasing me naked through the woods! I said no. No means no. You are not welcome in my home and as soon as I have time to talk to Mr. Glenn, you won't be welcome here either. Choose your meal carefully because it'll be the last one I serve you.” She stood and realized they hadn't moved or made a sound since she started talking. She had kept her eyes averted the whole time.
Kay really looked at them for the first time. The small gang were staring at her like she was a leper. They were ghost white and sweaty. Ashley's arm was in a sling and a pair of crutches leaned against the wall behind Will's chair. They all had scratches and lacerations covering their arms and faces plus some type of rash that looked like poison oak. Jackie's right eye was so infected that he couldn't open it. “What the fuck happened to you three?” She asked in a lowered voice. This was a family restaurant and she got in trouble a lot for her love of using the f-bomb.
None made a move to answer her question. Will swallowed audibly and visibly Jackie started to shake. Their condition made Kay think about how she must look. She glanced at her own arms, searching for the scrapes that should mirror theirs. Her skin was smooth as a baby's butt. She reached up to feel her mouth. She had tripped and fallen, busting her mouth against a tree root, hadn't she? She ran a finger on the inside of her lips but there was no swelling or ridges that spoke of healing damage. Her teeth were all solid and in place. No wiggle at all. Weird.
The bell jingled when a new customer opened the door. Ash knocked over his chair in his hurry to stand. Will's squeaked on the linoleum and a mixture of cursing and prayer poured from Jackie's mouth. Margarete said, “Oh, no you don't. Handsome or not: no shoes, no service, buddy. Read the sign.”
Kay looked up to find Oren standing in the entrance looking around like the dirty diner was the most magnificent thing he'd ever seen. His eyes were wide and his mouth hung loose. He was barefoot. The clothes she had given him were way too tight but they were the biggest she could find in her parent's old chest of drawers. The gray sweatpants were stretched beyond whatever the material was rated for and every detail of his junk was visible. They were too short by a foot and a half, looking more like clam diggers than pants on him. The sleep shirt had belonged to her mother was the largest top in the whole house. It was made to be extremely loose fitting but the pink words 'Hot Mama' were misshapen as it attempted to cover his chest.
Kay covered her mouth to hide her laugh. He didn't know how ridiculous he looked. He didn't know how inappropriate the words were. She pointed down at her shoes and then to his own feet lacking covering. She was wearing the only ones that were in her car. She hadn't had time to go back to the trailer and had to endure working in shoes really only made for her second job. Strippers' footwear was often the only thing they wore all night and had to be flashy, fancy and have impossibly high heels.
Oren ducked back out, presumably to find some shoes, though Kay doubted the Hope's Closet next door had any size 18 or whatever gargantuan shoe Oren must wear. Kay took her now empty coffee carafe back to the coffee station. Margarete was getting a slice of pie for one of her customers nearby.
“Where have you been?”
“Oh, lay off, Margarete. I said I was sorry.” Kay kept her eyes from rolling but just barely.
Margarete jutted out her hip and threw her hand on it. “Tara Kay, we've been worried sick. You could have called.”
It wasn't like Margarete had some perfec
t attendance record. Kay covered for her all the time. It was one of the perks of working as a waitress in a small town diner. They could be really shitty waitresses. It wasn't like customers had any other option for dinning, unless you counted the Dairy Queen. Tara Kay didn't. “I was only a shitty little 15 minutes late. Fucking leave it!”
The only person at the counter gawked at her language. The white haired man with a short sleeved dress shirt, tie and overalls (a look not seen anywhere but the deep south where every man was Brother this or Deacon that) tisk-tisked her. Kay hated that. He started in, “Use of foul language like that is a sign of the condition of your soul and...”.
She didn't let him finish. No one got to preach at her while she worked, not at either of her jobs. “Oh, cram it in your Jesus hole, Churchie.”
The man made a 'humph' noise and rose to go. Margarete backhanded Kay's arm. “Tara! I'm sorry Brother Echols.”, she apologized. “She's...she's just...you know...”
Bro. Echols finished Margarete's sentence, “a heathen. That's what she is: a Godless hell-bound heathen.”
He glared at Kay as he put on his white straw hat with a black band that had been sitting upside down on the counter top. When he was in the middle of the dinning room Tara Kay called out, “Yeah, well, it's real Christ-like to stiff a poor waitress, brother.”
Echols face was red as he turned back to them. He plunked down eight dollars without even looking at the bill. “Thanks,” she said with a fake gracious grin. Pointedly he laid a business card down on top of the money. Kay could see it had an elaborate purple and gold cross on one side and a bible verse under his name and church affiliation. She smiled at him as she used a rolled up napkin filled with plastic ware to slide the card back to him. “We'll take the money you owe for the food, but you can keep your crazy. We ain't buyin' any today.”
Ishtar Rising (a book of Sinnis) Page 2