The glassy smooth lake water reflected her cocoa-colored face and the wide white sunhat as Jumana leaned over the side of the small boat. She turned her head and looked back at the boatman who lazily plied the tiller and imagined him wearing only the white linen skirt of ancient Egypt and herself as a priestess being conveyed to her designated temple. She closed her eyes and listened intently as if she could already hear the jangling music and the low-voiced chants of her sister priestesses echoing faintly over the water. A shiver ran across her bare shoulders, down through her thin ivory-toned sundress, and centered between her sun-warmed thighs. "Hathor," she whispered aloud, "goddess of love and desire, I am coming at last."
It had been a long and difficult journey, she reflected, as the boat engine purred softly in the background. A frown creased her mouth as she remembered scenes from the struggling days and the painful lonely nights. The nights! Even enfolded in the sweaty embraces of old and dissolute men -- all right, clients, no, escort renters -- she had felt the cold fingers of loneliness creep up her legs and probe at her pussy. Even as their lips sought her, as their hands groped her soft, trembling body, as their meaty cocks thrust inside her lips, even then she was alone. From her inner city childhood -- cast up like some poor marooned princess on an island of debris and the dregs of wasted lives -- she had always been alone, on her own, ignored and tossed aside.
Back then, books had been her only real solace and comfort. She would huddle in dim corners of the project apartments with her small cache of books from the library and pour over them like a miser does his gold coins. They would take her away from the constant yelling, beating, rapes, drugs, yes, even murder around her to exotic places where history and fairy tale and legend merged and became more real than reality. And even then, she mused, it was the stories of Venus, Aphrodite, Hathor, goddesses of love and desire that most moved and resonated within her. She smiled at the thought -- gliding now toward the restored temple on an island in the Nile, in Nubia! -- that even as a frightened and sad little girl, she had been consecrated to this magnificent goddess and guide.
She wrinkled her forehead and brushed a stray lock of breeze-blown hair back beneath her hat as she mentally oiled and pampered her bare-skinned pussy. The mound -- mound of Venus it was called - still retained its dark, smooth-skinned beauty of course. Despite the years -- how many had it been now? -- of abuse and pounding and insult and occasional disinterest, still the folds stayed petal-like and opened to bloom. Her small-lipped clitoral hood, opening to reveal the out-sized clitoris -- did not even her very name Jumana mean "large pearl" -- had been too often ignored by her...by the men who rented it by the night -- her...well, she had to call them benefactors in a way. It was their money which had -- carefully saved -- paid for this very journey to the land of her sisters, to the land of Nubia her ancestors, to the temple of her goddess.
Her pussy had suffered that she might easily pay the boatman to rent the entire boat so that she could be the sole passenger, borne like a princess-priestess in the proper way. Her breasts had been sacrificed to the pawing and rough handling so that she could be here now. She had given up love for Love, capital L, and now she would reap the rich harvest bestowed with blessing from the very goddess of Love herself. She trailed fingers in the slow ripples of the boat's passage through the water and felt a delicious -- almost pre-orgasmic -- shudder.
As the boat neared the stone jetty, the memory of men faded from her mind replaced with the future dream of tender caresses, softer lips upon her own, the knowing lick of passionate tongue that would burn straight to her spirit with a flame she knew would consume and -- like the mythical phoenix -- she would rise reborn, renewed, re-cast as a daughter and sister of Love.
She gasped to see the two figures awaiting her. The old and wrinkled watchman of the jetty, his maroon fez atilt on his bald head, and his white shirt moving steadily in the lake breeze, she dismissed immediately. But beside him -- that vision -- stood a tall, pale woman in a deep blue dress or robe, face like a statue, body, framed as if by a sculptor, perfect in every curve. Oh, my heart, Jumana, sighed, and felt as if she had indeed been pierced by an arrow composed of desire, hunger, want, climax, and lingering satisfaction forever.
The jetty watchman reached a gnarled hand to steady her as she stepped off the boat and with a sad face placed Jumana's hand in the outstretched fingers of the woman in blue. The touch was more than lightning, more than simply sensual and erotic. It was Life...and Love...and Lust beyond measure all at once.
The woman in blue's eyes looked deeply into Jumana's hazel gaze and smiled gently, almost shyly, bringing their entwined hands up to her mouth and nuzzling the back of Jumana's hand as if...as if it were both breast and pussy somehow transmogrified together into one small patch of brown skin.