Intimate Journeys

Intimate Journeys

by SS Hampton, Sr.

Published by

Melange Books, LLC

White Bear Lake, MN 55110

www.melange-books.com

Intimate Journeys, Copyright 2012-2015 SS Hampton, Sr.

ISBN: 978-1-68046-076-6

Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States of America.

Cover Design by Mae Powers

Intimate Journeys

Table of Contents

Forward

Rose Cliffs

Archaeologists accidentally set free survivors of an ancient race, who require sexual sacrifices to bring back more of their kind.

The Christmas Queen

A young man returning home for Christmas encounters a legendary succubus who wants him for her lover.

No. 55 Cherry Apple Court

Believe it or not, sometimes within a gated community there are worse things than a home owners association.

The Whisper of Ereshkigal

An immortal Sumerian in love with a human woman is finally discovered by pursuing goddesses determined to take him to the underworld.

Imnachar

A frustrated incubus has a young woman cornered in a small country church, and he attempts to entice her to leave her sanctuary.

Galleria Millennia

An unusual group of female artist-collectors descend on a city at the edge of the Rocky Mountains before Y2K.

The Samar Café

On the eve of joining his combat ship during an interstellar war, a young sailor spends the night with a prostitute, with surprising results.

A Harsh Lesson

A female military officer dons a haunted Waffen SS jacket and attends a costume party, where she intends to kill a Senator.

Aztec Ridge

An Aztec goddess claims a lover from the same family line every 52 years, and now it is time for her to take a new lover.

Dawn at Khabari Crossing

As the US combat role in Iraq ends, a middle-aged soldier faces the uncertainty of demobilization and returning to Ground Zero of the Great Recession.

Between Flagstaff and Gallup

They say curiosity killed the cat, but what happens if it didn’t, and the cat is still alive?

The Ledger

A married sutler, unhappily retired and in ill health, remembers the example of the love of a young 7th Cavalry trooper for an Irish laundress.

Grandpa’s Bon Qui Qui

While deployed to Afghanistan, an older soldier in a May/December relationship must decide if the young woman really loves him, and if he really loves her.

About the Author

Previews

Forward

Every journey through life is an intimate journey simply because it is someone’s personal journey. Sometimes the journey is like being alone in a small boat at the mercy of wild ocean currents, and sometimes the journey is like being part of a crew in a strong ship with billowing, wind-filled sails. The most intimate journeys, though they are polar opposites, involve the unparalleled pleasures of sex and the inevitable unknown of death. Both are an experience unlike anything else; one is sought by everyone, while the other is avoided by everyone – for as long as they can. Sometimes these polar opposites complement each other.

However, alone or with a companion(s), ultimately all journeys through life are intimate in nature.

Rose Cliffs

I’ll be damned, Kyle Newcomb whispered in wide-eyed surprise when he emerged from his tent for his customary after-dinner pipe. He was so surprised that he almost dropped the woolly mammoth ivory figurine he intended to examine later in the laboratory tent. The finely carved figurine, badly weathered and damaged, was that of a nude woman straddling a nude reclining man.

He stared at the night sky where silent, rippling greenish curtains of the aurora borealis danced. Bright red aurora burst into life and spiraled like smoke among the greenish curtains that danced across the distant mountains and the sharply contoured sand dunes. The deep night faded to a pale shadow of itself and the colorful display overhead overwhelmed the twinkling stars. The campfires, the lanterns, and the tents all had a greenish sheen about them punctuated with tinges of red and blue.

It wasn’t that Kyle had never seen the aurora borealis, though he hadn’t, but to see those haunted, mysterious lights in the Taklamakan Desert of Xinjiang Province in far western China, north of Tibet, was new. He looked at the small camp to see who else shared the strange beauty, but he was alone. He decided against calling people from their tents so that he could savor the strange show alone; after lighting his pipe he trudged to the top of a nearby sand dune to see the lights and the surrounding land better.

Kyle sat on the crest of the sand dune and watched with awe as the silent billowing green sheets with bright bursts of red and blue slowly dimmed. He realized with growing excitement that the sheer colorful curtains that stretched across the horizon were drifting out of the north, toward the camp. A cool breeze flowed out of the night like a herald announcing the arrival of the aurora borealis.

As he followed the drifting curtains, he gazed with pride and excitement on a partially excavated rocky dolmen in the greenish shadow of a low dune on the other side of the camp that the archaeological team had uncovered the previous season.

A circle of huge roughly hewn, huge stones topped by equally huge horizontal stones called capstones formed the dolmen, or burial mound. An outer ring of standing stones similar to those in Britain and Ireland had been found fifty feet from the dolmen. The roof, built of timber, rock, and sand, had collapsed at some time in the distant past.

Though several dolmens had been discovered in that portion of the desert north of the fabled Silk Road in recent years, this one was different. This was his dolmen. Several of the previously discovered dolmens revealed 3,000 year old European, or Celtic, bodies with reddish-blond hair interred within, and he believed his dolmen would be no different.

Radar soundings revealed a pair of human forms on possible platforms of timber and rock. Other images might be swords, shields, pottery, and even the remains of a wooden cart. He hoped one of the figures might be a mummified woman whose beauty would rival that of the legendary Beauty of Loulan, a 4,000-year-old mummy discovered years before in the Tarim Basin of the Taklamakan Desert. The broad faced Beauty with prominent cheekbones was thought to be among the ancient Europeans who most likely created the legendary Silk Road that connected Europe and China.

Enough of the interior had been excavated, including the finely carved figurine, to show his dolmen might be one of the richest finds in the Taklamakan Desert. Only time, and careful excavation, would reveal the total richness of his dolmen.

Kyle chuckled silently as he considered the night lit by the silent aurora, the barely exposed dolmen across from him, and the primeval timelessness of the surrounding desert. Everything seemed perfect, felt perfect. Perfection was reinforced by the Uighur name, Taklamakan, which meant, ‘You come in and you never come out.’

He puffed with contentment on his pipe and craned his head backwards to gaze at the hypnotic greenish and reddish sky above him. The aurora dimmed as if a shadow crossed it. He sensed a chill apart from the cool night breeze. He glanced at the dolmen and the tattered fringe of a greenish curtain that writhed across it. The curtain glowed brightly and sparkled, dimmed, glowed brighter, and sparkled again.

The aurora halted just south of the dig and the night grew nearly as bright as day. The wind was stronger and ghostly dust devils swirled along the crest of the surrounding sand dunes and in the basin within. From the corner of his eyes he thought he saw a movement by the dolmen. He stared and thought he glimpsed a shadow move in front of it. He squinted, but saw nothing except puffs of sand blown by the strengthening breeze. Then he froze. He was sure a furtive shadow moved among the tents of the archaeological team.

Kyle stood up and carefully examined the sandy basin. In the basin stood a dozen tents for the archaeological team, and him and his new bride Amanda. She was a young and curvy graduate student for whom he left his wife of fifteen years. Of Spanish and Egyptian descent with large green eyes and long blonde hair with reddish highlights, she was a sensual, exotic creature; that she hailed from a small northwestern Kansas town seemed like a contradiction. She often heaped extensive and expensive care over her long red fingernails, except for when she ruefully trimmed them in preparation for a dig. Kyle often congratulated himself for snagging a trophy like her and enjoyed showing her off to his colleagues at college events.

He chuckled at the memory of her excitement when the figurine was discovered, and then her thoughtful consideration of the dolmen. She was a New Age follower not known for deep musings, but after some reflection she asked a troubling question, What if the dolmen is really an entryway?

The rest of the team consisted of ten college students and twenty Chinese laborers. There were three tents for sorting, storage, and a makeshift laboratory. Lined up near the foot of a nearby sand dune were a half-dozen land rovers and a half-dozen heavy-duty trucks.

There, he whispered to himself as he saw a stealthy shadow by his tent. Maybe it really was just an ordinary shadow or windblown sand.

A strong chill rippled through him, and his heart raced with a strange mixture of fear and anticipation. He stared at the mysterious dolmen as if it were some sort of shelter or refuge. Or maybe Amanda was right – maybe it was some sort of entryway.

Amanda screamed.

He started to rise but felt something behind him; he remained motionless for long seconds. Then, he slowly looked over his shoulder. Kyle’s terrified shriek died as soon as he thought of it...

* * * *

More spirit than flesh, unseen though sensed, the Master and the Mistress hovered in the shadows of the ruined dolmen. They were released by unwary strangers and strengthened through enjoying those strangers; afterwards they drew still more strength from the billowing greenish, reddish, and bluish spirit lights above them. In the basin of the towering sand dunes they listened to the howling night winds, and they listened to the nearby deathly slow heartbeats of those they enjoyed, and heard the death sigh of those who they drained of their life essence and whose souls they consumed.

They probed the night, but felt nothing. There was no hint that any of their kind was near, but more importantly, there was not the slightest inkling of the Hoary Multitudes, those who brought slaughter and waste to the Dominion of the Flesh. The devouring hunger of the Multitudes from beyond time and dimension was long gone.

The Master and the Mistress were safe now. And they were alone.

With the woolly mammoth ivory figurine of the woman and man in the Master’s nearly incorporeal hand, they traveled northeast. Above them the long arm of the aurora retreated north toward its usual boundaries. Across ancient deserts and mountains they cast their net wide, and, though they sometimes located undiscovered dolmens, they sensed no life within. The dolmens, the last refuge for their kind, instead became tombs for those within when the Multitudes found them. Of the magnificent, flower-decorated stone and timber cities and temples of the Dominion of the Flesh, nothing remained except for unrecognizable hillocks or mere bumps in the terrain.

Yet, they realized, all was not lost. There was still hope, a dimly flickering hope, for the Dominion of the Flesh. Along the Yenisei River they felt the presence of the descendants of their ancient servants and slaves. More, they felt the power of a great cache of mammoth ivory.

Along the length of the Yenisei, those Evenks and Evens people of prehistoric Siberian tribal descent living in modern apartment buildings, sometimes paused when they felt a mysterious, icy chill in the air. Without true understanding, yet with a dim racial memory of what drifted through the night, they muttered quick prayers of safety. Those who still practiced a nomadic reindeer-herding lifestyle on the Siberian steppes and among the taiga, the deep forests, and were closer to the earth than their suburban kin, felt the approach of the mysterious chill long before the Master and Mistress passed. Like servants or slaves, they quickly fell to their knees and touched their heads to the ground in a show of timeless respect with an unspoken prayer that the nameless chill would pass them. There they remained until the Master and Mistress, as incorporeal as the shimmering aurora, continued on their way.

Deeper into the cool Siberian permafrost domain of the sacred woolly mammoth, those majestic and powerful creatures once worshipped by the Dominion of the Flesh, the Master and the Mistress plunged until they found an isolated yurt, a Mongolian tent of ancient design, among rugged forested mountains.

Within the tent, illuminated by a small cooking fire, a husband and wife woke suddenly. Beyond the carefully sorted woolly mammoth ivory carved figurines, necklaces, and amulets that they found in strange, long abandoned dolmens, gathered for export to collectors across the world, through a crack in the entrance flaps, they saw the bright greenish, reddish, and bluish flares of an approaching aurora. Their surprise and sudden unexplained fear was overwhelmed by the lust of the Master and the Mistress...

* * * *

Now, the soft, feminine voice whispered as long red painted fingernails gently placed a large black beetle on a table carved from ash wood.

The beetle with a fine golden thread tied to one leg and the other end tied to a silver pin, scrabbled frantically across the tabletop. With each step, the golden thread wound around the pin so that the length shrank until the beetle was soon stopped helplessly against the pin.

Yesss, the sensuous voice whispered as a long red fingernail caressed the shiny back of the struggling beetle. Yes, you will be most welcome.

* * * *

I hate Kansas, Byron Whitaker, a skinny longhaired self-published poet of no renown, mumbled as his old Jeep Cherokee bounced across thelarge concrete slabs that passed for a highway in northwestern Kansas. He grumbled again as the highway wound past a tree-lined creek and a long ridge with two hillocks. Below the ridge, a grayish, run-down farmhouse on the edge of a swamp was surrounded by a sea of bright flowers.

I hate Kansas, Byron grumbled as he wondered for the hundredth time why he took the exit off I-70 to find a place to stay for the night.

He could have made Limon, Colorado in a few more hours or even Denver later that night. After that, another long day of driving and he would be in Las Vegas a day before the beginning of the North American University and College Bookstore Convention. He had a small booth on the convention hall floor. If the college and university representatives bought Old Dreams, his book of analytical essays of the great 19th-21st century American poets, boxes of which filled his Cherokee, he would be set for life. Not really, but off to a better life than he currently had.

A small town emerged from behind a meandering line of weeping willow and cottonwood trees. He slowed and crossed the railroad tracks that bordered the northern edge of the town. A simple white sign announced, ‘Buffalo Crossing. Population: Not Certain.’

Hilarious, he growled at the sign.

The trees bordering the creek disappeared below the slope to his left. Beyond the gently waving tops stretched the vast Kansas prairie that ran to the eastern horizon.

The town had a sleepy, old-time feel about it. The main street was paved, but the side streets were of dirt. The few business storefronts were set back on concrete sidewalks that rose a foot or more above ground level. Huge, thick oak, sycamore, and cottonwood trees rustled in the warm afternoon breeze.

People strolled along the main street and the side streets. Laughing children on foot and on bicycles darted about the large, comfortable homes.

A sign with a large red arrow posted at a street corner announced, ‘Rose Cliffs.’ On a whim Byron turned onto the wide, shady, dirt street. He was surprised to see thick grayish-green beards of Spanish Moss hanging from the limbs of trees bordering the street. It was like driving through a wide, dark tunnel.

The street ran up to a stone wall set at the edge of an escarpment. Nearby he saw a large sign in front of a wooden two-story house advertising a room price, breakfast included. He swiftly calculated gas, food, and motel room expenses, and decided he could afford a good night’s sleep before pushing on to Las Vegas. As he parked his Cherokee, he noticed a dark limousine parked by a small one-story home on the other side of the dirt street. He thought it odd that a limousine would be found in such a small nondescript town.

A small bell made a tinny ring as he closed the front door. He glanced down a wooden hallway in which ran narrow rug; he guessed the room he was in was once the living room.

Welcome to The Collections, a beautiful young woman with blonde hair and reddish highlights greeted him warmly from behind a polished, dark, wooden counter.

Hi, Byron said as he unabashedly admired her. The sign says twenty-five dollars a night, breakfast included.

Yep. Cash or credit card. We even take checks.

Really? If he wrote a check on his ‘in-the-hole’ bank account he doubted if they would know before he left town. Except that would mean overdraft fees. He counted out the money in small bills and change.

Is this your first time here?

Yes.

Here’s some information about Rose Cliffs. She handed him a glossy brochure.

Her fingernails, long and red, were the kind that could leave wonderfully painful scratches on a man’s back. A tattoo of green leaves and thorns with a red rose decorated her left wrist.

You’re in luck, she added as she handed him an old-fashioned metal key. Your room is at the end of the hall here. You’re the first lodger in this house so it’ll be real quiet. The others are full.

The others?

Yep, The Collections is three homes all converted into bed and breakfasts. Matter of fact, all of the businesses in Rose Cliffs are converted homes.

Why the name Rose Cliffs?

For the climbing roses on the cliffs this side of South Beaver Creek. You can see the creek below from the wall. This area was filled with bordellos in the late 1800s, and many of the working women adopted the rose for their symbol.

I take it all of that came to an end.

Yeah, she nodded. The local citizenry decided Rose Cliffs wasn’t the image they wanted to present to the world, so they closed the bordellos down around the turn of the last century.

Pity, he said and paused before the hallway. And your name is...?

Amanda.

I’m Byron.

A pleasure. She gave him a seductive smile. Sooner or later, a pleasure, I’m sure.

The narrow wooden hallway creaked loudly except when he walked on the long runner. At his door, he paused and glanced toward the front counter. Amanda was still watching him with a contemplative and almost dreamy look. Byron smiled at her. Maybe his unexpected stop in Buffalo Crossing wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

After settling into his room, he wandered outside to the stone wall that marked the edge of the escarpment. The cliffs were about fifty feet higher here than on the eastern side of the creek, and they were carpeted with climbing roses of red, yellow, white, and a mixture of colors in between. The roses seemed out of place clinging to the steep, rocky cliffs. In the late afternoon solitude he studied the eastern horizon. The sky and the rolling plains were already darkening with the approaching night. The few clouds to the east glowed with a rosy warmth of purple, red and orange from the setting sun. The full moon peeked over the edge of the eastern horizon.

He wandered among the trees to the Sourdough Cafe in a three-story house. The café consisted of a small bar and kitchen, with tables scattered throughout the rest of the house and served delicious home cooked food. From there he went to The Wide Open, a three-story house with a basement game room, first-floor and second-floor dancing, and third-floor bar.

It was in a very mellow, unconcerned mood that Byron made his way back to his room later that moonlit night. The room, decorated with real, richly designed wallpaper, contained an old fashioned wrought iron bed with a thick mattress, a narrow closet, a pair of night tables, and a TV with rabbit ear