A Wicked Beginning (50 page)

Angela contemplated what he had just said, glaring at him with cold, reptilian eyes. Then she blinked in surprise like a great idea had formed. After a few moments, she assumed full python form again. Her head grasped her tail, and she started to suck. Cam watched, mesmerized. Making pleasurable moans and grunts, she sucked and sucked until her entire scaly yellow body was inside of her mouth. Then, with one last pull, she disappeared with a loud pop.

Cam sat in the silence, bewildered. Was she really gone? He thought about what had just occurred. He’d been pretty honest with her, honest with himself, and accepted things about himself that he’d tried to shove away. He really did love to have sex – a lot. But he was learning that he loved to make love even more. He realized he didn’t want to
do
sex as much as he wanted to
share
sex – like it was a communion of sorts.
It could be his new religion
, he thought with a smile. He’d never done the church thing much – couldn’t relate to a God who let his dad pummel his mom. But if he revered his partner, like he thought he was learning to do with someone, if he could use the act of sexual communion as an act of worship…what was the harm? Hell, wasn’t that a good thing? There was something a little bit empty about just jacking off. Not like he’d never do it again…when the need arose and there was no one around, well…sometimes you just had to take care of yourself, right?

And the recent smoking? That was just a strange, comforting fall-back on an old friend sort of thing…an old friend who, as wicked as he was, had distracted him out of a difficult circumstance. He’d let go of it by and by…for good this time.

But who was this person he loved to make love with? He knew it was someone really significant. He scrunched up his face in concentration. The face of Cheerio popped into his head. Chérie…his heart began to pound with love. And then…there she was.

“Hi, Cam…” She walked up to him with a saucy little bounce.

“Hey, babe…come here, and let me hold you.” A huge grin spread across his face. There wasn’t a thing about her that he didn’t adore. Well, except for Fabio, but he was learning how to deal. “God, I’ve missed you.” He pulled her close, savoring the scent and sensation of being close to her. His arousal was immediate. “I want to make love with you, babe. I want to be inside of you.”

He was suddenly naked, lying on the bed next to her bare body. Without foreplay or preamble, he slid inside of her, feeling her pull him up into her honeyed core. She immediately began to glow.

“Want to see what the universe looks like?” she teased.

Cam was filled with driving hunger and lust again, only this time there was that added bonus of caring that made his body sizzle. “Oh, yeah, babe. I want to see it with you.” He stroked her with need and passion, his heart ablaze with love. Yeah, this was way better than sex with Ang. “Come on, babe. Let’s go. Show me the universe.” His hips kept their rhythm, in and out and in and out, like he was still marking the cadence of a drum beat. Chérie was a wet, fiery channel, encircling his shaft with her entire being. Being inside of her, he knew he was adored…adored and accepted for who he was. “Take me in, babe; take me all the way up inside of you.” This level of acceptance, of loving and being loved was incredible. He wanted her to consume him, to reveal all the mysteries of the universe to him. In return, he wanted to give himself to her again and again and again. Oh, yeah, this was fucking hot. This was what healed him, being with the ka. This is what he lived for, what drove him to become a better man. Stroke, stroke, stroke…he looked into her glistening amber eyes, imagining that he was looking into the sun.
Better not burn my retinas,
he thought in a peculiar detached way.
Keep the eyes safe.
He averted his eyes. Stroke, stroke, stroke…he smoothed her silky red hair with his hand. Push, push, push…he started to suck on her lower lip when Chérie started to dissolve. “Stay with me, babe.” He focused hard, trying to will her to come back to him. Push, push, push…yeah, she was still there. Again, he leaned in for the kiss. Again, she began to dissolve. “Come on, babe, stay with me. Let’s do this. Let’s finish this off. Let’s ride this wave together.”

“I thought you wanted to see the universe. I’m going to take you there.”

Cam’s face contorted in fear when Chérie started to become not Chérie. She was wind, she was earth, and she was fire. She was billowing waves, pounding the shore; she was hurricanes, she was lightning. She became tornadoes and suffering, pleasure and pain, earthquakes, destruction, and discovery of new life. Now she was a horde of insects consuming a corn field, their rigid bodies like baked plastic; now she was the corn kernels, popping, snapping, and squirting sweet juices as they disappeared inside the insects’ ravenous mouths. She morphed into a herd of antelopes, being chased by a predator and out of their minds with fear; and then became a cheetah taking down one of the herd with a leap and a lunge, its pointed teeth closing over the soft neck until Cam could feel the skin give way to muscle, connective tissue and bone, lifeblood spurting into the cheetah’s mouth and fueling its hunger. Now she was a baby being born, covered with blood and creamy white vernix; now she was the process of war, with broken bodies all around. She was the sea, she was the sky. She was stillness, she was madness. She was serenity, she was insanity.

The images were flipping so fast in front of Cam’s face that he became dizzy and confused. His mind was beginning to fracture; fissures were forming at the edges of his skull making cohesive thought impossible. Nothing was making sense. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the images reeled inside of his mind, faster and faster and faster. Still, he continued to stroke and push, that rhythmical drum-beat of movement pushing into…into what, exactly? Now Chérie became shooting stars, exploding gasses and comets hurtling through light years of time and space. She became planets forming and disappearing. She became galaxies exploding into existence and folding in on themselves. Cam struggled to stay with it, struggled to comprehend, but the only thing he could cling to, the only shred of sanity he could find that made sense was the chaos and drama he’d grown up with. That was something that he
knew
and could count on as a constant. Chaos and drama…wasn’t that one of the things about Chérie that appealed to him? The constant change, the never knowing what was going to happen next? Couldn’t he just embrace this state of relentless transformation and quit trying to shove it into categories that made sense?

His mind started to spin out as the speed of the images flashing by increased even more. Still, he was pushing and pulling, pushing and pulling, inside and out, inside and out. Fuck, yeah, this was hot. This was beyond hot. The physicality of the moment coupled with the speeding movie clips inside his head made him start to feel completely insane. His mind was beginning to warp and blur, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to make it. His sense of ‘who he was’ seemed fragmented beyond repair; split cells and broken images and anarchy swirling all around. Might just blow to bits here, but what the fuck? He threw back his head and erupted in a wild laugh that was tinged with madness. Didn’t Mano say this was the Path of Revelation and What the Fuck? Jesus, what a ride!

His heart began to race like he was on speed, and he was sure it was going to shatter any minute now. A roaring sound filled his ears and he thought he was going to implode. He began to pant like a dog circling a burning building, and his eyes rolled back inside the sockets of his skull. But still he pushed and stroked and pushed in a maddening, insistent rhythm. Words and sentences streamed from his head, but he didn’t know who was making them.
Fuck yeah…let’s go…let’s do this…come on, babe, show me Heaven and beyond.

Then he experienced a huge collision of cosmic shapes and forms ending with a climactic convulsing discharge of life energy inside of Chérie…or at least he thought he did. In truth, he must’ve blacked out because his mind just vanished…gone. Dream over…he was dead now…somewhere, lying in a puddle of black nothingness.

He floated in this still place of non-existence for a long time…or at least that is how it seemed. But when he opened his eyes, he was still in the dreamscape, naked, on the bed, lying in a pool of his own semen with no one around. No Chérie anywhere. He had lost her, for good this time. He hadn’t been able to comprehend her as she truly was. His heart was filled with sorrow and reproach, imagining that he was the same dumb fuck asshole he had been as a teenager. There was no ‘man of integrity’ here…just a man with a weird, warped mind, now bent completely out of shape.

He started to sink into self-pity, chiding himself for his inability to take in her true form. And that’s when he heard a growl from just beyond the wall.
Here we go
. The star dreamling had found him. He hadn’t even gotten this part right. He was supposed to stalk the dreamling, not the other way around. With a sigh, he got up off the bed, wiped himself off with the edge of the bedspread, and prepared to meet this being that wanted him dead. Or at least that was all he could come up with as a reason for having been hunted for the last few weeks. A wave of fatigue rolled over him as he stepped towards the doorway.
May as well roll with this too,
he thought in weary surrender.
Let’s just get this over with
. His hand reached the cool metal doorknob, and a blast of cold wind blew in the opening as he stepped out into the wintery, frigid air.

Chapter 44 – Chérie

Kayden and I came crashing to Earth, breaking through the temple roof in an eruption of splinters and shattered Italian tiles. The bed cracked from the impact; the sturdy exotic hardwood legs unable to stop our impact and snapping like toothpicks. Picking myself up from the disarray, I doubled over and began to howl in frenzied grief. “It didn’t work, it didn’t work, it didn’t work!” I screamed. “I gave him energy, but it didn’t work. What is going
on,
Kayden? Please tell me!”

A storm of sound greeted our ears as we heard a thunk, thunk, thunk against the roof. The hole in the roof was circled with the sinister faces of the ta-ak’tiyani. Others must be hurtling their evil little bodies against the tile, trying to gain access.

“You don’t know that it didn’t work, chère.” Kayden peered up at the creatures and frowned. “The protective shield of the temple won’t hold for long if you insist on crying, mon amour.” He plucked off bedding, pillows, and sheets, and made his way over to where I stood. “In fact, I’m surprised they got this far. This is a genuine problem.” He gracefully shook bits of wood out of his long, silky black hair. “I’m sorry, chère, I can’t tell you what’s going on; we can’t interfere.” He smoothed his shirt, brushed off his pants and waited patiently for me to stop howling. “I can’t even gain access to where he is right now.” His face was lined with concern and grief, something that seldom occurred. My Man of Mysteries usually seemed to know all…except for now, when I really needed him to know. Grasping my hand, he pulled me away from the debris. “Come, chère, let’s find a safer place in which you can find comfort.”

“The only place I can find comfort is with Cam,” I yelped.

Kayden’s face blanched at that. “Surely you don’t mean that, chère. I am your heart.”

“You are only half my heart,” I sobbed. “The other half is inside of Cam.” I was completely hysterical with heartache and didn’t stop to think what I was saying.

Kayden became silent for a few minutes. “Shall I leave you then? Give you time to grieve?”

“I don’t care what you do, Kayden, I only want Cam.”

Kayden’s face fell, becoming a cold and impassive mask. He gave me one sharp, frost-filled look and swiftly strode out the door.

Suddenly, I felt very alone. I stopped crying and realized what I had done. My words had detonated like a bomb, carving a canyon between Kayden and me. I ran to the hallway and looked right and left. “Kayden!” I screamed. “Kayden!” I called. He was not to be found. I could not feel him, could not hear him, and could not sense him. The galaxy was an immense landscape – he could be anywhere. Inside and outside my head there was only silence.

“What have I done?” I wailed. “Now I have no one!” I ran back into the bedroom and collapsed onto the floor, serenaded by the thwacking sound of thousands of ta-ak’tiyani battering against the roof. A ring of red eyes still peered around the perimeter of the hole in the ceiling, staring at me. Drops of saliva spattered on the clear shield, dripping from their eager, hungry mouths. I didn’t care. Without Cam, I could not enjoy my life as a human. Without Kayden, I could not exist. The two beings were essential to me, essential to my well-being. Who was I without them? I was no one. I slipped deeper into depression and despair, as a bitter cold blanket of grief smothered me. This was the end. I did not care whether I lived or died. Turning my attention to the hole in the roof, I began to push at the shield with steady persistence, willing a breach to form, pleading with the ta-ak’tiyani to have their way with me for once and for all.

Chapter 45 – Cam

Cam stepped out into the most frigid, harsh environment he’d ever encountered. Thinking he’d just change his mind and go back into the warm room, he turned to find the doorway. It was no longer there. The wicked growls of the dreamling came from every direction, ricocheting and echoing like he was in a canyon, but he could not see a thing. There was nothing but arctic white ice in every direction. And here he stood, completely naked, freezing his ass off. He shivered, blew into his hands, and jumped up and down in an effort to stay warm.