This story is dedicated to the one who has most shaped my writing in the past two years. Without you, there would be no stories under this name.
Paradise
Pamela’s heels clicking against the path broke the silence that night had brought with its falling. “Shouldn’t have taken the long way home . . . I hate walking home in the dark. When did the sun start setting so early?” Her voice was another welcome interruption but it was entirely too brief, making her worry there was a very real chance she was calling attention to herself.
She didn’t worry how it might seem if someone realized she was talking to herself; she just didn’t want to be seen. Her eyes darted from side to side, almost completely neglecting forward gazes. The clicking of her heels grew louder as she quickened her pace.
A backward glance soon silenced her clicking, replacing it with the sound of her sharp scream and dull thud.
A fallen branch had broken her stride, but not her momentum, and the even walking surface was just as even for an unexpected landing. Pain burst white across Pamela’s vision as the fall tore her from reality. Its abruptness left her hazy and confused.
Her sea green eyes peered out, seeking an answer in the night. The front of her body ached and it didn’t take more than a slow glance to the ground to see why. Tears had already formed in her eyes from the pain as she shifted awkwardly to sit on her knees before pushing down to rise.
“Might I lend a hand?” Pamela gasped in shocked embarrassment as her eyes looked up to see the outstretched hand bearing an elegant white glove that emerged from matching ruffles spilling out from under a black velvet sleeve. “It would seem that gravity has caught up with you in the rudest of ways.”
Without hesitation, Pamela’s naked fingers embraced the gloved set. A firm grasp quickly pulled her to her feet and against the black velvet. A flush spread across her cheeks as she glanced up to see her rescuer in detail. Her mind was still wading in confusion from her cobblestone conference, but her paranoia was not returning despite her clarity. The warmth of her rescuer somehow smoothed away much of the pain and embarrassment she would have otherwise felt.
There was much worth seeing of the woman whose hand she still held: her long dark hair that fell in perfect, elegant waves, her snowy skin that majestically reflected the starlight as if it were made for that solitary purpose, the curves of her cheeks and nose that looked divinely regal, even the brilliantly satisfied smile her azure lips sparkled with . . . but the only detail Pamela could find was her eyes.
The only way she could think to describe them within her own mind was as a pair of wet rubies perfectly faceted to give the illusion of abyssal pupils. Something about the way they shimmered, or perhaps the way they seemed so warm and safe, yet darkly suggestive in the same moment, caught her and wouldn’t let go. She felt tethered by her rescuer’s crimson gaze.
An arm wrapped around Pamela, coaxing out a slow, shuddering sigh. Her eyes hooded of their own accord as she continued to gaze dreamily, lost in the infinite sea of darkness and red that felt as though it were boring into her while wrapping around her.
A faint voice inside of her mind suggested it felt as though it were twining inside of her as the woman twined her fingers with Pamela’s, and she had to agree. Agreeing with her own thoughts felt strange, but the thought of disagreeing with them was even more foreign. She dispatched that train of thought to refocus her attention on the seductive beacons that held her as sure as the woman’s arm held her.
She felt light enough in the woman’s gaze that, if she were not holding her, Pamela was certain she would fall again instantly.
“Oh and how far you would fall . . . and how quick . . .” The woman sighed, grinning the slightest bit more before pulling Pamela closer. “You’re shivering. Perhaps I should help you to a place somewhat warmer . . . would that please you, my fallen angel?”
“Fallen . . .? Oh . . .” Pamela’s voice came much slower and softer than she ever remembered hearing it. Following the logic to determine what this woman meant felt like swimming in a pool of molasses after someone had pulled out the stopper. A darker flush rose across her body as she melted more into her savior’s hold. “I’m not an angel. You can call me Pamela, But I’d . . . I’d like that . . .”
“Like to be taken somewhere warm, somewhere away from prying eyes where our eyes could pry into one another’s as a nearby flame melted away the chill that clings to the night air? There’s a faint dampness to the air as well, and I fear there may be a visiting rain. I would hate for us to part, only for me to leave you alone to be cold and wet, without the comfort of another . . .” The pull of the woman’s eyes seemed to grow with every syllable, tugging Pamela helplessly taut against her.
Pamela struggled to respond. Her lips felt too heavy to move and she found within herself no desire to struggle against the feeling as that heaviness spread through her. Keeping her eyes open would have been hard were they not captivated within a sea of red.
She could feel a lazy heartbeat slowly quickening as a wave of dizziness stole her perception of to whom it belonged. This didn’t concern her; the pulse was merely a small curiosity easily brushed aside. So much was easily brushed aside as she was held so close to the strange woman. She possessed an aura unknown that felt as though it burrowed into places Pamela did not know she had, and it was not an invasion. Those places existed to be claimed by such an aura, by such a touch . . . by such a woman as the one holding her.
A raindrop fell into a sea green eye, provoking an undesired blink. A faint sound of displeasure rolled out in response to the pressure as thoughts moved in her mind just enough to remind her of a deficiency she so dearly wished to correct.
Her lips pressed together as she struggled to give sound to the thought. Momentarily, the gorgeous ruby eyes she’d fallen into anew looked worried. As soon as her thoughts were given sound, the worry was replaced by satisfied delight. “What’s . . . your name . . .?”
“My name . . .” The woman’s gaze turned thoughtful as she leaned closer, her nose brushing against Pamela’s. Their lips nearly touched, but their shared sight remained strong. “My name is Natalia . . .”
Their lips almost melted together as she spoke, curves melding seamlessly like spooning bodies while never quite connecting long enough. A shudder burned down Pamela’s spine, and her eyes turned nearly to glass as her flush turned all of her skin to the disposition of a lightly colored pink rose.
“Natalia . . .” Her tongue savored the sound, the taste, the feel of the other name as she felt Natalia begin to move. She knew they must be approaching this warm place that her new friend—no, acquaintance—no, that this very special woman had previously described. There was no other option. All she could feel was trust and the warmth of the other woman’s body as that heartbeat quickened. Her breathing seemed only to slow as she slackened more; her body felt blissfully heavy.
Moving was hard, but somehow Natalia made it work. Natalia seemed able to make everything work, even within the short time since their meeting. The air had grown more refreshing, tingling with a scent not unlike cinnamon, as her worry, now a distant memory, tingled away never to return.
There was not a way that Natalia had not turned Pamela’s existence into a paradise.
For what felt like a small eternity, Natalia led and Pamela melted. Lost in her eyes, in her gaze, the green eyed woman daydreamed of being melted and burned away by flames birthed from those eyes. She felt thoughts of those fingers that twined with hers finding the curve of her breast and smoothing her mind as they would smoothly caress. She found herself even dreaming of sliding out of her dirty clothes for Natalia’s eyes before kneeling to drink from between her legs.
These thoughts had to be hers, they had come from her mind, but she had never formed thoughts such as these.
“Would you like me to take you to that place your eyes dream of . . .? Would you like me to take you to a dream far away from even these waking dreams, for me to take you to a land where these images are true . . .?” Pamela’s heels no longer clicked against the cobblestone as Natalia led her. They had long since left the path. All Pamela could see were trees. Instead of echoing stone, Natalia’s voice blended with the cracking of twigs and the wet sounds of unpaved muck.
Pamela wished she had the ability to convey the dream this world already had become. Thinking back to before their meeting felt like remembering only pain and torment. Remembering her work, her forced relationships, her loneliness, it was almost impossible to believe the experience was real.
Faintly, Pamela nodded as Natalia stopped her walk, abruptly causing Pamela’s gorgeous golden locks to bounce as Natalia held her tightly. Natalia’s hand not holding hers was pressed to the small of the other’s back, and Pamela’s hand not holding Natalia’s rested limply at her side, fingers twitching with the desire to return the divine touch.
“Y . . . yee . . . yeeee . . .” Pamela whined from her scalp to the tips of her curling toes. Her dress, already sodden from the fall, clung to her more tightly as the rain began to fall in packs as opposed to the solitary drop that had, an eternity ago, gifted her anew with speech. “Yeee . . .” Another drop fell between her eyes. She groaned as it somehow guided her body against Natalia’s in a way that made her far wetter than could a whole cloud. She could feel the drop sinking past her skin and sliding its way through her mind, down her spine, soaking those same places Natalia’s presence stroked as if they were a lover’s thigh.
Weak sobs shook from pink lips as a blue pair soothingly melted against them, blotting out those displeasured mewls. Blue lips pressed so firmly, unyielding yet conforming, as Pamela’s surrendered, quivering in half-whimpers and mewls. Red and green remained pleadingly locked even as Natalia coaxed their lips apart, coaxing groans with her tongue against Pamela’s.
Their knees shook as their tongues danced, Pamela’s following lazily like a dancer enthralled by her partner’s steps as Natalia led with all of the passion of the flame that flickered in her eyes.
Pamela could not remember having moved during the kiss, but when their lips broke apart she found herself pressed back against stone. No longer held, instead pinned by a body and a hand, she was no less ensorcelled by the penetrating gaze.
More thoughts came to her mind, thoughts that made her toes ache and her back shake. She felt she could momentarily drift away, infinitely attentive, focused, yet without. She’d lost something to the flames inside of Natalia’s eyes, but no small part of her could care enough to attempt remembering what that was.
Her body glowed with a deep craving that, until her mind formulated them, she possessed no words to describe. The craving was a need, an intense need for the evolutions of passion their kiss had only hinted toward. This was a need to lose everything so she could achieve complete fulfillment. Her rain-matted hair rested heavily against her neck, and even with Natalia so close her dress felt made for someone of only half her endowments.
“Soon . . . If you wish it, I can fulfill these desires. You can drown yourself in the depths of love, lust, and passion that can be found only within my eyes. You need never feel pain, horror, sadness, or even worry again . . .” Fingers traced along her shoulder only briefly before sliding down along the curve of her bosom. They felt along each subtle variation in her curves down to her hip where they rested and teased with skilled, pointed nails. “You need only ask . . . but you do need ask . . .”
“Pl-eeeeeeeease . . . Take me . . . Take all of me . . . I’ll ask . . . anything!” Pamela’s words fell away in a sharp moan as the fingers at her hip curled around to find a lower curve, using it to pull her up and closer to her dark savior. Lips mashed anew to hers as their bodies shuddered in turn.
After another eternity of lips on lips, tongue caressing tongue, again wet flesh parted dampened with bliss.
Red eyes hooded lower than Pamela could ever remember them hooding. She knew logically that she had not seen them for long—not a year, not a month, not even a day—but all of that seemed far away. Logic seemed so much farther away than the cobblestone path she knew she could never find again.
She craved the inability to find that path anew.
Pamela took a deep breath as she felt Natalia’s hand release hers, drifting to cup her cheek. “Then it’s time for my dreamer to sleep . . . succumb now to slumber . . . and dream only of bliss . . .”
Nails traced circles, spirals, shapes for which the blonde knew no words. The world grew dim through her savior’s tracing. The red of Natalia’s eyes grew mesmerically intense as the quivering of her own legs grew legendary. She felt her thighs clench as something between her eyes loosened forever.
Pamela fell on a bed covered in red satin sheets and dark pillows clothed by the same velvet Natalia wore, or had worn. Natalia now straddled her without velvet, without any cloth at all. Her skin seemed even more luminous without the stars to add their own touches of light. Pamela could not find one place to let her eyes lock as she could before through the rain.
Natalia’s enchanting red eyes no longer exerted the same pull. Natalia’s skin now enchanted her instead. The feel of it against hers as hands felt the curves of her breasts, the wetness that was the counterpart of Pamela’s as it shifted against her, the taste of it as she felt herself rising to latch her lips around a dark nipple . . . All of this was overwhelming while simultaneously taking away the concepts that explained how it felt to be overwhelmed.
Lips kissed over her neck as nails clawed down her back. Pamela could feel them tearing away old parts of her. Memories she no longer needed, thoughts she would never think again, were rended from her as she nursed from Natalia’s perfect nipple, tracing with her own hands to learn the full shape of her lover’s thighs.
New thoughts echoed in a mind that felt nearly hollow, but Pamela was too consumed with the response of Natalia’s neglected teat as her lips wrapped so firmly around the warm flesh. Natalia’s moans slid against Pamela’s as fingers traced the curves between Pamela’s thighs that none had ever before touched.
A single finger pierced the wet heat that quivered there, then a second, and finally a third. A rhythm matching that quick heartbeat thrust inside her as she clung tighter, her lips suckling even as her moans grew in strength.
Even the new thoughts which spoke of a life of pleasure, of bliss, a life where all she need do was follow Natalia and in return her every wish would be fulfilled, did not teach her words for the place that Natalia’s thumb found and lavished with such exquisite attention. She knew no words to describe the way her vision grew more and more red as she shook harder and harder against her lover. She knew no way to describe the scream her release tore from her throat.
She did, however, know the word to describe how it felt for her hair to be stroked as her body shook in the aftershocks of pleasure with which the flood between her legs had overwhelmed her “Paradise . . .”
Natalia’s eyes again hooded as her lips pressed to the highest point of Pamela’s shimmering mane. She whispered in a voice low and tender, her lips moving only enough to form the words while they kept the placement the kiss had granted. “Yes, my Pamela . . . Paradise . . . That will be your life, forevermore . . . Only paradise . . . For now . . . It is time for you to reach a deeper sleep . . .”
Without questioning, Pamela closed her eyes, again drifting away in a sea of red.
Pamela again woke on the bed of satin, though this time with her head cradled in Natalia’s lap. Fingers continued to slide through her hair, playing with an occasional strand in a way that expressed affection deeper than Pamela had ever before felt. She could remember little of a before. Before falling on the cobblestone path, all she could remember was something that she no longer understood.
The concept of being concerned that the dark could be a threat confused her still-fatigued mind.
Her fuzzy eyes alighted upon a curious sight as they fluttered open to investigate the room. The bed was larger than she had first thought, at the least twice in any direction the length of Pamela’s body head to toe. In addition, it was shaped in the most peculiar of shapes for a bed: a circle.
All around them women sat watching with dreamy smiles. They were dressed in clothing as simple as translucent, flowing robes, and as complex as lingerie more intricate and revealing than the darkest dream Pamela could conjure. Their bodies all glistened in a way not unlike Natalia’s, a reflection, as if their bodies now understood what Natalia’s did. They were captivating in their beauty, if not in their number.
She found a similar desire for them, but there was more. There was a kinship between them. A part of her yearned for the strength to rise and join them, wishing she could see another as happy as herself melted against the thighs of Natalia.
She knew not what to call her. Her name alone could not be enough, but it was all Pamela knew. She was not a goddess. She was not a devil. She simply was, in ways that were beguiling and enticing.
“These are your sisters now, Pamela. They love you just as I love you. With them, you will find acceptance. With them, you will find desire. With them, you will find understanding. I have gathered you all here myself, and I intend to keep you all here . . . for a very, very long time . . .” Natalia smiled, and though it was a grin that some would call mischievous, Pamela saw in it only love.
With a curling finger from a hand quickly risen, Natalia beckoned the women surrounding them closer as she slowly pulled away from Pamela. She replaced her lap with a pillow, smoothing her hair one final time before pulling behind two women closing in on Pamela. One also shared Natalia’s raven locks, and the other glowed with an ethereal fire that matched Natalia’s eyes.
There was no way to know how many sets of lips wetly kissed and suckled at her flesh, she only knew she loved every pair. So many fingers kneaded and savored long, languid caresses, and she arched into each one. Her own hands reached out as lips found their way to where Natalia’s fingers had delved before, and Pamela cried out a song of pleasure more intense than she had even felt with Natalia.
A part of her wanted to whimper for Natalia to return, but pink lips finding hers melted away the half-formed sobs as Natalia had done before.
She could only feel love, bliss, and desire as thoughts formed and solidified in her mind. She had found her place. She was one of them, and they were all of her. They were Natalia’s, and they were each other’s. They were safe, loved, pleasured.
When she again met her release, the whimper of paradise was shared with Pamela by all of her sisters.