Black Velvet

I didn't really mean to wind up down by the river that night; my feet just walked all by themselves while my mind was thinking about other things, and before I knew it, I was at that little patch of trees by the river, looking at the storm clouds roll in. Shouldn't be too surprised, though. It's always been one of my favorite places to just go sit and think for a spell, and Lord knew I needed to get out of that house. Everyone could feel the storm coming--we could just smell it in the air, the way it got all thick and heavy and damp, and it got under everyone's skin like an itch and made all the fighting worse than ever. And that was saying something, I'll tell you that for nothing.

It was just a little before sunset, but you'd never know it from looking. The clouds were big and black and angry, and outside of a little lightning that was by way of introduction to the main event, there wasn't a whole lot of light. Didn't matter much to me, though. I'd been here hundreds of times, and I could see well enough in that gray light you get just before a bad storm to know where to find an old log to sit on. And for a few minutes, that's all I did. I sat there in the fading light, sweated through my t-shirt in that thick, humid, hot Mississippi summer air, and watched the reflection of lightning on the river. Well, we called it a river around here, but it was really half-swamp, the way it got so dry in summer that there was always a long stretch of marsh and mud before you got to any real water. Kind of sums up the whole town, really, calling a glorified creek like that a river. But the way it was fixing to rain, I figured we'd get some of that swamp drowned under before the night was out.

And it really was fixing to rain. You could feel it on your skin, the way the air got all dense and tingly in that funny way you only get before a big storm, and you could smell it underneath the stink of the mud and the swamp. I knew this was going to be a big storm, but I didn't want to go back home just yet. I didn't mind getting a little wet, and I was clear enough of the trees not to have to worry about lightning.

Let it rain,

I thought.

Let it wash some of me away, leave behind someone that's not so tired of this place.

"Looks like the sky's about to bust wide open." I just about jumped right out of my skin when she spoke. She must have been standing there already when I came by, but in that dim light, I didn't even see her. Hell, I didn't even think to look for another person out here. But there she was, dressed like she was getting ready to head out to a party instead of standing on the edge of a swamp in the middle of nowhere just before a storm. She was dressed all in this long black velvet dress, even had black velvet gloves that went all the way up her arms to her armpits. Had to be hotter than hell in this weather, but she didn't seem bothered by it none.

I tried to cover up my start, but I know I didn't do a very good job. "I'm sorry, miss, I...um, I didn't see you there." Now that I was looking at her, I don't know how I missed her. She was all dressed in black, sure, but she had such pale skin that it seemed to glow against the velvet in the fading light. I remembered a word Miss Violet taught me, chiaroscuro. This woman was all chiaroscuro, pale white against black velvet, dark hair and dark eyes but such white skin. It looked good on her. I kind of chuckled. She probably thought the same thing about me, wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans washed so many times they were practically white, and my skin just about fading into the darkness right about now.

"No, it's my fault," she said. "I didn't mean to startle you." She took in a deep breath and walked over next to me. "I love a night like this, don't you? Something about the calm before the storm, makes you kind of ache inside in a pleasant way."

I kind of looked up at her then with, I dunno, maybe a little bit of awe. She was probably the prettiest woman I've ever seen, and I mean even on TV or in the movies. I've told her that a few times since then, and she always kind of blushes a little, but she won't deny it. I wanted to ask her who she was, how she got here, why she was wearing such a fancy dress and if it was hot on her, but somehow my tongue got all tied and my brain got all stupid and what came out was, "Are you real?"

She laughed at that. I didn't mind, though, it was a pretty laugh. "Am I a ghost, you mean? Or perhaps a vampire, come to wander out in the dark woods for a drink from the neck of a gorgeous young woman like you? Or maybe a fairy queen, come to spirit you away into my twilight kingdom forever, to while away the endless hours with me..." She wasn't saying it like she was making fun. She kind of made it sound like she wished it was true, like she'd do all those things if she could.

"No," she said, her voice relaxing to normal. "I was just driving north, heading towards Chicago, when I saw the storm coming up and decided to find a good place to watch it. I love summer storms. There's nothing quite like being caught out in one to really make you feel alive."

"In that dress?" I asked. "Come on, you gotta be sweating like crazy in that thing, and when it gets wet..."

She laughed again and sat down next to me. "I like to sweat a little, every now and then. I like that sticky feeling, clothes all clinging to my skin, and then when I peel them off, the air just feels so good and cool all over..." I kinda blushed at the way she said all that, but between the night and my skin, she couldn't have seen it. "And this is panne velvet, darling. Rain doesn't do it any harm. Here, feel."

She held out a hand, and I reached out my own, not sure exactly what she wanted me to touch. But she just turned my hand palm side up and traced her finger along my palm so I could feel that velvet glove. I won't deny it, even then it kind of gave me a little shiver. "Want me to read your palm?" she asked. "I might not be a ghost myself, but I do have a little connection to the spirit world."

She saw the confused look on my face and smiled. "I'm a fortuneteller. My name's Desdemona Gate--no, really, it is!" She must have seen the look on my face, the way she said that. "My parents loved Shakespeare. I've got two sisters named Miranda and Ophelia, and a brother called Romeo. You'd think a name like that would help him with the ladies, but it's done just the opposite. They all think he's a wolf, won't go near him."

We both had a bit of a laugh about that. "My name's Chancer, miss. Alma Mae Chancer. And I'd love to have my palm read."

"Please," she said. "Call me Mona. And in this light, we'll have to do it by touch. Still, shouldn't be that hard. You've got a nice, deep set of lines--comes from being a water hand." I didn't get what all that meant, but then again I wasn't a fortuneteller. "Are you an artist?"

My hand shook a little in hers. It was kind of spooky, the way she picked that up. Still, I tried to play it cool and all. "I, yeah, I draw a little. Just for myself, I don't show it off none." Thinking about that reminded me of Miss Violet, so I tried to change the subject. "Aren't you going to tell my future?" I asked, kind of coy like.

"Well, let's see," she said, looking down at my hand with a sort of fake serious look on her face. "I can tell you're going to get very wet very soon..." We both laughed at that. The way those clouds were moving, we were both going to get soaked soon. "Seriously," she said, tracing a line on the crease of my palm with those black velvet gloves of hers, "I think you're at a real crossroads, here. Feel your heart line, this line I'm tracing on your hand?" I started to look down, but she kind of tutted. "Don't look, that'll only distract you. You just look at me for now, and feel the way my finger's tracing on your palm."

I got to admit, I was trying not to do just that. Momma had one of those paintings on black velvet, a picture of Jesus, and ever since I was a little girl, I loved to sneak over and just touch it a little to feel that velvet on my skin. Something about the feel of it just gave me good shivers all over, and the way Mona was tracing that line on my palm, well...she was right, I was a little distracted. But I did what I was told, I looked up at her and just let myself feel that hand touching mine.

"You're not happy, are you Alma?" she said, but something about the way she said it made it sound more like an answer than a question.

I kind of shook my head, just a little, then stopped. "I...it's nothing serious, really. Just a little fight with the folks."

"That's not what your life line says." She just stroked that finger up and down my palm, back and forth. I swear, at the time I didn't even know what she was doing to me, but I've seen her do it to other girls since then. She was just staring into my eyes, tracing that line back and forth, and if I'd even thought of the word "hypnotized," I'd never have thought that's what she was doing to me. But she was.

She was talking low and serious like, and I swear, it really did seem like she was reading my mind. "You've been fighting a lot with your parents. They've been angry with you, because you're growing up and you're not growing up like they wanted you to. You're different from all the other girls in this town, Alma, and they don't like it. They're trying to smother it right out of you, and you don't even know why. You don't know how you and your parents grew so far apart so fast, why they can't just accept you for who you are and who you want to be."

"They never liked Miss Violet," I said, real quiet. Like the words just snuck out without my knowing it. I hadn't meant to say it, but now that I had, well...in for a penny, in for a pound, right? "Violet Harrolds. She was my art teacher. She was real nice. Said I had a lot of talent, started giving me extra lessons after school, at her house. But Daddy stopped them. Wouldn't even tell me why."

Mona nodded, I kind of caught myself nodding right along. By then, it felt like she was just tracing over my whole hand, not ever stopping, and I wasn't even thinking about looking down anymore. "But the other girls made fun of you, didn't they? For spending so much time with Miss Violet? They called you names, said things you knew weren't true and couldn't be true..."

My mouth just hung wide open for a second at that one. Right there, I believed she could do real magic, could really read my whole life right there in her hand. "They said Miss Violet and I were both..." I kinda whispered the next bit, 'cause I kind of worried Mona might believe it if I said it. "They said we were gay. Said Miss Violet had a thing for me. But it wasn't true, it was just drawing lessons!"

Mona started kind of edging her hand up my wrist then, but she'd been rubbing my palm so long that I could kind of still feel her fingers there, just the memory of them like a ghost. It was a weird feeling, it made me kind of dizzy, but looking into her eyes steadied me a little. "They weren't 'just' drawing lessons, Alma, I can tell. Miss Violet taught you a lot. She taught you how to think, how to grow; she helped you blossom into a woman. And then your Daddy told you to stop doing that."

I nodded. "He made a big stink with the school. Miss Violet, she..." I choked up a little there, remembering the last time I saw Miss Violet, about a year ago. She was angry and a little sad. She told me she was getting out of here, heading for someplace better than this empty little town. She told me she hoped one day I'd get out of here too. I never did tell anyone that, and I never told anyone that Miss Violet kissed me on the cheek that day.

"She left. And now you want to leave, too, but you don't know how." I just sat there, kind of goggling at that. Mona wasn't even touching my palm anymore, she was just holding my hand with hers and running her fingers all up and down my arm, but I wasn't thinking about that. I just felt like she knew everything about me, like everything she said was true.

"And the other girls, they still call you a dyke and a queer..." I kind of jerked in her grip, then, but she didn't let me go. "And you want to tell them they're wrong, but when you hear them say it, you think of Miss Violet and how sweet she was to you, how close you were to her, and maybe something in you wants to shout that they're right if it means you're more like Miss Violet than you are like them."

Oh, and I never told anyone that, but I guess I'm not too different from anyone else that someone smart like Mona couldn't figure it out. She could read me like a book, and if that wasn't magic, I guess it was close enough because I couldn't say no to anything she was telling me. I couldn't say it wasn't true. That's what made it work so well, not because I was looking in her eyes and feeling that soft velvet on my skin. It worked because she was really right.

"And your daddy can tell something's different about you now, and he tries to push it down but that just makes it stand out more, and sometimes you get this crazy hunger between your legs and you don't know what to do about it..." Now that one, she could have said about any girl my age and she'd have been right, but the way she said it, with the lightning kind of flashing in her dark eyes and her hand all over my arm, rubbing and stroking and feeling good the way only black velvet can feel, well...it just seemed like more of the magic, that was all. One more thing she knew about me.

"And the heat out here is just like the heat inside, and you feel like you've got a storm building up inside you, and so you came out here to get away from your parents and this town and these people and everything, Alma, and that led you to me. To that crossroads I was telling you about. To the most important night of your life, the most important decision of your life." I couldn't really say no to her, not by then. Everything she'd said up till then was true, and so it just felt natural that this would be too. "Are you ready for that, Alma?"

"Uh-huh," I said, kind of soft and quiet like. I know now I was hypnotized, but I'm not angry with Mona none. She was doing the right thing, in kind of a sneaky way.

"Here it is," she said, and she took the hand she was holding and she put it on her hip. At first, I didn't even think about where my hand was. I just felt that black velvet of her dress, and it felt so good to the touch that I just kind of rubbed my hand around a little to feel it, just like when I was a little girl. And by the time I really thought about what was underneath that velvet, well, I surprised myself a little by liking it. I'd never have worked up the nerve to do that, not proper. I think I'd probably have run a mile if Mona hadn't softened up my brain a little first. But everything seemed kind of like a dream by then.

Mona smiled, and she just put her hand on my hip, too. But she kind of worked it under the t-shirt, just a little, so I could feel that velvet glove on my waist the way I felt the other one on my arm. And I got to admit, by then I was feeling that crazy hunger she was talking about in a big way. I was squirming around on that log like it had ants in it, and my other hand just sort of flopped around for a little while before I put it on Mona's other hip.

Well, that just lit her eyes up bigger than the lightning ever did. She inched a little closer to me, and started letting her hand roam around under my t-shirt a little. I whimpered like a puppy begging for biscuits when she started circling her hand around my belly button, I tell you. The feel of that velvet, it was driving me wild. Storm might not have started yet, but Mona was right, I was pretty damned wet.

I almost snapped out of it when she pulled my shirt off, on account of how I couldn't look into her eyes for a second and I had to take my hands off her hips. But she just looked right back into my eyes, and she just pulled me right close to her, and when I realized I could lean into her and rub my whole body against that black velvet dress of hers, well...I was just gone. My eyes just slipped shut so that I could pay attention to what I was feeling, and she took my bra off so I could really rub, and oh Lord the way it felt when I rubbed my bare titties against her velvet-covered ones, I thought I'd never stop moaning.

I admit, I'm a little hazy on exactly when my pants and my panties came off. Felt like I spent forever rubbing my tits on her dress. Like that was all I wanted to do for the rest of my life, just rub her while she ran those velvet gloves all over my back and down to my ass. Maybe that was when, I don't know. Maybe she decided there was more of me to feel right then. But she got them off me, and I sure wasn't putting up a fight. I was practically squishy down there, soaked right through my panties.

Soon as I was buck naked, I snuggled up in her lap, wrapped my legs around her, and started rubbing myself off against that velvet for all it was worth. Pretty much ruined the dress, too. I was grunting and rubbing and moaning and shivering and sweating and it felt so good, I was just gasping in Mona's ear and she was whispering in mine, telling me it was alright, it was alright to feel that way and alright to touch her that way and alright to do the things we were doing, and then when she slipped one of those velvet-gloved fingers down between my thighs and into my snatch and right onto my clit, I just lost it. I howled like a banshee as I came.

That was when the rain started. I know, it sounds kind of like a movie, the rain hitting just at the right time, but I spent a long time coming that night, so when I say the rain started while I was getting off, there's actually a pretty big window of time in all that. Not that we stopped, even then. We switched positions, she showed me how to get her off with my fingers, we made love in the rain and let it wash the sweat off our bodies for what felt like an age. But she never took that dress off.

By the time we stopped, it was past midnight. I was all muddy from kneeling down in the rain like that, and my clothes would need a good wash, but I didn't care and neither did Mona. I snuck back into the house under the cover of the storm, grabbed a few of my drawings and some clothes and a couple of sentimental things, and then we lit off giggling like a pair of schoolgirls. (In case you are wondering, by the way, I had already finished high school. Mona might be a sneaky little tease, but she's no cradle robber.)

We're working our way north to Chicago, taking our time. Mona throws up her tent anywhere she thinks she can make a buck, reads some palms...does a little hypnosis, too, now and again. Nothing like she did with me, though. Well, not unless we both think the girl's cute and willing.

Mona says she's got a little surprise for me when we get to Chicago. Won't tell me what it is, but I always do wonder how she and I just bumped into each other out in the middle of nowhere. Guess when we get north, when we get someplace better than that empty little town, I'll find out.

THE END