Dominion

by Bentley Little

  The change of venue did not seem to have affected attendance at all. A

  number of people had arrived before them, and cars were continuing to pull into the makeshift parking lot. A sign above the entry booth said that admission was a dollar for children, two dollars for adults, and that picnic baskets and water jugs were welcome. Dion pulled out his wallet, taking out a five-dollar bill and handing it to the cashier.

  “Did you go last year?” he asked Penelope.

  She shook her head, smiling. “With who? I had no one to go with.

  Besides, I’d never even heard of this thing until this week.”

  “Really up on current events, huh?”

  She hit his shoulder, and that spontaneous expression of camaraderie made him feel closer to her than he ever had before. He put an arm around her waist, drew her to him.

  Taking their tickets, they walked through the gate, getting their hands stamped by a ponytailed man in case they wanted to leave the fair and come back later in the day.

  Dion looked around at the posters filled with pagan symbols, the booth closest to them that was stocked with witchcraft paraphernalia.

  “Are you a Christian?” Penelope asked.

  He turned to face her. “Why? Are you?”

  “I suppose so. I mean, I don’t go to church, but I believe in God.”

  He nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

  She smiled teasingly at him. “Scared you, didn’t I? When you heard that word ‘Christian,’ you thought I wanted to know if you were born again.”

  “No,” he lied.

  “Be honest.”

  He laughed. “All right. Yeah. For a second. I thought maybe you’d been keeping this secret from me, waiting to tell me until you felt you could trust me, and you suddenly decided to spring it on me now.”

  “Because I was offended by all this heathenism?” He grinned. “Something like that.”

  She laughed. That’s great.” They walked toward the witchcraft booth.

  “Oh, and I forgot to tell you—I’m a lesbian.”

  “I’ve heard that one before.”

  The woman in the witchcraft booth beamed at them, having obviously overheard them. “We’re all lesbians in my coven,” she said. “In fact, witchcraft is a celebration of our womanness.”

  Dion felt a tug on his arm as Penelope pulled him away from the booth.

  “We have literature if you’re interested,” the woman said.

  Penelope shook her head as they walked away. “No, thanks.”

  They stopped by another booth featuring exotic Third World musical instruments. Dion played with a rain stick, while Penelope used a mallet to hit what looked like a log marimba.

  The two of them wandered through the fair, hand in hand.

  Penelope looked toward a windowless trailer on which was painted the words: afterlife progression.

  She turned toward Dion. “Do you believe in heaven?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Have you ever wondered what it’s like? I mean, most people think of heaven as this wonderful place where you’re reunited with your loved ones for eternity, but I always wondered, which loved ones? If a woman’s husband dies and she marries again, is she reunited with both husbands up there? Is there polygamy in heaven? What about first boyfriends or lovers?”

  Dion laughed. “I never thought about it that way.”

  “And what about pets? A lot of people think that they’ll meet up again with their dog or cat in heaven. But which dog or cat? Does God make you choose and only allow you to have your favorite, or are you surrounded by all the pets you had throughout your life?”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Well, how do you see heaven?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never given it much thought, really.”

  “I always thought that you’d have this huge entourage. You’d be surrounded by parents and brothers and sisters and friends and lovers and husbands and wives and dogs and cats and hamsters and goldfish and anything you ever loved.”

  “Sounds crowded.”

  “That’s not all. It’s heaven for them too. So each of those people would have their own entourage. All of your parents’ friends and lovers and pets and their friends and lovers and pets and on and on and on.”

  “Sounds like hell.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “It does, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, what do you think hell’s like?”

  “I don’t know. Do you have any ideas?”

  “Oh, a hot place where I’m bent over a gym bench and Mr. Holbrook is shoving razor blades up my ass for eternity.”

  She hit him, laughing. “You’re bad!”

  “Must be the Kevin influence.”

  From off to their right, Dion heard the high-pitched sound of feedback from a P. A. system. He looked in that direction and saw a group of musicians dressed in strange costumes atop a small raised platform. A

  crowd of about thirty was standing in front of the stage.

  The musicians began playing.

  “That’s a weird instrument,” Penelope said. -“What do you think it—?”

  Dion stiffened. His hand, gripping her arm, tightened.

  “Hey!” she said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  And then he was dancing, laughing, running down the hill naked, the women in pursuit. He could smell their ripeness, their hot arousal, mixed with the earthy odor of goat. He knew the women were going to tear him apart, rip up his flesh and drink his hot blood, but that was what he wanted, that was what he craved, and he felt wonderfully ecstatic as he ran from them, wanting to prolong this feeling, wanting to savor every moment of the chase before he felt the glorious pain of their nails and teeth as they killed him again.

  He opened his eyes and he was looking up at the sky, a ring of people above him. He realized that he was lying on the ground. He could feel weeds and rocks pressing into his back through the material of his shirt.

  “Dion?”

  He saw Penelope, staring down at him, worried. She bent down next to him, took his hand in hers. “Are you all right?”

  “What … ?” he began. He cleared his throat. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. All of a sudden you just collapsed. Like you fainted or something.”

  “Should I call an ambulance?” one man asked.

  “No,” Dion said, sitting up. “It’s okay.”

  “Maybe you should have a doctor look at you,” Penelope suggested.

  “I’m fine.” He stood, and though he felt a little dizzy, he tried not to let it show. He looked at the faces of the gathered crowd and forced himself to smile “That’s it. Show’s over. Leave money in the hat.”

  A few people chuckled, and the crowd began to disperse.

  Dion felt a hand on his shoulder. “You sure you’re okay?” It was the man who’d asked about the ambulance.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I just tripped on a rock. Knocked the wind out of me.”

  The man nodded and moved off.

  “You didn’t trip,” Penelope said.

  No, he hadn’t. But he didn’t know what had happened. He did know that he did not want to be taken to a doctor, although he was not sure if it was because he was afraid the doctor might find something or because he already knew that there was nothing to find.

  Maybe he had a brain tumor. Or some type of cancer. Maybe he’d had a mild stroke or a heart attack or something.

  No. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he knew it. This wasn’t a medical thing. This was triggered by the sound of the pipes. And it was related somehow to his dreams and to … His head hurt, and he closed his eyes against the pain.

  “I think we’d better go,” Penelope told him. “I’ll drive.”

  He nodded and let her lead him out through the front gates of the fair and across the field to the car.

  “I really think you should go to the doctor,” she said. “What if this is something serious—”r />
  “It’s not.”

  “First, you swerve off the road, then—”

  “It’s an acid flashback,” he said.

  “What?” She stopped walking, letting go of his hand. Her face was white, shocked.

  “A friend of my mom’s put it in my milk when I was a baby,” he lied. “I

  get these every so often.”

  “My God.”

  He took her hand again, and they continued walking toward the car. He made up a story about how his mom had found ‘out, how the man had been arrested and jailed. He wanted to tell her the truth, wanted to tell her that he didn’t know what was happening, but something kept him from it. Although the truth was far more innocuous than the lies he was spinning, it seemed more intimate somehow, and a part of him was not ready to share that intimacy.

  They ended up going to a movie, a matinee that took the rest of his ten dollars. Afterward, Penelope treated him to dinner. Mcdonald’s. When they finished eating, they walked around a few of the stores not yet closed.

  It was still early in the evening when he pulled to a stop just before the entrance to the winery and turned off the engine, killing the lights. The inside of the car was dark with the sudden absence of dashboard illumination, but he could clearly see Penelope’s face, lit by the low glow of the sodium lamp above the winery gate. She looked gorgeous in the dim light, her skin smoothly pale, her lips full and red. The darkness gave her already alluring eyes a deepness beyond that whkh they normally possessed. He reached over and took her hand. Her skin was soft, warm.

  “How do you feel about me?” she asked. There was a slight trembling in her voice.

  He knew what she wanted to hear but was not sure he could say it. He had said it before, over the phone, but in person it was harder. Besides, he had never loved anyone before, and he did not know if he loved Penelope now. He liked her, was obviously infatuated with her, but he was not sure mat his feelings went any deeper than that. “How do you feel about me?” he asked.

  She looked into his eyes. “I love you.”

  “I—I love you too,” he replied, and it was true.

  They kissed. His left hand was around her back, and his right cupped her breast, squeezing it gently. His penis was hard, and when his tongue slid between her lips and found her own soft tongue, he felt as though he was going to explode. His hand on her breast began to cramp from the awkward position, and he let it fall to a more natural position in her lap. She did not try-to push him away, and he moved his hand between her parted legs and started massaging her crotch through the jeans.

  She reached for him and her fingers lightly traced the outline of his erection.

  Peripherally, through the windshield, he thought he saw movement outside. He looked up as he kissed her and saw the security camera stationed on the top of the winery gate post swivel toward the car, but he didn’t want to interrupt the rhythm they’d found and didn’t want to upset her, and he pushed Penelope down on the seat as he started to unbuckle her pants.

  April drove quickly in order to beat Dion home. She went over in her mirid what Margaret and the others had told her.

  It explained a lot, she thought.

  It explained everything.

  The moon was full and hung high over the hills, white now after bleaching upward from yellow. The Vintage 1870 shops were closing, and Tim South and Ann Mel bury walked hand in hand across the gravel parking lot to the car, following a few other late stragglers. The air was warm but tinged with a cool autumn breeze. Tim, for one, welcomed the changing of the seasons. He was tired of sweating—his old Dart didn’t have air conditioning and seemed to retain heat even with the windows open—and he was equally tired of spending the first half of each date in broad daylight. It was bad enough that his parents made him come home by eleven, but the fact that it didn’t get dark until eight or eight-thirty put a further crimp in his style. He was glad the days were getting shorter. And he could not wait until Daylight Saving Time disappeared.

  They reached the car, and he gallantly opened the passenger door, letting Ann in before stepping around to the driver’s side.

  She ran a hand through her short, spiky hair as he climbed into his seat. “So what do you want to do now?” she asked.

  Tim shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  He knew what they were going to do next. They both knew. But they always went through this hypocritical little routine anyway, pretending it was a spontaneous decision on both their parts, as though each of them hadn’t thought about it all day, hadn’t washed the most intimate portions of their bodies in preparatory showers, hadn’t made sure they were wearing clean underwear and socks without holes.

  “We could stop by Dairy Queen,” Ann suggested. “They’re still open.”

  “We could,” Tim agreed. He paused. “Or we could just drive around.”

  She smiled. “On South Street?”

  He nodded, grinning. “We could.”

  “Okay.”

  He started the car and pulled out of the parking Jot onto the street.

  South might not be an officially recognized lover’s lane, but it was their lover’s lane, bordering as it did several of the wineries and the wooded foothills, safely away from casual traffic.

  As always, they pulled onto the dirt shoulder and parked in a dark area between two large trees. Tim got out of the car and took a blanket from the backseat. Several times they had done it in the car, when it had been raining or too cold outside, but it had always been an awkward experience. The backseat was cramped and uncomfortable, and half of the front seat was taken up by the steering wheel, making movement extremely difficult, so they preferred, whenever possible, to do it outside.

  That was one thing he would miss when winter arrived.

  A pickup roared by, brights on, and they heard the laughter only seconds before a water balloon hit the hood of the Dart.

  “Asshole!” Tim yelled.

  He was answered only by a retreating honk of the truck’s horn.

  “Let’s go into the woods,” Ann suggested. “Away from the road.”

  “What if someone vandalizes my car?”

  “They won’t.”

  “They already did.” He pointed toward the wet hood.

  “You want to go home?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, come on, then.” She took his hand, leading him through the grass and toward the trees. “I’m not about to stay here and wait for those morons to come back and hit us next time.”

  “But—”

  “No buts.”

  He shook his head. “You drive a hard bargain, Miss. Melbury.”

  “You better believe it.”

  They walked around a copse of bushes, away from the road. “How about here?” Tim asked.

  “Ground’s too rough. Remember that time when my back got all cut up?”

  He nodded, grimaced. They continued walking.

  They reached a small clearing and he was about to suggest that they spread the blanket here when he heard a sound of rustling leaves and cracking twigs from somewhere up ahead. He stopped, grabbed her arm, put a finger to his lips. “Shhhhh.”

  She listened, heard it. “Do you think it’s an animal?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know.” He began walking slowly forward.

  “I don’t think we should—”

  They both saw it at once. Movement through the trees, flashes of skin, bluish white in the moonlight.

  “Come on,” Tim said, creeping closer. Through the leaves he saw rounded breasts, a triangle of pubic hair. A naked woman. Dancing.

  Ann shook her head, holding back. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Let’s just see what it is.” He grabbed her hand. Her palm was wet, sweaty.

  “I think it’s some kind of orgy.”

  “You think so?” Tim grinned. “Come on, let’s check it out.”

  “No,” she said, and her voice was serious. “I’m scared.”

  “There�
�s nothing to be scared of.”

  “Nothing to be scared of? Someone’s dancing naked under the full moon and you say there’s nothing to be scared of? We don’t know who it is. It might be a witch or satanist or something. Let’s just get out of here.

  We’ll go somewhere else.”

  “No,” Tim said stubbornly. “I want to see.” He started moving away from her, toward the dancing woman. He heard low, throaty laughter, thought he heard a sexy moan.

  Maybe it was an orgy.

  He crept forward. The ground here was littered with empty wine bottles, many of them broken, and it was almost impossible to walk quietly. He heard Ann following behind him, the ground crunching beneath her feet.

  He wanted to tell her to be quiet, but he was afraid of making noise himself.

  Afraid?

  Yes. He was afraid. He was aroused, excited, titillated, but Ann was right. There was something spooky about the whole thing, something scary. Naked women did not just dance in empty fields under the full moon for no reason at all.

  He could see the woman more clearly now. And another woman. They were older, in their thirties or forties, but they were still pretty damn sexy, and they were laughing and dancing in joyous abandon. Were they lesbians? He couldn’t tell. But he thought that Ann was probably right.

  They probably were part of some cult, performing some type of pagan ritual.

  He crouched down behind a bush on the edge of the field. Ann moved behind him, pressing against his back. “Let’s go,” she hissed in his ear.

  He shook his head, watching the women. They were laughing, obviously enjoying themselves, and his erection grew as he stared at their bouncing breasts, at the thatches of down between their legs.

  The dancing sped up, became more frenzied, more frenetic. Tim was not sure when the movements crossed the border from free form into fanatic;