Get REAL Ch. 06: Reversal

Cassandra Jean Capra closed her eyes as they became airborne, giving up on further attempts to delete the image that had become like a broken screensaver in her mind. That horse, painted some 15,000 years ago on the wall of the cave, grazed before her as big as life. She was on the final leg of her trip back home, landing at MSP in just under three hours. By then, viewing familiar surroundings would undoubtedly replace that stuck picture.

She had accomplished many things on her trip to Spain and France to study the ancient cave paintings of Altamira and Lascaux. Her sketchbooks were packed with boar and aurochs. Ideas for new tiles, for groupings and unique arrangements, for new color schemes, were as active as peepers on a spring evening. She would begin work tomorrow or the next day--or as soon as the jet lag had left her.

Artistically, she was set. But in the month that she had been gone, away from the demands of life as usual, she hadn't been able to find a way out of her love labyrinth.

Once upon a time, their trio had been like a meandering waterway. How the confluence of creeks and streams made this surge into a river of passion was almost too unbelievable to imagine. Yet she found herself, once more, tracing the tributaries back nine months to her first meeting of Marcos as model in her drawing group. Dinners together and dance lessons followed. His model-pair idea introduced Tara into their company for a modeling rehearsal at her house, which quickly led to them all tumbling onto her futon together. Once that levee had been breached, their affection crested to newer heights. However, the effect of its floodwaters on Marcos--and on her--had been unexpected. Although she had promised herself to enjoy the company of a married man only as part of a ménage, she had violated her resolve that one evening, and they had enjoyed such an ecstatic experience together that Marcos had pledged to give up, for her, his twenty-year marriage with Maria.

She had promised to consider seriously his proposal while gone, and contact him on her return. And to that end, she had been faithful. During the day, as she studied the cave imagery, she had searched for a sign among the herd of ibexes. She had listened to the whisper of the spring breezes, winding their ways down the tunnels and caverns. And, upon re-emerging, she had begged the sun for a reassuring touch. But alas, nothing was helping her to know what to do.

At night her loneliness had made her crave the closeness of human contact, with Marcos and Tara, again. And yet she knew that she couldn't have this threesome any longer. Marcos, in essence, had told her so. And she had agreed. It seemed clear.

"Eventually the tensions in three would be our undoing," she said aloud, then opened her eyes to see if the woman next to her had heard. Thankfully, not.

That relentless image. The black and red oxide stained limestone--the horse in Lascaux. The mane. The hoofs, back, and tail.

The tail! That was it. The sign she had been looking for.

Eureka, I've found it! Cassie announced, this time to herself. Oh I can't wait to tell Umber and Sienna.

And the Lascaux stallion began to pixilate away.

Against his better judgment, Marcos refilled Maria's wine glass. He knew from innumerable past experiences that she drank to treat her anxiety, and often, he thought, to excess. It made her withdraw from him emotionally; and then he, from her.

If it is said that a mother is only as happy as her least happy child, the same could be applied to being joyful or passionate. With their younger daughter's college problems, Maria took the dark-cloud view. But even though he and Maria talked about their children at great length, it didn't do anything to check her worries, only to stifle her joy--and her libido.

Marcos used this occasion to bolster his resolve to leave his wife. After all, how long could he endure her needless worry? Her pervasive melancholia. He was just looking for the right time to bring up the subject. He reassured himself against those pestering doubts. She was attractive, a great ICU nurse manager, and was around a lot of other magnetic professionals. She could easily find another partner, and one who might do a better job of being able to love just one person--unlike he, who, since they were married, needed the relationship of another lover as a "spiritual wife" to sustain him.

She might actually be relieved. He was, he admitted, a hard man to live with.

The sudden realization made him perspire: Cassie would be returning home this evening and would no doubt call him. Therefore, he deliberated, he must act tonight.

"Uuuhh, that's it," he groaned. "You got the right spot!"

Tara smiled. Her hands, after eighteen years of doing massage, had become so sensitive to the little knots and spasms, that she could work miracles for the hobbled and lame, the hunched over and suffering souls who crowded into her tiny office. She put a squirt of lavender oil into her hand, spread it onto her other palm, warming it with the friction of rubbing, and returned to her client. As she leaned over to work on the CPA/softball pitcher, her chestnut ponytail swished in front of her. She flung it back over her shoulder.

Tall for a woman, she used her height advantageously to bring more force to bear on the lats of muscular men like this one. And although male clients might fantasize, during their session, about what she looked like under the tight patterned scrubs she wore to work, Tara found them sexually uninteresting. Women were her love. One woman, especially. And she had excitedly crossed off on her calendar the last day of that person's trip abroad. Today, she would be returning home.

Once the car had been unloaded, Cassie toured her garden--full of weeds now--made herself a meager meal, and opened her email to over 300 messages. She tried to keep herself up until at least 9:00 p.m., but found it impossible. "You can't re-set your biological clock with a little knob," she explained to Umber, who was happily purring on her pillow. A little jump followed, and Sienna joined them. They looked contented, she concluded. Marcos and Tara had taken good care of them, coming over every three days to resupply the food, freshen the water, clean the cat litter, and to bring in the mail--a big satchel of it, with several poems from Marcos mixed in.

She opened one of his envelopes and lay back on her pillow to read:

"Have you ever...?"

"Have you ever, at dusk of June,

with clouds blushing in dwindling light,

inhaled the smell of ripe strawberries

oozing juices, cored and sliced;

and wished some ladled over hillocks

drizzled onto a dimpled plain,

to meander along dense floral canyons,

to seep into your flaky main?

Imagined lips against a soaked edge;

incisors nibbling crumbling crust,

tongue's soft lapping soggy substance,

sucking, slurping with sumptuous lust?

Have you ever? Have you ever?"

"Not before now. Never; never."

She loved Marcos. More than she had loved any man. But he was married, married, married, and she couldn't, couldn't, couldn't be the one who broke up a twenty-year marriage. And yet he was probably the only man she felt could be her soul mate. If only he had come to her a score of years earlier.

Cassie dropped off into a deep, deep sleep. She awoke from a beautiful dream. An artist--very much like Renoir, only balding with a goatee like Marcos'--was painting her and several other bathers. Her companions were all naked, one draped a towel to reveal a breast, but to conceal her groin; a trio were among the rocks in various states of entry into the water; and she and another bather, who resembled Tara, posed with backs to the painter but heads turned in a coquettish way, smiling, yet gazing into each other's eyes.

For what must have been thirty minutes, she lay there, entranced by her reverie. It was 2:00 a.m. She must call Marcos tomorrow, she resolved, as painful as it would be. And Tara. That would be delightful. And she drifted off to sleep again.

Upon wakening at 4:00 a.m., and being unable to return to slumber, she arose and started her day. She sighed, "Tomorrow, I'll wake at five, the next day six, and in three more days, I'll be back on schedule." Umber and Sienna didn't budge.

Cassie floated through her morning routine, ate a breakfast, and methodically dealt with each of her emails, opened her letters, paid her bills, daydreamed of the time when she could start making art tiles--and dreaded her obligatory phone call to Marcos.

Just when she needed a mental break, one came with a wicker basket and a smile. Tara wafted in on the fragrance of lilacs from Cassie's front yard. Cassie shouted hello and ran to hug her.

"I brought you something from France," Cassie exclaimed, and ran to retrieve the boutique massage oil from Limoges. "I'd love to try this on you sometime," she added--blushing from her inexperience at massage or at the obvious implications.

"I brought you something, too. But first, I wanted to enjoy a picnic lunch with you on this sunny spring day," Tara declared intently.

Cassie recognized that "Tara look" from the times the three of them had been together: the hint of smile upturning the corners of her mouth, her penetrating green eyes, and those lashes that beat twice to punctuate her amorous intentions. She and Tara had never been alone together, and the anticipation of this time, after her revelation on the plane, made Cassie's heart both race and flutter.

Familiar with each other in all states of undress, they casually removed their clothing and sat on a blanket in the mid-morning sun. Cassie only wore a wide-brimmed hat to protect her already freckled face from more sunburning. As she launched into some of the funnier parts of her trip to Europe, Tara let her gaze linger over the shadows forming on her consort's neck, before marveling at her youthful-looking breasts, even after having nursed two children. For that matter, thought Tara, Cassie's abdomen was only slightly pudgy, her thighs had no cellulite, and her calves were toned. In the light, filtered by the newly leafed maple, Tara realized even more than before how much she loved this woman.

When the picnic basket was opened, Cassie gasped, "Strawberries!"

Tara had picked a quart of the delectable berries that morning, and cored and sliced them for ladling onto the lemon short cakes she had baked the previous night. Cassie found more than her mouth watering.

Marcos was in a state. He was sure that Cassie had come home last night, but why hadn't she contacted him? As he had been certain of the reason, he boldly initiated what she would have required: that he become unmarried. So last evening, he had told Maria that he wasn't sure he loved her anymore.

He couldn't get the picture of her reaction out of his brain. The drop of her jaw, lower lip quivering, eyelids bulging with tears, straining to contain them, not wanting them to spill over onto her cheeks and reveal her great despair.

Then the silence that followed.

The stare that went unabated.

"What are you telling me?" she had managed to whisper, her words catching in her throat.

"Perhaps it's time we go our separate ways," he had replied.

They had slept in separate beds last night, the first time ever that they had done so when they were both in their home. This morning she had gone to work--how she could have done this was impossible to imagine, given the way she looked after a night of no sleep. He had only managed three hours, awaking at 2:00 a.m. and lying there wondering if he had done the right thing.

"If you want a divorce, we can do this sensibly," she had stated this morning, with a confidence that had also amazed him. "We won't tell the girls until they've finished their semesters next week." He had agreed. They hugged briefly before she went out the door.

Marcos decided to drive to Cassie's at noon. Surprise her with some of his lilacs. She sometimes painted flowers. And his Anasazi pottery shards. They didn't contain any markings, but she would like their earthen colors. She had listened with fascination to his stories of Anasazi rock carvings in New Mexico on one of their first dinners together, and it would help them reconnect. He went outside to cut some flowers.

Tara got moist just seeing Cassie again, and grew even wetter as she watched Cassie talk, gesturing in her spectacular straw hat with ribbon and bow. But she became positively drenched when Cassie suggested that they spoon the strawberries all over each other as if they were the short cakes.

Tara oozed out loud, describing the rich scarlet rivers that rushed down Cassie's breasts, pooling in an umbilical lake. Another stream warmly flooded her vulva, soaking her grasses before trickling between her thighs. Tara's fingertips smoothed the residue up and down Cassie's abdomen, along her sternum, up her trachea to her chin, and she balanced a dripping sliver on Cassie's mouth. Bending forward, Tara kissed it, and, coaxing the pulp into Cassie's parted lips, they moved the succulence back and forth inside first one, then the other's mouth, giggling until it disintegrated into mush. Tara spooned several more servings onto Cassie's breasts, belly, and groin, then lay on top of her, the pair kissing deeply and tasting each other in the strawberries.

Cassie found herself responding to the squishing sounds, as their breasts compressed and mashed chunks of strawberries, sending fruity pulp sliding over and under and across their ribcages, accompanied by wonderful aromas. Tara's tongue licked along Cassie's jaw; she nibbled her chin, then rubbed a nearly whole berry held by her lips, all over Cassie's face, before pushing it into Cassie's mouth, and sealing the transfer with a deeply probing kiss.

Tara's thigh, pressed tightly into Cassie's groin, moved crimson slices against her soggy vulva in time with their kissing. Cassie gasped repeatedly. She moved her fingers along Tara's spine and ground a handful of strawberries against her lower back, dragging the mash down the tailbone and into her crevice. Using the pulp as liquefaction, she massaged it over Tara's buttocks and around her anal ring, and felt Tara's appreciation returned in the form of more thigh pressure against her mons.

"I want to taste you this time," exhaled Tara.

"Let's...have...each other," Cassie offered, in quick breaths, feeling her pleasure mount.

Tara shifted herself toward Cassie's south pole, locked Cassie's head between her thighs, pulled Cassie's vulva into her face, and log rolled Cassie on top of her. Strawberries oozed and flew. Tara buried her tongue deeply inside Cassie's vagina, licked hard against its walls, then delicately tickled her clitoris.

Cassie responded initially by stiffening at the contrasting sensations, then relaxed her thighs to allow Tara to penetrate more intently. Tara teased, then slurped on Cassie's burgeoning berry, sending northward ripples, swells, then mighty breakers of delight from her pelvis to her belly, to her heart, to her head, splashing against her brain, spraying pleasure droplets into the air for the sun to use as tiny prisms. Miniature rainbows danced everywhere. Cassie was in color heaven and wanted to shout it to the chickadees and goldfinches flitting in her trees, as she gasped and moaned in utter happiness.

But first, she wished to return to Tara the kind of pleasure she was so enjoying. With her lips tightly closed around a twirl of Tara's pubes slick with hunks of fruit pulp, she tugged upward until she heard attesting sighs, released, and took another mouthful to apply traction to.

Cassie tracked her nails lightly at first, then more roughly against Tara's inner leg and up to her thighs, making her pant. Tara inhaled sharply as Cassie's fingers reached Tara's perineum. With her mouth still pulling against Tara's pubic hair, Cassie moved one hand to Tara's turgid clitoris and the index of the other to her strawberried anus. Cassie worked faster now, saliva leaking from her mouth as she straightened Tara's curly hairs, massaged her clit between thumb and pointer, wedged her other thumb into Tara's vault, and teased Tara's anus with her index.

Bucking and rocking, Tara responded by tonguing Cassie's vagina more vigorously, then sucked with such a force that Cassie had to momentarily release Tara's hairs and shout out, thanking Gaia, over and over, for such a splendid being. Tara swiftly followed with gasps and cries, singing aloud with shrieks of joy, and imploring the birds to join in the refrain.

Several long moments later, they maneuvered themselves into the shade and lay in each other's arms, stroking and sticking to one another. They took turns licking breasts and bellies, removing residue of now drying fruit.

"That was so lovely, Tara dear," Cassie exhaled and gazed upward at her. Tara's beautiful umber hair was pulled back and looped with an emerald band, making it hang down like the tail of the Lascaux steed. "You are beautiful!"

"I am so in love with you! You can't imagine."

"I think I can."

And after a lengthy communion with their eyes, they looked over their strawberry-mottled bodies and laughed.

"I'm just curious, though," queried Cassie, hesitating, then resolving to finish her entreaty, "do you ever miss being filled? You know--or maybe you don't--the way a man fills you?"

"You are not going to believe this. Remember I told you that I had a present for you," she answered. Tara opened the lid of the picnic basket and brought out a long object wrapped in violet silk and tied with a vermillion ribbon.

Cassie took it from her, hefted it with a puzzled expression, and opened it. She gasped. It was a double-headed dildo, fashioned from glass. One side possessed a longer shaft, gently curving upward, whereas the other was shorter and more bulbous. A smile transformed her surprised lips, and, as Cassie glanced over, Tara gave her back that "Tara look."

Sweating, Marcos walked the last mile to Cassie's. He couldn't believe his luck. He had run out of gas. He had never let that happen before. His mind wasn't quite right, these last two days.

As he turned into her driveway, he recognized not only the cars belonging to Cassie and Tara, but, a dozen steps further, the exclamations of the two women in the throes of passion.

Marcos' head swam. He grabbed the trunk of a crab apple at hand and steadied himself before sitting down hard on the cool grass. The screams continued, unabated. The thought of joining them made him nauseous. He had to get out of there.

He rose on wobbly knees. He staggered down the drive, turned in the direction of his empty vehicle, and began to run, his mind organizing a plan to gas up the car. He needed to make a call. The universe was telling him he had made a terrible mistake. He only hoped he could undo it.