Witch’s Smoke Aaron

by M. Garnet

  “Well, I told you I am losing my mind, so I am doing a little research.”

  Carol looked at her with a frown. “Gee, I am glad you don’t have a toothache, or you would be reading on how to pull a tooth. You see that is why they give those guys who go to all that schooling a pretty piece of paper to put on the wall.”

  She looked at Carol and smiled, the first smile in months. “Sure, and what do I tell him? I have fucked many people in every imaginable way for years, and now I can’t. Not due to any handicap, but because I can’t have an orgasm. So tell me, Doc, did I wear the orgasm button out?”

  “So what you are saying is that for over a year you have not reached a climax no matter what you have done or who you did it with?” Carol shook her head.

  Asa lifted her head and looked out at the dark beyond the railing. “Well, there have been a couple of exceptions which is going to make the whole situation worse.”

  * * * *

  Carol sat and looked at the lovely woman with the dark circles under her eyes and the haunted look within them. She decided not to say anything and let Asa finish at her own speed.

  “I have had two dreams, and I had an amazing orgasm in each that woke me up.”

  “Well, erotic dreams are not that unusual, especially for those in our business. What makes you uncomfortable about these dreams, I mean I remember you sharing dreams with me and us laughing about them.”

  “No, these were different. Someone was with me. I felt him and heard him. There was a smell, smoke that smelled like sandalwood and cinnamon. In both cases, there was smoke in the area. In both cases, I felt someone else present. In both times, I reached an unusual and bright orgasm and was moist when I have not been able to do this under any other circumstances for over a year. I even tried to have sex with a nice hunk of a local guy after the first time, and I was still dry.”

  Carol reached over and took her hand.

  “I know, Carol, I am totally delusional. My system has shut down, and my brain is building its own world. Including a wet ear.”

  Carol looked at her for a long time. “Sweetheart, I have a friend, a psychiatrist. He is not a client, but he knows what I do. Anyway, I want to set you up with him. He is halfway between here and Austin, so you can just drive over to his offices. Before you decide to treat yourself, let’s get a real professional to try and see if he can help you.”

  * * * *

  Asa started crying. She had not cried since she scratched her knee when she was ten. She was going crazy. “Carol, I have nothing to show for my life. Sure, I have money, but the one thing that I did well was useless. Anyone could do it. Most people did. Most people enjoyed it with marriage or with long-term partners. I enjoyed it without knowing who I was with. I have no other skills, other than the fact that men need me for sex, and no one needs me for just me. I am a useless vessel that has never been filled, and I wasted my body trying to fill it, and it is still empty.”

  * * * *

  He floated above them, watching and listening. He was not sure what had drawn him to this place, this woman, to begin with, but he did not want to move on. He was often bored with his life, which he thought was part of the punishment.

  Lately, he had just moved with the winds, over the hot arid land with cattle. It had been a long time since he had touched anyone. It had gotten to be old stuff, scaring some, having sex with some, watching the ghost hunters, watching the religious zealots, there were many who cursed him and many who worshiped him. But in none had he found that special entirely-selfless-and-good-for-someone-else act that he was supposed to perform. He had pretty much decided it was a trick of the witch to keep him forever trapped.

  He did not really need smoke to draw him, as he was his own smoke. He could float on the winds or speed wherever he wanted. He could draw out until he was almost invisible and so long that one could not see the beginning and the end. He could draw up and be a tight small circle of smoke like he was now as he watched the two women.

  He had always been able to hear. It took him a while to learn to make small parts of his body corporeal. When he first saw her, he had released his face and caught her smell. Yes, she was fine, so very fine. But there was a sadness deep inside her that he did not understand. How could something so beautiful, so full of the sex that every man wanted, be so sad inside.

  He thought back as he watched her the first night, as she slept, and he remembered the start.

  He and his brothers went to sleep after eating and drinking in the big dark gathering room. There were many women willing to follow him up the wide stone stairs, but for some reason, maybe it had been the remnants of the meeting with the witch, he felt he wanted to sleep alone.

  In his big room with the massive bed, the servants had laid out drying clothes and there was water, not hot but fresh, in a big vessel that he poured into a bowl. After stripping, he washed and, as usual, prepared to go to bed, naked. He pulled the heavy tapestry back from one of the deep narrow openings in the thick stone walls of the tower to let in fresh air and finally went to the bed.

  The room was soon cold, but the many blankets and furs let him fall asleep. He was not sure when the transition happened. He just knew that awareness took over as he drifted high over the chimneys of some small town, the smoke from the morning fires drawing him.

  How had he gotten this high? He looked down at his hands, and then he screamed. But he did not hear his voice, as he had no ears and no hands and no body, he was a drift of smoke above the town.

  It took him a long time to get past the point of being insane. Finally, he consciously made the decision to do what the witch wanted and find a way to help someone. Except that almost drove him back to insanity again. How can you help people if you cannot touch them or talk to them.

  Eventually, he found ways to talk and touch, except most people thought they were insane when he talked or touched them. When he helped people, it was an act of kindness, not that special act the witch required. So he floated, he learned, he watched the world change, and now he watched her.

  * * * *

  So here she was, sitting in a waiting room that did not look like a waiting room. She was surprised. The office was in a small town off the major highway, and it was all tall, cool trees and green grass and small shops and not very tall buildings. Parking was easy as the traffic was light in the downtown area.

  There were only four offices on the first floor and the doctor’s office was one in the back. She walked in and thought she was in someone’s living room. Comfortable couches, overstuffed chairs, a low coffee table with a couple of current magazines. Lamps instead of lights buried in the ceiling. As she stood just inside the door, taking in the room, a woman came in from a door on the opposite side. There were two doors, and she left the one behind her open. Asa could see a small normal office behind the woman.

  “Hello, are you, Miss McDonna?” The woman was professional, about 40, and nice looking in a hometown way.

  “Yes, I have an appointment for 1 PM. I don’t know how long to expect the first meeting to last. Is it one hour?”

  The woman smiled. “Dr. Alissandro always leaves the afternoon free for the first visit. He will be with you in just a moment. Have a seat and please fill these forms out. There is not much, so just leave them on the table when you are done.” She turned and went back in her office and closed the door.

  Asa took a seat on one of the couches and waited. The wait was not long, thank goodness, so she had barely had time to finish the forms. The doctor, like the waiting room and his office, was a nice surprise. He was in his late fifties or early sixties, handsome in a rugged way. He looked like he spent his time in some garden, planting flowers, digging up weeds, and harvesting carrots and potatoes.

  The office was a reflection of him. There were several oversized comfortable chairs, each with a matching footstool with pillow tops. They were seated in a partial circle to face the back wall that was all glass and which faced a southern garden that was not overdone
but definitely relaxing. The two walls that were on each side had low cabinets with artwork hanging above them. Paintings of forests or streams or large flowers.

  There was a low table in front of the chairs, and there were water in small bottles nestled in a bowl of ice with a couple of clean glasses sitting next to them. She looked around, wondering which chair she should take.

  He smiled. “I always let my clients choose where to sit.” He waved at the chairs.

  She looked and then decided on the one in the middle, so that she could have the best view of the garden. She sat quietly and watched a blue jay land and find some seeds to eat. The doctor took the chair on the end, so that left a chair empty between them.

  She sat and waited for him to start asking the questions she expected doctors asked when they had you on their couch. Well, she was not on a couch, and she appreciated that. She sat back as she found that she had been stiffly sitting on the edge of the chair and found it great as she sank into the soft stuffing. She finally looked over at him.

  “So, how do we start this?”

  He gave a friendly smile. “We already did.”

  “But you have not asked anything.”

  “Well, getting to the bottom of a problem does not always mean just asking boring questions. But if that is what you want, what questions would you expect me to ask?”

  She looked over at him and saw that he was totally relaxed, one ankle over the other knee. No note pad.

  “You want me to ask the questions?” She gave him a big frown and began to wonder if this was not only a waste of money but a waste of time.

  “You know yourself better than anyone else, so you should know what questions are more important than the frivolous ones that normally are asked in white sterile rooms at hospitals.” He leaned his head into a hand and looked at her. “So cutting through all the bullshit, what question would you really truly want me to ask you?”

  She drew up a knee and hugged it. She thought about the question for a long moment. This session was not like anything she had thought it would be like, not like what she had seen on TV, not what she had heard from people who gossiped.

  “If I were in control of the interview, I would ask, well, Ms. McDonna, what are you afraid of?”

  He chuckled, and she looked at him with a frown. “So I should not ask about your drinking habits or your sex life, and I would not ask if you hated your mother or loved your father. So let’s investigate that, what are you afraid of, Ms. McDonna?”

  “Well Doctor, that is the $64,000 question. I don’t know, I am just afraid.”

  “When did you first find out you were afraid?”

  She took a long time to think about it before answering. It was strange, but she wanted to be truthful with this man. “I think the first time was when I was twelve, and I found out I could cry.”

  “Why did you cry?”

  “Our pet dog died.”

  He waited a long time, then said. “Most children would cry over losing their pet. Why would that scare you?”

  With a deep sigh, she answered. “That was when I found out that I could care for something so hard that losing it would make me cry. It scared me.”

  “So, now we have something good to talk about.”

  She looked over at him again. “Wait, you don’t want to hear about my parents, or my sex life, which has been pretty wild? You want to talk about me crying when I was twelve?”

  “You came to me to work out your problems, not to titillate me with your experiences. So let’s begin.”

  Three hours later, she was in her Jeep heading back home and more confused than when she went to the doctor. She had found him comfortable, and she did not find the session difficult, but she had no answers, and she still felt like she was on the verge of having a breakdown.

  She sat down on the back porch and slowly ate one of the stuffed rolls that Carol had left. She refused to drink alcohol, afraid she would drown in the bottom of the bottle. She drank juice, not wanting the caffeine to keep her awake although she did not remember what her bed looked like.

  She had no idea what she was going to do with her life from this moment forward. She had nothing she wanted to do, nothing that she wanted to see, and she was losing her needs for life. There was nothing new in the world that seemed to interest her right now, and she was losing her mind. Besides a couple of friends that she was not really close with, including Carol, there was no one she really cared for and no one who cared for her. Sure there were plenty out there that wanted to fuck her, and some that would like to own her for a trophy. But no real feelings from any of them.

  This was her life, a useless leftover piece of nothing. She watched the sand on the wooden walkway to the beach get kicked up into a miniature circle. The air with the sand seemed to be darker, almost like smoke as it danced like a sand devil back and forth into the sand, then back on the wood, then back to the sand and behind a clump of sea oats and then gone, the sand drifting straight down to the ground.

  Chapter Five

  She could smell smoke and sandalwood and cinnamon. She closed her eyes, and then she heard a whisper. It was a male voice and deep, and she found it sensual. Well, if she was going crazy and creating a large white rabbit, it had to have a sexy whisper.

  “Why are you so sad, sweet thing?” The voice was on the back of her neck, and she felt her hair stir in an imagined wind.

  She decided to play this out. Nothing mattered anymore. Since she could lose herself in her imagination, she laid back with her eyes closed and talked to herself. She said the things she did not say to the doctor.

  “I am sad because my life is over, can you understand that?”

  She felt the stirring of the breeze over her face, almost as if a friend had started to kiss her and just touched her cheeks with a breath. Then she felt the sigh, and it was as sad as hers.

  * * * *

  “Yes, little one, I understand.” He did, as he had nothing to live for, but he had no way to end his life. That was part of the curse. The witch was right in one area, he had learned. He really regretted what they had done to her daughter. He had no thought to the girl’s feelings or her life after they were through with her. He only thought of his immediate pleasure. Even after he was changed by the witch, he spent a long time playing around and thinking of entertaining himself. Now he just thought of not hurting anyone and ending his life.

  “Great, I am talking to myself, and I understand.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, you can keep me company, you can tell me you are my friend, you can talk to me. No one talks to me, they just want to fuck me. No one makes love to me, they just want to fuck me.”

  * * * *

  She waited. There was a long silence. Okay, she could not make an imaginary friend that would talk. She was a loser in all areas.

  “Let’s start with the easy ones first. I can be with you all the time if you like, and we can talk whenever you want. What shall we talk about?”

  She looked around. There was no one on her property. She knew there was no one here. She knew she was crazy. So go ahead down this road. She and her friend spent the next couple of days and nights together. It was strange and surprisingly relaxing. Maybe going insane was not a bad idea. She had to rent that old movie Harvey with James Stewart. Suddenly, she felt she could really relate to that man in the story who had an imaginary white rabbit as a friend.

  She was in the tub relaxing in a cool bath as they talked in the afternoon. She smelled the odor she related to her hallucinations.

  “So why do you think no one loves you?” The voice was always a low sensual whisper.

  “Why would anyone want to love me?”

  “Because you are beautiful beyond words, you are passionate more than any female I have experienced. You are intelligent and have a sense of humor. Why would some man not love you?”

  “I have asked myself that question so many times, and I think I know why. It is because of the need for th
em to fuck me. It flares up like a big stop sign, and that becomes all they want. They no longer have any interest in anything else I might be, because my humor or my intelligence might get in the way of fucking.” She had a light citrus oil in the cool water to keep the hot summer bath refreshing.

  One evening in front of the fire on the porch, they were talking about the people they had fucked, and they both agreed that no one had made love to either one of them. Then she began to laugh.

  “Why are you laughing in a sound that is not funny, little one?”

  “Again, I have made an illusion that is as sick as I am? So you have been fucked and have fucked a lot, but never made love to anyone. It is the same for me.”

  “So, lay back, close your eyes, and let me make love to you.”

  She sighed. “I am going to let my make believe friend make love to me. Sure, why not? What do I do?”

  “Take the belt from your robe and use it as a blind and tie it over your eyes. Take off your robe, and lay back and relax.”

  She did what she thought her mind was telling her to do and, when her eyes were covered and she was naked, she lay back on the cushions. She wondered why, if he were an imaginary friend, she had to cover her eyes.

  “Put your arms over your head and spread your legs, and then leave everything to me.”

  She did what her mind told her to do.

  Then she felt a soft touch of lips on hers, and she sucked in a short breath. The kiss was gentle and the tongue licked her bottom lip until she opened her mouth. When the tongue invaded, it was a sweet exploration and then a withdrawal that left her wanting more. Oh, sweet God, she had to be out of her mind. The lips felt so real.

  The kisses moved down her chin, her neck, tiny nips that gave her goose bumps and then the mouth found her breast. It was strange that he did not use his hands, only his mouth, but it added to the softness, the feeling of lovemaking.