A Wicked Beginning (49 page)

He came upon a towering rock wall that spread out in every direction. Pivoting in a circle, he realized that he was surrounded by the wall. It encased him like a prison, making him feel claustrophobic. His breath started to come in quick, shallow bursts. He had to escape, had to get out of here. Revolving around and around he searched for a break in the wall.
Think, man, think. Small pool of safety…always with you…

Cam spied a narrow opening halfway up the stone surface. Using his rock climbing abilities, he found a hand hold, reached for purchase, and began his scrabble up the limestone. The silica specked mineral bit his skin as he climbed, while the opening seemed further away the higher he climbed. He moved with desperation, trying to get away from this suffocating environment. It was useless. The more he struggled and strained, the further away the opening appeared.

Midway up the wall, he paused and closed his eyes.
Small pool of safety…small pool of safety…always with you…
He allowed the joy he experienced in the physical world to overtake the panic. How many times had he hung from the side of a granite wall, at one with the elements, feeling completely safe and at home? He began to relax.
It’s cool, no big deal here. Just hanging on the wall…
There…that was better. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes. The opening was now just a few feet away. He pulled himself up to the edge of the opening, squeezed through, dropped to the other side…and found he was in exactly the same environment he had just escaped. Again, looming limestone walls pressed in on him in 360 degrees. Shit. This was some fucking mind maze. This was exactly what he felt as a child - that there was no escape from the madness in his life. Every attempt he made to change, to get out of that chaotic madness, resulted in more of the same. He even experienced that in his current life, with the dreamling, with Angela, and the constant changes in his life with the ka. As the walls closed in on him, despair filled his head. He closed his eyes, let his head fall into his hands, and allowed the feeling of desolation to engulf him. It filled his lungs and nose like a fluid, causing him to gasp for air like he was being drowned from the inside out.

Then he became aware that the tall channel in which he found himself was rapidly filling with water - real water. He sighed in relief. Water was good. He loved to be in water. He knew how to navigate through water, how to move through water with ease. Only thing was the rock walls were now pressed so tightly against him, he could not move his limbs.

Stark panic overcame him as the cold water seeped up over his chin, his mouth, his nose, and then his whole head. Holding his breath, he tried to position his feet against the limestone so that he could push his way free. He twisted and torqued against the wall, feeling his skin shred. Terror filled his brain as he realized this was it. This was how he was going to die – in the substance that had given him so much pleasure.
May as well roll with it,
he thought, remembering what Mano had said at the start of the dream.

He gave in, stopped struggling, and let go, ready to die.
Why bother struggling? Clearly he was trapped. Struggle was pointless; he may as well surrender. Death might not be so bad.
As he acknowledged this, the walls eased up, freeing his arms and legs. Without thinking, his body moved of its own survival-seeking accord, propelling him to the top of the fluid-filled chamber. He erupted to the surface, gasping and coughing like he had just been born.

Wriggling up over the edge, he gazed around at another familiar place. This one was a floor littered with drug paraphernalia and condoms…lots and lots of condoms. This place made his loins stir. And there, across the floor was a big bed. A woman was laying prone, completely nude, waiting for him, with her legs open wide. Filled with lust, he made his way across the room to the waiting arms of…Angela Myers.

His body was jacked full of desire. “Angela,” he breathed in a voice so thick he barely recognized it.

“I’ve been waiting for you, cowboy.”

“Here I am, baby.” He was now naked and stiff with arousal. “I want to plunge into you, baby, and make you scream.”

“I’m ready, cowboy. Show me what you’ve got.”

Cam crawled up on top of the bed and jammed his lust inside of Angela. Man, this felt good…to be inside of her felt like home. He pumped and stroked and pumped and stroked and pumped some more, rejoicing in her slick heat against his hard cock. His hips seemed to be moving in a cadence all of their own. “Yeah, baby…oh, yeah, baby.” He didn’t bother looking at her, didn’t bother trying to make her feel good. She’d feel whatever she felt, right? She could take care of herself. All that mattered was that he felt good, that he got his rocks off; that he came inside of her, outside of her, didn’t matter, right? This was his dream, after all. And man, it felt good. Pure, unadulterated lust, baby. Fuck, yeah.

He recalled discovering the pleasures of sticking his thing inside of a girl when he was young. It was what kids did, right? He remembered leaving home when he was a teen and getting lost in the world of drugs, smoking, drinking, and fucking. He had loved doing all of them. Loved to fuck. Loved to drink, loved to get high, loved to smoke…really loved to fuck. Did he already say that? Had let go of drugs when one of his friends overdosed, but the drinking, the smoking, the fucking…that was all part of his makeup, right? That was who he was, right? A lusty, pleasure-seeking guy…nothing wrong with that, was there?

He climaxed inside of Angela and collapsed on top of her sweaty, pillowy breasts. He wondered if he could smoke in his dream world so he pulled out of her and looked around for cigs. Then he stared at her like he had never seen her before. Maybe he never had. “Are you my manifestation?”

“No, Cam. I’m really here with you. You and I are not finished with one another.”

“Why not? I think I’m with someone else…” He couldn’t remember who, but knew he was with someone.

“You are, but you haven’t let go of me.”

Cam squinted and recalled Angela texting him and stalking him in his life on Earth. He remembered trying to get away from her to be with someone else, but he couldn’t remember who or why he had wanted to get away from Angela so bad. He’d had great orgasms with her, hadn’t he? She’d allowed him to satisfy his cravings and hadn’t minded when he hadn’t wanted to be with her as…you know, a boyfriend, right? She’d signed on for the friends with bennies plan, right?

As Cam tried to sort things out in his head, Angela assumed the form of a python – a huge, yellow mass of muscle. She wrapped around and around his body and began to squeeze. “I
want
you, Cam. I don’t care what I have to do to get you. You’re
mine
.”

“Wait a minute here, Ang.” Cam freed an arm and began to unwind himself from her constricting embrace.

“I’m not waiting for anything anymore, Cam. You’re mine. We had a ceremony, remember? You’re my husband, remember?”

The memory of being ensorcelled in the woods ruptured Cam’s head. Horror crept into his mind as he wrestled with Angela’s sinuous form convulsing all around him. “That was no ceremony. That was entanglement via witchcraft!”

“You let it happen,” Angela hissed. “You’re still attached to me via pleasure cords.”

Cam started yelling. “Stop it. Stop it. Let me go.” He torqued his leg and gave her a vicious kick.

“You stop it, Cam. You let go of me, you craven, pleasure-craving animal.”

She assumed her human form, gave him a wild-eyed look, licked her lips, and touched her breasts in that way that Cam loved. It made him hot when a woman touched her breasts like Ang was doing. Cam’s eyes glittered. “Yeah, baby… Push them together. Squeeze them. Yeah, like that.” That caused his cock to begin to harden again.

“You want me, don’t you, cowboy?” Angela’s hand moved down to her sex. “You just can’t let me go, can you?”

“You’re right. I can’t. I can’t let go of you. I love to fuck you, Ang, you’re the best. I love being inside of you, love fucking you.” Cam heard what just flew out of his mouth and was immediately disturbed. Was she right? Was he the one staying attached to her through lust? He had loved to sex her, loved to slake his thirst by pounding inside of her, against her, on top of her. But he let her go when Chérie advised him to, right? That had been his choice, right? Right? His choice. Right? Distressed and confused by what he was thinking, he pushed away from her and scrambled to the other side of the room.

With his back plastered against the dappled wall, awareness dawned in his mind like a sunrise. His lusty intentions weren’t all bad, now were they? Hadn’t his days of intoxication allowed him to get free of his fucked up childhood home until he could figure out a new plan? Hadn’t all his lust and cravings served some small purpose? And, really, wasn’t he the same lusty asshole with a little bit of evolution going for him? Because when it got down to it, he still loved to be physical with a woman, still thirsted, still craved sex. Only now he’d discovered a new element of caring that made sex even more satisfying. He couldn’t remember who he cared about, however. But maybe he should just quit the self-condemnation…you know, allow that everything he had done to this point had some purpose. He looked over at Angela who was glaring at him with seduction and hatred. “You’re pissed off at me, huh?”

She was now in a state of part snake, part human. “Yes,” she hissed. She began to slither off the bed in his direction.

“Hold up here, I’ve got something to say to you.”

“Not interested,” she hissed, wriggling towards him in relentless pursuit.

Cam bounded of the way. “Angela, I need to say something to you. Listen to me.”

“No.” She caught up to him and twined around his arm.

Cam peeled her off him, freaked at her appearance. She was a long, yellow python with the face and the long purplish-brown hair of Angela. Her eyes, however, were yellowish-green with a black slash slicing from top to bottom. Cam quivered from being regarded by her cold, yellow stare. “Hey…I never told you how much I enjoyed being with you.”

“Yes, you did.” She began encircling his legs. “That’s why I thought I meant something to you.”

He hopped up and down, shaking his arms wildly, freeing himself, and raced to the other side of the room. “Well, I never told you how good it felt to be inside of you.”

Angela shot after him. “Yes, you did.” She started slithering up his leg, bunched around his hips and began to bear down on his chest. “That’s why I thought you loved me.”

“I never said anything about love,” Cam protested. The cool, plastic feel of her scales gave him the creeps. It reminded him of the snake-skin leather belt his dad had used to “discipline” him. He pushed and wriggled against her. “You mistook my intentions.”

“You took advantage of me.”

“It was an opportunity.” Cam pried the smooth, scaly muscle off of his chest. “I took advantage of an opportunity, yes.”

“You took advantage of
me.”
Angela’s snake-like form quickly closed around his ankles and gave a sharp jerk, causing Cam to topple to the ground with a thud. “I’m a person, not just an opportunity.”

“Yes, you are, Ang. You’re a person, and I truly did take advantage of you to satisfy my desires.” He reached down and untangled his ankles, making quick, staccato movements with his feet to keep her from sinuating around him again. “I enjoyed you. I wanted you. I wanted to be with you and to have sex with you.”

“I wanted to make love to you.”

“I told you from the start, it wasn’t going to happen. You let yourself hear what you wanted to hear.”

“No, you manipulated me.”

Cam raced to the other side of the room. Angela swiftly undulated along, easily catching up to him. She began winding around his legs again.

Her face was freaking him out…a snake with a face…a face with a thin, flickering forked tongue and yellow-green eyes. He shuddered and began to salivate like he was going to vomit. Fighting his revulsion, Cam spoke with reason, trying to pluck her off of his knees. “No, Ang, I didn’t manipulate you. You didn’t listen to me. You are
not
my victim. You’re the victim of your own warped mind.”

Angela blinked her cold eyes at him. “What did you say?”

Cam continued to unwrap her tail from his legs. “I said you are
not
my victim. I made mistakes along the way, but we got together with consent.”

Angela paused, as if considering what he said. “I don’t think so, Cam.” She bound his calves even tighter.

“Jesus, Ang, you agreed to what we did.” Cam wrenched and pulled her muscular form from his thighs. “I didn’t make you have sex with me, any more than I made you learn how to cast spells.” He was starting to sweat from exertion, or at least that was how it seemed.

“Okay, but you allowed the spells to work on you.”

“Whatever, Ang, let’s just both let go here, okay? I made mistakes, you made mistakes. You’ll find someone else to…” he started to say stalk, but quickly bit the word back. “You’ll find someone else to love.”

“Not like you,” Angela wailed.

“No, not like me, but maybe better. Maybe you’ll find someone with whom to share a meaningful relationship, not just sex.”
After you get some help.
Cam yanked her off of him and vaulted backwards. He felt like a chimp in the jungle with all this bouncing around.