Masque of Desires

I stared at the woman, astonished, speechless. No one could be that gorgeous; it simply wasn't possible. Her face was beautiful beyond reason, yet warm and friendly, having none of the cold austerity of some professional beauties. She was dazzling, flawless, a dream of lust given life.

She stood beside the parlor’s massive hearth, gazing intently into the flames, her nearly bare body gleaming bronze in the firelight. I had noticed that the ballroom was emptying, that people were leaving the dance floor and streaming into the large parlor overlooking Long Island Sound, and I’d followed, wanting to see what it was all about, even at the cost of delaying my trip to the ladies’ room to repair the latest wardrobe malfunction to my rapidly unraveling mummy costume.

She was what it was all about.

She was a small woman, all but nude, wearing nothing but a narrow strip of snow white linen, perhaps a handbreadth wide and half a yard long, hanging before her from a golden cord riding low on her hips and covering her to the bare minimum allowed by decorum – as long as there was no breeze. Apart from jewelry, she wore nothing else, not even sandals.

Her flesh was the dark olive of the Mediterranean, firm and lush and round, with full breasts and a woman’s hips. Her hair was long and dark and gleaming and perfect as though meant for shampoo commercials. Her eyes were captivating, bright and green as Ireland, warm and inviting, bordered by dramatically drawn eye shadow of a rich royal blue. Her lips were full and red, naturally so.

She hadn’t skimped at the jeweler’s. Golden highlights gleamed from her bare body, head to toe. All of her jewelry was gold, much of it trimmed with rich blue stones I took to be lapis lazuli, a perfect match to her eye shadow. A golden diadem across her high forehead held her hair, dark as ebony, in place. Bracelets and anklets, massive as shackles, adorned her, wrist and ankle. Intricately wound golden armbands gripped her upper arms. An elegant torque lay about her slender neck. Her every finger and toe was encircled by a ring of gold, and her ears and nipples and nose had all been pierced and affixed with delicate, exquisite adornments. She looked every inch the barbarian princess; she’d have had Conan the Cimmerian asking her to the chariot races in no time flat.

The large room went silent as she turned away from the massive stone fireplace and moved languorously toward the French doors leading to the broad terrace, the doors thrown open wide despite the evening’s chill. As she left the room, her all but naked body swaying gently to the music from the ballroom, and vanished into the darkness outside, I could hear a collective sigh from all in the parlor as we once more began to breathe.

“Goddess,” whispered the man in the tricorn hat beside me. He was a short, skinny fellow -- only coming up to my chin, and I’m not a tall woman – dressed as George Washington.

“You got that right,” I told him as I tugged at the wrappings of my mummy outfit, trying to keep myself decently covered. Wrapping myself shoulders to toes in a few hundred feet of linen bandages had seemed like such a good idea, too. Tight and curvy and sexy without showing too much skin, and everybody likes mummy-girls! Who would’ve guessed that I’d be spending the entire party trying to keep my clothes from falling off?

Looking down at the tattered remnants of my costume, drooping here and there and showing considerably more of me than I was comfortable with in public, wishing that my light brown hair was long enough for bobby pins or that I’d brought along a couple of boxes of safety pins, I added, “Looks like she’s got best costume locked up. I didn’t have a chance, but I really like your George Washington.”

He stopped staring at the darkness into which the woman had disappeared and looked at me, puzzled.

“My George…? Oh. No, I’m not George. A little short for George. I’m James Madison; he was the shortest president.”

I thought about that.

“Uh…he was also the ‘father of the Constitution,’ wasn’t he?”

“He was? Oh. Well, I guess that was important, too.”

“It’s generally thought so.”

He stuck out a white-gloved hand.

“But I’m also Barney Braddock, the hottest, shortest guy at any party.”

“Nice to meet you, Barney. I’m Nancy Lee. Nancy Lee St. James, mummy-girl of the nineteenth dynasty.”

I offered him my hand and we shook, after which he disentangled his hand from the loose wrappings dangling from my wrist and I began again my ritual of tugging at my disintegrating costume, trying to keep my bare essentials covered.

“So which are you, Joan Collins or Linda Evans?”

I was beginning to get the idea that Barney was not the sharpest tool in the shed. As I was about to respond with a devastatingly witty answer that I’d love to share with you but can’t, because I never got a chance to say it, I realized that I’d lost his attention and that he was leaning to one side, staring around my shoulder. I turned, and there she was again, standing directly behind me, holding a wine glass in each hand, smiling at me.

I smiled back at her, and was opening my mouth to say hello when Barney Braddock jumped in ahead of me, stepping forward and nudging me back, wedging himself in between the two of us.

“Hi, there, you gorgeous you! I’m Barney Braddock, but I’m also James Madison, the shortest president and founder of the constellations. Buy you a drink?”

She looked at him, then down at the two drinks she held, then back at Barney. She smiled at him warmly.

“Thank you, Barney. That is most kind of you. I will have a Sloe Gin Fizz, and the lady here,” she nodded at me, “shall have an Amaretto Sour.”

Barney looked at her, then at the two drinks she held, then at me, again at the drinks, and then at her. I could hear the rusty wheels trying to turn.

“Right,” he said, “don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back!”

He scampered away, and she turned to me.

“Will you have a drink?” she asked me, offering me a wine glass. She had a lovely soft voice, with an accent I’d never before heard. “This wine is from a land called Napa, quite delicious, reminiscent of wines I had when I was young.”

Young? I accepted and took a sip. She was right about the wine, but I was puzzled by the reference to when she was young; she looked to be about 22. I held out my hand to her in greeting.

“Thank you for the drink. I’m Nancy Lee. Nancy Lee St. James. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She took my hand, held it. Her hand was warm, her skin soft and smooth. I didn’t want to let go. Neither did she, apparently, for she didn’t.

“The pleasure is equally mine. I am Inanna.”

“What a lovely name. Inanna.” I liked the way it rolled off my tongue. “Italian?”

She had somehow moved much closer to me without my noticing her being in motion, and I was suddenly hyperaware how very nearly naked she was. She smelled wonderful. Now, she smiled up at me, and I felt a delicious chill run up and down my spine.

“Italian? No. I am from the city of Uruk, in the land between the rivers.”

Inanna sipped her wine, set the glass down upon a convenient side table, then gracefully took my glass as well, placing it directly beside hers, the glasses so close together that their lips were all but touching. She took my other hand, held my hands together between hers, and looked up into my eyes. Her eyes were the brightest, the most vivid green I had ever seen.

“I am…”

She was cut off in mid-sentence.

“I’ve got your drinks!” Barney Braddock said triumphantly. “Long Island Iced Tea for Queen Tut, and a Panther Sweat for Hot Naked Girl.”

Inanna blinked several times, very quickly, then shook her head, nearly imperceptibly, her dark hair swinging slightly and brushing her bare shoulders in a most delightful fashion. She released my hands -- reluctantly, I thought -- and turned to Barney Braddock, smiling brightly at him. She took the drinks he proffered and set them upon the side table, as far as possible from the two wine glasses.

“Thank you, Barney, you are most prompt, as well as generous.” She placed a hand gently upon the velvet sleeve of his jacket. “But I must be honest with you, Barney. I do not seek a man here this night, but rather, a woman.”

Barney Braddock’s eyes widened. They were bloodshot. He placed his hand upon Inanna’s bare shoulder and squeezed.

“Damn, that’s hot,” he blurted. “Two hot chicks. That’s something I’d pay to see.”

Inanna’s smile, I was surprised to see, grew warmer, more engaging, and perhaps even somewhat intrigued. But there was also a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

“O yes, Barney Braddock. I, too, like to watch, and to be watched. But not to be watched by fools.”

Barney Braddock nodded sagely.

“I know what you mean. That’s the worst!”

“And that is why you must take a different path this night, Barney.” She gestured toward a woman across the room, a tall, bold, body-building beauty in five-inch heels, an absolutely spectacularly built woman just barely wearing the tiniest, reddest, sexiest Vampirella costume I had ever seen.

“That woman, Barney. The tall one with hair like a raven’s wing. She desires you, though she does not yet know it. Go to her.”

“Vampirella?” Barney’s bloodshot eyes were near popping. “She wants me? No. Impossible. No. No way.”

“Yes, Barney,” Inanna said. She leaned close to him, whispered briefly in his ear. He listened attentively. Inanna drew back toward me once more, put her left arm about my waist.

“Say those words to her, Barney, and this night, she is yours.”

Barney stared at Inanna, then at Vampirella, then back at Inanna, his eyes ping-ponging between the two women.

“And after tonight?” he asked.

Inanna smiled wistfully and shrugged her beautiful bare shoulders.

“Even a goddess of love can only give you a woman, Barney. To keep her, that is your task.”

Barney looked doubtful. I didn’t blame him a bit. Vampirella had chosen her costume perfectly; she was the lustiest, bustiest bitch I’d ever seen. If she and Barney spent the night together, there’d be nothing left of him come morning but his tricorn hat. He shook his head, opened his mouth to speak.

Without a word, Inanna touched him gently on the forehead with the two middle fingers of her right hand, those fingers pressed together, the other two fingers and the thumb wide outspread, held them there but a brief moment, and then placed them fleetingly upon his breastbone, and finally, upon his thin lips.

“Go to her, Barney Braddock,” she said, in a voice I’d obey if I knew what was good for me.

Barney Braddock, an even more dazed and vacant look on his face than ordinarily, turned and went, walking directly to Vampirella. We stood silently and watched.

Vampirella was in an animated conversation with a lovely Morticia Addams, a Space Guy in full space armor complete with oxygen pack and slung blaster rifle, and a Space Girl wearing a metallic silver thong bikini, matching silver go-go boots, and a holstered ray gun. Barney Braddock strode right up to Vampirella, stepped atop a nearby chair (I told you he was short and she, tall!), and whispered briefly in her ear.

Vampirella listened, on her beautiful face a look of abject surprise, which slowly changed to one of irritation, then interest, and then, if I read her correctly, unquenchable lust. She moved toward Barney, grabbed him around the thighs, flipped him effortlessly over one of her broad shoulders, let out a whoop, and ran from the room. They vanished from sight, Barney holding onto his tricorn hat with both hands as he bounced atop Vampirella’s bare shoulder. I stared after them, open-mouthed with astonishment, as did everyone else in the parlor, Barney included. I turned to Inanna.

“What on earth did he say? The world’s greatest pick-up line? That he can only be measured with a yardstick? That he just won the PowerBall? Or just what she wanted to hear?”

“O no. All men tell her what she desires to hear. Our friend Barney told her what she needed to hear.”

“What was that?”

Inanna smiled at me, iron behind the smile.

“No, Nancy Lee. I gave him a truth, a truth for that part of her which is mine. That which is hers to know, hers to be. Not yours.”

I thought about that.

"And what do I need to know?”

Inanna reached out, touched the middle two fingers of her right hand to my forehead, held them there a moment, then dropped her hand and took both my hands in hers once more.

“Not yet. Come, Nancy Lee. Let us walk together.”

Arm in arm, we walked slowly out of the parlor and onto the terrace, moving past a man in black robes who wore upon his head a silvered, reflecting globe, mottled like the moon. He was in conversation with an Egyptian Princess, a woman who wore nothing whatsoever except body paint, and yet who somehow looked modestly dressed when compared with Inanna. We stepped out into the darkness and stood beside a stone railing overlooking Long Island Sound.

Inanna stood in the night, all but naked, her tiny white linen loincloth fluttering softly in the breeze, her dark olive skin beautiful in the faint light. I sat back against the railing and looked at her. Inanna stood with her hands resting upon the stone balustrade, gazing out at the Sound and at the distant shore, the lights of Connecticut clearly visible.

Inanna closed her bright green eyes and breathed deeply, taking in the scents of the night. She spoke without opening her eyes as I studied her face.

“I love the sea,” she said, “so strong, so vast, so powerful, yet a bringer of life. Beautiful and dangerous, female and male, compelling and terrifying. It is much like love.”

She opened her eyes and gazed into mine.

“I would be alone with you. Come.”

I obeyed.

We walked along the dark path of smooth flagstones and down the hill. Gradually, we left the sounds of the party behind us and walked down the path, into the darkness.

We came to a low hill and climbed a flight of old brick steps to its grassy top, flat and ringed by square brick pillars, about ten feet apart, each one perhaps six feet in height and all of them connected at the top by a heavy metal pipe. I assumed that they had once been used as some kind of ornamental trellis.

Inanna led me past the pillars to the center of the hilltop and to a long, low brick structure some seven or eight feet long, about four feet wide and three feet high. I didn’t know if it was a picnic table, an outdoor oven, or a sacrificial altar, and at that point, I didn’t much care.

Inanna climbed gracefully atop the brick – okay, let’s call it an altar -- and sat atop it cross-legged, hands resting easily palm down on her bare thighs, the pale light of the rising moon creating dramatic shadows on her face and all but naked body. I stood before her for a long moment. Finally, she spoke.

“This is a good place,” she said in her soft voice and indefinable accent, “green and still. It puts me in mind of the stone circles of the people of the western forests, the keepers of the old ways.”

She sat in silence for another long moment, looking about the clearing, and then gracefully climbed down from atop the altar and walked in a circle around me, looking me over, head to toe and back up again. Though I was fully dressed and she was nearly nude, I was the one who was naked. I felt as though she were looking deep inside me, trying to make a decision about me. I tugged here and there at the wrappings of my mummy costume, trying to keep myself covered. Inanna stood close before me and tilted her head to one side, quizzically. She fingered my wrappings, causing them to fall partly off my breasts.

“Your body is beauty itself. Even for a masque, why do you hide it beneath these rags?”

“Uh…um…I’m supposed to be an Egyptian mummy.”

“Egypt,” she sniffed, her nose wrinkling with disdain. “Pharaohs. Death cultists. Haughty, shaven-headed men with false beards, dreamers of the grave, players at gods.”

She looked up at me, brilliant green eyes boring into mine, and took my hands in hers.

“Why worship death when you can be life?”

“I …I don’t understand.”

“Nancy Lee, nothing in this world or any other is more beautiful than a beautiful woman, and if a woman must wear anything at all, she should wear as little as possible – my own way, as you see --” she smiled down at her nearly bare body, “and she should wear only ornaments of great beauty to adorn herself.” She looked me over, up and down, again. “Were you mine, I would permit you no garments. You have beauty; you are beauty. You should wear nothing.”

She released my hands, smiled flirtatiously, and winked.

I felt the mummy wrappings falling away from my body. I looked down, and they were coming apart, the wrappings loosening, the stitches coming undone, the linen threads unraveling, falling away from one another, the threads themselves falling to pieces, finally turning to a pale white dust that vanished as though it never was, blown away by a sudden warm breeze that caressed my bare body like a dozen lovers, and in but an instant I stood naked in the moonlight.

“You are beautiful,” Inanna told me, her voice soft and breathless.

I felt my knees go weak and I knelt before her, my hands resting palm up on my bare thighs, my head bowed. Inanna moved close and took my head in her hands, softly caressing my short hair, her touch gentle and possessing.

“I am Ishtar,” Inanna said, her voice soft, but still a voice that brooked no disobedience, “goddess of love and desire, courtesan of the gods, dweller in the Eanna Temple in the city of Uruk of the gleaming walls. I have need of a high priestess, a handmaiden who shall guide those who worship me, who shall teach the ways of love and life to the world. You shall be my priestess.”

Inanna stooped and took me by a hand, guided me to my feet. She then pressed her two middle fingers to my breastbone, the outside fingers and thumb widely outstretched, just as before. I felt a tingling throughout my body, as well as an extreme lassitude, not as though I were ready for sleep, but rather as though I were already deeply asleep. I knew that I could move if I wished; I just couldn’t quite remember how.

Inanna waved a hand slowly before me and I felt my feet leave the ground, felt my body tilt backward until I was staring up at the night sky, floating easily some three or four feet above the ground, arms and legs dangling slightly.

I felt Inanna’s hands upon my body, guiding me toward the brick altar. When I was above it, she gave a gentle push downward with the palm of her hand over my navel, and my naked body settled easily upon the cool bricks. I still felt no inclination to move, and a moment later, Inanna was also atop the altar, straddling my hips, her beautiful face and body framed by the brilliant stars of Orion in the dark sky above.

She crouched low above me, her warm breasts pressing against mine, took my head in her hands, drew me up to her, and kissed me deeply upon my lips, my throat, my breasts. I could feel her heat pouring into me. Then she sat upright, back arched, arms widespread, and spoke to the night.

“I am Inanna, the goddess Ishtar. I am Inanna, the goddess Astarte. I am Inanna, the goddess Aphrodite. I am Inanna, courtesan to the gods, bringer of joy and beauty, vessel of love and desire. I have many names; I have loved in many lands, but now and ever, I am Inanna.”

She looked down at me, a gentle smile on her face.

“You are my high priestess, as always you have been, as always you shall be. In the city of Uruk of the gleaming walls, you were the high priestess Shamhat, and you dwelt with me in the Eanna Temple, loving and loved, my handmaiden, my love, my own.

“You are a woman, so a part of you is mine already. But you are special, Nancy Lee, so I shall have all of you. I am your goddess, you are my handmaiden, now and always. I am yours; you are mine. Ever.”

She bent low and pressed her body to mine, kissing me with a passion beyond anything I had ever dreamed of – and I could move again.

I folded my arms about Inanna and drew her closer to me, wrapped my legs about her, and held her tight. I could feel the heat from her bare flesh flowing into mine. I could feel warmth rising off my body, could see waves of heat bending the air like the summer sun on a desert highway, could hear the rumble of distant thunder.

After long moments, Inanna drew slowly away and sat upright, astride my hips, my fingers exploring her bare flesh, her hands softly caressing my breasts. She looked down at me, smiling like a child who’s just discovered where the Christmas gifts are hidden.

“A new name, a new face, but Shamhat you still are,” she said, gasping slightly for breath. “Ever beautiful, ever faithful, ever…” she grinned, “enthusiastic.”

She leaned down and loomed over me, supporting her weight with one arm while caressing my face. She kissed me on my cheek, on my eyelids, on my lips.

“You are beautiful, perfection itself,” she murmured, “but – and this is the way of woman, as so well you know – one change I must make.” She grinned widely. “Your eyes are beautiful, soft and blue, like the sea of the north, but I must make this one small change…or at most, two.”

Once again she reached toward me, the two middle fingers of her right hand pressed tightly together, her other fingers and her thumb outspread like the wings of an eagle. She touched her fingers to my forehead, held them there a moment, and then pressed her fingers to my breastbone, my eyes, my nipples, and last of all, my lips. And with her beautiful face, her brilliant green eyes looking down at me, I faded away to darkness…

********************************************************

Early morning sunlight, rising over the treetops, shone in my eyes and awakened me. I was lying on my back on a hard surface, warm and comfortable, staring up into a beautiful blue sky. I sat up, and found myself completely free of aches and pains, despite having spent the night sleeping on an altar of solid brick.

I hopped off the altar and walked a few steps into the grassy clearing. It was a beautiful day, with the promise of warmth, and the hilltop was green and still, the waves of Long Island Sound barely audible in the distance. The soft grass tickled my bare feet; the sunlight felt incredible on my bare skin.

But Inanna was gone – kind of. And I was no longer naked – precisely.

Inanna was gone, and yet she was still here, still within me. I could feel her love, her beauty, her presence, and I knew that, as she had said, this was for always.

And while my mummy wrappings were unlamentedly lost and gone forever, I wasn’t altogether naked, for I was wearing Inanna’s tiny white linen loincloth, hanging before me on a golden cord encircling my hips. I was also wearing her jewelry, from heavy golden anklets to nipple piercings to golden diadem across my brow, holding my dark brown hair in place.

Dark brown hair? Nipple piercings?

I gathered up a few locks of my waist-length hair and held it up before my eyes. When I’d arrived at the party in my home-designed, disastrous mummy costume, my hair had been short, very short, and light brown – its natural color. Now, my hair was thick, hung to my waist or below, and was a deep, rich, dark chestnut.

I also found that I had been adorned with a dozen piercings holding Inanna’s golden jewelry in my ears, my nose, my nipples, and my…uh…my elsewhere. They were entirely healed, looked great, and felt…really, really great.

Well, Inanna had said she’d intended to make a change or two. Not bad ones, either. I headed back to the manor house to find my purse and car keys.

Walking alone, it seemed a shorter distance along the flagstone path than it had with Inanna. I was soon on the terrace, and then back at the parlor where it had all started.

I stood in the doorway, looking inside. I felt like I had been away a lifetime, yet the party was still going strong. I took a step to enter, stopped dead in my tracks.

A tricorn hat lay on the floor near the massive fireplace, unnoticed and abandoned.

“O Goddess,” I gasped out loud, “Vampirella did it. There’s nothing left of Barney but his hat!”

Out of a nearby massive armchair, its back turned to me, leapt a short, skinny figure in a George Washington – pardon, I meant a James Madison costume. It was Barney Braddock, of course, and he was his usual semi-coherent self, which made me feel a little better.

“What?” he cried. “What? What? What? What?”

“Sorry, Barney,” I told him, walking toward a large wall mirror to check my makeup, “didn’t see you there. How’s Vampirella?”

He cringed.

“Oh, my God, is she here? You haven’t seen her, have you?”

My makeup looked fine. The dramatic royal blue shadow worked beautifully with my green eyes. I turned to Barney.

“No, I’ve been…busy. Aren’t you two getting along?”

“Uh…she’s talking about us getting married.”

Green eyes?

Barney started telling me a tale of wonder and woe about his amorous adventures of the previous evening, while I turned back to my reflection and gawked at my image. My eyes, the day before a soft blue, were now a beautiful, brilliant green, so vivid that they seemed to be lit from within. They were Inanna’s eyes, identical to hers in every way.

Inanna’s eyes. She had marked me, marked me as her own. Which I was, of course. And I suppose that there are worse things than going through life with the eyes of a goddess. I grinned at myself in the mirror.

“Hey, it’s nothing to laugh about!” Barney barked into my ear.

I started, realizing that Barney had been speaking to me all this time, telling me of Vampirella’s sudden and insatiable passion for him. I turned toward him, to reassure him that I was taking his “problem” seriously, when I noticed something peculiar in the mirror.

When I had entered the parlor, the party had been going on, much as before. People standing about, talking. People on couches and chairs, talking, arguing, making out, dozing. People at the buffet table, doing whatever it is that people do at buffet tables that makes the lines interminable. But now…

Now, everybody in the room was standing, and facing my way. It looked as though they were staring in my direction. In fact, I got the impression that they were staring at me. And I realized, all of a sudden, that I was all but naked in a large room filled with people. In fact, as seen from behind, especially my behind, I was naked. And…I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I wiggled my butt and grinned as I saw eyes and heads turning back and forth, as though they were watching a ping-pong match. I grinned wider. Being handmaiden to a goddess was going to have some definite perks. I turned to Barney.

“I’m sorry, Barney, I drifted off there for a second. Guess I was still kicking myself for wearing that silly mummy costume. You were saying?”

Barney looked puzzled. Definitely his default look.

“Mummy costume? What do you mean?”

“The mummy costume I was wearing last night.” He was still blank. “Mummy-girl from the nineteenth dynasty? Bandages, from my neck to my toes? Falling off all evening? Ringing any bells?”

He shook his head.

“No. I only saw you wearing this one.”

“No, Barney,” I corrected him, as gently as possible. “This was Inanna’s costume. She…uh…loaned it to me when she left because my wrappings kept falling off.”

Even more puzzled.

“Inanna? Who’s that?”

I stared at him, astonished. How could anyone forget Inanna?

“Small woman. Gorgeous beyond comprehension. Black hair. Green eyes…uh…just like mine. Olive skin. Barefoot. Tons of gold jewelry and gold piercings. This jewelry, in fact. These piercings. Practically naked. If you looked up ‘lust’ in the dictionary, you’d find her picture.”

He grinned and winked.

“Sounds like you’re talking about yourself. But seriously, I don’t know who you’re talking about. I never saw anybody wearing that hot little outfit but you.”

I stared at him, my mouth hanging open…and then I got it. He was right. Hard to believe, but Barney was right. No one could forget Inanna, especially in this outfit. Another of her “little changes,” I guessed. I shrugged. No matter.

“Well, Barney…I must’ve had a little more to drink last night than I thought. Now, then. You were saying about Vampirella?”

“Oh, yeah! We had an incredible night, but now, she’s talking about wanting a committee!”

“Uh…a commitment?”

“Yeah, that too.”

I decided that the second step in helping Barney was getting myself some breakfast. The first step, on the other hand…I touched my middle two fingers to Barney’s forehead, my two outer fingers and thumb outstretched, like the wings of an eagle.

“Semper fi, Barney. Semper fi.”

I took him by the arm and guided him from the parlor, determined to find both my breakfast and his Vampirella. Noticing that pretty much the entire room was watching me as I walked out, I added an extra wiggle to my walk as I left. No harm in creating a little buzz.

This handmaiden to a goddess business was definitely gonna have some perks…

THE END

©2006 David Gustafson