1. Newberry
We changed buses in Vancouver and caught another across the border into Washington. Me having no passport or other ID would've caused a problem with the driver and anyone else who might've been interested, but Sati has her ways and we crossed with no more questions asked. That bus and then another took all day to get to Medford, where everyone got out and we slept on benches or the floor of the bus station, leaning against windows and each other, the smell of her hair and her milk and her skin and the sound and rhythm of the long bus ride lingering deep in elemental dreams. Next morning, we caught a different bus to Klamath Falls, then yet another to a town so small I didn't catch its name where a young woman with short, angular dirty blonde hair named Kelsey picked us up outside a general store in an old economy car and drove us into the forest.
Sati could've complained about the length of time it took us to get from anywhere to anywhere else, or the boredom of sitting in a bus that stopped every hour or so for 10 minutes with nothing but a hungry infant and a large silent dependent damaged graybeard for company, or the long stops that sometimes required us to exit the bus, or so many transfers, or having to sleep in the bus station, or the fucking cinnamon rolls at the dinner stop, but she seemed to be a woman with some depth, who perhaps had endured worse. Her awareness dwelt in me, whether she knew it or not, whether I wanted it or not, whether I comprehended it or not, but as the refuge for my inaccessible consciousness, her numinous permanence had seemingly replaced that Aegean pool I'd found with Mari. Turns out our route wasn't ideal, and Sati knew that ahead of time, but it would be awhile before I was in a state to perceive the reason.
"Mari is not goddess," Sati said to me as we neared Klamath Lake, the first time she'd spoken to me in English since we started our 2-day bus trip.
You can imagine my response.
"Mari is ... what you say ... shifter. Strong one, maybe, but not goddess." She seemed ... sniffy. "This place we go is school. Perhaps I feel bad to take you, but you will like it, I know. Students have much to learn. You can teach, awake or no. I am sorceress, and trickster, and you have tricks to teach, sleeping sorcerer. Is good place to teach, good students, this I know."
Into the forest, in the back seat of a battered econobox with Sati nursing Lashe, leaning into me, me jostling into her, them, at every bump and every other curve in the dusty dirt road. Cloudy, somewhere between warm and cold, a few patches of snow clinging to shady north-facing spots. Early Spring.
We emerged into a brilliantly gray clearing. I didn't know such a thing could exist: brilliantly gray? Graveled dirt loop in front of a commons-looking wooden hall, a few smaller buildings and a barn and maybe more scattered nearby, flowers and weird Suess-Escher-Penrose plants blooming every-fucking-where. Beyond mud, gravel, dust, and partially combusted gasoline from our tired vehicle, the place smelled like every fucking thing could ever smell like. Which is a seriously weird thing to think, especially when you aren't really thinking at all.
A man and a woman, Stuart and Callie, came out from the hall to greet us, Callie eyeing me warily. Took our bags inside with Kelsey. Paid something to Sati ... obeisance? They seemed to know her, even revere her. Somewhere between the car and the front door, it seemed like there was some sort of subtle environmental change, as if we passed through an invisible curtain. Inside was nice, airy. High ceilings, gables, lofts, skylights everywhere, smells like cut pine and cotton and linen warmed by sunlight. Extra rooms, but Sati said she wanted me in hers, and so I was. She seemed to have a reservation, or a standing invite, or something. An airy, spacious room. Huge bed. She led me to it. Lashe was rousing, cranky, needed more attention. Sati nursed him, their eyes deep in each others', more tales in a language I shouldn't know but could now mostly understand, though not comprehend. An extremely beautiful language, ancient, but like I could listen to it all day and not have to think about anything else, like I could let someone else do my thinking for me. And my breathing. And ...
Yeah, I was hard. Nancy and her huge mind-sucking tits were still there with me. But here was space, and air, and light, and ...
Sati. Slim waist, soft curvaceous legs and bottom and hips and full milky breasts ... warm ... wet ... unfilled. Yeah, it happened again, she touched the tip of my cock with the tip of one lovely finger, licked a tiny smear of precum from the tip of that finger, her beautiful eyes deep in mine, pronounced it reminiscent of Priapus and a lot more satisfying, climbed on, caftan askew, and ... what was important, anyway?
Sati, up and down, forwards and backwards, side to side to side to ... yeah, OK, we get it. But ... a woman gets into your mind like that, and finds what you like, what you didn't even know you liked, and works it to the point where you might've thought what you used to want and what you want right now are not even on the same virtual continent, well ...
I fucking love her milk. So sweet, resplendent with love, so ...
Elemental.
It took two days for either of us to leave that suite. There was a private bath with a tub and shower, good food and drink placed just inside the door several times a day, and as nice and as necessary as all of that was, what happened inside our room was even more necessary. Apparently.