This is part 5 of an ongoing series. Please read the first ones in order to make sense of it. And comment if you like it!
*****
I did not see Penelope for a while after that evening. At first I just assumed that the natural fluctuations of the party season had kept us apart. But after the weeks turned into a month, then two, I started thinking otherwise. Was she avoiding me? Had I crossed a line? Had SHE crossed a line? After all, she had been the instigator that last evening.
Finally, I saw her again. She was with her group of friends, dancing. I watched her for a while from my usual corner, hoping that she would make her way over to me. But she stayed away and danced with a boy instead. She draped her arms around his neck and kissed him. She had a found a boyfriend, and I had lost a playmate.
I was saddened by this, trying to tell myself that I was happy for her. It didn't really work. She never came to my booth, never even looked my way. I fell into a kind of funk after that night.
Thankfully I was distracted by the growing number of gigs I was getting as a body painter. I did a few more glitzy gigs but always returned to these smaller, more edgy parties where I felt I was meeting more interesting, and sexy, people. That's how I was invited to the Moon Party, a semi-exclusive party in the desert that took place during the next full moon. I was handed two free tickets (and a map) in exchange for my work.
I readily accepted.
I also clutched that extra ticket in a palm that had suddenly turned sweaty.
The following week I searched for Penelope in the crowd. A few hours passed before I finally saw her, dancing amongst her friends. That new boy, her boyfriend, was there as well. I waited until she was at the edge of her circle of friends to slip past her, casually dancing.
"HI" I screamed over the music.
A slightly panicked look came over her face.
"I just have an extra ticket if you want it!" I held up the ticket and handed it to her. She took it, not thinking. I shimmied away, dancing the white man dance I do so well.
Later that evening I caught her watching me. She was standing against the wall, still and alone, watching me paint the half-naked body of a raver.
----
The moon party was the following weekend in a far off desert location. I had left Friday night, driving the 2 hours out of the city indicated on the map. By then the sun had set and the surrounding desert was lit only by the rising moon. I took the turn onto a dirt road marked on the map. For the next 45 minutes I drove slowly over the cragged path that lead into a knob of stone.
The Moon Party was to be held in a small valley ringed by low red hills. It formed a natural playground separated and isolated from the rest of the world by the desert, the hills and the distance. The small valley was already half filled by the party goers, about two dozen tents and RVs parked in a loose circle around the central dance area. Less than a hundred people were supposed to be here, all part of an exclusive social circle composed of the ravers, the burners and the ex-hippies that form the heart of the underground night-life. The gathering was small, but it promised to be off the hook.
I slowly made my way in the dark towards an empty spot on the outside of the ring of tents. I parked and stepped out into the cool night air. Even without lights, the valley was brightly lit by a moon that was almost at its fullest. The valley was dark; the DJ booth was in the process of being built and the lights were not up yet. The night was filled with the hushed sounds of sleepy campers. I rolled out my sleeping bag and sleeping mat, crawled in, and promptly fell asleep under the stars.
The next morning I took my time to set up. People were arriving throughout the day, filling the small valley. I planted my shade structure on the edge of the dance area, holed up between two RVs to catch as much shade as possible. Around me the camp was erupting into life. The DJ booth was up and music was starting to blast out of the towers of speakers that flanked it. There was no DJ yet , just a laptop providing an endless stream of electronic music. A few people were already dancing as the campground around them was slowly growing and transforming into a festival.
The tents and cars were slowly being covered by the banners and flags that were popping up. Colorful domes were being erected, their floors covered in dusty pillows to received the tired dancers. A forest of posts had been planted to host a nest of hammocks. A few booths had been set-up around me to host the few food vendors that had been invited in. Once again I was amazed by the ingenuity and energy found this community of drugged-up hedonists. The vendors were setting-up their displays of kambucha and gluten-free soy chicken wraps as I set up my supplies, ready to start.
As the campground transformed into a carnival, the people started transforming as well. Jeans and T-shirts disappeared as colorful sarongs, kilts, and leather jockstraps started making their appearance. The women turned into colorful birds, some wearing plumed head-dresses, neon body suits or some outfits straight out of Mad Max.
The mood was still fairly mellow. I even took a nap in one of the gently swinging hammocks. I kept an eye on the dance floor though. One of the girls had caught my eye and was driving me nuts. She was a thin, almost wiry brunette, dressed only in a black sports bra, boots, and what looked like a wide belt from which several leather pouches hung. I couldn't tell if she was wearing anything underneath the belt. If she was, it was at most a thong. As she danced the pouches would flap around, but their weight prevented them from moving too much. They would reveal a flash of thigh, an arc of rounded ass, but no more. She was sexy in a rough, dust-covered way, and the teasing kept my eyes glued to her thighs. I was almost tempted to get up and get a better look, but I was lying in a hammock with a cup of cold-brewed coffee balanced on my tummy. I was too relaxed to move so I simply settled in and enjoyed the show.
I was startled out of my lazy reverie when I spotted Penelope. She was dressed in a onesie, one of those adult-sized footed themed pajamas. Hers was a panda, complete with a hood with little round ears. Around her neck was a broad colorful scarf. She was alone, dancing slowly at the edge of the dance floor, looking around. I waved at her.
She saw me and smiled, waving back. She started to make her way towards me. She was, still, alone. Her boyfriend was nowhere to be seen. My hopes were up.
"Hi" she said brightly as she neared my hammock. "You look comfy!"
"I am comfy. That's a cute outfit you have." I said, pointing at her pajamas with my coffee cup.
What I had noticed was that the zipper in the front of the onesies was down to her belly button. Behind the folds of her scarf, I could see bare flesh. It didn't look like she was wearing anything underneath it. My hopes were definitely up.
"I dressed for comfort" she said, grinning. "Is your booth set-up?"
"The booth is up, but I'm not. I can be, though" I started to get up.
"It's okay" she said, stopping me from getting up." Maybe I'll drop by later. I still need to get settled in."
"You like it?" I said, motioning to the camp around us.
Her eyes lit up, " this is AWESOME!" she said, a huge smile on her face. "I'm gonna run around an explore, and set up my tent, and then I'll come back. See you later!" She waved and was off.
I settled back in my hammock, a big smile on my face and a slight tingle in my cock. This was, indeed, awesome.
It took me over an hour to go from the hammock to my booth. I chatted with some of the other hammock dwellers, moved on, and graciously accepted a mixed drink offered by a guy wearing not much more than a large plumed hat and a bandana around his hips. I hesitated but he laughed and confirmed that the hardest drug in the drink was the vodka. My next-booth-neighbors offered me a veggie roll, which was delicious so I bought three more. By the time my first victim sat on my stool, I was fed, slightly buzzed, and very much in love with humanity as a whole.
The deal was that I couldn't charge money for the work, which I liked. People just wandered in and got painted. There was no haggling , no hesitation. Some people got a painted version of the tattoo they never dared to get, or a simple design, and some went all the way and walked out covered in paint form head to toe.
One woman sat down to get her face painted. A black-haired beauty, with pale skin and wide lips, she sat on my stool and thrust her face out to me, a big smile on her face. She braced her arms on the stool, pushing her ample breasts out. She was wearing a bra and singlet, so her breasts were bulging out in a very distracting way. I painted her face, alternating between dots and lines around her eyes and cheeks. She turned her head, exposing the side of her neck. I took the hint and painted her neck, first one side, then the other. I let long lines of paint trace down from her neck to fade across her sternum.
With a wicked smile she crossed her arms beneath her breasts, pushing them up, offering them up as canvas. I obliged and painted lines, dots, and swirls across the soft pale flesh of her breasts. I could see the pinker hue of her areolas peek from under her bra, so I painted that too. I watched as the skin crinkled under my brush. She bit her lip. I saw in her eyes the dance that was about to begin, where her inhibitions were pushing back against the urge to be seen, to be naked and worshipped.
She turned on the stool and pulled her shirt up and over her head, bunching it up under her chin. She looked at me over her shoulder.
"Can you do my back too? Just undo the strap" she said, trying to be casual, but by now I knew where this road was going.
I could see the side of her chest, where the ribcage disappears under the first folds of her breast. I undid the clasp of her bra and watched as the cups, released, fell forward, revealing a heavy curve of flesh, still mostly hidden by the bundled shirt. I started painting. Whether she knew it yet or not, she would go further. She had too. Once painted, her back could not be covered by her shirt again or the paint would smudge. So I painted again, painted a dream pattern of dots and dashes across her spine and sides, trailing paint across her rib cage. She let her head hang down.
In a single motion she pulled her shirt and bra off. She turned and offered me her breasts, not daring to look at me, keeping her head and eyes aimed up. She had magnificent breasts; full and heavy, almost perfectly round, tipped by dark nipples that were hard and erect already.
I continued trailing dots across her ribs, between her breasts and over her sternum. Her breasts were almost glowing in contrast to the paint. I laid a double row of dots down to her belly button, another series of dashes across her hip bones. She looked almost more naked now. Her breasts were the last unpainted part of her body. Her nipples were rock hard and pinched.
