Chapter 2

As irrational as both fears are, it takes you a while to calm your mind down. You push back your wooden chair and wander over to the first row of vegetables. Beans and squash hang from a low trellis. You don’t really think she’s manipulating your thoughts. But another thought has now rippled to the top. You turn and march back to the table.

“Where will I sleep?” you demand.

“The bed is enough for two,” she says, her cool eyes on you.

You sit on the seat you just left, shuffling it forward. “Do you sleep naked?”

“Do you want me to sleep naked?” she asks, with only the slightest hint of amusement.

Yes. God, yes. You’re already feeling a vibration in your pussy. “No,” you say.

She nods. “Then I will not.” She doesn’t seem to be pleased or saddened by your choice.

The silence is strange. It’s extreme. There’s no sound of civilization here. There are no lights. You hear nighttime insects. Or maybe they’re frogs, or both. You have no phone to distract yourself, and your companion isn’t interested in small talk. You have no books. Yet the tranquility outweighs the boredom, and although your companion is not a conversationalist, you appreciate not having to analyze your life for her.

She stands, then collects the mugs and moves inside. You follow to see her emptying the dregs of the mugs into the recycle bag, then tipping the coffee pot into the same bag before washing all three. She brings in her cigarettes, ash tray and the doused mosquito incense.

There is a light fitting by the door. You look for a switch beside the doorframe, but there isn’t one. The woman approaches, hips swaying, then turns a knob beneath the light fixture before holding up her lighter. There’s a brief blue flash, then the gas mantle is glowing, becoming brighter until the room is full of its pale yellow light. The slight hiss of the gas is the loudest sound in the room.

She steps into the bathroom. You see a glow against the door as she repeats the lamp lighting within, then the sound of water in the shower. After a moment, you hear the shape of the sound change, and imagine her beneath the shower head.

She emerges from the bathroom in a cotton nightgown, combing out damp hair. Light reflecting from the bathroom door is visible through the nightgown, outlining the lines of her body – the outward curve of her hips, the joining of her thighs. The garment ends well above her knees.

“Uh, should I sleep in this?” you ask, smoothing your shirt over your hips. It would be fine, it’s comfortable, you just don’t know if she gave it to you with the intention of it being sleepwear.

She vanishes into her bedroom. You hear the small pop as she lights its mantle, then observe the glow forming around the door. She returns with a nightie that looks to be the same style as the one she’s wearing. Handing it to you, she gestures toward the bathroom.

Inside, you find your own sealed toothbrush. You strip off your shirt, relieve yourself, then wash your hands and face before brushing your teeth. You examine your reflection after slipping on the nightdress she gave you. The clothing feels like it’s barely there, and the cotton is as thin as what she was wearing, but it seems opaque in the mirror.

She takes your shirt from you, then ushers you into the bedroom while she turns off the gas lights in the bathroom and main room.

The bed is centered, with a nightstand on either side. On each nightstand is a candle, with a box of matches and lighter. You figure a candle is more convenient in the dark than the gas fitting. Supporting your point, she lights the candle on the right side of the bed, then extinguishes the gas flame. You move to sit on the left side of the bed, your legs under the sheets, pillow behind your back. She climbs into the right side, mirroring your pose.

Though the candle is behind her, there is enough like to see her face, her eyes pale within it. Turning to face you, she reaches out with her right hand, running a finger down your arm. It feels as though the line was created with a live electric cable. Your skin still sparks as she moves her hand back.

“Bastet…” you groan. “I…”

“You wish to lie with me?” she asks in that deeply musical voice. It carries a trace of amusement, but also, you think, a trace of lust.

Breath you didn’t know you were holding explodes out of you. You replace it with another lungful of air. You don’t answer her question. Taking that step feels like it shouldn’t include words, especially with this woman who uses so few. You reach out with your left hand to cup her cheek as you slide your face toward her.

She tastes of desire. There’s a touch of mint from the toothpaste and ash from the cigarette, but it’s not distracting, and she doesn’t have the breath of a heavy smoker. She probes your tongue, but lets the passion of the kiss rise naturally. Her lips are soft against yours as both hands sneak around the back of your head. You wriggle your body closer to hers, stretching an arm around her to caress her shoulder blades, then run it down to her butt. There are no panties beneath the thin cotton.

Your breath catches when you realize that. She seems to sense your reaction, pushing herself closer to you, the kiss becoming deeper, before she draws back, moving her hands from you. “Do you like what you feel?” she asks.

You can only nod, and try to move closer to recover the kiss, but she sits upright. You hear a rustle of cloth, then the nightdress is sliding over her head, and your heart skips a beat as you take in her high, firm breasts and the trimmed but not shaved dark fur between her thighs.

You pull your own nightdress over your head. Never have you worn a garment for such a short time.

The woman pushes you down to the bed, then rolls the sheets back, exposing your legs, and pulls your panties down. You wriggle to let her get them off. Then she’s on you, kissing you fiercely as your bodies make contact. A rush of want floods your sex. You feel yourself damp against her belly. Knowing this woman intimately has suddenly become your goal in life.

She seems reluctant to break the kiss, but she does, as she slides down your body to suckle your left breast. You can’t help groaning at the new levels of desire you’re feeling. Wherever she touches feels charged, but especially your breast, where her tongue is terrorizing your defenseless nipple into sensitivity, and your pussy lips, where her fingers are drawing patterns in the wetness. You cry out when one slides easily into you. You don’t have a scale for this level of arousal.

The finger withdraws and two take its place. Her body lifts from yours and you feel her left hand pushing its way over your belly. Fingers press against your mons as she lowers herself and thrusts into you. You groan as she pushes you higher.

Before the deed is done, she rolls off you. You pant harshly, your hips still rising, unable to react to no longer having anything to push against. Then she’s over you on her knees and elbows, her breasts suspended, lightly caressing yours. There’s a feline glint in her eye as she looks into you, a predator now.

Crawling backward, she stops to suckle both breasts. You’re so turned on at this point that she could get a reaction wherever she touched you, but your breasts and nipples are especially sensitive targets. You close your eyes, letting the sensation take you, not opening them again until you feel her body drift lower.

She’s between your legs now, her tongue sliding down your belly, then skipping down to your thighs, tracing up your inner thighs as she lightly draws a finger around your labia. You feel your pulse echoing in your sex.

She growls and swipes her tongue over your clit, making you yell, then settles into planting small kisses around your pussy lips, drawing her tongue around them. Fingers slowly slide into you, stretching you in delicious spikes of pain before settling against the wall of your sex.

The fingers begin to thrust, and her tongue explores further, brushing your clit. Her left hand slides up your body, fingers moving to pinch your right breast. Your wince of pain drives your sex against the woman’s jaw. She responds with more gentle caresses of your clit, where you need more.

She’s toying with you, and you’re losing your will to resist. She will take you in her time, at her pace.

The hand on your breast squeezes firmly. You feel your swollen clit being engulfed by her mouth. The sensation filling it is suddenly intense and unstoppable. Your hips rise from the bed.

The spasm that hits you seems to be focused in from every part of your body. You feel yourself engulfed in wetness. More spasms slam into you, each one overwhelming your senses. You try to breathe as your body writhes beneath her tongue. Each jolt of pleasure fills your soul.

You have never felt so alive. Each mighty pulse of your orgasm pushes the darkness you’ve been under for months now, for years, back a little.

The woman between your legs expertly draws out your climax until you sink back to the bed. Then she rolls away before moving up the bed to lie beside you, pulling the sheets up to cover both of you. Her pale eyes hold yours for long moments before she presses her lips to yours, your own taste flooding your tongue.

“Should I leave today?” you ask.

You’re both sitting at the outdoor table, both naked. She didn’t even dress to pick up the tomatoes you’re now eating, chopped and tossed into scrambled eggs with mushrooms.

“When you are ready to leave, you will leave,” she says, just as she did the day before.

You turned your phone back on, under her guidance, this morning. Her wifi is secure, she says. You figure from the address you’re assigned that your VPN connection terminates somewhere in India. Without location tracking and with no cell towers in the vicinity, your phone is unlikely to give your location away. You’ve watched the news. No mention of a man taking a brick to the face. Either he survived, or he was a plant, or both. More of your friends were arrested after you left. You have a responsibility to them.

Away from the city as you are, the silence is deafening. It is not a place you can live for long. But you also have a responsibility to yourself and to them to be revitalized. When you return to the fray you’re going to make a difference. Your time with this woman – with “Bastet” – will give you that.

“It won’t be today,” you say. “Before I leave, I want to turn you inside out the way you did to me.”

That predatory glint appears in her eyes again for a moment. You don’t know if it means, “Good luck with that,” or “I’m looking forward to it.”

But the drumbeat strains of the night remain in the rhythm of the newborn day
You know sometime you’re bound to leave her, but for now you’re gonna stay…

I appreciate feedback of any kind. Please comment and rate this story. But if you ask what’s going on, either with the opening or the nameless stranger, I probably can’t answer.