"
Real Amazons, Real Magic
", Book 3: "
Crossings
" begins here, immediately after the events of Book 2: "
Cascade Fire
".
1. Departures
(part 1)
California gets so many fires, especially in late summer. This was earlier than peak season but fire crews know all about rapid response and containment, especially near populated areas, even in foothills like these. Fortunately for us there were also back roads, some unpaved, and our route from the trailhead with the nice lake view was not the same one the fire crews were using. We stopped at a coffee drive-thru 10 minutes later in one of the small Interstate-exit suburbs just north of Redding. We would go to Weed, return the Kia, then meet over lunch.
I drove the Kia with Callie beside me and Dani behind. No one else knew how to drive a stick, and remembering Sati's divination not so long ago, thinking that made me sad.
"I saw about 1/4 of the dark mage's book," I said. "I didn't understand it at the time, but I can recall parts now, and I keep remembering more. I want to share it all."
"Helluva way to ask to get laid, Bob," Dani said, smiling wryly.
"You know what I mean," I said softly.
"Sorry, I'm just being a smartass, sometimes I can't help it," Dani said, still smiling, kind of a doleful smile, but she reached to caress my neck and shoulder.
"Are you sure?" Callie asked me.
"Everything," I said. "Even what we didn't share before. Dani, and everyone, needs to know how to make a portal."
"What's a ... oh yeah," Dani said. "That's how you got away from me with Jess that night. I was really pissed, it was like the first night I figured it out about Sati, and I wanted to be on your team."
"It's also how we got inside that house with Taylor and Mariano today," I said, and she nodded. "I've only showed Callie and Jess before now. I'm sorry ... I should've shared with you, too."
"We thought you were Sati's," Callie said.
Dani nodded. "I probably was," she said. "Being with Sati, it was like she sent a kind of madness. I wanted to think she was all about love and our best interests, but ..."
Her voice broke. Callie reached back because Dani was crying.
"I'm so sorry," Dani said between broken breaths. "I wanted to believe ... I wanted ..."
"Dani, honey," Callie said, stroking Dani's lustrous black hair, "it's OK. It'll be OK. We all wanted to believe, and she took all of us in. I'm sorry, too, about so many things." She was almost but not quite looking at me.
"I wanted to believe," I said. "In a way, Sati saved me. She literally pulled me from the gutter at the lowest point of my life, and she brought me to you, which may be the best thing that's ever happened to me."
Callie patted my leg, slid her hand up and down near my knee, then nodded to me, sadly, which I took to mean that she agreed to share everything. Dani continued stroking my shoulder, which felt really nice, then leaned forward to Callie and kissed her slender, strong neck.
"I expect you to make it up to me," Dani whispered to both of us but reserved her neck kisses for Callie, which was probably a good thing because it was giving Callie goosebumps which turned into wild shivers when Dani's tongue touched, which wouldn't have been such a good thing for me while driving.
* * *
Jess drove Mariano in Callie's crossover SUV. "I've got you now," she said, grinning.
"Thank you, Jess, for doing ... what you did back there," he said. "You saved my life."
"It wasn't just me," she said. "You being open is what made it possible. I don't honestly understand everything that happened, it was like something just came over me, but I liked it, and I'm so glad I could help you."
"I'm in your debt," he said, his eyes on hers as much as they could be with her driving.
"I have some ideas about how you might pay me back," she said, grinning again. "I'm guessing we'll both enjoy them, but it might mean something coming over me again."
"Anything you want," he said. "I'm yours."
She was silent a minute, deep in thought. He could see some echo of those thoughts play across her expression. "It'll mean you'll have to do as I say," she said, "sometimes do things my way even though you might not want to."
"That's what my teacher at the sanctuary said."
"I'll make sure you don't regret it," she said. "I'll take good care of you, but you'll have to trust me even if it gets weird, maybe more than it already has."
Mariano took a deep breath. Jess could tell he was thinking about what had happened at the sanctuary, from which he'd been taken and enslaved.
"You saved my life," he repeated. "I'm in your debt."
"I need more than that ... this isn't something I've done before, not the kind of thing I'm used to doing, you can help me fulfill a fantasy I've had for a long time. The magic I'm learning will help, but there's more. I need you to *want* me to be doing what I want to be doing with you."
"There's already more," he said, taking a deep breath. "When I asked back in that house whether it was too soon to say I loved you, I meant that."
Jess looked at him, recognized his hopeful expression for what it was, felt herself smiling, felt something warm within her respond, felt something else warming.
Mariano continued: "If this is something you want, I'm yours. I've met your friends, they are good friends and true, and I've always known about these things. I'm sorry Taylor is gone. But I trust you."
Jess hadn't realized she was tense, took a long breath of her own, relaxed her shoulders. "It's too soon for me, Mariano dear," she said, "but ... likewise." Then there was silence between them for a minute. "Excellent," she said quietly.
Mariano took another deep breath. "In the house, you mentioned wanting to take Tlazolteotl's part. At the sanctuary we knew her by a different name, an older name, gentler like all our stories: Chalchiuhtlicue. I wonder if she acted through you?"
Jess shrugged, her mind on other things. "In the car with either of us driving isn't the best place to start, but if you're ready I can maybe take a little bit of a shortcut."
Mariano nodded.
"I need for you to look at me and say it aloud," she said.
"I'm ready to do anything you want," Mariano said, she glanced at him and caught his eye.
"Excellent," Jess said again, whispered something under her breath, then said to him "To start with, you won't be able to remove your seatbelt. Go ahead, try your best, I want you to."
Mariano reached for the release, his hand getting partway there before a feeling permeated him, a kind of fuzzy buzzing dizzy tensing sensation, as if his reality was bending, his mind bending with it, stretching, looping, his vision clouding over. Then the sensation faded and he found his hand back at his side. He tried again with the other hand and the same result, and then again, concentrating harder, with both hands. He couldn't remember anything that happened between when the sensation started overwhelming him and when he found his hands back at his side. One more time, faster, but all that did was make the fuzzy sensation come faster, too.
"Good boy," Jess said, smiling.
Mariano looked at her like he was utterly lost.
"Is this OK with you?" Jess asked.
"What have you done to me?" he asked.
"Just the seatbelt," she said. "You've given me your trust and I want to keep it, I don't want you to ever wonder whether anything I do with you will be something you won't want, even if it's at a level you don't realize yet."
"I guess it's OK with me then," he said. "This is so strange."
"Good," she said. "Ready for more? Right now you're in a place where you'll do anything I ask, but I want to go slow, to make it safe and good for you. I won't make you do anything unless you ask me to, and I'll ask if you're ready each time. If you don't want it, for any reason, at any time, I'll stop and you'll be back in total control of yourself."
Mariano nodded.
"You need to look in my eyes and say it aloud," she said.
"I'm ready," Mariano said.
"Ask me nicely," she said, "even if it might be uncomfortable at first."
"Please tell me what you want, and I'll do it," he said, and Jess glanced over, smiling, caught his eye again.
"Good boy," she said, "you're doing very well. I want you to unzip your pants."
For Mariano it was like someone else unzipped his pants for him. His hands moved and made the necessary motions outside his conscious control.
"Now pull your cock out," she said, and as his hands started moving, he said 'Stop', and his hands stopped. He looked at her, reached to his crotch, his hands under his own control, and slowly pulled his cock out.
"Is this ..." he began.
"Are you OK with this?" Jess asked. Mariano's cock was already at half mast.
"I don't ..." Mariano began, and trailed off.
"You'll stay like this until you answer that question, yes or no," she said.
"Isn't there some other way?" he asked, but she was silent. He thought about everything she'd told him. He already knew she had powerful magic but this went way beyond anything he thought he understood about her or anyone else, she might have even channeled a goddess for his benefit, and he hadn't been lying when he told her he trusted her and even that he felt love for her, and she hadn't done anything she'd said she wouldn't, always giving him the option to decline, even stopping when he asked her to.
"Yes," he said.
"Good boy," she said, smiling. "Don't do that again ... I appreciate that you want to help, but if you want to do this, you have to do it my way. Ready for more?"
"Yes please," he said, looking into her face. Jess glanced to see that his eyes were in hers.
"Good boy, you're learning," she said. "Now close your eyes. You'll find that you can't open them again. And get fully hard." She snapped her fingers.
