Page 46 of Pagan Dreams

; “Not the way I imagined it,” she admits.

That makes this doubly sad, I think to myself. I doubt that the girl knows what she wants from this. “Let’s go down to the water,” I suggest.

I untie her wrists, and then her legs; and she sits up on her raw bottom, wincing as she does. There are still traces of blue green paint on her torso and thighs. She no longer looks so classically perfect, and I think that’s good. It will make her more approachable. But no matter how this woman matures, no matter what happens in her future, I know that there will always be an otherworldly quality to her being.

“Let’s go out the basement door,” she says. And she leads me down a passageway to a door that takes us to the cliffs below the gardens. I should parade her in front of everyone, and if I were a better dominant, I probably would. But this will have to suffice.

I see no one on the beach now. The sun, rising higher in the sky, makes me think it’s nearly noon. Analise gathers speed as we make our way down a cliff path I’ve not yet used. It looks as if she’s reclaimed the energy that was sapped from her over a long night of bondage, and beat from her by Tasia’s cane.

We splash into water that’s only now beginning to warm. There are currents of warm and cold that feel good to both of us. I know the salt water must sting her wounds, but I imagine that it’s a good sting. She smiles and giggles as I’ve often seen her do; but, if I’m not mistaken, there’s a depth to her that wasn’t there before. Perhaps, I just want to see it there; maybe, I’m making up my own version of the truth to make me feel better. But whatever, I know that this is the last time I’ll be with her. What’s left in me, what energy and sanity I hold on to now is saved for Peach and for me.

I let her play, while I play alongside, thinking how much I’d rather it be Peach. Then, I’d be fondling my lover, and truly invigorated by the dip in the ocean. Now, it’s just an ending, as melancholy as the dispirited one she just had with Tasia.

We hike up the beach when we’re done, and part at the top of the cliff. She enters the house at the cellar door. I take a momentary interest in her odd choice, then assuming it’s just another typical antic in Analise’s portfolio of oddities, I climb toward the garden. Thoughts of Analise disappear as soon as I spot Peach sitting next to the tall pink roses in one corner.

Chapter Sixteen

“Good morning, or is it afternoon yet?”

“I think it’s nearly eleven,” Peach replies so pleasantly that I sit down across from her in this little garden within a garden, surrounded by roses.

“You look very relaxed,” I comment. Peach, fresh as a daisy, leans back in a lounge chair with a book in her hand. I notice how lovely her breasts look peeking through a bright white tee-shirt. Her tan is even deeper than when we arrived here. I wonder for all her time with Tasia these weeks, that she’s had time to lay out in the sun.

“Thank you. If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t look so well. Are you all right?” Her concern is genuine; there are no vague cagey eyes to make me wonder what’s behind her comment.

“This has been the oddest three weeks of my life,” I tell her. “I should resent you for this, but I can’t. Not yet anyway. Until I see how it ends, I suppose,” I say, joking with her as I’m still uncertain how she’ll respond to me.

She smiles kindly.

“Did you know what would happen bringing me here?” I ask.

“No,” she says plainly.

For the moment, I’ll suspend belief and take her at her word.

“What about the ring? You knew something then?”

“That roses are Tasia’s symbol? No.”

“How am I supposed to believe you after all this?”

“You’re supposed to believe in miracles, in divine coincidence. You used to spook me with those things. You don’t realize the number of times since I’ve been here that I’ve thought of you and your silly religious meanderings… all the spiritual mumbo jumbo.”

“Are you coming to our bed tonight?” I ask, skipping lightly over her use of my sacred thoughts to trap me. I’m fidgeting with the hem of my dress, nervous about her reply.

“Tonight’s the final night on the beach,” Peach says. “There will be hardly anyone in the house, including you and me. We both belong down there.” She points toward the water. “We don’t want to miss a thing.”

“I can’t imagine missing anything if I were with you,” I tell her.

“Ah, but you don’t know.” Her eyes sparkle as she says this. “I saw you last night… you were so elegantly taken away, I had to smile thinking how much you were enjoying your freedom. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? Total sexual freedom?”

I recall the notion crossing my mind once or twice. “I was drunk,” I reply to her question.”

“On liquor?”

“No, I think somehow the girl cast a spell on me, or maybe it was Tasia.”