All in the Cards
by
Thea Hutcheson
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Lilac Moon Books on Smashwords
All in the Cards
Copyright (c) 2001 Thea Hutcheson
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All in the Cards
Q of Rods
Nine of Swords
Three of Cups
Knight of Pentacles
The Hanged Man
Ten of Pentacles
The Moon
Six of Cups Reversed
Seven of Cups Reversed
King of Pentacles
9 of Pentacles Reversed
I laid the Tarot cards out for myself the night before I left. Me, the Queen of Rods, covered by the Nine of Swords, crossed by the Three of Cups, and the foundation of the matter, the Knight of Pentacles and what he brought me.
I would see him tomorrow night, Daniel, my warmly earthy Knight, opener of secret doors, sly sayer of unspeakable eroticisms, lost until now, the moment of my success, symbolized by the card with those three sisters holding the cups brimming with sweet rewards. Daniel would cover me then with that same Nine of Swords and it would be nearly over. I would go home, and, upon my return, maim the font of all my art -- Rain Woman.
I owed Daniel my acquaintance with her and I swore she would be a gift, the least I could give to one who gave me the first taste of my own sexuality. It was fitting that he should get, not the last of his gift to me, no, not that, not yet, but the best of what has come of the journey he set me on.
It seems to me that many people, certainly women, for I have spoken of it with them, make love by going through the motions, from behind a curtain, never really connected to their lovers, much less themselves. I was lucky to meet Daniel.
He called me the harlot, but it was he who played who played the sacred teacher, teasing me out from behind the curtain, slowly and slyly, setting me on the road to pleasure that I learned to seek for myself later, in his absence.
"Sybyl, do you like this?" Daniel would say as he stroked my breast, twisting the nipple hard with long, slender fingers. "Yes, Daniel, please do it again," I would murmur, emboldened after those months to ask to have it for myself. Daniel would draw back, all innocence.
"Do what, Sybyl?"
I smiled as I followed the soft curves of his face, met his richly brown eyes, so innocent, and yet, I knew how wicked he could be. I dropped my gaze to his body. He was tall, lean, and tight with an energy that made me vibrate in most pleasant ways.
"Pinch my nipple, Daniel, please." I always blushed furiously; I'm told I still do when I ask for my pleasure. He obliged and then smiled to see my reaction.
"How hard?" he asked again, as I gasped and wriggled, offering the nipple, the breast, whatever he might deign to touch next.
He would twist the little nub so lightly, I could barely feel it. Asking, "Like this?" he looked down on me, smiling gently.
"No, harder," I would finally say, looking up at his wickedly boyish face. And I would repeat it until I couldn't bear the pain any more. And he would caress it then, tenderly, so that the sharpness blossomed warmly in my clit.
With time he induced me to say the most outrageous things. "Give me all four fingers in my pussy and your thumb up my ass, please," I would plead, or, "Spank me right on the apple of my ass until I squirm to get away and then hold me really tight so I can't."
Daniel showed me where, at the place where my female relatives said came only onerous duty and the fruits of it, I could find a pleasure they had never told me about. Imagine my delight and then my hunger for it.
He came to me one day in the shed where I worked. "I have to leave," he said.
I turned to face him. He met my eyes steadily. "I have to be home in three weeks."
I took a breath. There'd been no formal acknowledgment; he'd made it clear there was nothing but pleasant time spent between us. "Given my druthers, I'd rather you stayed," I said, meeting his eyes cleanly, begging him to see my heart with the same keen vision that saw body, my pleasure.
I thought about offering to move, but I'd only begun to build anything and my life was here for better or worse. He never asked so it didn't matter.
"It has nothing to do with you, Sybyl," he only said. "It's not my choice." I took that for solace and got what I could; storing memories like sense-surround stills or clips to savor in the desolate weeks ahead with my finger on my cunt and my heart on a block.
Finally, deciding that if was he capable of seeing me in such detail, there would be others and I would have that if I couldn't have the rest. I found many people -- some sly, some stern, some warm, most good -- and every one willing to convince me to ask for more outrageous things than I dreamt with Daniel.
Had he been leading me to ask, "Yes, sir, won't you flog me some more with the moosehide; yes, please, three more blows with the cane."
I thought about The Hanged Man, 12 of Trumps, behind me in the reading on the table. He stands for Everyman on his journey, and it was under his aegis I moved to the next level of my journey on the way to becoming.
I gave myself over to a couple willing to guide me, Master always preparing me, and Mistress putting me to it. Master pushed me to edges and kept me there until he saw better to push me over. Mistress was a delightful hermaphroditic Hermes -- earthy, playful, laughing.
It was they who took me through the door to Rain Woman. My ass and thighs were crimson from Master's work when she laid me on my back and turned on her side so the front of her thighs pressed against my burning flesh. One tiny thrust and her dick would slip in.
"Play with yourself, Sybyl."
I lifted the near leg, placed my finger on the button, and she began to insinuate her dick into me. She punctuated her slow strokes with pinches on my nipples and feather light caresses on those tender, hungry pegs.
The pleasure was golden and I was on a familiar journey. The destination would loom larger like light in a tunnel until I was swallowed by that brightness. But it changed, like a motor downshifting, and I felt a heaviness at my center pulling at me. Mistress sensed the change and drove deeper. Something loosened and I moaned, rising up from my center even as I descended into it.
My finger skated over and over my clit, which stood up bravely to accept the impossible friction. I surrendered and a tide rose from that center, up out of my cunt and across my thighs. The bottom dropped out and I was washed away in a powerful orgasm that spewed out come between my thighs, over mistress' thighs and soaked the bed. I followed the diminishing waves, going down to an oblivion that lasted some hours.
She coddled me afterward and called me her pretty Rain Woman. It became an eagerly anticipated ritual, the invocation of some holy goddess; he, the high priest preparing the way, and she, the harlot who opened the gates of Rain Woman.
Between that play and my apprenticeship to a studio, the months turned to years, and one late afternoon, as I hosted a celebration, the phone rang.
"Sybyl, how are you?"
The air was thin suddenly, my heart beat loudly, and my sex flushed with the warmth at the familiar rumble of his voice.
"Sybyl, are you there?"
"Yes, I'm here, Daniel. What are you doing?"
"I was thinking about you and thought I would find out what you were doing." I knew he would want to hear about Mistress' small hot breasts against mine and the feeling of her sharp little tongue as it probed my lips, my nipples, the hard little button my clit became when she breathed on it.
"I'd love to tell you all about it, but I am having a party."
"Dear Sybyl," he said with a quirk of surprise. "I shall have to call again, tomorrow, after lunch to find out. Is that all right?"
"Yes, please," I said.
"Sybyl," he said when I picked up the phone the next day, "was it a good party?"
"Yes," I said, "it was Summer Solstice and I was the offering." I stretched, feeling tightness across the cane marks.
"So, tell me what you've been doing, is it naughty?"
"Yes, Daniel, very naughty."
And so he learned of Rain Woman.
"I must say, Sybyl, I wish I'd seen it, most sincerely. And the woman, the one who fucked you, did you love her?"
I stopped for a moment. I had not thought of it before. "No, she wasn't the one."
"And the man, did you love him?"
"No," I said. "He doesn't care about love. It's all about what he sees." I hesitated, remembering those nights spent with my finger on the button while I reran memories of Daniel. "What do you want?"
"To find out how you are, what you've been doing."
"It hurts," I said in a rush, before I could change my mind. "Every time because it isn't you. If it was, you'd be doing it now, every bit of it, instead of jerking off over the phone."
There was silence. I wished I could take those words back but what he wanted hurt in a horribly painful way that was nothing like my play.
"I have no answer for you."
"Then I have to go, because I can't bear to do this." There. I couldn't take it back. "I never wanted this and now you ask me to parade the results for you."
There was a long pause. "Okay."
"The real thing is different."
"The real thing is different," he agreed.
It was goodbye then. The world turned and my art achieved some recognition. My womb, never fruitful, now grew tumors the way I had hoped for children. I began to feel afraid as, blackly fecund, they threatened me and I considered the tiny window I would have to clamber through and still hope to preserve my skin from a bloody cut, neither playful nor a harbinger of pleasure.
I fretted over ideas for new work, the idea of losing the creative pot, and the idea preyed on me until I produced in a wild frenzy and destroyed it all just as quickly.
The trip was paid for by the city fathers who commissioned the work. This piece, to grace their new library, had been my last joyful act of creation. The young girl has read a number of different books and they sit to her right. She is reaching for a new one from the undiscovered left as she stares off into space winsomely, contemplating where she has just been or where she'll go next.
I have worked hard and I try to balance the success Ten of Pentacles has brought against the joy of the art I have whelped instead of babies. I found Daniel's phone number, stared at it for a long time and wondered if I dared and how I could not dare. I left a message while I had coffee and went about my day. He called as I was getting ready for bed.
"Sybyl, you're coming to my fair city?
"Yes, but only for a weekend."
We made small talk after I gave him the details of my arrival and some of my hopes for the evening thrown in for good measure.
He replied that he would arrive shortly before the presentation and, although he needed to leave town the next day for business, he enjoyed my hopes for the evening.
The night before I left I studied the reading. My success was marred only by what I feared -- the Six of Cups reversed, transition, the loss of my fertility, the source of my creativity. .
But The Moon, 18 of Trumps, lay before me, waiting to show me the true sight. It was the answer to my fear but I didn't see it. I searched the card and its winding path from the sacred pool for a clue where it went and how I would find my way.
The next morning I got on the plane. When I arrived, a car waited for me and I was taken to the hotel, where I had a shower, changed for the evening, and dressed my hair in an elaborate bun that set off my simple dusky rose silk sheath and jacket.
I went down to the lobby and the chauffeur retrieved me, driving me to the dinner. I walked past the draped sculpture on the plaza of the library. It would be unveiled after the dinner. I was greeted warmly by the city fathers and introduced to other civic supporters.
I had a glass of wine when I was seated for dinner. The speeches began after dinner. There were thanks given for funds raised, for the monument, for the child's beauty and dreamily pleased expression. I was raised up and toasted. It felt like a great warm swath of silk and I reveled in it, turning, hoping for a glance of Daniel but it was dark in the hall.
Afterward we all trooped out to see the piece unveiled. I know most had seen it before, but their sighs as they saw her sweet face made a joyful blush on my face, my heart.
That was when I saw him, the familiar figure, the same height, slim body, same wicked smile as we made eye contact. Daniel was little gray about the temples now and still dressed impeccably. I nodded and he nodded back. Finally, the well-wishers thinned and he made his way over.
"You look good, Sybyl," he said, when he let me out of the hug.
"Let me make my goodbyes and I'll be ready."
He nodded. I went the round, offered thanks, accepted them once more, made a few promises to call, and tucked away business cards. Finally, I called the driver, who met us at the front door. "To my hotel?" I asked.
He nodded. We made pleasant conversation, caught memories and news by turns. When we got to the hotel, he offered a drink and I accepted. We continued to make small talk and he asked about the clubs, the community.
I knew then he wasn't involved but was intrigued to see his modest Sybyl intimately familiar with the tender caress, the sharp taste of pain, and the complicity. It spoke to him, I recognized the lift of his chin just so, the way his eyes refocused from the unexpected discovery of an untapped depth.
I looked at my watch. "Please. If you want me, please, don't waste any more time."
He nodded, laid money on the table, and rose. I followed. We made our way to the elevator. We entered my room and I sat on the bed. He got a glass of water, lit a cigarette and sat in the chair. He looked at me for a time as he smoked.
"Stand up and let me see what your life has done to you."
I stood, posing for him.
"Take off your jacket." I complied, laying it on the bed.
"Let me see."
I turned for him. The silk of the sheath whispered against me. He put the half smoked cigarette out in the glass of water. "The weight has done you good. Your ass has filled out nicely."
"Thank you, sir."
"Now remove it."
I smiled. The reading on the table the night before had shown what I wanted, the Knight become the King of Pentacles, matured by time, broadened by experience. I was as eager to see what the years had made of Daniel as I wanted him to see what they had done for me.
I unzipped the zipper and the silk whispered down my skin softly. I stepped as it pooled about my feet and lifted it to lay with the jacket. I stood in a cream lace g-string. He stared for a long time, cataloging the small Ouroboros snake tattooed on the front of my right hip, the small marks from years of pleasure discovered. He nodded.
"Your breasts are larger. Turn again." I turned and arched to show off the rounded cheeks of my ass as they rode the swell of my hips. Did he see the apples and their sweet spots?
"Sybyl, I was mistaken. Your ass is magnificent."
I inhaled deeply and enjoyed the blush.
"Climb on the bed; you remember how." I climbed on and knelt, doggy-style.
"Yes, a beautiful line. Turn now 90 degrees."
A sharp dart of heat ran through my solar plexus as I turned to expose my sex to him. "Nice, very nice."
I smiled as my king took my measure and found it pleasing. He stepped in beside me and I felt the soft touch of his hand on my flesh. I moaned and lifted against his hand.
"Ah, Sybyl, little slut," he said, his hand perched lazily on the cusp of my right cheek.
I wondered if he would strike then, but he merely leaned over and ran his hand up my flank to cup my breast. His hands were hot and gentle as he traced the now unfamiliar line of my breast and twirled long, slim fingers around my familiar nipple.
Groaning I arched my back to offer him what he had wrought, what I had learned on the path he set me. It was then he stepped back and, in a fluid movement, struck the apples five good blows. I sucked wind at the unexpectedness and again at the precision of the resulting warmth arrowing from that hot flesh to my clit.
He brushed my flesh then and I groaned. My pussy opened for him and he lightly stroked the edges of my lips while I lowered my head so he could have the whole of it. He slipped a finger in and I held my breath as he explored that wetness.
"Eager as ever, Sybyl."
"I've waited a long time for this."
"What do you want?"
"I want you to have me however you like. Beat me, Daniel, fuck me, however you'll have me and as often, use me. Whatever you want."
"But what do you want?"
I stared at him. Didn't I say it? But no, he wanted to me to ask for it greedily like a little slut, not offer it like a priestess at the altar.
"Please, step in again like that, with your arm over my back, around my ass. Torture my tits. Pinch them, knead them, suckle them like a hungry babe. That's what I want you to do, Daniel." It wasn't really, but this would be all I would get.
He laughed as he bent to do my bidding. His skin was hot on mine and I could barely feel him stroke my skin. His mouth was the merest whisper as it took my nipple into his mouth. I heard his breath rise in pleasure and then drop to a moan as he sat on the bed and pulled me onto his lap, where he cuddled me as he suckled first one tight nipple, then the other greedily.
The heavy wool of his pants pressed on my thighs as he held me. I squirmed to enjoy that touch and he laughed against my nipple. "Still the sensualist, craving any touch to stimulate you?"
"Yes, sir," I whispered. "Stimulate me so that Rain Woman comes."
"Not yet, harlot. I have mine to enjoy before that." He held me, staring into my eyes and lightly stroking the knife scars on my flank. It was maddening for one used to a harsher touch. But I realized he explored that landscape, not seeking to put his own mark on it.
"Did it hurt?"
"Oh, yes, sir, more than I thought."
His smiled bloomed. "But not as much as you'd take. Shameless harlot for pleasure."
"Yes, sir, I am."
He laughed and pinched a nipple. I gasped as he rolled me off of him, face down on the bed. He said softly as he sought the cleft between my thighs, "You go to this club and submit in the open, in front of others?"
"Yes, sir, the dungeon is an open room, but there are private rooms."
"I would always want you displayed, so that everyone can see how beautiful you are in the travail of your pleasure."
I kissed his thigh where it lay close to me. He responded by stroking the old marks on my back. "What are these from?"
I thought. "A rubber flogger when I first began to play. A good reminder of the necessity of negotiations."
"Yet, you didn't ask to negotiate with me."
"No, but there has never been anything to negotiate between us, has there?" He drew breath and I thought him angry. When he began it was tentative, unlike a spanking from one of my usual partners. He was gauging the effect and I showed him, moaning, offering up that flesh for his pleasure and mine, telling him I wanted more, there and there.
He stroked the reddening skin. I held my breath, the better to own that sensation. My pussy became liquid and I spread my legs so that could he see. I whispered my thanks as those long fingers investigated that gap, entering into the wet darkness of my cunt.
"Ah," he said as he manipulated me. I lifted my hips to give him better access.
"What do you want?"
"I want your weight on me as you drive that dick into my cunt and impale me on it."
"Already? You don't want to wait?"
"No, I told you, I don't want to waste time."
"Well, then. He stood up, his zipper slid down and I heard rustling as he removed his pants. He knelt between my legs and I spread them as he lowered himself onto me. The years faded away and I lifted myself to hurry him. He laughed and slapped my thigh.
"Eager harlot. Wait for me." I laughed and he pressed the head of that fat dick against me. His thighs rubbed against the red flesh of my ass and I sighed. He lay against me and that thick shaft slid into me and seated itself. "Ah," we both said. He moved slightly.
"Are you comfortable?"
His weight, long absent, was instantly familiar and I was assailed by hundred memories of other shared intimacies, his touch, his warm breath whispering filthy words, his cologne. His elbows were pressed close against me and I relaxed into that tight embrace.
Slowly, so slowly now he built heat between us. "What do you want?" Nothing had changed, nothing would ever change. I knew that now. There was only this moment and the one to come after.
"To give you the gift of Rain Woman so that you will know the whole of what I am before I lose my womb." I paused, realizing how near it was.
Daniel rolled over and took me with him. I was secure in his arms and ready when he asked, "And what will you do then?"
"I don't know. How shall I live without my center?"
"You take what you can with you, move through it and find a path and do what you must to keep moving down it, because that's all you can do."
"Is that what you did when you left?"
He paused and his voice was tight when he spoke. "It's what you did. It's what your sculpture does. Look at where you've got to." I said nothing but contemplated his words.
He patted me on the shoulder. "Then show me," he said, because that was what we had.
I shifted so that I lay on my back, thighs over his, ass pressed to him. I pulled against his hip and that slick, hard dick found the mouth of my cunt. My ass and legs brushed the tops of thighs as he seated himself and began to fuck me. "You'll jerk off for me?"
"Oh, yes, with pleasure, Daniel." I slid into the slick wetness and a spark of fire ran across my whole body.
"Spank the back of my thigh, please," I said.
He laid a soft hand on it and I groaned in anticipation. He paused and lifted his hand. It came down with a sharp smack and the warmth it delivered made my pussy leap. Daniel began fucking hard, long strokes that knocked on the door of my cervix, begging to come in. I lifted my legs higher and tried to press myself closer to him. He smacked the back of my thigh again and my finger drove against my clit, back and forth in heated swirls and flourishes.
Daniel continued to beat at my cervix and I connected to his rhythm. When he changed again I realized that he would not enter that tight door. Every stroke of his dick felt like velvet and I was entranced, greedy for the next. My clit was a hard little nub, standing up bravely, eagerly for each touch of my finger on its head.
My hips dropped open further and I knew Rain Woman approached. I groaned and Daniel felt the difference.
"Hot little harlot, eager little slut. Show me, take me there." He slapped my thigh again and I whimpered because his cock was smooth as cream, hard as I needed. I could only I yield and the bottom fell out then and she rose majestically, the gates opened, and Rain Woman came. Daniel fought the instinct to leap away as that hot gush covered our thighs and the bed beneath.
"Sybyl, Sybyl, fountain of pleasure, I had no idea when you described it." He rolled me over on my stomach and mounted when it abated. I tried to rise up to him, but he would only permit my hips to lift enough to admit him. He moved carefully like he was on ice. He came soon, lifting me up to take the whole of him, impaled as I had asked. I held his arm tightly and pressed my ass to his hips until my back ached.
Later we slept and I woke first, and, seeing him in the gray dawn, remembered the rest of the reading on my table at home. The influences standing between what I wanted and what I feared were the Seven of Cups Reversed. The card, its seven cups holding wonder and mystery, the unknown, called for me to reach for, follow any light I saw.
The outcome was the Nine of Pentacles Reversed. The opulent lady, rich in knowledge and resources, had answered that call, finally opening the door to her courtyard, stepping out from her cloister.
What could I hope to see as I stepped toward the unknown? What glimmer would lead me? That made me remember what Daniel had said about moving through the center and looking until you found the path and then moving down it. What was I supposed to see in the advice Daniel had given me, what did that girl in my work know that I did not, and what made the lady in the Nine of Pentacles see throw open the door?
I pictured The Moon card with its sacred pool, the path leading from and ending with it. How did the crab at the edge of the pool rise up and set foot on the journey, threading a path between the dog and the wolf, the two towers?
If my source was that pool, then what was at the opposite edge, outside the card? What did the Nine of Pentacles know that moved her to open the door on her cloister?
How, from where would I bring forth art? And in that moment I realized my womb was only my expression for that sacred pool, the creative source from which I pulled my art like children.
I had never looked to see the mill, which sat on the hidden near bank of that pool, fed by the fast flow of experience, continually grinding the pieces of my life into the tiny tidbits that become the meaning and substance of my work. So I would not bring forth children, but I would continue to bring forth art.
Daniel woke and looked me. It was almost over, one journey finished so another may begin. "Thank you," I said, smiling at him.
"Thank you," he said, brushing hair from my cheek. "I had always hoped for more, Sybyl. I wanted more. I would have had more if I could have." His eyes held mine steadily.
So he gave more than he had before. "And I would have given it," I said taking his hand in mine.
"I know, harlot." He took his hand from mine and I saw his eyes. But I smiled because my King of Pentacles and I were crossed by the Three of Cups and we had only been graced by two of those sweet and brimming cups so far. I would go home, find the path from the mill beside my creative pool and, when the time came, show that new vista to Daniel.