That Damned Blessing

Author's Note: All imaginary persons I imagined for the purposes of this story who engage in sexual activity of the imaginary variety are 18 imaginary years old or older, I imagine. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is coincidental but obviously fated to be, so blame the Universe and not me.

This would have been done a while ago, but COVID's a bitch. For friggin' WEEKS. Seriously, that "brain fog" thing is not a myth, I could barely speak a sentence, much less write it. Fuck that.

As you might notice, this chapter ends on a hell of a cliffhanger. Let me know what you think.

Up next: Are You Tiffani Caine? Chapter 4

That Damned Blessing, Chapter 3:

In Which It Is Best When Dreams Do Not Come True

Day Five

Kim had really tied one on the night before so it was no surprise that she wasn't at breakfast. Jess joined Vilde and Kendra as they finished their breakfast. She was still lingering over her morning coffee when the ladies had gone and Ryan emerged from the hotel. She waved at him and he approached, but as he got closer she saw the dark patches under his lovely eyes. "Good morning, sweetie. Are you feeling OK?"

"Oh, yeah, just tired." He took a seat at her table. "I haven't been sleeping well lately."

"Me neither. I think I'm anxious about leaving your father."

"I can understand that." He rubbed his eyes, then flagged down a passing waiter and ordered a mushroom and cheese omelet.

"So what's keeping you from sleeping?" she asked.

"Oh...it's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"When you tell your mother not to worry, that's when I start to worry. I'd have thought you'd have learned that by now."

"It's really nothing. I just...it's nothing."

"Well now you're just lying to me."

He exhaled rather dramatically. "It really is, it's just dreams."

She tilted her head. "Dreams."

"Yeah, I've just been having really crazy dreams lately. That's all."

"Nightmares? Like of the river?"

"I...no, not nightmares, just strange. They wake me up and I can't get back to sleep."

"I've had some of the same myself," she admitted. "Do you want to talk about them?"

He blushed so red he looked as though he'd been lying in the tropical sun for eight hours with no sunscreen. "No. No I don't."

"OK then, never mind. What are your plans for the day?"

"Lexy is going to spend the day with her dad at the construction site, so I'll probably just do some swimming, maybe a little solo hiking around here."

"That sounds fun. I'd invite you to join me and the ladies this afternoon but I can't imagine you'd enjoy spending time with a bunch of drunken, gossipy middle-aged women."

"I'll probably pass on that, yeah."

There was a lull in conversation. Ryan looked out at the sea, and Jess looked at Ryan. Finally she said, "Sweetie, it really does seem like there's something on your mind. Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"It's stupid. It's something from the dreams but I can't figure it out and it's driving me nuts."

She put a comforting smile on her face and reached across the table to take his hand. "You can tell me if you want. If you're comfortable."

He seemed to think about it for a long moment before finally looking from the ocean to her face. "It's silly, but...have you ever heard the name Seetsahm?"

Jessica's smile froze on her face, slowly changing from that of a comforting parent to something resembling the smile of the corpse at a wake. She felt numb, as though it was someone else using her voice who asked, "What did you just say?"

"Seetsahm," he repeated with a frown. "Is that a swear word or something?"

"Wh...how do you know that name?"

"I dreamed it," he repeated. "Last night, it was a character in my dream. I'm pretty sure I never even heard the name before, but, like, I know I know her. I was thinking maybe she was one of your friends?"

Jess leaned forward and, with greater intensity than she realized, demanded, "The dreams -- what are they?"

Ryan looked taken aback, and his blush crept into his hairline. "Um..."

"What were your dreams about?"

"They were just dreams, you know...dreams..."

"What kind of dreams, Ryan?" She was practically hissing.

"Jeez!" he gasped, plainly startled by her vehemence. "They were the kinds of dreams you don't talk about with your mom, OK?"

"What...when did they start?"

"I dunno, a few days ago? What's the big deal?"

"Do you remember which night?"

He couldn't have looked more baffled. "Yeah, it was after we saved that kid, like that night. So? So what?"

She almost had to peel her fingers off the arms of her chair, so tightly was she clutching them. She realized she was probably looking and acting a bit demented, but what the hell? She counted to five, slowly, then proceeded in a more reasonable tone. "These dreams, they repeat?"

"Uh, I mean, kinda. Look, I'd really rather not talk about this with you, if that's alright."

"They're set in our living room at home," she said quietly. "But not our living room. The curtains are white, furniture comes and goes."

His eyes looked ready to pop out of his skull. "How do you know..."

"The girl you're with, is she brunette? Tan? Short? Impossible body?"

He looked around as though he suspected he was being punked. "Did we see this in a movie or something?"

"The first two nights, what happened in the dream? Don't give me that look, how far did it go? It was just oral, right?"

He stared at her and finally laughed uneasily. "Are you fucking with me, sorry for my language? How do you know all this?"

The world was becoming very spinny as she said in her chair. "I'm having the same dreams, Ryan. They're so powerful! I wake up in the middle of...well, they're...climactic..."

He looked at her as though stricken. "You. You're Seetsahm."

She could only stare back. That name, coming from him, was the rightest and most perfect thing she had ever heard.

He leaned forward covering his face in his hands. "Damn it," he muttered, barely audible. "What the fuck. And I can't even stop thinking about them when I'm awake. I've been..."

"Tell me."

"Thinking of you. When I'm with Lexy. At first it was just the dreams I was thinking of but lately..."

"Yeah," she said. A sudden load of guilt crashed down on her out of the sky like she and Ryan really had done all the things she had dreamed and fantasized about. "Me too."

"That ceremony," he said suddenly. "Those stupid flowers."

"No, how could that be?" she said. "You can't believe in that voodoo. It's impossible."

"Impossible like us sharing wet dreams?" he asked, staring into her eyes. "Do you have any other explanation? Anything?"

"Well...there must be one. We must have seen that in a movie and...no. No I don't."

He stood suddenly. "Grab some bottled water and something for lunch. I'm going to get us a jeep."

She gasped quietly -- that sudden, forceful tone had sent a shiver down her spine and right into her pussy. God he's so hot when he takes charge...

Twenty minutes later they were in a jeep heading for the volcano with Jess behind the wheel. He wasn't as hopeless with a stick as she thought he was -- he had made it to town and back yesterday -- but she was better, and when driving up a mountainside on what barely constituted a trail, the best person should be in control of the vehicle.

They had been quiet on the trip so far, but suddenly he said, "When I sniffed the flowers, I had a really weird feeling. Like I was...like I was out of my head for a second. Not like I was crazy, I was just...it was like I was high."

"That happened to me too," she said. "It was weird. Everything got sort of swirly in my head and then I felt sort of turned on."

He rolled it around in his mind for a few moments, then said, "So whatever was in that bowl was a drug, right? It made us suggestible, and then when they told us it was a fertility ceremony and they thought we were married, our minds started filling in the blanks."

"That does make sense," she said slowly, but with a note of doubt in her voice that said she wasn't quite convinced of that explanation.

"But only half sense" Ryan said. "It doesn't explain the dreams. It doesn't explain why we've been thinking about each other. Or that weird conversation we had at breakfast yesterday, remember?"

"I remember. There's something else too, something that maybe goes along with...the growth spurt that sent you to the doctor yesterday. My skin looks younger. I've lost a couple of age spots. And...well, this is nuts, but I think some cellulite has disappeared."

"What the hell..." He stared out at the passing scenery, trying to concoct some explanation for all this that didn't involve witch doctors and magical incantations. If it were just the dreams and even the fantasies outside of the dreams, he could buy (with difficulty) that whatever they inhaled had messed with their heads. There was no way, however, that breathing in a little smoke could make his dick grow an inch overnight or disintegrate cottage cheese on thighs.

The only problem was, the only explanation that made sense was fucking insane and he couldn't accept it.

They came to the Nawoka River, which had been a raging torrent when they'd been here last. The pileup of debris against the bridge had largely been cleared, and the work gang had dwindled to two men with a chainsaw and a utility truck chopping up the dead trees and hauling them away. They crossed and headed up the same route that they'd taken four days before.

As they began the climb up the mountain, Ryan realized that he was staring at his mother's legs. They were as pale at the rest of her, almost alabaster, and they nearly glowed in the sun where her dress had ridden up nearly to her crotch. They were mesmerizing, and as much as he knew he shouldn't look, he was having difficulty caring what he ought and ought not to do. They were gorgeous, but what was in between was even more beautiful, he was certain.

"See something you like?" Her voice snapped him from reverie, and he looked up to see a smirk on her face. "I don't mind if you look. It seems like we're past the point where that should bother me, doesn't it?"

"I guess so," he said, moving his eyes lower again. "They're beautiful."

"But you're probably thinking about what's inside my panties more than my legs," she laughed.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious," he admitted. "I wonder if it looks like it does in my dreams."

She shot him a calculating look before turning back to the road. "I wonder what it would mean if it did, or if your cock is just as beautiful as I think it is."

"I don't think there would be any harm in looking, would there? I mean as long as we don't touch..."

"I guess not, as long as we don't touch."

"I mean...a little touching might be alright?"

"I think a little touching would be OK. Just to see if it's the same as in our dreams."

"That could be important information."

"I agree. Let me pull over." Two minutes later she had found a spot where she could get off the road, pulling into a little niche in the woods. "Do you want to see me first?"

"Yes," he nodded hungrily, his lips curled into a hungry smile. "Show me your sexy little cunt."

She giggled like a girl at the use of that word and lifted herself up out of the seat so she was standing on it. Watching his face, she pulled her dress up to her waist, revealing a pair of pale pink panties; they were chunky and covered too much to be sexy, but of course she owned sensible underwear that a woman in her mid-40s would wear. Fingers hooked at the hips, she began to tug her panties down, her dress falling as she did so she didn't actually show him anything but leg. When they were at her ankles she sat on the seat back, pulled them off, and tossed them carelessly on the hood of the car.

"Damn girl," Ryan breathed, watching her with hungry eyes. "Have you always been this hot?"

She laughed and spread her legs, the dress drooping between them to cover her nudity. "Baby, you ain't seen nothing yet. But I bet you want to."

He looked up at her with a smile that showed so many teeth that he might as well have been a shark. "Show me."

He saw her shiver in delight at his tone. He hadn't agreed with what she said and he hadn't suggested or asked or pleaded. He he had ordered, and he could tell that his mother had loved that. She nibbled her lower lip, took the hem of her dress in her hand, and slowly lifted it until it was above her waist. Her pussy was there, lips puffy with arousal, the slit in the middle so wet that it gleamed. "Do you like it?"

Ryan shifted, leaned over, put his head close, studied her vagina with an enthralled expression on his face. He reached toward her and she didn't pull away when he put his fingers on it and stroked the length, gathering her moisture on his fingertips. He lifted his eyes to hers and they locked together as he raised his fingers to his lips and slipped the tips into his mouth.

"Do I taste good, baby?" she asked, a hungry grin quirking the corner of her mouth.

"You taste just like I dreamed. You look just like I dreamed. You're my perfect woman."

"And you're not fair," she mock-pouted. "You get to taste me, but what do I get?"

His reply was simple: he sat back in his seat, undid his shorts, and pushed them down onto his thighs. His cock jumped up, erect, ready, demanding, and Jess didn't waste a second. With a cry of delight she threw herself across the jeep, grabbed it by the base, and held it steady as she took it into her mouth and then deeper into her throat, burying her nose against his pelvis in one smooth motion. They groaned simultaneously, almost the same sound of delight and satisfaction. As his hands settled on the back of her head his groan became the whispered name, "Seetsahm..."

Jessica stared at Ryan from across the jeep and he stared back, their expressions of shock and dismay identical. For a heartbeat all either could do was look -- and then with a pair of startled squeaks they began to move. Ryan grabbed at his shorts to pull them back up and cover himself but what his hands found made no sense: his clothes were up where they should be and firmly in place, not down around his thighs. His cock was hard, painfully so, but it was properly confined and hidden. Jessica almost jumped out to recover her panties from the hood of the vehicle but she froze when she saw they weren't there, and an instant later her hands flew up her dress to find them securely around her hips. Their gaze switched to each other's laps, then back to their own, then to each other's shocked, baffled, stricken faces.

"Did I just -- "

"Did you -- "

"And I took it off -- "

"And you were naked -- "

"And you were naked -- "

"And then I touched it -- "

"And you put it in your mouth!"

Jessica's pale complexion had gone a sort of ashy gray and her hand was over her mouth, but Ryan still understood her when she asked, in a tiny voice, "Was that real?"

"I don't know!" Ryan wailed. "It felt real! Did it feel real?"

Jess nodded jerkily. "I...I can still feel you in my mouth..."

Ryan gave an inarticulate roar and vaulted out of the jeep, waving at his face. "I can taste you! I can still taste you!"

For her part, Jess managed a squeaked, "Oh God," before she leaned out of the jeep and threw up her breakfast.

A moment later Ryan was grasping a thick fallen branch like a baseball bat and smacking the trunk of an inoffensive tree while shouting over and over again, "WHAT! THE! FUCK! WHAT! THE! FUCK!"

A few minutes after that they sat, Ryan on the ground with his back against the front passenger side wheel and his mother in the driver's seat, each nursing a bottle of Beloka. Neither had spoken for a bit, and it was Jess who broke the silence with a muttered, "I don't understand how that's possible. How could we have shared a hallucination?"

"Same way we share dreams," he said, looking down at the bloody spot on his hand that had been gashed by a sliver of wood during his recent rampage. "That fucking old dude did something to our fucking heads, the fucker."

"Don't swear, honey," she said in a motherly reflex, then winced at the inappropriateness of her own admonition. Who cared if he swore now? They had other things to worry about. "Did we...did we experience the same thing?"

"Do you really want to compare notes?"

"Oh...no. Maybe it's best we don't."

Another moment of silence that stretched. Ryan stared up at the deep blue tropical sky, while his mother looked resolutely up the road again. Finally Ryan said, "I need a bandage."

A bandage. That was something concrete and utterly nonsexual to focus on. She dug out the small first aid kit that was in every jeep and set about repairing her son, disinfecting his hand with alcohol wipes (he was too pissed off to wince at the sting) and bandaging it as securely as the rather awkward spot of the injury would allow. The mundanity of the task allowed both of them to ground themselves, and when it was done they climbed back in the jeep and resumed the drive without speaking.

They smelled the cookfires before they arrived, so they were prepared when it came into view around the last turn. The villagers, however, were not prepared for them, and when the first of them recognized Ryan and Jessica, a hue and cry went up and the people scattered, mothers grabbing children in a mad dash away from the jeep; as they pulled into the central area of the village and stopped, the last of the villagers was just disappearing into the brush.

"YEAH YOU BETTER RUN!" Ryan called after them, shaking his injured hand in a fist.

"YOU BETTER GET BACK HERE!" Jess contradicted him by standing in her seat and shouting after the fleeing forms. None of them returned, and after a moment she flounced dramatically back into her seat and began sounding the horn in an almost continuous blast.

A few seconds later, someone they recognized rounded the corner of one of the houses: the young man who spoke to them right before they left the village the other time they were here. He had a rather frightened expression and held his hands up in a gesture that might have meant Hey calm down or Dear Lord please don't kill me.

As soon as she spotted him, Jess stopped honking. "You!" she cried. "We need help!"

"And it's your fault!" Ryan added.

"We're having dreams!" Jess shouted. "And seeing things! And saying things! And maybe doing things!"

"No, yeah, no, yeah, I know what you're here for," he said in his thick Aussie accent. "Come in out of the sun and we'll have a chinwag."

Ryan and Jess exchanged looks -- they didn't trust this village's hospitality but they had little choice. They followed the man into the same building that they had waited in before the ceremony. He gestured at a table with four chairs around it, then went to a cupboard and returned with a half-empty bottle of Jack and three scratched glasses.

"Do you have anything cold?" Ryan asked.

"No electricity, mate. No worries though, whiskey is best served room temperature. Of course it's best when the room temperature is lower." He poured each of them considerable slug and sat down. "Anyway, I'd welcome you back but I think you might knock my bloody lights out if I did, so let's talk."

"What's your name?" Jess asked. "We didn't catch it last time."

"Oh, my real name's a bit of a mouthful," the man said. "Just call me Jake."

"You said you know why we're here," Ryan said; his tone was accusatory, but in his current mood he'd have sounded accusatory telling someone their baby was cute. "So what do we do?"

"OK, I want to help, I really do, but you have to understand that Adouwe's the shaman so your best answers will come from him. I'm just his apprentice and he's likely forgotten more about our magics than I'll ever know."