Crossings

2. Dessert

(part 1)

Early in the morning, after a full night with Jess, by far the most incredible night of his young life, the first day of his year-and-a-day commitment, Mariano began feeling unwell. First queasy but rapidly worsening. Jess felt inside him and found his ward against the dark mage's curse failing. She padded into the kitchen, barefoot, poured a little travel bottle of tequila into a glass, returned with it and had him drink half. Then she sat him on a towel on the edge of the bed, where her hands began working something that could only be described as magic. He got so hard.

"Feel your body warming, as if you're in a sauna, feel your sweat begin to flow, good healthy, cleansing sweat. Feel what my hands are doing to you, feel my hot breath on your ear, on your cheek, on your neck, feel how hot that's making you, feel how hot it's making me."

"You'll cum when I tell you," she whispered, stroking and squeezing, brought him to the edge, released him, to the edge again, released him, and again until he was whimpering unintelligibly, out of his mind with pleasure and desire.

"When you cum," she said in one of those gaps between edgings, placing one of his hands on her bare, shaven mons and the other on her full breast, "all that evil will come out. You don't get to move, except for right where I put your hands." His hands moved on her, which was really good, but she guided him, making it better, just how she wanted it.

She reached for the glass, had a tiny sip herself, poured the rest over his bottom lip into his open mouth. Then she kissed him, tasting more.

"I'm going to bring you to the edge one more time, and I'm going to drape a washcloth over your big beautiful new perfect cock, and that cloth will feel like my hand on you, on your cock while I cup and squeeze your balls, and when I tell you to cum, you are going to jet into that washcloth so hard that it'll jerk higher, and all that evil will leave your body."

Jess felt intoxicated by her growing power, felt his hands doing a kind of magic of their own on her aroused body. She approached her own edge, draped the washcloth over his throbbing, straining cock, so much larger than it had ever been before this magical day and night, and as she came, she gasped "Come now, my beautiful boy."

Mariano's groan of release almost a bellow, Jess watched his geyser push up the washcloth, her hand slowly moving it away so nothing leaked back onto him, and when his spasms were finally done she removed it, pushed him onto his back, and walked into the laundry room to get a clean one. He could hear her rinsing it in the sink, singing something that sounded happy, such a welcome, welcoming sound, and when she returned she spread a new one, wet and warm, and cleaned him.

"Nasty stuff, that cursed cum," she said. "Down the drain with it." Then she dried him with a hand towel, kissed him, and levitated him back to his side of the bed and then the covers over him while she threw the second washcloth into the laundry room sink with the first. In bed beside him, her leg over his hip, she finally allowed his body to move again.

"Thank you," he said, his voice weak from strain and emotion. "You saved my life. Again."

"You're mine to do with as I please, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes mistress," he said.

"I choose to take good care of you, my beautiful boy," she said, and embraced him, her full firm breasts like small warm pillows between them, kissing him again. "Now we sleep. We'll see what the morning brings."

That last morning together was a blur for Mariano. He was feeling well again, in bed with her, doing whatever she asked without thinking anytime she asked, like a puppet, and she made all of it feel so good. There was a lot he couldn't remember, plus one part he knew he didn't need to remember and then he got to enjoy floating - all he needed to remember was how good it felt to be with her, pleasing her as she pleased him, how much she desired him and loved their time together, how much she looked forward to more.

They didn't see Kelsey and Stu until a mid-morning breakfast. Stu looked as shellshocked as Mariano had ever been.

* * *

That had been the craziest night of Stu's life. He and Kelsey retired to their bedroom early, didn't even know that Mariano was there and Dani wasn't, and what happened between them was, well ... crazy. Even now it was hard to wrap his head around.

"Stu, I've been thinking," she'd begun.

'Uh oh,' he thought to himself, because every other time anyone had ever said something like that to him, his life got weirder.

"I'm really kinda ticked at Bob," she said. "I mean, I like him and all, and the truth is I like him a lot more than I thought I would, but ... he isn't really my type, you know?"

Stu knew better than to answer, settling for an uncertain nod.

"Almost everything we've learned these past few months has been from this stupid hack he figured out, goddess knows how."

Stu shrugged. Bob's hack didn't work for him ... anything he'd been able to learn had been the old-fashioned way, reading and studying, um ... hard. And it'd certainly been ... hard ... with all these wonderfully distracting women practicing their newfound capabilities on anyone they could, which so often meant ... him. But he had enough sense to know this was Kelsey's monologue and he shouldn't interrupt.

"I'm ticked at him, but there's not much I can do about it, so ... you get to be his surrogate, but I want to change the rules to something I like more. Got me?"

Stu had a bad feeling about this but knew better than to do anything but nod. Because no matter what else happened, it would probably be fun.

"That thing I do, squeezing around you, I've only ever done with you before, but, well ... I did it with Bob today. I feel bad about that, I really do, like I've betrayed something we had together, just us two, something I liked very much to have shared with just you. I told Bob I loved him, that was hard for me because, well ... you know. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that at some level it was true. So I also need to say something to you," and she took his head between her hands. "Stu, I love you more, and I want you to know that."

Stu opened his mouth, uncertain whether he should say something, anything, in reply, because they'd been through so much together, all of it revolving around love of one kind or another, and he loved her in his way, too. But he didn't get the chance.

"I want to change some things between us," Kelsey told him. Stu just looked into her eyes.

She reached down to take his cock in her hand. He knew he had a big cock, knew he had a *really* big cock, knew how much Kelsey loved to have it inside, same as all the women at Newberry except Jess, who couldn't fit more than his first few inches, and Callie, who'd seldom let him for the past month because she and Bob had become a couple and everyone knew that, and he respected that.

"Stu, honey, as much as I love your cock inside me, you fill me up like no one and no other thing ever has, I would prefer it if you were a woman," Kelsey said. "There, I said it."

Stu had no idea how to respond, and Kelsey was silent for a good two minutes after. He was starting to think about opening his mouth to say he-knew-not-what when Kelsey continued.

"I want you to be a woman, at least this once, at least tonight," she said. "I know how to make that happen. But I also want your cock in me, filling me as only you can."

Stu had even less an idea how to reply, this was simply off the map. Kelsey took his head between her hands again.

"If you don't want this, tell me. It'll be really good for you, I promise, and it'll be so much better for me, and tomorrow we can be back to ... where we are now," she said.

Stu took half a minute to respond, and in the end just nodded.

"I do love you, Stu," she said. And then, his already somewhat hard cock in her hands, she played with him, this part of him that she liked more than any other, that she already knew so well, and it wasn't long before he was ready to burst. But that wasn't what she wanted, because she edged him twice more, until it felt like he was ready to burst at any moment, for minutes on end, Right. On. That. Edge.

"This, I like," she said, her touch so light on the tip of his enormous cock, holding him right ... there, holding him ...

"Tonight, I will have this in me, and you will feel it there, but it will be mine to do with as I please and we'll be closer than we've ever been before, and I am going to fuck your brains out while this one part of you is inside me, and you will feel what I feel, and with the body I give you, you'll know exactly how I feel with you inside me while I am with a woman and we are fucking like the horniest weasels ... anyone ... has ever ... heard of."

Kelsey was getting breathless. Stu was already half out of his mind.

Stu felt Kelsey mount him, felt his cock deep in her exquisite sex and she squeezed him and he saw stars and wondered as he always did what the hell could possibly be better than this, and then he felt her moving down and then felt something very different from anything he'd ever felt before even though he could still feel himself within her. Instead, Kelsey was licking him, and sucking, tonguing, and if it wasn't the most wonderful thing he'd ever felt before, it was still pretty fucking amazing. He looked down at her, down his torso, past what should have been the hard-muscled chest and flat abs he'd worked so hard to build, but it was hard to see what she was doing because his vision was channeled between two prominent and highly distracting mounds where the much more modest swell of his pecs should've been. Those mounds had really big nipples. One of her hands came up to play with one, and holy shit, it was like that unexpected nipple attached to that huge mound where his chest had been was connected directly with his groin, with a particular place in his groin where his cock should have been but now it was ...

She was playing with him. Lips kissing, sucking, tongue teasing, lapping, licking, suction, he felt her fingers inside him, and he'd felt something like that with her before because she liked fucking him with a dildo so much even though it hadn't brought her as much pleasure as ... something like ... this ... but oh fuck, this wasn't like that at all, not like when Taylor had been inside him with a similar but differently shaped thing, or even that one time Dani had ...

"Oh ... fuck," he said, the first words he'd been able to form since this began.

"Yes," Kelsey said, "this is how it feels." And she squeezed him but his cock was nowhere near where he could see that it ... wasn't because what she was licking and sucking and fingering was a mound between his legs, as seen between two much bigger mounds, topped by hard pointed enormous nipples that Kelsey had one hand on and they were connected directly to his ... pussy, and her tongue hit his button like a guided missile.

Holy shit he came.

It was different than it'd ever been before, even when Taylor made him feel it through his whole body, it was just ... different. It went on longer, wasn't so much a single climax as a roller coaster ride between smaller peaks with one bigger peak that made him feel all melty and buttery, even made him want to cry a little, it felt so good even as he felt the last spasms of his cock as he continued orgasming deep inside her, Kelsey squeezing to prolong the sensation as long as possible.

"That's how," Kelsey said, rising up between his enormous breasts, flicking one nipple and then the other, they'd been receding but now were doing something completely different.

"Your turn to perform now, my little fucktoy."

She turned and lowered herself onto him, she was so wet, almost spurting into his mouth, and he felt her mouth on him, doing something he'd never felt anything like before, her fingers parting him and holding him open, more fingers exploring while her tongue pantomimed penetration and then slowly sensuously licked up or down one side or the other or right down the deep welcoming middle, and shit he was hard inside her again and she was squeezing him while her tongue played with a related but otherwise separate part of him and he was fucking gushing just as she was, because he'd been here before, the bottom of her 69, loving this with her so much, but some part of him withdrew, felt what she was doing to him, felt how great some of it felt while other parts weren't as good, and he began applying this new awareness, Kelsey undulating like a magnificent proud prize courser above him, loving what he was doing to her even more just as he was loving what ... she was ... doing to ... him(?) and ... fuck he exploded, both of them coming together, on and on, and when he woke it was dawn and he was as intact as he'd ever been and she was in the shower, singing. Kelsey had a really nice voice. It felt like home.

* * *

We met Jess and Mariano late that morning behind the alehouse in Weed, everyone sad to see someone else go, so many embraces, all the women on tiptoes for one man or another, both us boys knowing how very fortunate we'd been to spend one more night with our love(s). Dani turned after a final kiss to return to the North Coast while Mariano stepped, Callie holding his unsteady arm, to Nevada City.

Callie had already made sure with the B&B owners that it would be OK if we left a little later than the posted checkout time. I was still putting my head together, so I was grateful. There was a nice diner in town ... breakfast at the B&B was attractive but not exactly sufficient. I still wasn't sure whether caffeine was a good idea - I had hash browns and sausage. I honestly have no idea what anyone else was eating or thinking or even talking about just then, but that second breakfast was exactly what I needed. We stopped at an actual no-foolin' general store and I bought a prepaid cellphone. Callie and Mariano gave me space. Goddess, I love Callie.

Joanna's cellphone was out of service. Our landline was out of service. Craig's and Aly's cellphones were out of service. Even Rowan's phones were out of service. This did not feel good.

Every half hour or so I tried someone I hadn't thought of before. I'd never imagined that so many numbers could've all been put out of service in just a few months. In between, I read more from my grimoire and let things settle in as they would.

A few hours later, raking my memory for another phone number that might help, Mariano driving, I remembered Morgan. From the Christmas Eve Mass in L.A, which is where we were heading.

"Morgan," I said when she picked up, "This is Bob. You left your number with me at the ..."

"I remember you," she said, interrupting, her voice low and cool, collected, soft, controlled like no one else's I'd ever heard.

"I'm on my way to L.A.," I said.

"That's good," she said. "Will you stay the night?"

I almost dropped the phone. "It's not like that," I said.

"We have extra bedrooms," she said. "My parents and brothers are here."

Callie reached forward and muted the phone. "Have her meet us for dinner," she said. We'd already picked a place that advertised fresh pulque and what seemed like some really fine barbecue. Callie unmuted the phone.

"We're on our way to dinner, we should be there in, oh maybe two and a half hours," I said. "Nothing fancy, very informal, but it should be good, maybe unique."

"I'm intrigued," Morgan said. "What's the place? I'll call back. Is this number good?"

"It should be," I said. "I've never used it before, but I don't see why not. I'll call back if I don't hear from you." I named the restaurant.

She called back 15 minutes later. "Now I'm definitely intrigued," she said. "Were you planning on the grasshoppers?"

I laughed out loud ... I hadn't read far enough on their menu to see grasshoppers. "No ... we want the barbecue and the pulque."

"This intrigues me more and more ... I haven't heard of that, either. What is it?"

Mariano mouthed the words as I spoke them, remembering: "Metl. Maguey. Agave. Century Plant. Aguamiel."

"Agave? Like tequila?"

"Yes, but different species, from a different part of the plant. I'm with two other people."

"Mmmmmkay. What time?"

"Should be 7:00 or 7:30, depending on traffic."

"I'll meet you there."

I didn't need to ask whether she would remember what I looked like even though she might not with me de-aging almost 20 years since the last (and only) time we saw each other. Because I knew I would recognize her.

I stopped being able to concentrate on my grimoire as we approached the Grapevine. All the old stories, all the history, the Interstate straightened and absolutely flowing with cars and trucks struggling up the long, steep hill, remnants of the old road(s) still visible here and there. Then down the other side, a much gentler slope, until finally roller coasters and all the fucking cars of Los Angeles. It was a Thursday evening and inbound traffic wasn't bad, though it started hanging up more as we neared downtown.

The restaurant was nondescript, like the Mom & Pop chicken teriyaki places back home plus a few simple Mexican design flourishes, but it smelled wonderful. Two tables came free as we arrived, and our pulque arrived soon after we sat down. Mariano and I each ordered a glass, with Callie wanting to sample mine before deciding if she wanted one of her own - she likes margaritas. She put her hand on Mariano's before he took his first drink, wanting to feel his reaction, but none of us expected what happened: he immediately gasped, got a huge boner, started sweating profusely, excusing himself a moment later to go to the men's room, and both of us could sense what happened next ... he barely had time to pull his pants down, his throbbing cock springing free, and grab a wad of toilet paper before he exploded into a huge orgasm that he did his best to mute. His fountain of cum would've splashed all over the stall door if he hadn't had that wad of paper to intercept it. He hadn't touched himself at all. Callie and I refrained from mentioning that we knew what happened when he returned, though of course we didn't know the how or why.

"My life has gotten really strange," he said.

"Do you think unfermented aguamiel would be better than pulque?" I asked.

Mariano shrugged.

"Not that I'm recommending it ... this is very different from anything I've tasted before, but I like it," I said.

Morgan walked in. I felt the reaction before I turned to see ... the clatter and din of the restaurant damped in a wave that approached with her. Long straight copper hair, artfully clipped, a white frilly peasant blouse that left her delicate shoulders and an inch or two of her midriff bare, stretchy jeans tight around her slim hips and toned thighs but flaring at the knees and tastefully shredded in a gothic arch over her shapely calves and knees, platform sneakers with thick leather laces, open at the heel, a buckle prominent at the ankle, a slender bracelet decorated with lapis lazuli and turquoise that wound its way three times around her forearm, terminating in a silver bulb on each end. A playful yet notably fashionable look, but then Morgan could probably make anything look fashionable. She was scanning the room as she approached. I put my hand on Callie's and rose, Callie possessively taking my arm and rising with me. I took two steps toward Morgan and she angled towards us, looking me over somewhat incredulously.

"Bob?" she said.

"Very nice to see you again, Morgan," I said.

She offered her hand, raising it high as if she expected me to kiss it. I took her fingers over mine but didn't kiss them. She leaned in, offering her cheek, and I bent to touch mine to hers. She smelled of subtle vanilla, almond, and orange, a most beguiling scent, her skin as soft and smooth as silk.