A Cold Rainy Night

The Medium

A short story by Jess Riegler

New York, June 2016

Lena crouched behind a destroyed building and peered around the corner into the train yard. A soundless yellow flash went off over her head lighting the night sky. Choking sulfuric powder mixed with rain stopped her breath. She pulled out a cloth and held it over her nose and mouth. She had to get out of here. 

One freight train lurched into motion, metal wheels squealing on the rusty tracks. She’d heard from other resistance members that the trains were full of weapons heading for the Canadian border. She could sneak onto one of these boxcars. Looking left, right, left, she bolted across the seemingly deserted train yard and found a boxcar that was open and full of wooden crates.

Another yellow flash went off as if a switch had been flipped. A smell like skunk and rotten eggs made her wince. She looked into the boxcar. Two yellow eyes stared out at her from between the wooden crates. Then the flash extinguished, the world again dark. Men’s whistling and hollering started up behind her in the yard and she knew she’d been seen. She hopped into the boxcar just as the train jerked forward. She staggered towards those eyes. 

Lena sat down and listened to the train and the sound of her own breathing. She tried to hear if she was alone or not. Then another sulfuric flash went off. This time it was just a match lighting an oil lamp illuminating an old woman. The old woman sat leaned up against the crate and offered her a lit cigarette. She nodded and thanked the woman, drew on the cigarette and leaned her head back.

Lena watched the old woman out of the corner of her eye. She smiled and swayed and seemed to be on something. Something strong. Her hands rested in her lap and she closed her eyes, becoming completely still. She hung her head, damp brown hair veiling her face, and looked like she might pass out. 

Then she raised her head and opened her mouth. “Lena,” a man’s voice said, “Lena, I need your help.”

Lena started shaking in her cold wet clothes. That was his voice, the man Lena had met two weeks ago. She was running from one of those tiny sabotage gigs that the resistance so pitifully tried to make against the war machine. They had met up outside a dilapidated house where they were forced to spend the night hidden in a basement apartment. He had the stone, the one they needed to cripple the reactor that supplied the war machine with energy. But someone was after him and the stone as well. 

“Lena, you must come to me,” the voice continued from the old woman’s mouth. “I need your help. This woman can lead you to me. I will show her where to take you.” 

If this woman was channeling his voice he must be dead.

The woman went quiet, slumped and leaned against the wooden crate. The flame from the oil lamp burned low. Lena checked the woman’s breathing and her pulse. She was alive but just barely. The train rolled on. 

That night with him was incredible. They were soaked through and cold. The bombs seemed to produce an unstoppable rain. The room smelled of wet wool, smoke and sulfur. They never took their eyes off each other like two animals ready for a fight. There was no more need for words because the thoughts hung tangible in the room. 

The war machine had been bombing Wall St. heavily and the sky beyond the broken windows glowed yellow. She took off her black beret and threw it on the chair. He lunged at her and kissed her hard. He pulled her towards the floor and they knelt there facing each other. He unbuttoned her black turtle neck shirt and buried his face in her black silk bra. He opened her black pants and tugged them down around her thighs.  

She pushed him backwards and he lay back on the floor. She stood up, undressed completely and rubbed her fingers over her lips, watching him. He squirmed out of his clothes and held his hand out. She placed one foot by his left hip, the other by the right and towered over him, watching him rise. She heard a dirty grinding guitar in the back of her head and slowly lowered herself onto him. 

She ground her hips onto his, swirled and danced for him. She tightened her muscles around his cock, pulled her hips up a bit and then thrust him back in deeper. She leaned over him, kissed his lips and nuzzled his face like a cat would...

The train came to a sudden halt. Lena jumped when the old woman screamed. The lamp tipped over. Oil spilled on the floor of the boxcar and ignited. Lena grabbed the woman. They jumped into the night, landing against some bushes on top of a steep bank.

The train started rolling again. They sat still until the sound disappeared into the distance. 

Lena shook the woman. “Who are you? Where is he?”

“I don’t know what happened,” the old woman said. “I only wanted to get out of the city. I’ve lost…everyone.”

“Where is he?” Lena screamed. She didn’t know his name.

The old woman began to cry. Lena’s arm automatically loaded up for a backhand.

A white flash erupted in the night sky. The force of the blast followed immediately. The two women were thrown down the bank and landed by a stream. Enveloped in a hot rush of white air, the cold rainy night became an inferno.

           

Lena lay flat on her stomach until the winds subsided. Dawn broke and the rains started again. She touched the old woman. She was alive. 

Lena thought about the train, the oil lamp, the fire, the explosion. And him.

An Erotic Fairy Tale

The Mysterious Stranger

Once upon a time two women lived together in a little cottage in an old walled city. The winter past had been extremely cold and there was no sign of spring approaching. The month of March brought even more snow and ice. Jess, the older woman with the dark hair, had caught a death of a chill. The younger woman with the red hair, Gabriele, had spent sleepless nights brewing teas and potions, trying every which way to nurse her back to health. Nothing seemed to relieve Jess of her suffering. 

One snowy morning, Gabriele dressed in her thickest, warmest overclothing, pulled on boots made of pig’s leather and stuffed her spiky red hair under a fluffy woolen cap. She looked back over her shoulder. Jess sat next to the roaring fire, rolled in various blankets. Her one shoulder covered in a cream cotton shift was exposed. Gabi frowned when she heard Jess’s rattling cough and her labored breathing. She hung her head and ventured out into the blowing snow. 

This was not the time of year to search for herbs so Gabriele decided to visit the local wise woman and ask for help. Snow swirled all around her as she stood on the threshold and knocked on the wise woman’s door. The door creaked open. Gabi’s eyes widened as she saw a young man dressed in a red robe, black hair spilling over his shoulders. 

“Where is the wise woman?” she asked.

“She is also very sick,” the young man said. His eyes were as black as his hair.

“Also?”

“Yes. You come because your lover is ill.”

“My lover? She is not my lover. Have we met before?”

“Maybe,” he said.

Gabriele brushed his comment aside like she would a fly. “None of my remedies help her. I don’t understand the nature of her disease.”

“A strange strain of malady. The wise woman suffers from the same and other women in the city as well. It seems the only remedy that helps them is one that I administer myself.”

“Will you accompany me? We desperately need your help.” 

“I will do my best,” he said. 

They ventured back to the little cottage and found Jess swooned on the floor next to the fire. Each breath rattled her prone form. Her face was pale and grey. The strange man produced a flask that shimmered red. He rolled Jess on her back, tilted her head and lifted her chin. Jess’s mouth opened and he dribbled one, two, three drops of the red potion into her mouth. He covered her sparsely-clad body with a blanket, stood and left the cottage without a word.

Gabriele threw her wet overclothes into a pile on the floor and covered herself with a dry, black cotton shift. She sat watch next to Jess the whole day and night. Early in the morning, groans and rustling blankets woke Gabriele from a fitful sleep and she jarred awake to see Jess stirring. 

“Oh, I had thought you would die!” Gabriele said and hugged her friend. 

  

“What has happened to me? I only remember you leaving and me sitting here on the stool.”

“When I returned, you were unconscious.”

“I don’t know what happened.  I remember standing naked in a hothouse.  The tempered glass was red as blood and the air was hot as hell. My skin refused to perspire and I was dry as ash from the heat. I was so thirsty I could hardly breathe. The hothouse itself was full of strangling, wriggling vines. The demanding plants prodded and invaded. They wanted to tie me up and devour me whole. But a strange man appeared before me, allowed me to drink from his fountain and…” 

Gabi held her hand up and Jess stopped speaking. “What did he look like?" Gabriele said.

“He was taller than I, dressed in robes red as blood like the sky beyond the hothouse. He cupped my fevered face in his hands. He kissed my lips and his juices moistened my mouth, my lungs, my loins. He…”

Jess’s chest began to heave. She sat up and searched Gabriele’s face for an explanation.

“Tell me what he did to you. You are healthy.” Gabriele felt Jess’s forehead. “The fever has broken. He has healed you.”

“He said I must drink. He knew I was thirsty and only he could quench my thirst, still my longing, fill me, make me whole again.”

Gabriele stroked Jess’s cream-white cheek. “Your pallor is gone, your skin is cool. Show me how he kissed you.”

“He took my face in his hands and touched my lips like this.” Jess pressed her lips to Gabriele’s and, ever so slightly, parted their lips with the tip of her tongue, moistening and stroking. She spoke without removing her lips. “The juices began to flow and I could breathe again. But I was still burning with fever.”

Jess got on her knees. “He told me to kneel. He offered me his warm and pulsing cock and I suckled him, desperate to wet my parched mouth. But he pulled out of my mouth and laid me on my back. He said he would heal me from the inside. He filled me to the hilt with all he had.” 

Jess’s nipples stood hard against her thin cotton shift. Gabriele reached out and touched one. She ran a finger around the contrast: soft breast, hard nipple. Jess grabbed Gabriele’s other hand and lay back, pulling Gabriele down next to her. 

“He sat over me, straddled my waist and entered me,” Jess said. 

Gabriele climbed on top of Jess. Jess’s hands squeezed her buttocks as their naked loins pressed together. Gabriele allowed her hips to slide back and forth, slippery wetness easing the ride. She slid two fingers in between Jess’s moist folds.

“Tell me how he filled you.” Gabriele said.

“He thrusted in and out and each time, each time, he…”

Gabriele lay flat on Jess’s belly, ground her clit against Jess’ and thrust her fingers in and out, in and out, secretly summoning the strange man with all the power she could muster. Then she felt a hand on her buttocks. Not the sweet, gentle touch of a woman, but the strong, stable, squeezing hand of a man. One finger entered her from behind. The finger thrust in and out. She caught a glimpse of his red robe out of the corner of her eye.

“Fuck her to my rhythm,” he said as his cock filled her tight pussy. Gabriele’s ass lifted to take him in as far as he would go, to the hilt. Her fingers rammed again into Jess, keeping time to the man’s breathing. Jess moaned. Gabriele filled her mouth with Jess’s breast as the strange man fucked her from behind. 

The man bore his weight down on Gabriele who in turn bore down on Jess. They became one in the force that held them together. The man ground down on the two women, thrusting his power from one to the next. They began to vibrate as one being, shuddering and stammering. They deflated as a whole. Jess opened her eyes. Gabriele looked over her shoulder. They were alone.

Gabriele jumped up. “I must find him.”

She threw on her wet overclothes and ventured out into the snow. She ran to the wise woman’s house and knocked on the door. The wind howled and she shielded her eyes from the swirling snow. The wise woman opened the door.

“Where is he?” Gabriele demanded.

“Where is who?” The wise woman looked hard at Gabriele. “Come inside. Your cheeks are flushed with fever.”

“I am delirious,” Gabriele said. “I have the sickness.”

“I will make you some tea,” the wise woman said. She led Gabriele towards the fire, turned and closed the door against the cold blast of snow. She put a pot of water over the fire.

“No, I need the potion! It is the only cure.”

“Potion?”

“The red potion,” Gabriele said. “He gave it to us.”

The wise woman sighed and added herbs to the pot of water. She turned back to Gabriele with a pitying smile. “Yes, that potion.  I regret ever having made it. It seems to have a mind of its own.” 

“But it is the only cure for the disease!” Gabriele said. 

The wise woman strained two mugs of tea. “But it is also the cause.”

The Story of Jess and Liam

Dear Diary,

Don't tell Liam, but I'm going to upload our story for everyone to read. I miss him terribly, too.

Liam, if you read this, I'm sorry.

Do I have the guts to face him again?

Love, Jess

An Erotic Fantasy

Ice tiger meat was dark brown, tender and juicy but only when Fauna prepared it in wild berry wine. She said she found the berries when she was digging for grubs. The berry vines grew upside down; their roots took nourishment from the eternal snow and the fruit ripened in the temperate earth. That’s what gave the king the idea to dig. Accessible by a narrow, five-hundred meter tunnel, our new home was easy to heat, protected us from straying wild and needed no generator. 

The king sat with his back to the fire, stripped the meat from the ice tiger bone with his teeth and threw it behind his back towards the fire.  It clattered on the white-tiled floor. When they had dug this chamber, they’d found tons of this material--organic rocks, they called it, white and hard as stone. The remains of the forgotten civilization. Bone covered the floors, skulls formed the fireplace.

He pulled his knife from its leather sheath. He shaved a sliver of meat from the animal’s massive skinned head. The meat around the cheek bones was especially tasty, judging by the look on the king’s face.

Fauna poured the king a mug of wine. He swallowed his mouthful of meat with a gulp of sweet berry wine and pinched a handful of Fauna’s ample behind. She set her wine jug aside, wrung steaming, perfumed water from a cloth back into a bowl and dabbed gravy from the king’s cheek. 

She took his hand and cleaned the grease from his long, strong fingers. She turned his hand and kissed his palm. She laid it on her chest. The king gripped her breast, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. She covered his mouth with hers. His lips parted and their glistening tongues met.

The king stood and bent her backwards over a clear spot on the heavy wooden table, their lips never separating. He threw her skirt back, reached down and spread her velvety legs. His finger traced a path along her smooth thigh, over her soft, white belly and circled back to her moist folds. 

He attacked her pussy with his tongue, plunging it into her depths, pulling it back out and circling her pearl, that spot of her soul. Fauna’s body rose and fell to meet each new onslaught. Whimpers escaped her lips and she pulled him in tighter, her fingers clutching the base of his skull. But the king was not going to let her finish that easily.

He stood, grabbed her behind her head, pulled her face in close and kissed her, long, deep, succulent. He pushed her down on her knees facing the fireplace. Her eyes reflected the flames dancing behind the other skulls’ empty sockets. He unlaced his pants, knelt behind her and penetrated her with two fingers. Her body forced his fingers in deeper, demanding violation. He pulled his fingers out and rammed his cock in their place. Fauna’s cry was drowned out by the liquid sound of his body slapping hers in a desperate rhythm. 

 

He clutched her hips and drove into her as deeply as he could. His fingers reached down and grabbed her pearl, that spot of her soul, teasing, pinching. Still thrusting, his face twisted as if he was claiming every last right to possess her. Fauna’s body began to rise, vibrating involuntarily and her body seemed on the verge of collapsing.

Deep in the earth below us, the rock thundered as if it would split apart. The door to the king’s chamber flew open and banged against the stone wall.

“Master! The snows have stopped,” the page said. “The temperature rises. The great hall below fills with water!” 

Fauna got to her feet, smoothed her skirt and scurried out of the chamber. The king adjusted himself, shook the passion from his head like a wet dog and waved the page away. He stared at the fireplace, at the stack of skulls containing the heat, their hollow, drying bone reflecting the dying flames. He approached slowly and laid his hand on the topmost skull, my skull.

“I am so sorry that you have to watch that night after night,” the king said. “But rest assured, I think only of you, fair Flora.”

He stared into the sockets that still contained my soul. “I see you here and think only of your skilled mouth and how you would take in my full length. I hear you sucking and feel your tongue against my…” 

The king reached down and adjusted himself again. Even in this form, I could still make him hard.

“I dream of lying at your breast and sharing your milk with our son…”

He patted the tiny skull cemented here next to mine, the eye sockets as empty and hollow as the others that formed the fireplace.

“Master! The water level rises! Save yourself before we all perish!” the page screamed through the door and disappeared.

“I am not going to leave you here, Flora. Nor am I ready to set you free.” He pulled a dagger and pried my skull free. “I will avenge the men who did this to you and to our son!”

Darkness enveloped me as he stuffed my skull into a burlap sack. It swayed as he ran out of the chamber. Forever enslaved, the master’s maid.

Happy New Year

Dear Diary,

The plane landed in Nürnberg and it was already dark. I finally made it here. I had waited in the airport for two whole days to get a flight out of Amsterdam. Only the fear of facing Liam and his brothers made me wait for the plane. I was not going back there. My face burned red-hot when I thought of Liam's expression when he saw us together.

The rain pelted against the windshield of the bus as we drove to the terminal. I suddenly realized I was alone and had no phone. The lights inside the arrivals terminal dazzled me and I sneezed, sweating and freezing at the same time.

"Can I use your phone?" I said to the woman at the car rental desk.

I sneezed. The woman looked at me like I had the plague as she handed me a cordless phone. I punched out Gabi's number.

A woman's voice said something into the phone.

"Gabi?" I said and sneezed again.

The woman said something in German.

"Gabi, it's me, Jess."

Silence.

"It's Jess. Do you remember me?"

"Oh, Jess, yes of course. Where are you?" Gabi said.

"In the ariport. Nürnberg," I said. Cough, cough.

That was two weeks ago. I remember she had come to pick me up and we rode the train back to her apartment. I remember worrying about intruding but I had no where else to go.

"What about your husband?" I said. 

"Who? That man? That's not my husband. We only travel together. I live alone."

We climbed three flights of steps to her tiny apartment. I stopped and fell to my knees in a coughing fit. She unlocked her door, led me down a short hallway and sat me down on the sofa.

"You're sick," she said.

I coughed and sneezed. I remember she had given me some hot drink. And I remember her cabinet full of medication, like a pharmacy. She searched the various bottles and gave me a small, cardboard package. I tried to read the package through my tear-filled eyes but it was all in German.

"It's an antibiotic," she said. "I'm a nurse." She threw a second package on the table. "You'll need both of these. I have to work tonight."

Never in my life have I had a flu like this before. I somehow wandered between delerium, fever and fitful sleep. This is the first day that I am actually sitting up and eating something besides broth.

"How can I ever repay you?" I remember saying, over and over.

And she just laughed.

Love, Jess

December First

Dear Diary,

I guess this is the first chapter of my story:

The fresh sheets rustled as I turned over in bed. They formed themselves around me and I opened my eyes to see just a hint of blue-grey light through the window. It was December first, not only my fortieth birthday, but our twentieth wedding anniversary as well.

My husband Randy breathed deep and slow. I ran a finger over the soft, dark-brown wisps of hair on his chest, along the dark-brown stubble on his chin and pushed a lock of wavy brown hair away from his forehead. His hair curled around his neck--exactly the length I liked it. Exactly the length where he’d cut it short again. 

He softly took my hand and kissed my fingers. He rolled towards me and guided my hand to his erection. I stroked him and felt him harden even more. He pulled me in really close and kissed me like I was his first cup of coffee, ever.

He rolled on his back and I straddled his hips. He entered me with the grace that could only come after twenty years. We knew every corner and crevice of each other. We fit together like hand in glove. A perfect match.

But our marriage wasn’t always a graceful perfect match. Five years ago, when our daughter Mandy was fifteen, we had reached a stagnant point. Then she moved out two years ago to go to college and we seemed to have found each other again. What a miracle; so many marriages split up after such things.

I spread my legs to allow him to enter as deeply as humanly possible. I nuzzled my face against his neck, into his hair and smelled cigarettes. He had started smoking again a few weeks back. The smell mixed with his cologne made me tingle and I kissed him, sucking ever so slightly on the tip of his tongue. I circled my hips and pressed my weight down and then rubbed my clit back and forth along his moist skin. I tightened my muscles around his cock and I could tell he was close to coming. 

Like a well-oiled machine, we awaited that point we knew we would both reach our climaxes. I felt the light building somewhere behind my eyes and a wave of satisfaction. I kissed him full on the mouth, sucked his tongue. I never felt so loved, so important, so  much like a woman. 

He kissed my cheek. “I love you,” he said.

I squeezed him tighter, never wanting to let go.

“Happy Birthday,” he said.

Oh yes, my birthday. I was expecting a string of pearls because he had been on about me wearing nothing but pearls and red lipstick for some time now. I slid off of him and stretched out beside him on my side, one leg draped over his thigh. He moved away from me and sat up on the edge of our bed. He raked one hand through his hair. I heard the drawer on the bed-side table open, a lighter click and smelled cigarette smoke.

“Since when do you smoke in the bedroom?” I said. “There’s no ashtray.”

“Yes there is,” he said. 

I sat up and saw there was an ashtray in the drawer next to a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I craned my neck to see if there was a present in there for me, too.

“Jess, there’s something I need to tell you,” he said. A smile strained his lips. 

“Happy anniversary?” I said and kissed his thigh. “You don’t have to work today. It’s still so early.” I rolled on my back and held out my arms. “Come back under the covers.”

“Sorry, Jess, but I have to get up. I have a lot to do today.”

“But it’s my birthday. It’s our anniversary.”

He turned to me and his serious look made the blood drain from my face.

“I have to go.”

“Are you going to the city again? You said you didn’t have to go until March.”

“Jess, you know I love you. I love you so much. But there’s, well, there’s…”

A sickness heaved in my gut.

“Look. There’s someone else. Jess, I am so sorry.” 

A ton of bricks fell on my head. “You’re joking, right?”

He searched my face. He pleaded with his eyes. “Look. It’s me, not you, ok? I love you.”

“How long?” was all I could get out of my mouth.

“A little over two years. I hoped it was just a fling, but it’s not. She’s the woman I’ve always dreamed about.”

“I thought I was,” I whispered. 

He stood and looked out the balcony door over the frozen lawn. 

“Can’t we talk about this?” I said.

“I’m moving back to the city,” he said without turning to face me. “Today.”

Love, Jess