Belonger (An erotic novel): Part One Page 19

  They squinted about for a while, waiting for their eyes to adjust. Then, still blinking a little, Ione gently pushed through tall fronds to emerge on the forest floor of the Laplands.

  Fine grass flourished everywhere, an impossibly green carpet from which trees vaulted to secretive, swaying canopies. Flora of countless distinct varieties abounded, flashing tones from every possibility of the visible gamut, and an almost forgotten phenomenon whispered past them; the wind, which carried a sex of novel odors to her nose. Emma found herself laughing despite her exhaustion.

  “I can’t really believe it,” said Ione, taking her by the hand. They wandered out into a sprawling glade bordered by thickets of densely flowered plants. There was no sense of anything unfriendly; it didn’t seem like the kind of place skulks would frequent. Emma took a deep breath, let her eyes shut for a moment, just for the pleasure of reopening them to such beauty.

  Manassa plucked a handful of small pink blossoms and wove them into her black locks. Soon Emma and Ione were similarly adorned. Mark resisted this feminine whim, but loved the effect on the women, even going so far as to suggest certain colors for each.

  “Let’s go explore,” he finally suggested, adding a last flower to a green garland on Emma’s crown.

  “Take a look around, then. We have to be able to get back here,” Ione advised, distracted by the novelty of popping fat blueberries in her mouth. “In fact, we should probably be a little more organized about it,” she decided, and they marked the exit from the Lap with thick bouquets of lilies, stationed at three points around it so as to be visible at any angle from which they might return.

  “Which way?” Emma wondered. “Wanna follow the wind?”

  Ione sniffed the air appreciatively. “Good idea—it might even guide our way back as long as it blows consistently. I’d like to see where it’s coming from.” Mark and Manassa gamely agreed and they set off in a loose formation led by Ione.

  They followed a natural path winding through the glade, smelling and fingering verdant things softly revealed by sunlight, so unlike the hard emanations of the gnomes in their subterranean world. Mark seemed truly at peace for the first time Emma could remember, and Manassa was utterly at home amidst the lush bounty of nature, a giant flower in an endless garden.

  They wandered on, noting the route taken at various landmarks that arose from time to time. After a while the vitalizing aura of so many living things banished any remnant memory of the long ascent through the tunnel and they were laughing and joking gaily. Picking their way through ticklish floral bowers, they passed grove after grove of parti-colored arrangements, chattering in happy abandonment of their responsibilities to the Lap. Emma sang a raunchy ballad out of some ancient memory, soon echoed by the others, and they skipped through many alternations of nature to finally arrive at a wide body of water fringed by a lush escarpment of tall, orange-flowered plants. A moist aroma that had slowly thickened along the way coalesced to a dominating pungency, ambassadress to the whole circle of living odors.

  “This lake must drain into the Lap,” Mark realized.

  Ione nodded reverently. “That’s our freshwater source.”

  Emma closed her eyes to dwell totally in the moment, and no one said anything for a time.

  Mark finally cleared his throat. “Is there anything we wanna do here, specifically? Should we be getting back?”

  Ione stared the way they had come, hesitantly resuming the obligations of leadership. “Yeah. I suppose so. Now that we know the way we can return any time we like.”

  “As long as we’re willing to climb for it,” Manassa reminded them and took a huge draught of sweet wind drifting off the water.

  “I don’t wanna go back yet,” Emma grimaced. “We could take a look from there,” she offered, pointing far around the lake to a wooded promontory that reared to an elevation higher than anything else within sight. It offered a potentially breathtaking view of the Laplands

  “Let’s do it!” Manassa genially concurred.

  “I don’t know…” Mark hesitated, glanced to Ione.

  Emma smiled to herself, certain neither he or Ione really wanted to return. “We got lucky. It’s morning here. We can head back well before the sun starts to set. There should be plenty of time.”

  “Alright,” Ione decided following a brief, inward consultation, obviously compelled by the prospect of more fresh air and green things. Mark voiced some perfunctory misgivings about the wisdom of leaving the Lap society for so long, then surrendered in good-natured resignation to their collective desire. He slung the adventure pack over a muscular shoulder, relieving Manassa.

  “Okay, then. Let’s march.”

  They made their way around the lake, bantering about anything that came to mind, mostly the beatific imagery of the Laplands, resplendently illuminated from behind them by a steadily ascending sun.

  Mark and Manassa were in front now, treading a narrow passage through a spilt cascade of green and pink foliage. Manassa looked utterly relaxed, her sensually rolling behind a constant lure to the eye. Emma decided the other woman had already forgotten their encounter in the tunnel, which was probably a good thing. But Mark had obviously seen them. Emma thoughtfully scrutinized his thick penis as it swung hypnotically through a narrow interval of visibility between his thighs. She knew him well enough to be confident he wouldn’t bust her with Ione and didn’t want to ruin the pleasure of their present situation with future complications. Annie and the other janes were watching the Lap. She decided there was no reason to worry.

  They reached the base of the hill in good humor, only a little tired from the trek. The sun was high overhead now, but a wide flotilla of little clouds had wandered in to join the adventure, shading them pleasantly. Before climbing to the lookout they took the opportunity to wash off in the lake, soaping the journey away to leave freshly scented flesh. Renewed by this, they trod up to the promontory, a thick projection of grassy turf randomly clotted with thick roots.

  “Wow,” Emma breathed.

  They were now thrust far out over the lake, a vantage that rendered a supernal view of its oval expanse and the enveloping forests. Emma could see all the way to the edge of the Laplands, where the greenery thinned and fine sand warmed the air to a shimmering lutescence.

  Manassa pointed over the distant tree line. “Is that desert?”

  “Yep,” said Ione. “We’re surrounded by sand in every direction.”

  “This really is the highest elevation,” Mark decided, turning in place several times to sweep the entire horizon in awe.

  “Let’s rest over here,” Emma called from a judiciously chosen site on the lawn. She spread the blanket and Mark set the pack down, joined it a moment later on the ground. The others followed and Emma passed around a variety of fruit picked along the way. There was no need to open the bottles of juice they had brought.

  She felt her vitality gradually return as a slow, humid breeze caressed the hill. Vapor was massing at higher altitudes, softening the sun to a pleasant glow. She stretched luxuriantly, stared at the longer forms of her companions. Manassa looked utterly relaxed, grinned at no one in particular as she twirled a lock of hair. Ione’s wind-kissed nipples were at half-erection. Emma knew from experience Mark was diplomatically suppressing an erection.

  “Tell me something,” he said after a while.

  “Yeah?” Emma lazily drawled.

  “You said you have memories of many things besides the subterranean world. How about this place? Have you been here before?”

  Emma met Ione’s gaze for a moment, decided to let her companion try to explain. Ione sat up, took a long breath.

  “The answer is ‘maybe.’”

  “You mean you can’t remember?” Mark clarified.

  “No.” Ione shook her head. “I mean my memories of this place are contingent on the future that results from them.”

  He stared, blinked slowly. “Ione, what the fazzuck are you talking about?”

  She sighed
, and Emma sympathized with her confusion, a back-of-mind irrationality that had troubled them both since awakening to Manassa.

  “I’ve been here before, Mark. Emma, too. We remember the ascent from the Lap, coming to this place, staring out onto the Laplands… But the reality of those memories depends on something that may or may not take place later.”

  Mark chewed on this for a moment. “Okay. I guess that makes sense. Except for everything you said, which sounded totally fucked up.”

  “It is fucked up,” Emma dolorously confirmed, shaking her head. “The only way to deal with it is to kind of ignore the whole business.”

  “Is it this way for you, too?” Mark questioned Manassa.

  “No,” she replied with instant certainty. My memory is blank before waking to encounter Ione and Emma.”

  “That’s how it is with me too,” Mark mused. “I don’t recall a thing before meeting the three of you.”

  They were quiet for a little.

  When Mark spoke again the low timbre of his voice carried troubling intimations of despair. “What am I supposed to make of all this?” he wondered. Emma sighed sympathetically, put an arm around his brawny shoulders.

  “After all, how can you assign meaning to any experience arising from a… conditional reality?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know if you can, in the mundane sense of the word,” Ione wistfully counseled.

  “Well who set it up this way, or caused it to happen?”

  “I would give much to know that, my friend. I can tell you this, though; whoever it is has a command of reality that operates outside “truth” in some arcane way.”

  “But you must have some idea where all this is going,” Mark conjectured. “Even if it’s just a possibility or probability of future events…”

  “No. That’s the very consequence of the confusion we grapple with,” Ione replied. “Whoever is manipulating us operates from a context independent of our circumstances, and the destiny to which they belong.”

  Mark shook his head in confusion. “It almost sounds like you’re talking about two different kinds of reality, not just distinct perspectives on what is fundamentally the same world, like you and Emma might share. How could that be?”

  “That’s the darkest question,” Ione quietly acknowledged.

  Emma molded herself to Mark’s body, lay her head on his tensely reared shoulder.

  “Tell me one last thing?” he requested.

  “Yeah?”

  “Was I here with you?”

  Ione stared at him and Emma understood her hesitation. She knew that Mark and Manassa had been on this hill. Their histories weren’t confused at all, but she had no notion as to their future at all.

  “You were here,” Ione admitted. “I knew that as soon as we arrived.” They fell silent again.

  “How can I trust anything that’s happening?” Mark sadly pontificated. “How can we trust each other?” The wind sighed across the promontory. “And what is real?”

  Emma reached down between his legs to grasp the erection that had reflexively developed from her proximity.

  “This is real.”

  She reached over with her free hand and tumbled the items from their adventure kit into view. Mark stared distractedly, tormented by the implications of their discussion, then his eyes narrowed in interest at the toys ranged before them.

  “What is this stuff?”

  “You’re about to find out,” Emma promised, reaching for a bottle of lubricant.

  She oiled his cock with an indulgent squeeze, thickening it to a resolute tumidity. Ione and Manassa crowded close as Emma adorned her nipples with a pair of button-shaped clamps, tightening them securely.

  “How about a nice soothing booby-trap, hmmm?” she coaxed. “Let your other head do the thinking for a bit.”

  “Sounds good. When in doubt, whip it out,” Mark bleakly quipped, shrugging off his philosophical turmoil. He composed himself on the blanket as she straddled his legs. “That sturdy dictum never seemed so urgent as now, I have to say.”

  Emma picked up a jack, a big metal cock ring with a weighted bulb descending from one side. “Just concentrate on the reality of the moment. That’s how I get by. And we’ll deal with your ‘urgent dictums’ in a most straightforward way, never fear.” She slipped the jack onto his penis, orienting the bulb above his testicles. Its pendulant mass sank between his thighs, levering his erection straight up, skin pulled tight, freeing her hands for other business.

  Emma threaded her fingers between the cap-like buttons fixed to her nipples as Ione helpfully slathered more oil on his prick.

  “Time to trick the candystick!” she sang and gathered herself about his erection with a grin, moving with provocative unhaste. As the others watched she proceeded to jog her bosom in a swaggering, elliptical motion.

  “Oh fuck, Emz,” he whispered, instantly captivated by her sultry penile massage.

  “You like that, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Please don’t stop…” he begged.

  She took her time, sedately kneading his manhood as Mark groaned in pleasure, staring helplessly at her button clamps. They wagged hypnotically between fanned fingers as Emma surehandedly swiveled her boobs, ravishing his rod with loving little tip-smooches till it pulsed yearningly.

  “Look who’s gotten all cocky on us,” Ione teased, one hand casually dipping for her own crotch.

  Each surging elevation of a bulky teat conferred an oily, erogenous lathering to Mark’s jacked-up flesh, and they wheedled him with coy observations about his needs, his reduction to passivity by Emma’s charms as she gradually accelerated to a brisk juggling. Mark stared in hungry fascination as her twinkling button clamps traced taut ovals about his prick.

  “Use the scytale,” Ione suggested when he looked like he was going to lose control.

  “Good idea.”

  Emma picked up a plastic handle with a short strip of soft fabric fastened to a freely rotating tip. Mark stared as she poised it above his raptly pointing manhood, jacked elegantly to the vertical.

  “I’m gonna fix your business, skulk. We’re goin’ out for a spin!” Emma ground her pussy on his thigh, shamelessly stimulating herself. She nimbly spun the scytale about the base of his erection, letting the strap circle round and round and up to form a spiral about his manhood.

  “Your penis will just love this,” Ione promised, grinning.

  She had told Emma the scytale was a creation of the Gnomon. The fabric strip was marked with fragments of language that would align only if it was spiraled around the correct shaft—a bizarre method of preserving messages through dream, which otherwise scrambled the order of words. Emma had whimsically decided this one was inscribed with a love poem.

  She tugged gently on the toy and its soft strap induced a slow vortex of stimulation on Mark’s liberally oiled erection. He watched in astonishment as her fist orbited his cock tip, feeding the scytale’s helical slither from above with a ritual leisureliness. Its trailing end tickled about his balls.

  “Oh, fuck… where has that been,” he whispered, spellbound by the constant, unidirectional flow of stimulation it produced, an effect impossible to achieve by any other means.

  Ione leaned down and kissed him. “Nice, isn’t it?” She lay one hand on his chest. “Like a really fancy blowjob.”

  Emma grinned. “This cock requires a firm touch, as we know all too well. But it’s important to experience the subtle pleasures, too. You need a nice, relaxing swirl to season your interest.”

  “But…”

  “Yes, dear,” Ione informed. “We know it won’t bring you to climax. When we’re done you are going to march back down to the Lap and show the slippers your erection, primed and ready for service.”

  “They’ll like that,” Emma offhandedly confirmed, winding the scytale a little faster till the fabric drag built to a coercive grasp.

  “But I wanna get off!” he moaned.

  “You need to develop more control ove
r your appetites,” Ione sternly admonished. “It’s our policy that men show a submissively bent pecker on demand. We’ve been patient, but it seems like you need to be disciplined.”

  “Let’s work him up a little,” Emma said, bringing her face close to the action. She spun the scytale to a hypnotic twirl around his propped-up cock, lavishing special stimulation on its head and neck.

  Ione pinched one of his nipples, kissed him again, hovering possessively close. “Just relax and accept. A skulk penis can find itself in all kinds of situations, and yours needs to demonstrate that it can resist the wiles of a harmless toy like this.”

  “Please don’t torture me this way,” Mark pleaded. “I can’t take it…”

  “You want to get yourself in a nice firm vagina, don’t you?” Emma goaded.

  “Oh, yesss…”

  “Let’s fit him with that glider, Emz,” Ione spunkily advised.

  “Of course! He can pack our twats to practice his self-discipline while we take the edge off our own need with a nice hard shanking,” Emma enthused. She unwound the scytale with a deft snap, prompting a yelp.

  Ione grinned. “Hold still, skulk.” She removed the jack, allowing his erection to recline on his muscled abdomen.

  Emma selected a small toy shaped like a long, wiggly tongue.

  “What’s that for?” Mark dizzily inquired.

  “It’s for pleasuring your women,” Emma explained.

  “Mount her,” Ione commanded.

  Mark rose, furiously erect now, rolled over on top of Emma, already spread and waiting on her back.

  Ione took the glider and secured one end around the base of his penis by a comfortably molded spring clasp. The toy lay along the top of his shaft and the tongue was hinged such that it would ride up across a woman’s vulva as she was penetrated, rhythmically nuzzling her clitoris left and right with each stroke of its knurled underside.

  “Open her up,” Ione commanded.

  Mark peeled Emma’s legs wide and planted his bulging arms to either side. His penis loomed awkwardly large, poised at the comparative daintiness of her blond cleft, but they all knew from experience she could handle him.