Mia the Inetic Sorceress

This is the fifth and final part of the story of Mia and Paul. For now...

***

This changes everything.

Those were her exact words, and I didn't know if I should be celebrating or grieving. She looked happy, ecstatic even. Unless her face belied some other state of mind, the tears trickling down her cheeks were tears of joy. But the words she chose felt ominous.

This changes everything.

I wasn't sure what "everything" had changed. And since the "everything" that had recently transpired between Mia and me had made me the happiest man alive, I did not want to even consider that changing, not even a little.

We had professed love to each other. Despite the pain that would wait for us down the road -- me growing old before her eyes, she remaining youthful and powerful, destined to live other lifetimes without me -- we had chosen, together, to risk the pain to share the fulfillment of a life of joy and wonder. I had never felt so happy, so bursting with confidence and optimism. I had felt a primal need to show her my happiness. I had seen the remarkable power of gratitude less than a day before and it was awe-inspiring. And that gratitude was a mere fraction of what I was feeling for Mia now. That was gratitude -- this was love, more powerful and honest than I had ever thought myself capable of.

She needed to know it. I had told her, but she needed to really know it. To feel it. So with what little I had learned from Mia about directing my own personal energy, I tried to show her. I poured as much love as I could into her. I watched as the intensity of what I was sharing grew. It was effortless. Every old cliche about how easy love is when you find it reverberated through my head. I had shared the purest positive energy I had -- something that mere weeks ago I hadn't known or could have imagined was possible -- and I did it virtually without thinking. Mia was helping of course, and the energy she added to our exchange further amplified the impact on both of us.

What is it they say about good intentions? I could feel my own road to hell yawning out ahead of me. The prospect that I had inadvertently ruined a fleeting encounter with true love was making me feel physically ill. She had said, "Oh Paul. What you did. You have no idea." There was no room for misinterpretation there. I had done something. And that something had, according to Mia, changed everything.

The stress of Mia's reappearance and the thoughts stampeding through my head were almost too much for me to bear. But I was granted a reprieve, although in hindsight it was pretty heartless of me to look at it that way. Mia was still gazing up at me with that radiant smile, when her eyes fluttered and rolled back into her head, and she slumped weightless in my arms. I scooped her up and hurried into the house. All too often Mia had simply moved us from one room to the next so I was still a bit disoriented wandering the halls of her mansion. Mercifully, candle sconces seemed to always be burning in the halls so after a couple of wrong turns I found her -- our -- bedroom and laid her on the bed. Even after fainting, if that was what had happened, she was still smiling her peaceful smile. I took that as a good sign. I was willing to grasp on to anything even remotely positive at that moment.

I sat on the bed next to Mia and waited. Her pale orange shimmer had not diminished; from the moment she reappeared, through her swoon, and now lying on the bed, asleep or unconscious, she still appeared to be softly radiating energy. She looked perfectly normal. So I waited.

The events of the day must have caught up with me because I hadn't realized I had fallen asleep until I was awakened by an arm wrapping around me and the feeling of warm breath on my neck. Mia. I couldn't be sure if she was waking up or simply moving in her sleep so I remained still. Part of me was afraid of what I might see or hear when we were both awake so for the moment I stayed quiet, trying to shake off the sleep and gather my thoughts.

"Hi," I heard a soft sleepy voice whisper in my ear.

I rolled over and faced Mia. "Hi," I echoed. "How are you feeling? You gave me a scare when you fainted." Not to mention when you disintegrated into a blizzard of white lights, I thought.

"I feel wonderful, Paul. Wonderful. I can't imagine ever feeling any better than I do now." She was smiling again, that dreamy beatific smile. If I hadn't known better I'd have thought she was high on something.

"Do you know what happened to you? Do you remember anything?" I asked.

"Sort of, and yes," she said. "I think I understand some of what happened, and I remember every blissful second." That sounded promising, or at least less ominous.

"What happened?"

"I'm not even sure how to describe it. I guess the easiest way to say it is I went... somewhere. Somewhere new and foreign. I wasn't there physically; I was just 'there.'"

"Like when you shed your body and just exist as energy?" I suggested.

"A little. But when I've done that I've always remained here, feeling everything around us. This was different. I was gone. I didn't feel the familiar energy of the garden or the ocean. I was aware of it, but I wasn't connected to it. Imagine looking out the window on a blisteringly hot day. You can see the heat rising off the streets and the sun beating down, but since you are inside you aren't actually feeling the heat. That's what I experienced. I was aware of the physical world, could 'see' it, but did not feel it."

"What did you feel?" I asked.

Mia inhaled long and deep and her eyes closed. "I felt happiness, Paul. Deep, all-encompassing happiness. I felt like I was floating in a pool of pure joy and contentment. I don't know how else to describe it. I was fulfilled. I was at peace. I was home." Her voice got quiet. "I wanted to stay there forever."

My heart stopped. Forever. When a 400 year old woman uses a word like "forever" it is not exaggeration. I couldn't breathe.

I seemed to have developed a knack for finding ever more creative and heartbreaking ways of losing Mia. All I wanted to do was show her how much I loved her and for my troubles I had somehow introduced her to her perfect state of being, far away from me. What the hell had I done?

"You said when you got back that I had something to do with helping you find this place. What did I do?" I asked.

"I'm not completely sure yet," she replied. "When we were making love I could feel everything you were pouring into me. You were amazing. I felt so loved and appreciated. I was taking it all in, letting it wash over me. No one has ever made me feel like that, Paul. No one." She leaned in and planted a soft kiss on my lips; I felt like a warm breeze carrying the scent of flowers had wrapped around me. "As we approached climax, I felt myself being swept away, like being pushed out into the current of a river. I didn't know what was happening and I tried to resist it. But it felt so good. So... so right." She got a very faraway look in her eyes as she continued. "So I let go. As we climaxed together I let it carry me away. And I was gone. Before I knew what was happening I was nestled in a blissful welcoming cloud of..." She paused, at a loss for words. "I guess it was a cloud of energy but it was like no energy I had felt before. I melded seamlessly with it. I drifted and let it carry me."

Mia continued staring off into space, clearly reliving the experience in her head. After a few seconds, her attention returned to the here and now. "I don't understand how or why," she went on, "but it was the energy you were pouring into me that propelled me into the current that carried me away. Your energy." She paused. "Your love."

"Has this ever happened to you before?" I asked.

"No. This was a completely new experience for me." Which, for Mia, was really saying something. "And it didn't 'happen' to me. It was done for me, by you. I can't think of another explanation." I still had no clue what I had done exactly other than try to show Mia how I felt about her. "I just told you that no one had ever made me feel so loved; moments after that I am transported to nirvana. That can't be a coincidence."

I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted to take credit for what Mia had experienced or distance myself from it. I was delighted that she got to enjoy such a profoundly rewarding sense of fulfillment. It was the "stay there forever" part that concerned me. One last obvious question remained. "How did you come back?"

"Again, I'm not quite sure. As near as I can tell, the same current that had whisked me off started gently pushing me back. There was so much more there for me to feel and discover but I was powerless to hang on. I felt the energy that had surrounded me begin to diminish as I flowed back toward the physical world. The familiar sensations became clearer and more pronounced while all the new ones fell away behind me. I remembered what I had felt but could not feel it any more. I was drawn inexorably back until I found myself rematerializing by the pool." Mia took my hand in hers. "I was drawn back by you."

Great. Now on top of feeling badly that I had unwittingly launched Mia into uncharted -- and, for all I knew, perilous -- territory, now after hearing about how supremely pleasurable it was to be there I was also responsible somehow for dragging her back out of it. I was in agony. I rolled back on to my back and covered my face with my hands. I was trying to make some sense of the whole situation but it was so far beyond my ability to comprehend that I settled for trying to figure out how I felt. A sad, frustrated groan welled up inside me, which pretty much told me how I felt.

"What's wrong, Paul?" Mia said, leaning up on her elbow to look down at my face.

I didn't know where to begin, so I started with the easiest to verbalize. "I dragged you back from the happiest place you've ever been," I moaned. That was an over-simplification but it was close enough. "How can I live with myself for doing that?"

Mia smiled that smile that means that everything is going to be alright. I wasn't sure I believed her this time but I was ready to latch onto anything to keep my despair at bay. "You didn't drag me anywhere. You were my homing beacon. I don't know why I was sent back, but I was, and you helped guide me back home. As I emerged from wherever that was, I felt you immediately and followed that feeling back to you."

That made me feel a little better. But I was still left with the fear of losing her -- forever -- to this other place that she described as "home," a place that she would never have found if I hadn't been so hell-bent on showing off how much I loved her. I replayed that thought in my head a couple of times until I actually began to understand it.

She would never have found that place if I hadn't been pouring all of my love into her. I lowered my hands from my face.

"You just got it, didn't you?" Mia asked kindly. "I would never have experienced that other 'place' if you didn't love me. I was meant to see it, to feel it. But only when I was ready. I needed the love of another person and the surge of pure positive energy that goes with it to deliver me there."

"But you said you wanted to stay there forever," I blurted out. "How can you bear to leave a place like that behind?"

"I was meant to see it, Paul. I know it's there and that knowledge is comforting. I'd be lying if there wasn't a sense of loss as I left it behind. But just as I was meant to see it, I was obviously meant to return. To you. I don't know why but that's what happened." Mia placed her hand below my chin and gently turned my face to look at her. "We'll figure it out together."

Mia kissed me and I wrapped my arms around her and held her as tight as I could. I knew that she wasn't going to suddenly disappear again, and if she was my arms grasping her wouldn't have changed anything. But I needed to hold on to her and let her know I was holding on. I wasn't going to lose her. Not again, not ever.

The kiss and the ensuing cuddle lasted for about ten minutes. The muscles in my arms, despite their recent overhaul, were beginning to fatigue from the death grip I had on Mia. When finally we separated, my blood pressure and breathing were approaching normal again, for the first time in hours.

"You poor thing," Mia said, "you must have been so scared and so exhausted. I'm truly sorry about that. I can't undo it and I can't erase the memory. The best I can do is try to make it up to you. And I promise I will."

Mia sat up. As I began to do the same, she pushed me back on the bed and said, "Rest. Get some sleep. Real sleep. I'll come back in a little while and we can have breakfast." I was not going to argue.

I rolled over and was probably asleep by the time my head came to rest.

When I awoke, daylight was in full bloom. I sat up and stretched, setting off a chorus of popping and creaking from my joints. Mia was nowhere to be seen. I walked over to the window and looked around. No Mia. I chose not to panic, telling myself that this was a big house and she had purposely left me alone to sleep. I decided that a hot shower would do me some good so I wandered into the bathroom and turned on the water. The steam began to gather and when the water temperature was to my liking I stepped under the stream and let the water pound my head and shoulders.

I squeezed some body wash onto a washcloth and gave my face a good scrubbing, knocking out some of the cobwebs from the previous night. After a long rinse under the hot water my face felt a bit raw and tingly but I was wide awake. A bit more soap onto the washcloth and I started to wash my shoulders, back and arms, then my stomach. The steam was growing thick in the shower stall and felt invigorating on my freshly scrubbed skin.

I probably should have known something was up when I started getting that "just washed" feeling on my cock before a washcloth had ever touched it. Rubbing the water out of my eyes I could see that the steam had taken on a definite orange tint. I was not alone. I smiled and went about my business, performing a cursory cleansing of my genitals before moving down to my legs and feet. Once I had completed washing my body I stood under the water for a good long rinse. The steam was swirling a little; warm pulses danced over my body, lingering on the particularly sensitive and erogenous spots. A tiny burst of steamy air pushed against my stomach causing me to lean back against the shower wall.

The groping started in earnest once I was supported by the wall. Steam swirled around my crotch, a warm wet caress undulating around my balls. A hot orange misty cloud formed around my cock, similarly bathing it in warm wetness. The touch was light -- not like hands or lips. It was barely noticeable, like hot steady breath gliding over my skin. It was sheer ecstatic frustration. The sensations were arousing but not enough to get me really worked up. I was being slowly teased by the steam.

Two more small wisps of orange mist formed around my nipples -- warm licks followed by the same light hot breath. I had an instant mental flashback to our tryst in the fountain in the park when a column of warm moist air gently parted my anus and slipped inside, the circulating mist playing ever so lightly on my prostate. I leaned my head back against the shower tile, took a deep breath, and relaxed. I could tell that whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen slowly and there was no point in trying to rush it. I mentally wandered up and down my body, consciously willing my muscles to relax and let the steam works its -- her -- magic. As if to reward me for having figured out the right thing to do, a light soft pulse of warm vapor traced the outline of my lips, then stroked back and forth, the most delicate caress of an impossibly soft and gentle tongue.

If I had tried to consciously pay attention to every part of my body that was being stimulated I'd have driven myself crazy. Virtually every trigger point on me was being agonizingly lightly teased, while the rest of my body was enveloped in a steamy embrace. So instead of focusing on my cock or nipples or balls, I cleared my mind and let all of the sensations wash -- no pun intended -- over me. I told myself that it was like listening to a symphony; don't try to isolate one instrument, but rather let the harmony of the orchestra blend together into one beautiful sound.

The result was an experience that was both relaxing and arousing at the same time. Without a single discernible touch, each sensitive spot was being coaxed into a state of excitement. There was no thrusting or gyrating. A medley of sensations continued to slowly build a groundswell of sexual energy inside of me. The only evidence that this was happening -- except of course for the raging hard-on I was sporting -- was the increased pace and depth of my breathing. There was no acceleration, no increase in pressure. Just a steady and relentless march toward bliss.

As you might expect given the build-up, the orgasm was also a slow motion affair. A sudden flush of warmth within my groin signaled the beginning. The slow tightening of muscles followed, coiling the spring that would soon be released. A seemingly endless moment dangling on the brink, and then the start of the glorious release. The gentle build-up had not created wild spasms, but rather firm solid throbs that formed more of a steady beat than separate ejaculations. One steady stream of cum emerged, the volume increasing and decreasing with each crest and trough of the orgasmic wave. In addition to the upgrade in my capacity that accompanied my physical enhancement, just the sheer amount of stress that had built up over the past day kept the release going much longer than I ever would have expected. Which was fine with me. I was in no hurry for my orgasm to end. The gentleness of the build-up had also helped avoid any of the intense post-climax sensitivity which made the lengthy ejaculation that much more pleasant.

When at last I was completely drained I felt the steamy wisps that had teased me to completion slowly fade away until the only sensation I felt was the water falling on my head and the beating of my heart in my ears. Any trace of orange glow among the mist was gone. I waited an appropriately polite period of time for my erection to subside, then shut off the water and opened the shower door. Mia was standing there with a bath sheet stretched out in front of her and a bathrobe floating in the air next to air.

"Did you enjoy your shower?" she asked innocently. "Are you rested and refreshed?"

I walked into the bath sheet and let Mia's arms wrap around me. "Never better," I replied. In truth, that remained to be seen, but for the moment all seemed to be well.

"Great," she said. "Dry off and meet me by the pool for breakfast."

I took the bath sheet and continued to towel off. "Thank you. That was amazing."

"Why, I have no idea what you are talking about," she replied with a big grin. Mia turned and walked out, leaving me and the floating robe alone. A couple of minutes later I joined Mia who was sitting in front of a delightful spread of fresh fruit and croissants, with orange juice and coffee already poured. Domestic bliss.

We ate quietly for a few minutes, during which the silence became increasingly uncomfortable. The shower was a wonderful distraction but there was still much to talk about.

Mia broke the silence. "There's clearly something on your mind, Paul. What's up?"

I took a deep breath, braced myself for the worst, and asked, "What did you mean when you said 'This changes everything?'"

"Ahhh," she replied. "Yes, I guess I should have been clearer, but words were failing me at that moment. My brain was still overwhelmed. Which, I suppose, would also explain my fainting spell. OK, let me see if I can explain this, and I'll start with what hasn't changed. I love you and I want to be with you. Always." My sigh of relief was a lot louder than I hoped it would be, but it just made Mia smile.