This story is dedicated to that very special someone in my life and grew out of a playful conversation. Hope it was worth the wait hon'
"Life" such as it is, on the other side, isn't so very different for us than it was when we were mortal. For one thing, it's fairly boring most of the time. For another, our "jobs" take up much of our time. The differences lie in the fact that time, as we knew it in life, no longer exists for us. We can be anywhere, any when.....any now. And our jobs, our positions, depend largely on the spiritual rank we hold. We might serve as spirit guides or guardian "angels". For the lowest ranking among us we are the bringers of dreams.....erotic dreams.....the incubi and succubi of legend.
That was my fate....my karma.... for now. Until such time as experience or rebirth allowed me the opportunity for advancement I was, and would remain cum slut to the great unwashed masses. Funny in a way - here I was - child of the Free Love Generation. I started my first menses around the time of the introduction of the pill. An era that promised women a semblance of equality, or at the very least, the right to choose for themselves how, where and when to have sex. We burned our bras and shucked the constriction of corsets and girdles - only to assume corsets again when we discovered the subtle eroticism of assuming voluntary restraint and constraint during sexual encounters.
But now I was finding that educated men of latter centuries enjoyed their erotic dreams - peopling them with women they knew, or wanted to know from movies and television. It was the "sheep" - the largely illiterate masses of earlier generations who were "hag-ridden" in their dreams. Too frightened or insular to ever dare to dream lustful dreams about women they knew - facing condemnation from church and peers if they would ever confess to enjoying such illusory dalliances.
It could have been worse though. I could have been sent back as a haunting...a ghostly reminder of someone's evil deed. Or I could have been sent as a "nightmare" to truly stir the dreams of the wicked. At least I was still allowed to give, and on occasion, receive pleasure, from my night's work. When a dreamer was perhaps cleaner, more handsome than the norm...or a more talented lover in life than the usual rutting savage who only wanted a vessel to cum in before he rolled over, snoring himself more deeply into oblivion...then I could take MY time and enjoy myself. (And let the man explain the nature of the stains in his clothes and bedding in the morning...)
Bobby said it was much the same in his work with the females. He said most of the time he just wanted to hold his nose and get it over with. Get it up, stick it in, and get the hell out was his rule of thumb. I argued it couldn't be much worse with women than with men. He said I was forgetting women's menses and childbirth stench and I said he was forgetting the heavier physical labor men performed and that most were uncircumcised. He nearly licked his lips at that...I'd forgotten he'd been gay in life. That's when I suggested the trade. For one night we'd trade work schedules - just to see if the other side's complaints were justified. We picked a mutually agreeable night in the near future. It was just past fall equinox our present so we agreed All Souls Eve we'd make our trade.
# # # #
The appointed night came and quick as thought I was away on my, or rather Bobby's, first call. From the look of the sod houses and the smell of burning peat in the air I assumed I must be in the early British Isles. The softly liquid speech of the villagers and the various hues of flame colored hair did nothing to disabuse me of the notion. There was a quiet air of frenzy and urgency in the night and I wondered that I'd come so early...and where my charge was. With that thought I was inside the main hall with all of the rush and hubbub that occur prior to a feast, while outside someone nearby lit a bonfire from the sound of the whoosh. A loosely woven woolen curtain hung across another chamber and I passed through it like the night mist. Within the inner chamber a young woman was being bathed and prepared. Firelight and rush-lights cast shimmering highlights over her skin and, although I wasn't a devotee of Sappho's delights, I'd dabbled far enough down Bi Street to recognize that she was a beauty.
She had copper colored hair - the kind that usually indicates blue eyes and freckles, but from here her skin looked to be smooth, flawless and creamy. Solemn eyes of shamrock green highlighted her oval face and the blush on her cheekbones was purest peach. I could smell the peat from the fire, as well as pine, heather, dog rose and wood violet rising from her bath and the old women around her nattered softly among themselves as they bathed her. She ignored them, lost in her own thoughts, as they sponged and scrubbed her, leaving no fold of skin untouched from her toes to the crown of her head. Patting her dry before the fire, then rubbing her down with herbal oils that left her skin shining and rosy, they began at last to paint her with the blue woad of ceremony.
