Author's note: I met a young Eurasian saleswoman by the name of Shelby while Christmas shopping a several years ago. She was kind enough to share her post-graduation dreams of traveling to her father's home of Ireland and finding her roots. From this chance encounter, this tale was spun. Here's hoping you enjoy the telling. As always, the story characters are purely fictional and over the age of eighteen.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The weather was turning bad with the wind picking up and the dark clouds beginning to shed their liquid content. Although full, the moon was partially hidden by the same clouds and offered no help or comfort as its pale light distorted the unfamiliar terrain with eerie shadows. This was not a good time to be out and about, especially if your car had broken down and you decided to walk out of an unfamiliar area.
"Smart, Shelby, really smart. You could have taken a known but more expensive car rental company. But, no, you went the 'el cheapo' route just to save a few bucks. Come on; admit it. The moment you turned the ignition key and your damn rental car rattled and sputtered; you knew it would spell trouble for you. But, did this stop you? No, you jumped in and drove away. Smart, really smart.
"Then in keeping with the 'when it rains, it pours' theme of your life, you stall out in the middle of nowhere - and in the middle of a fricking mobile phone 'dead zone' - no signal. If that wasn't enough, you find that wouldn't have mattered anyway since your phone shows a very low battery indicator - talk about adding insult to injury.
"And how did you come to be talking to yourself stranded in nowheresville? Stupidity, that's how. Let's see - you're in a foreign country - your father's Ireland - where you know absolutely no one - nada - not a soul. But, does that stop you? Nooo! After graduating from college, you get it into your head to traipse around Ireland and go wherever the road may lead you. Yeah, it seemed so adventuresome... until your car craps out and you finally realize just how screwed you are. Shelby-girl, couldn't you have done a little planning?"
As Shelby trudge down a barely discernable lane in the moonlight, she continued her mental conversation perversely to keep her mind off her dismal situation. "Ireland - the birthplace of a father whom I never knew. How ironic that he would name me after his concept of the ultimate freedom - the Shelby Mustang - the icon symbol of high performance and being wild and free. Ha, but here I am stuck with a broken-down rental junk and walking down a lonely country lane in a foreign country on a dimly lit night."
At twenty-two years of age, Shelby was accustomed to berating herself. She was a lonely young woman, the offspring of two radically different cultures - the Celtic mysteries of her Irish father and the inscrutable culture of her Japanese mother. How these two opposites were attracted to each other in the first place was an enigma. Her mother said that they were inexplicably drawn together was with a sole purpose - to conceive a daughter - Shelby. For as soon as she was born and named, her father dropped out of her life with the surprisingly subtle acquiesce of her mother.
Shelby knew that she was a unique blend of the physical characteristic of her parents. From her father, she inherited an incredibly snowy powder-puff complexion with light auburn hair. At five-feet-seven, she had a comely figure with full but not too heavy breasts, a trim waist, pleasing hips, and long shapely legs. From her mother, she inherited high cheekbones that gave her slightly almond-shaped deep-brown eyes an up-turned elvish look. Her nose was gently rounded and when combined with her sensuous lips, gave Shelby an undefined appeal that had attracted many a man.
Of course, that allure was totally lost in the misery that engulfed her at the present time. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, I'm drenched and freezing," Shelby groaned to herself as she tried to control her shivering. "This light traveling cloak and hood looked good in the store window and was passable in keeping me warm...when dry. Now it is sopping wet and clings to me like a wet shroud...and I must look like one of the living dead. There you go again, Shelby! Stop thinking of spooky stuff when you're all alone in the dark.
"I'm shivering so badly that my teeth are chattering, and...what? Oh great! There they go again. My two large Japanese nipples decide to get so stiff and painfully achy as they jut out from my boobs. Thanks, Mom. I can remember how I use to complain about how mortified I was when my 'tit-bumps' poked embarrassingly through my clothes whenever I was cold like now, or hot like when exercising, or I got excited.
"In response to all my complaints, Mom would just give me one of her damn Asian Mona Lisa smiles. A woman of few words, she would then mutter mysteriously that one day my protruding nipples would ensnare the man of my dreams. My present-day humiliation didn't matter, just her steadfast prediction of what was to come.
"Man of my dreams, huh? I should have never told Mom about my dreams - or nightmares, depending on the perspective. Haunting my night, my shadow man first came to me as a whisper and a laugh, weaving his way into my dreams. I couldn't see his face but I could hear him calling to me that first night in that voice with that distinctive Irish lilt. I can recall how easily he ensnared me in the web of his hidden world as I shared his small house and the immediate surrounding area. Yet, I never could recall when I awoke of what we spoke of - I only knew that we had shared time together.
"Then on my eighteenth birthday, the visitations changed. His lips and hands now idly roamed my body with casual familiarity, caressing me and making me shiver and burn at the same time. Embracing me, his heavy bear-like pressure pushed me into my bed's mattress. My crossed wrists were held above my head, making my breast arched to his face, lips, and that terrible tormenting tongue of his. My legs were spread by his knees and thighs as he mounted me, his erect member rubbing and grinding against my fleshy vulva, making me groan in building anticipation and fright.
Then it happened - I awoke, crying aloud as my dream was so vivid that I woke myself. How my Mother held me, stroking my hair and brushing away my tears as I incoherently sobbed about my quickly fading dream. When I murmured my uncertainty if I had been sexually assaulted or seduced, my mother dismissed my doubts. With a strange look on her face, she said that I had just my first 'wet' dream, the first of many to come.
"After that night, I didn't tell mother of my recurring dream. It was as if I was being courted by some shadow lover whose face I could never see or remember, but whose body, smell, kisses, and touch were all too familiar. The same large dark man, who now 'took' me with practiced ease. A shadowy figure, he made me gasp and cry out in wincing pain; made me convulse violently; and made my body responded in the breathtaking orgasms. And when I awoke, I found myself exhausted, drenched in sweat with spreading wetness in my tender sex.
"Those nightly visitations ruined any chance of a love life in the waking world. Oh, I'd enjoy the company of men, and would even go out with them. But it never failed that the more I was open to romance with a guy, the more frequent my so-called wet dreams became as if to dissuade any further romantic inclinations. Of course, it didn't help that none of my hopeful beaux measured up to my mysterious Irish lover. Sigh, and what? Shelby-girl, you're twenty-two and still a virgin. How pathetic?"
Yet, as much as Shelby berated her life and the disastrous nature of her spontaneous adventure, she knew she couldn't help herself. Although reluctant to admit it to herself, she was responding to the call of her mysterious lover who had infiltrated her dreams for oh so long. He had become her silent obsession, and like a spawning salmon, she was compelled to follow that calling no matter how faint or elusive; no matter where it led in her life.
"What is it about Irish men...first my father...then my nightly visitor," Shelby moaned as she mentally talked to herself to block out her physical misery. "I'm following my damn urges, searching for something that I can't quite put my finger on. I am stuck in the middle of isolation in a pouring rain...drenched, cold, and miserable...and I don't even know what I'd do if I ever met him face to face.
"Wait! Am I seeing correctly? Is that a light in the distance? Ooh, please don't let it be my imagination or some trick of this full moon!"
There across a gentle brook stood a thatched-roof cottage that was nestled in the curve of a sheltering hill and protectively flanked on either side by two large oak trees. The white-painted stone walls spoke of solid strength and the windows set in them glowed with friendliness. However, Shelby felt a shiver of trepidation shoot through her body upon seeing this cottage for it was clearly a case of déjà vu.
"It can't be," she thought as she carefully but instinctively stepped instinctively on the right flat stones to cross the brook. "I know this pace...this cottage. I don't know how, but I do. I know it's a man's cottage and I fear who might await me inside."
Shelby hesitated before the heavy wooden door, but a sudden cold breeze pushed her from behind, driving her forward and forcing her to pull her drench hood down and around her face. With her wet cape clinging to her, Shelby was about to knock on the door when she heard the whine of a dog and a man's baritone voice say, "What is it, Sheamus? What do you hear, boy?" Then before Shelby knew it, the door flew open and the warm glow of the fireplace and lamps silhouetted a bear of a man...her shadow lover.
If Shelby was surprised, the man facing her was stunned to find a lovely hooded woman of ivory complexion standing at his door. With his index and little fingers held upright as his thumb clasped against the two middle fingers, he made a sign to ward off evil while blurting out, "Are you...of the 'Aes Sidhe'...the people of the mounds?"
Then looking at his collie that stood at his side calmly regarding Shelby, the man then said, "Sheamus hears anyone approaching the cottage. What have you done to my dog? Are you the Leanan Sidhe who has come to take me?"
