Erotica: Snake Medicine, Part 1

Snake…come crawling,
There’s fire in your eyes.
Bite me, excite me,
I’ll learn to realize,

The poison transmuted,
Brings eternal flame.
Open me to heaven,
To heal me again.

…heavy magic, but remember, magic is no more than a change in consciousness. Become the magician or the enchantress: transmute the energy and accept the power of the fire.

-From "Spirit Animal Medicine" by David Carson and Jamie Sams

I rounded the corner to see the Museum of Fine Arts in full view, my eyes adjusting to the sun. He had beaten me there and was leaning against the building, like the wall had been built just for him. He was wearing a navy blue suit with a white button down and no tie, his Rolex partially visible below his sleeve. I could tell he had clocked me first because he was smirking. It was the look he always had for me, a look that meant, “I will listen to your rose-colored idealism enough to ask you follow up questions, but I am already fucking you in my head.”

I fought the urge to wave like a little girl from several yards away, and instead I cocked my head to the left and smiled a close-lipped smile, grateful for red lipstick and sunglasses to mask my earnestness; I was doing my best to maintain my composure. I smoothed the front of my wool jacket, my hands eager for something to touch. And then after keeping my head down while I climbed the stairs, memories of his lips on my neck flooding back, I was face-to-face with Jack.

I walked up to him, but not all the way, wanting to see him respond to me, wondering if he would he come in first and betray an eagerness to put his hands on me or wait for me to make the first move. He kept smirking his magnetic smirk, and he held the space.

I went in, not knowing what would happen in that hug, not knowing what I’d feel or what he might say or do, his face touching my face and his hands wrapped around my back. I wondered if there would be a shiver at feeling each other’s bodies again after 13 years. Would I feel that he had been burning for me?

I pulled him close to my chest, and he leaned closer still, his lips nearly brushing my ear to exhale and say, “Hey,” his body relaxing just slightly in my arms. “You’re looking well.”

“Hey,” I breathed back, smelling his cologne, which was just the right hint of masculine charisma to keep me there a moment longer than I had planned. “You too.” I paused to inhale the scent of his skin. “You ready to see some art?”

“Let’s go,” he said through that smirk that would let him get away with murder.

We took our time walking in, sunlight warming our faces. I wanted to make this day last. Our footsteps synced as we left the door to enter the museum. “Where to?” he asked, nonchalantly, but I could feel him getting ready to decide something about me in how I answered this question.

“Ancient Egypt.” He raised his eyes infinitesimally. It was the right answer.

We stopped at the coat check, and I untied the belt of my jacket, running my fingers gently along the entire length of it. I unbuttoned from bottom to top, taking my time, his eyes watching my hands, my eyes watching his face. At the last button, I shrugged the coat from my left shoulder and then my right, revealing my long-sleeved body suit, the hint of my nipples visible through the fabric of my shirt. He didn’t say a word, and he didn’t take his eyes off me.

We made our way through the café, pausing briefly at Chihuly’s Lime Green Icicle Tower, a two-story phallus comprised of thousands of sharp glass icicles. “What do you think Chihuly thinks of women?”

He laughed, the smirk melting for just a moment before he answered, “Some men never learn how to please a woman.”

“And what about you?” I asked.

“You can answer that one yourself,” he smirked, sliding his hand into his pocket to draw my eyes downward. I could still picture his gigantic cock with my eyes closed. I did often.

We approached the doors to Ancient Egypt, and he lingered a couple of steps behind me. I could feel his eyes on me while I walked inside. He was taking in my ass, strong and tight from running. I turned my head to the side and pushed my hair back toward him, so he knew I felt him looking.

It was quiet in the exhibit, and we lingered in front of the coffin panel of Djehutynakht. “Do you think they cared about all the same things we do 4,000 years ago?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

“Yeah. Look at the things they felt were important enough to bring to the afterlife,” he paused to let me consider.

“Food and wine.”

“And women,” he added, turning from the piece to me, undressing me with his eyes from my feet to my face. He lingered there, studying my face the way he’d studied the coffin, but he stayed at arm’s length away. I smirked back at him.

“Come on,” I said, smiling and moving ahead. I tossed my hair back, wafting the scent of my perfume behind me.  I felt his eyes bore through my clothes, wanting to touch me. My body ached to have his hands run down the length of my torso, but we couldn’t. I was married. 

He kept his hands in his pockets. I slowed down so we could walk next to each other again. “What do you want to see?” I asked, curious about what he would choose as his consolation prize, second to my naked body. The hard and sensual marble of the Greeks? The evocative natural landscapes of the American painters? The brutal swords of Japan?

“I’d like to see the Impressionists.” An unexpected answer. I couldn’t help but smile, affection leaping to my throat with the gentleness of this choice. I had forgotten this side of Jack.

“Ok,” I answered, still smiling, and we headed to the Impressionist gallery. We wandered from image to image, taking in the work. I felt us trying to see each painting the way the other was seeing it. We took turns letting our eyes wander from the work to each other’s faces in an unspoken dance. We paused in front of Monet’s Fisherman’s Cottage on the Cliffs at Varengeville, a quaint scene of a cottage with an ocean view, the perspective looking out on the water from behind a seaside house.

“I want to be in the house,” he said. “It isn’t enough to see it from behind.”

I paused before responding. “It’s part of the story to see it this way.” I turned to him. “There’s pleasure in knowing the house exists, seeing it this way before entering.”

“What’s good enough for you, Katherine?” he asked, still looking at the painting.

“I want to be in the house, to see the house, to paint the house, to write the house, to fill the house with interesting people. I want it all,” I answered.

“You think you’ll get it?” he asked, still staring at the painting.

“Yes,” I answered.

He took his eyes off the paining to look at me. I could feel the heat coming off him. He stepped in close enough to let his shoulder touch mine. A spark shot through my body.

Standing there, shoulder to shoulder and staring at the Monet, my stomach grumbled.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, genuine concern in his voice.

“Starving – you?”

“Yeah, let’s get something to eat.”

We sat across from each other at the table. I was aware of where my feet were under me, trying not to touch his shoes with mine, but feeling every atom of my body drawn to him like a magnet. I sat up straight and rolled my body along the back of my chair. I watched his eyes flick down to my chest and then back up to mine.

When the waitress came over, he ordered a glass of cabernet sauvignon. “Are you going to have a glass of wine?” he asked me with his full lips. I struggled not to think about those lips on my neck.

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea for me,” I said, knowing that one drink, and I’d be leaning into him, smelling his neck and whispering “I want your thick hard cock inside me.”

“Seltzer with a splash of OJ for me please, thank you.”

“Are you a teetotaler now, Katherine?” he asked half joking, but with a hint of disappointment.

“Just for today, I am,” I said, keeping my eyes on his.

“That’s unfortunate.”

I fought the urge to tease him and ask why it was unfortunate, knowing full well why he wanted me off my guard. I flicked my hair back gently and smiled at him instead.

“We’ll have the broccolini to start, please,” I said to the waitress, ordering for us both.

“You’re a little bossy these days, Katherine,” he said through his smirk after the waitress had left.

“Does it bother you?” I asked, already feeling he had been turned on by my little assertion of dominance.

“No, I’m just remarking,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on me.

“So how’s life, Jack?” I asked, taking a sip of water, feeling the cold glass in my hand, barely quenching the heat that had been mounting in my body.

“Life is good. Can’t complain,” he responded, but he looked down as he said it, and I knew he wasn’t being completely truthful.

“You’re looking for something,” I said.

“Aren’t we all?” he asked.

“What are you hoping to find, Jack?” I asked, suspecting I already knew the answer.

“A job that lets me do what I want with my time. And a partner,” he said, trying to make the second part sound like an after-thought but looking at me over the rim of his wine glass.

“What’s keeping you from those things?” I asked.

“Time.”

“How much time do you need?” I asked.

“I’ve manifested most of what I’ve wanted in my life,” he said, hitting the word “most” with a look deep in my eyes. He took another sip of his wine without answering my question.

“You just have to be a strong magnet for what you want, and then you pull it in,” I said, rolling my shoulders back and down, wanting to feel his eyes on my body.

“I got you to invite me here today, didn’t I?” he asked, leaning on the table and interlacing his fingers beneath his chin. “What do you want, Katherine?”

I paused and leaned back in my chair, draping my arm over the back of it. “Freedom,” I said.

“What kind of freedom?” he asked.

“Every kind,” I said. “Sexual, financial, temporal, psychological, spiritual, emotional, physical – freedom in everything.”

“That’s a big ask for one life,” he said, keeping his eyes on mine.

“Well, I don’t do small,” I said smiling.

“No you don’t,” he smirked. “I don’t either.”

I felt a shiver through my body, an electric current running straight through the space between us.

“So what now, Jack?” I asked, gently touching my own neck and chest.

“Now we get the hell out of here,” he said, putting his wine glass on the table.

“You know I can’t go home with you,” I said, looking down.

“Then, why did you invite me here, Katherine?” he asked, a brief hint of displeasure in his otherwise measured voice.

“I want to feel you desire me,” I said, leaning in. “I want to hold your gaze inside me and carry it like a talisman. I want to feel you crave me.”

“I do crave you,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve never gotten enough of you.”

“I know. You woke up a coiled snake in me; you reminded me what desire feels like. Now all I want is to feel you watching me,” I said in a low whisper.

“I don’t want to just watch you,” he said, moving his hand over mine on the table, firm and warm. I wanted that hand to touch every inch of my skin. “I want to devour you.”

“This is all for now,” I said turning my hand upside down to allow my open palm to feel his. He held his hand there for a moment, looking down at our skin touching, and then he turned his gaze back up to my eyes. He slid it his hand slowly over mine, his fingertips lingering on my own before withdrawing to hold his wine glass.

Challenge by choice: Write about the last time you felt desired or how you’d like to be desired.

• What does it feel like in your body to be wanted by another person?

• Consider detailing the sights, sounds, tastes, touches, and smells of this moment of desire

• How do you respond to this other person?