"You"ll meet Zack." Rena giggled. "You"ll like him. He"s hung like a horse."
"Rena!" Wendlyn objected.
Melanie blushed slightly. If she knows that, she must"ve... If she knows that, she must"ve... She couldn"t help but put two and two together. She felt odd. She"d only just met these girls, yet for some reason she did not feel too inhibited to ask the next question. "Have you ever done it with him?" She couldn"t help but put two and two together. She felt odd. She"d only just met these girls, yet for some reason she did not feel too inhibited to ask the next question. "Have you ever done it with him?"
"Bunch of times," Rena admitted. "We both have. Zack"s our toy."
Toy? Melanie thought. Melanie thought.
Rena had lifted up a big flat rock. There was a hole underneath, and from the hole she had extracted a cigar box. Next, her face glowed orange for a moment-she was lighting a cigarette, or a joint.
Wendlyn pa.s.sed it over. "Try some. It"s leahroot."
Melanie"d never heard of it. Leahroot? Leahroot? "What, is it like pot or something?" "What, is it like pot or something?"
"No, it"s an herb. It gives you a good buzz, but it doesn"t make you stupid like pot. My mom grows it behind the store."
It looked like pot to Melanie, which she"d only done twice, and didn"t like. Pot gave her tunnel vision and made her eat like a pig. But when the smoke wafted over, it smelled nice. It smelled sort of like cinnamon.
She took a light drag. In a moment she felt woozy, relaxed.
"See?" Wendlyn said.
"Have you ever done it?" Rena asked.
"What, this stuff? I"ve never even heard of it."
"No, I mean have you ever gotten laid?"
"Rena! That"s none of your business," Wendlyn scolded.
"I say she hasn"t."
"Rena, shut up!"
"That"s all right," Melanie said, and it was. She felt good now, and she liked Wendlyn and Rena. "And to answer your question, no, I haven"t."
"That"s good," Rena said. "You shouldn"t."
"Why?"
" "Cause you"re special," Wendlyn said.
Special? Melanie thought. What did that mean? Their comments were so odd, but just as odd, Melanie didn"t care. "I could have a couple times, but I was afraid. You know, AIDS and herpes and all that." Melanie thought. What did that mean? Their comments were so odd, but just as odd, Melanie didn"t care. "I could have a couple times, but I was afraid. You know, AIDS and herpes and all that."
"We don"t worry about stuff like that here," Wendlyn said.
What a crazy thing to say. Were these girls stupid? She must mean they use condoms.
Melanie took another drag. Now she felt really good. The buzz t.i.tillated her. What had they called the stuff? A pleasant heat seemed to caress her chest.
"Feel it?" Rena asked.
"Yeah," Melanie said.
The moon felt cool on her face. She could not account for the beat of thoughts that next filled her mind, nor the feelings. She looked at the two girls sitting across from her. They were looking back, grinning at her in the moonlight.
"I have to go," Melanie said.
"We know," Wendlyn replied.
"My mom"ll get p.i.s.sed if I m late."
"See you tomorrow, okay?"
"Sure." Melanie rushed off. She could not define her feelings. As she wended down the path, she could hear Wendlyn and Rena laughing.
Chapter 14.
"Dooer, dooer," croaked the voice.
Wet lips sipped from the cup. The cup looked full of blood.
Shadows hovered. Firelight flickered on the earthen walls and she sensed a great heat.
"Dooer," she heard, and then distant, soft singing.
Women...singing.
The emblem, same as that upon the cup, seemed huge behind the shadows, as if suspended in the air.
The flurry of hands roved over sweating skin, stroking the tight, distended belly. Hot mouths licked off rivulets of perspiration; she felt milk being sucked from the painfully swollen b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Then voracious tongues trailed up her legs, up her thighs to the radiating, wet inlet to her womb.
Her o.r.g.a.s.m jolted her, followed by a string of smaller yet longer ones. It felt as though every inch of exposed flesh was either being caressed, licked, kneaded, or sucked. Beyond she noticed other shadows, which seemed to be men. Men, watching before a stoked fire. Forms of other figures seemed to squirm on the dirt floor, naked, coupling legs wrapped around backs, faces buried between legs.
"Dooer, dooer," she heard again as her own o.r.g.a.s.ms pulsed down and the contractions began to throb.
"Join us."
Two hands formed a basket between her legs. Squeals rose, in joy, in awe. The great, gravid belly shuddered, pulsed, shuddered, then collapsed very quickly. She felt something leaving, pushed from the womb into open air. Wet and stirring, the baby was held aloft. It began to cry at once.
The hands and mouths came away. Dozens of eyes looked up at the newborn.
The eyes were wide, glittering.
Staring up as if in reverence.
Ann churned awake. The bedroom"s dark felt like a crushing weight, a blanket of hot, wet cement. She lurched up.
The clock read 4:12 a.m.
The nightmare, she thought. she thought. Again. Again.
Martin snored faintly beside her. He"d come home late, enthusing about his excursion to Lockwood"s only bar. "What a great bunch of guys," he"d said. "You"ll never meet people like that in the city. Real Real people, you know? They have their lives and they live them in their own honest way." people, you know? They have their lives and they live them in their own honest way."
He rambled on happily, not drunk, just feeling good. It pleased Ann to see him so happy. It was hard for him here, she knew, in a place so different from the world he was used to, especially with the shadow of her mother"s cynicism constantly over his head. "It"s strange," he"d gone on. "I"ve been here a few times in the past, but for some reason it"s different now. I wouldn"t even mind living here, to be honest. I feel at peace here."
He"d made love to her when they"d gone to bed. She"d straddled him, touching herself between their hips. She"d wanted so badly to come with him, but as usual it hadn"t happened. She"d had to pretend again. Thank G.o.d he didn"t know.
The nightmare haunted her now. Its crisp images and vivid heat seemed to linger in the dark. When she got up, her s.e.x tingled-the giveaway that she"d come in her sleep. How could she know so little about herself? She felt desperate without Dr. Harold. The dream"s scenario always roved like a camera lens, escalating to perversion. Why? What had Melanie"s birth proposed to Ann"s subconscious? Rampant lesbianism. Orgies beneath the birth table. Occult undertones, and that cryptic warped double circle.
She crept out of the room and closed the door. A faint beeping unbalanced the dead silence of the house. She peeked in on her father. Milly G.o.dwin, the nurse, had dozed off in a chair with a book in her lap. A Lifepak heart monitor blipped green, rather slowly. Her father lay still beneath the sheets.
Next, she peeked into Melanie"s room at the other end of the house. Melanie"s bed was empty, but a quick glance up showed her daughter standing before the high, narrow window, gazing out.
"Melanie? Are you okay?"
At first her daughter didn"t respond.
"Melanie?"
She turned very slowly. Like Ann, her nightgown stuck to her from sweat. Her eyes looked glazed.
"Mother," she said.
"What, honey?"
"The moon is pink."
What had she been dreaming?
She"d been smoking that weird stuff with Wendlyn and Rena. Yeah, they"d been smoking that stuff-Leahroot-and they"d been looking at her, and there was something about that, wasn"t there? Something about the looks on their faces. Something...knowing.
Melanie knew too, but she didn"t admit it to herself. How could she imagine such a thing? So she"d left abruptly, hadn"t she? Yes, she left Wendlyn and Rena in their little hidden moonlit grove, and she"d gone home. She"d gone home and gone to bed.
And in bed she dreamed.
She dreamed of the little grove again. In the dream she was still there, with Wendlyn and Rena, smoking that stuff. But it hadn"t been like before.
"Yeah, Zack"s c.o.c.k is almost ten inches," Rena was saying.
"We made him measure it once," Wendlyn came in.
Rena giggled. "Yeah, we made him play with himself till it got hard and told him to measure it. You should"ve seen him, Melanie, Zack standing there with his pants down, jerking himself and then holding a ruler to it. We laughed our a.s.ses off."
"Zack does anything we say," Wendlyn added. "He"s such a weak idiot."
"All guys are."
"One time we came back here and there was this old droopy dog snuffling around-"
Rena was slapping her knee, laughing. "And we told Zack to do it to the dog!"
"And he did!" Wendlyn finished.
And in the dream Melanie just looked back at them. She felt neutral, observant. She was just sitting there watching them, listening to them, and riding the buzz of the stuff they smoked.
Rena was grinning. "Hot out, isn"t it?"
"Yeah, it"s hot," Wendlyn agreed. She was grinning too.
Melanie knew. She was not the least bit shocked when both girls skimmed their pale sundresses off. They leaned on one another and, without qualm, began touching themselves. Melanie watched them, equally without qualm. Their skin looked pure white, like a summer cloud. They both had dark brown nipples, like Melanie"s. Rena"s stuck out more on her tiny b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Wendlyn"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s looked much bigger, and firm.
"It feels better when someone else does it," Rena said, then both girls switched hands, touching each other.
"Yeah, it feels a lot better," Wendlyn agreed. "We do it to each other a lot."
Melanie continued to watch. She felt hot herself.
Rena"s long slim legs began to tense, her heels digging in the dirt, while Wendlyn sat poised with her legs spread. Moonlight bathed Rena"s face. She was looking up with her eyes closed, squirming. She began to moan, and soon the moans were so loud Melanie feared the sound might carry out of the woods to the street.
When they were done, they lay back in each other"s arms. Their grins subsided to soft, sated smiles.
Melanie noticed now that her own hand had found its way to her crotch. Rubbing against the tight denim. Her mouth felt dry, her heart was thrumming. She did not resist the impulse; she stood up and took off her clothes.
The moonlight was pink in her eyes. She felt out of breath, desperate for something. Now Wendlyn and Rena were sitting on either side of her. Rena grabbed Melanie"s hand and placed it between her own legs. Wendlyn was kissing her nipples. They were giggling softly, stroking her, running their smooth white hands over her entire body. Between glances, Melanie noticed that they wore pendants of some kind, not chain necklaces, but thin white cords each with a thing like a little stone on the end. Rena"s pendant lay flat against her little b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Wendlyn"s swayed as she leaned over further and began to suck Melanie"s large dark nipples. All the while Melanie"s breath thinned as her fingers ma.s.saged the wet b.u.t.ton of her s.e.x.
"It feels better when someone else does it," Rena said.
"Yeah," Wendlyn said.
Rena"s hand pushed Melanie"s away. It did feel better, it felt a lot better. Melanie had m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed a few times before, but it never felt like this. Rena"s fingers began to rub harder, faster. Wendlyn was kneading her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and slipping her tongue in her mouth. It didn"t take long; Rena"s fingers seemed to know exactly the best way to touch her. Melanie gasped against Wendlyn"s lips, and she came quite abruptly, a throbbing gust from her loins.
She lay back, slaked. "You"re very special," Wendlyn whispered, her pendant swaying. All Melanie could see now was the strange pink light of the moon.
"Melanie? Are you okay?"
The dream was over.
"Melanie?" Her mother"s voice.
Had she actually been standing in her sleep? When she came awake, she was standing at the window, looking out. The dream lapsed, yet the pink phosph.o.r.escence remained. She was awake now. In her room. Staring at the moon.