An erotic short story by Golden_Princess
**********
Warning: Rated MA for very explicit M/F (Part 1) and F/F imagery (Part 2). For mature adults only (18+)
Summary: A slightly fantasy-ish tale of two ladies that, with the help of a pagan god, realize they have a tad more than friendship between them.
Tags: romance, fantasy, bisexual, heterosexual, lesbian, erotica, ravishment
Pairings: male/female (slight coercion, maledom), female/female (first-time for one character)
This story is a bit on the long-ish side and there's a fair bit of character/mood development before some action starts. Figure I'd let you know in case you're looking for more of a quickie, but I personally get more turned on by stories that don't delve too quickly into the shmexy. Sorry if that's not your thing!! The ladies are original characters not based off of any established body of fiction. Pan is of course based on, well, Pan (Faunus, Cernunnos, etc). The story was inspired by a couple of real events in my own life and an erotic lucid dream. It came together while listening to Faun's album, Eden, particularly the tracks, "Hymn to Pan" (that's where the poem in the story is from) and "Alba". It's an awesome band -- I highly recommend you check them out.
**********
PART 1 of 2
Jane could smell the woods as she walked through them. That earthy, mossy fragrance, full of moisture and slight, sweet decay, was both familiar and foreign. How sad, she thought, that such a smell should be so rare in day-to-day life, and Jane wondered why she didn't venture out here more often. Nevertheless, the rarity of her visits made the woods feel anew each time, and all the more enchanting. Tall conifer trees with thickly fissured, ochre-coloured bark stood still and silent on this particularly windless morning. Lush ferns and shrubs filled the spaces between the great trunks, content with the dregs of water and sunlight left unused by their imposing cousins. Bright summer rays penetrated the canopy, visible columns like reaching angels' fingers in the humid air. As far as Jane was concerned, temperate rainforest had no equal among earth's biomes, but as a native British Columbian she may have been a bit biased.
Aliyah was ahead of Jane, prancing along the trail jovially, ebony locks bouncing over the back and shoulders of her forest green t-shirt. The mystical atmosphere of the woods was getting to her it seemed. Though they had been friends for just over two years, Aliyah had only moved out west a few months ago from Montreal to start an astrophysics degree at the University of British Columbia. As such, most of their relationship had developed through digital correspondence and sporadic mutual visits across the country. They had met by chance while on a storm-watching tour up in the more mountainous regions of the province, and had bonded immediately over a discussion about Coast Salish mythology, which happened to be Jane's specialty. She chuckled at the memory of the two of them enraptured in their own geekiness while a few of the other tour guests politely backed out of the conversation to talk about more "interesting" things.
"Come on!" Aliyah playfully called to Jane, who couldn't help but smile and chase after her.
"Slow down!" she shouted, running out of breath. "You don't know the way!" Aliyah stopped at that and waited for Jane to catch up.
Jane didn't like running nearly as much as Aliyah did, but she had to admit, bounding through the forest like some wild animal was kind of fun. And anyways, Jane always thought Aliyah pranced more than ran. Yes, that was exactly the right word. Aliyah despised jogging or running for exercise or competition. No, she ran only when she felt like it, just for fun. A giddy kind of energy simply compelled her to at odd moments. Even now, as Jane approached, she was hopping about leisurely around the trees.
"What are you doing?" Jane laughed.
"Prancing!" Aliyah answered. She had taken to the word when she had first learned it from Jane, and loved finding excuses to say it (though fluent in both French and English, there were still odd bits of English vocabulary Aliyah hadn't come across before).
"It just kind of seems appropriate," she continued. "It's not often you come across places like this, that give you a kind of magical feeling, like a fairy-tale. The season, the weather, the light... they're all just right, aren't they?"
"Yeah, I know what you mean," Jane agreed, "but wait 'till you see the waterfall."
"Well then, on y va! All the prancing is getting me ready for a good swim..."
Indeed, Jane thought, and wished she'd pulled on a different colour tank-top that morning. The black one she had ended up choosing was starting to get uncomfortably damp.
Together they continued along a narrower side-trail, Jane in the lead. Finally, they heard the sound of running water, and shortly afterwards emerged through a break in the trees into a decently sized glade. A river spilled over a gentle waterfall into a wide pool before continuing on into the forest. The water, struck by unimpeded sunlight, bubbled and sparkled at the base of the falls. Grass had managed to gain a foothold on the open, treeless riverbanks, and grew bright green and dense, just begging to be lain upon.
"Oh! This is perfect!" Aliyah exclaimed, and Jane smiled. She knew this little day trip would be exactly Aliyah's kind of thing, but beamed at her friend's approval nonetheless.
"Yep, and it's all for us," Jane added. "No one else really comes here, especially not on weekdays."
The two women made their way to the base of a large tree on the glade's perimeter and sat with their backs against it, simply enjoying the scene for a time in comfortable silence.
"You can almost hear Pan's flute off in the distance," Aliyah said wistfully.
"Sorry?" asked Jane, confused.
"You know, the pagan god from Greek and Roman myth," she elaborated.
"Oh!" Jane exclaimed in understanding. "Yes, I suppose this would be his kind of place. Deep forest, lots of life and nature, two beautiful women all alone..."
"Hmm..." Aliyah giggled. "He's also supposed to like music... Maybe he would like to listen to mine," and she took a small flute out of her pack, a worn-looking Irish tin whistle.
Softly she began a bright, fanciful tune, and Jane leaned back and closed her eyes, sighing contentedly. This really is a perfect day, she thought, and in her mind she pictured the faun himself becoming drawn by the music and curiously watching them from some vantage point in the trees unseen. So vivid was her imagination that Jane spooked herself into feeling like she was actually being watched, and she shot up, eyes snapping open quickly. Aliyah stopped her playing and looked over at her.
"Ça va bien?" she asked.
"Yeah, silly of me... for a moment I imagined some creature was really watching us and freaked myself out."
Aliyah laughed affectionately, "Oh, you."
Jane blushed and looked away briefly. In that moment, the affection on Aliyah's face seemed especially raw and Jane was struck by how beautiful her friend actually was. Her black hair hung loose and soft, shining with a hazy lustre in the sun. Her pupils were tightly constricted in the light, showing off hazel irises that shimmered through amber and green with the slight movements of her eyes. Just as Jane was about to become lost in them she noticed the direction of their gaze, towards the top of her head. Jane looked up, arching her brows.
"What, is there something on my head?" she asked worriedly.
"No," Aliyah answered quietly, "Your hair... It's become all strawberry in the sunlight," and she gently reached up with her hand and caressed the locks hanging down over Jane's temple.
"Yes, it does that," Jane stammered, blushing again. "It looks blonde most of the time, but it does have a reddish highlight." She bashfully recalled an earlier conversation where Aliyah had admitted that she had a weakness for redheads, but Jane had been too shy to bring up this particular quirk with her own hair at the time.
There was something electric in the air as their gazes shifted onto each other again. When Aliyah had reached out to touch her hair she had leaned in a bit closer, and now Jane caught a whiff of something sweet, almost candy-like... Or rather, if the fragrance of jasmine was ever incorporated into a candy flavour, that's what Jane thought it might smell like... sort of. She couldn't really put her finger on it. The unique fragrance blended with the light sweat Aliyah had worked up earlier on the trail and the woodsy smell all around them. The combination was rather intoxicating. Yep, this is certainly a Pan sort of place, she thought.
"Are you wearing some kind of perfume?" Jane asked dazedly.
"Not a perfume, a body oil."
"Well... you smell really good," Jane blurted, and then it was Aliyah's turn to blush.
"Why, thank you," she said charmingly before deflecting, "So, how about that swim? Shall we frolic like nymphs under the waterfall?" 'Frolic' was another English word that Aliyah had become fascinated by, and it was made all the more endearing by her light Quebecois accent.
"Frolicking sounds like an excellent idea," Jane agreed, "though in keeping with the enchanted, fairy-tale-like spirit of our morning, it seems almost wrong not to go nude." Jane had no idea what made her suggest such a thing, and looked away embarrassed from the amused expression on Aliyah's face.
