Karen Eliot’s Excellent Adventures # 3 · Part 1 (1/2)
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January 7, 1991
The autumn rainstorm in Arkham was the chill drizzle in Boston that delayed Karen's connection to Atlanta for hours. In her faded Levis and a light blue tee, Karen Eliot was hardly outstanding among the business women rushing to and fro in the passenger concourse; at least in terms of wardrobe. Her bright green eyes and flaming locks were enchanting. With no makeup but lip gloss, her gentle beauty radiated warmth. Within moments of finishing the action/adventure novel Karen felt the creep of incipient boredom. Tired also of endlessly listening to the ten cassettes that she carried, she clicked the walkman off. Karen slipped her paperback and walkman into her backpack.
Noting that the departure board still announced delay, she set out for the lounge. Not particularly interested in rebuffing pickups, Karen steered for a table where several women drank boisterously. She fit right in with the Marines who were swapping stories. Karen loved their "There I was…" yarns. She drank several rounds with the service bitches before her turn to regale them with wicked tales of bobbing and weaving as a consultant. Karen sported a nice glow when her flight was announced. She quickly swapped sounds with the corporals before heading for her plane. The boarding crew apologized for the lousy weather that prevailed along the eastern seaboard.
They didn't apologize for the sardine-can conditions in the little airliner. Apparently most of Karen's ninety-some fellow passengers suffered from advanced B. O. Disembarking in Atlanta occurred not a moment too soon. Although she'd missed the flight to Los Angeles, her mixed luck held. She was accommodated on another L. A. flight that had been delayed by a squall line. Karen sat at a midships port-side window in the TriStar. The air conditioning, which was effective for nearly four hundred sweating bodies, overwhelmed the mere handful of travelers seated within Karen's sight. Karen set her chess computer aside, marveling that the manufacturer had the guts to rate it at 2100.
Diversions finally exhausted, she prepared to consider her pressing problems. Pretending to sleep would keep her meditation undisturbed while the music on the tape rolled. She fumed at the gall of the advisory committee. She would not be allowed to complete her grad work at Miskatonic University if she elected to take leave and study under a shaman. The head battle-axe raised the specter of full employment for ghostbusters. To add insult to injury, they pointedly suggested that she work out her conflicted loyalties during Halloween break. Her coven, which had arranged her acceptance at Miskatonic U, expected her to complete her studies there.
Even so, she wondered if the High Priestess would support her thesis on eigenstate measurement/selection. Karen didn't want to kindle the arguments between the old wicca and the young reality hackers. Drew Blood, her working partner, and she were to take on another layer of interface metaphor. The first layer, which supported her status as an adept, had been installed under hypnosis years earlier. The manual documented the keyphrase 'will, skill, tools' which defined and invoked the effect.
Karen's only upgrade, 'improvise, adapt, overcome', was barely a year old. >From her reading of the manual on the new upgrade, 'simplicity, sincerity, serenity', Karen wondered if a serious mistake had been made. The documentation had no information relating to how the upgrade would be personally useful. Although the coven approved the change of emphasis from individual goals to universal goals, Karen bristled. Her upcoming Samhain initiation, dependent on the new upgrade, seemed to emphasize commitment and service. Karen had met Mark Featherstone while doing field work in southern New Mexico. They were both collecting mescal, but for different reasons.
Featherstone proved expert at locating and identifying many specimens of the spineless globe-shaped cactus for her. Karen found that his suggestions about which buttonlike tubercles to collect were based on extensive pharmacologic scholarship. Although the white woman and Amerind shaman were worlds apart, a mutual respect developed and matured over the years. As the only person that she knew outside the Miskatonic clique with parallel knowledge, his perspective was important to Karen. His offer to clarify some baffling aspects of her studies was uncharacteristily forthcoming and invaluable. Karen slept through dinner service.
She felt the landing gear drop and was fully awakened by the flap extention during the final approach over Inglewood.
Drew Blood listened to the interminable recording about the white zone as he waited curb-side at the terminal. The sidelong glances from the parking patrol didn't bother Drew; he knew Karen as a prudent air traveler. He counted on her practice of toting only carry-on luggage. Karen brightened when she saw Drew waiting for her in the ugly beige heartbeat of America. Although she ascribed his phenomenol ability to meet her to his precise divination, a simple telephone call to the airline sufficed on this occassion. Following a warm hug and a quick kiss, Drew swung into traffic. He had avoided eating to have dinner with Karen.
When the subject came up, he was prepared, "Beef fajitas with jalapeno cornbread or Tom Yum Goong?" Without hesitation, Karen proposed the hot and sour shrimp soup. The marvelous combination of tender shrimp floating in a rich broth, liberally spiced with chillies and tangy with lemon grass, lime juice and citrus leaves was Karen's favorite, as Drew well knew. Drew showed Karen around the walkup above the misnamed five- and-dime which was only minutes from the airport. "It's mostly an excuse for the BBS", he admitted. Sitting on the top shelf in a closet was a computer, a hard disk, and two modems.
Karen noted the lack of a monitor and keyboard, assuming that Drew used a laptop on one of the serial ports to do his sysop thing. The remainder of the closet was stuffed with earthquake supplies. The motion sensors and the demon dialer enhanced the functional, yet unlived-in quality common to safe houses. Karen relaxed in the small living room following Drew's tour of the flat. The expectant look on her face prompted Drew to proffer the package that he'd picked up on his way to the airport. Karen opened the pharmacy sack and extracted the bronchial inhaler. The asthma prescription appeared genuine, but she knew better. The mouthpiece in place, Karen pressed the canister into the base.
She inhaled deeply as the fine spray was discharged. Karen's initial suspicion that she hadn't gotten a hit was dispelled by a coughing fit. Drew declined her motioned offer. Thoroughly stoned, Karen rested the inhaler on the empty coffee table. Unwilling to succumb to lethargy, Karen arose and made for the kitchen. Drew had all the materials on hand for either meal, even the seemingly hard-to-find fresh lemon grass. The sixers of Singha and Dosxx in the fridge brightened Karen further. They quickly agreed on the division of labor and began preparing dinner. Drew juiced two small limes as Karen laid out vegetables from the crisper. She cut zest from the rind when he was through.
Waiting for her to open up about their predicament, he heated a small amount of oil in a saucepan. "It's an issue of choice to me", Karen began. Drew accepted the emphasis she applied, chopping lemon grass to one inch lengths. "How somebody else could know what's best for me boggles my mind. To coerce me into obedience is one thing, but the most unkind cut of all is to be expected to agree and like it." Drew dropped shrimp shells into the hot oil, watching for them to turn pink, listening to Karen continue. "Who should determine what I learn?", she asked while vigorously chopping several green onions. "Me!", she concluded, looking to Drew who was slivering green and red chillies.
"You accepted their role in your development", Drew reminded her as he stirred the mixture of chicken stock, salt, lemon grass, citrus leaves, lime rind, and green chillies in the saucepan. "Their guidance has been good. Perhaps the older, wiser heads do have a good reason", he suggested. Karen watched Drew cover and set the saucepan to simmer after bringing it to a boil. "If they do have a good reason, and it's wrong for me, it's no skin off their asses", she observed. "Where else are you going to study the _Necronomicon_?".
"I don't know Drew, but I draw the line at dogmatic conformity. 'What is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good – need we ask anyone to tell us these things", Karen quoted. "Excuse me. I'm going to get a shower". After luxuriating under the hot fingers of the shower massage, Karen rejoined Drew, who was busy straining the soup through a sieve. "What about you Drew", she asked, approaching him. "What do you want to do?" Drew returned the mix to the saucepan and brought it to a boil. "My path is not dictated by another, nor is it dependent", he said as he added the shrimp and cooked them for several minutes in the stock.
"The university administration suffers from an inherent flaw of Authority: 'The company takes what the company wants and nothing's as precious as a hole in the ground'. This isn't even personal. It's just rules." After reducing the heat, Drew added fish sauce and lime juice to the simmering soup. He stirred it and immediately removed it from the heat. "Our thesis is a collaboration", Karen reminded him. "What'll you do?", she asked as Drew retrieved their beers from the fridge. Karen poured the soup in a tureen. Drew sprinkled it with red chillies, coriander leaves, and green onions as he replied. "I've held back some work on multidimensionality. Maybe that and some fresh ideas on chaos.
Perhaps the attenuation of magic. I'm not sure, but it's not a problem. I wonder if the University of California has room for a magician in its Interrelation of Conceptual Structures program?" Karen carried the tureen to the table, serving the soup piping hot. Drew lit the candle and they seated themselves. By long convention the two observed a companionable silence as they dined. After dinner Drew revealed the dessert that he'd gotten while at the Thai market. Sticky rice, coconut milk, and banana strips were wrapped within banana leaves. Instead of steaming the delights, Drew 'waved them while he and Karen carried the dishes from the small dining area to the sink.
Drew considered how to breach the subject of the impending upgrade to their interface metaphors as the fragrant Khaw Tom Pud cooled. Karen had benefited greatly from personal control of her cognitive faculties as if they were software. She was naturally reluctant to share that control; even with the people who had made it possible. "Are you ready for the shrink shop?" asked Drew jocularly. He wasn't fond of the unbecoming appelation for the wetware techs, but aimed to draw Karen out. "No. I'm really uncertain about it. It doesn't sound like such a good idea to me." "What's the hangup?" "Their hands on my reins." "Does loyalty influence you?
Have they given you reason for mistrust?" Karen quoted Thomas Paine. "Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul…" "It's not like you haven't been through this before." "Can we be sure that after this upgrade we'll be inclined toward the same selfish perspective in considering future upgrades?" "Have you considered favorable aspects?" Drew asked. "Frankly, no. Maybe Madge and Tar can fill that area in." Drew dropped the subject and concentrated on washing the dishes and tidying the kitchen while Karen got stoned and watched headline news.
Karen and Drew, according to a fond habit, read in bed until sleepy. Drew set his engineering manual aside in mere minutes. He rested undisturbed as Karen turned and twisted her way through the thriller that gripped her attention. Karen dropped the novel to the floor and extinguished the dim headboard lamp. She spooned in behind Drew, pressing herself into him and resting her head on the pillow beside his. She shared his warmth, feeling his slow and even breathing beside her. Unable to find sleep through ordinary methods, Karen let herself drift, recalling among other things her association with Drew. She and Drew had first crossed paths in their final year of high school.
In a case that had elicited support from the ACLU, the school administration had suppressed a news story in the school newspaper. Karen's investigation of corruption in an alderman's office was explosive. Her story was backed up by Drew's second-story work which gained solid evidence. The cabal didn't care that the school won; it exploited the opportunity by awarding Karen and Drew college scholarships. The cabal extended a Segretti Fellowship to Drew for altering the circuitry of E-Meters at the Church of Scientology during black-bag snoops. His discoveries in the Guardian's Office had been the springboard to Karen's research into the methods utilized to penetrate and manipulate the FBI.
Karen found the large cash payment for that particular report to be very useful. Karen's reminiscences turned to the Pirate Fucking Radio project. The cabal had needed volume cost reductions on zeppelin production. Drew presented the proposal and Karen presented the plan. Fidel Castro jumped at the chance to broadcast The Voice of Jose Marti into the American west coast radio/television market. The cost of replacing the unmanned broadcast zeppelins which were destroyed by federal forces was well below revenues. Lack of regulation and taxes did the rest. Drew and Karen had received credit for recouping in spades the autonomous aircraft's development cost.
Karen slipped lightly from bed and shouldered her backpack which she always kept bedside. She adjourned to living room where she could consult her cards. Karen spread a large silk scarf on the floor and sat cross- legged before it. She first selected the Major Arcana from her Wonderland tarot deck. She set the remaining cards aside on the scarf. Images and bits of her concern floated and whirled without direction as she shuffled the twenty-two trumps. She laid out ten cards in a standard cross pattern and sat for several minutes considering the meanings conveyed by the reading.
The Fool, in the position to indicate forthcoming influences, was the image of a spirit totally free, courageously leaping into some new phase of life. Death, placed to indicate her present situation, signified a time of change. The Sun, as a final outcome, described happiness and a great sense of the beauty of life. Karen took these cards to mean that the successful transition, far from being in question, was in progress. The Hermit, positioned to indicate her previous influences, bespoke her recent withdrawal for intense study. The High Priestess, in a position to reveal how other people viewed Karen, showed that they accepted her inner wisdom and strong intuition.
The Hanged Man, as a measure of her hopes and fears, addressed Karen's antipathy to loosing her educational investment. Karen accepted these cards as confirming the context of her inquiry. The Magician, describing what Karen was experiencing, illustrated the creator in the act of creation, and additionally a shaman or shamanism. The Devil, positioned to indicate the obstacles that crossed the Magician, adequately described Karen's feeling of being chained to controlling obsessions. Together, these cards defined the conflict for Karen. The Hierophant, in position to indicate what was really behind the surface situation, represented education in general, and her own inner sense of direction.
The Empress, positioned to express what was in plain sight, puzzled Karen. The usual meaning of a mother figure didn't seem to fit. The card depicted the knitting Sheep gliding along in a little boat. Karen recalled the episode from _Through The Looking Glass_. The Sheep was the proprietress of an odd shop with all manner of curious things. When Alice became confused by the vast array of wares, the Sheep's shop transformed. Alice found herself in the boat with the Sheep, rowing with knitting needles on the queer water. The Sheep finally urged Alice to make up her mind after indulging Alice's curiosity at length. The egg that Alice eventually bought from the Sheep became Humpty Dumpty.
It was Humpty Dumpty who was poised atop the wall in The Sun, a card of satisfaction, accomplishment, and success – the card which in this case indicated the culmination and results of all the influences revealed by the other cards. Karen wrapped her cards within the scarf and stowed them within the little pouch in her backpack. With her mind at ease, she slipped back to bed. Drew absentmindedly put an arm around her, drawing her close. Karen subvocalized a post-hypnotic suggestion to arise relaxed and refreshed, before drifting off to a sound and restful sleep.
Karen was still sleeping when Drew awoke to the early morning light with a woody. The exquisite shape of her tits was neither diminished by reclining, nor obscured by her T-shirt. Drew considered her flat belly and shapely legs concealed by the sheet. Inspired, and knowing how Karen appreciated a wake-up fuck, he proceeded to slowly arose her. Drew tenderly cupped a pert breast and kissed Karen's neck. The low moan was encouraging. He gently manipulated the firm flesh. Once the nip came up he rolled it between thumb and forefinger. With a final squeeze, Drew released Karen's breast and rested his hand on her pubic mound. He softly rubbed her downy pubes through the bikini.
Karen rolled her hips slightly and murmured approval. Slipping beneath the elastic band, Drew rubbed her thickening pad with his fingernails. At the merest touch to her sparsely furred puffy lips, Karen eased her legs apart. Drew's hardon throbbed as he massaged Karen's pussy through the dampening fabric. When he pushed the crotch aside and lay his fingers along her slit, he was met with a little shudder and a more insistent moan. With a finger along either side of the long hood, Drew felt the hard clit within. His gentle manipulations were met by the little smacking sounds of a well-lubed cunt.
Repositioning himself, Drew tugged at Karen's panties as she daintily raised her hips to help him remove them. Karen held the sheet up with one hand so that Drew could breath and with the other she pushed his face into her crotch. Drew's beard stubble chaffed her thighs as she gently crossed her ankles, completing the loose scissor lock on his willing head. Supported by his elbows, Drew massaged Karen's engorged outer lips with his forefingers. He nibbled and tugged her fleshy inner lips before getting down to serious licking. Drew ran his tongue the length of Karen's slit, occasionally pushing deep into her hole or tickling her extended clitty.
Karen's rhythmically gyrating hips and inarticulate moans coaxed him onward. He probed her drenched vagina with one thumb and rubbed her asshole with the other as his tongue variously flicked or rubbed her turgid clitoris. Karen approached orgasm several times, but Drew would change his stimulation to deny her. When she could stand it no more, she squeezed his head playfully between her thighs. Drew increased the tempo of his licking, concentrating on her clit. With pushing and screwing motions, he massaged the roughly textured walls of her cunt with an index finger. Drew synchronized his efforts as Karen's breathing became rapid and shallow.
Karen arched her back and came with a tremble, clenching Drew's finger repeatedly with diminishing force. Karen took only an an instant to select a position. She wanted to be ballsy in the upcoming discussions. Being on top would encourage a more active role, a sense of superiority, a feeling of free movement, and a sense of doing whatever she wished. Drew was a real bonus for face-to-face fucking; he would read her face and express, he had beautiful brown eyes, and he could kiss. Best of all, he had the cock discipline for lap fucking. "May I sit in your lap, love?" she asked. Drew sat facing Karen with his legs apart, enthusiasm evident from his smile and throbbing penis.
His answer was eagerly outstretched arms. Karen snuggled in close to Drew, with her legs over his and behind him. She insured that they were both comfortable, without undue stress on their limbs. With her nose alongside Drew's, Karen looked deeply into his eyes as they embraced. The warmth that she saw said 'friend' and more. She was excited by her musk on his mouth while their skillful tongues wrestled playfully. The warm and creamy feeling intensified with Drew's hot cock against her belly and his lightly haired chest pressing her tits. Karen eased back and grasped the base of Drew's dick. Moisture glistened on the head before she began rubbing her pussy with it.
She moved closer, angling her hips up. With each stroke of his dick along her wet slit, Karen would tantalize Drew by squeezing the head lightly with her snatch, then rub him up and around her extended clit. Drew stifled his desire to push into Karen, awaiting the delicious torture of her ultra-slow entry. Instead, he hugged her warmly, one arm around her waist and lower back, the other just below her shoulders. Karen tightly clenched her vagina as she rested more and more of her weight on Drew's cock. With only the slightest relaxation she gradually slid down Drew's meaty pole, accompanied by something between a sigh and a moan.
Once she was filled with Drew's hot hardness, Karen hungrily joined with him in a deep and passionate kiss that was destined to occupy them for the duration. Karen pulled herself taut to afford Drew maximum stimulation with only slight movement. She used calculated pelvic movements of yaw, pitch, and roll to accentuate her motion along the length of his shaft. Karen built their excitement to all-encompassing and nearly explosive before easing slightly, relaxing briefly with Drew's dick buried in her to the hilt. Karen eased back a little, raising herself and locking his bulbous dick head against her G-spot.
She began a serpentine massage of his penis with her vaginal muscles, deliciously stimulating their most erogenous flesh. Karen felt Drew's impending orgasm as his balls drew tight in the palm of her hand and his breathing became insistent. She brought herself to the edge and kicked off the simultaneous explosion. Drew forcefully pumped his load deep into Karen's quivering cunt. Karen's orgasm expelled a copious fluid discharge which mixed with Drew's semen and drained over his softening cock, drenching the bed. Karen broke the deep kiss and snuggled against Drew, pulling herself to him, nestling her head against his neck.
Their frantic heartbeats and ragged breathing normalized during their long embrace. The cooling wet spot under them encouraged an effort to dry off with a fluffy towel which Drew had thoughtfully provided. Following a brief shower, Karen and Drew breakfasted on heuvos rancheros at a nearby taquiera. It was on the walk back that Drew excused himself until late afternoon to pursue personal business. Karen welcomed the opportunity to relax. Unused to the slack time in her study schedule, she made the best of it; loafing about, reading a novel that Drew had left on his nightstand. By mid-afternoon Karen was eager for something more active.
It struck her as an ideal time to practice her exercises.
Karen's pulse quickened as she considered the upcoming delight. She stepped lightly, considering Fizzlebot's purple egg. As far as it was from being a simple stone, it was no closer to being a jewel. Karen had worked briefly with the independent inventor to develop an aerogel from sand which the coven provided. The wispy, nearly transparent solid was extremely porous, with only three or four times the density of dry air. Fizzlebot nicknamed the high- strength, ultralight stuff 'purple fuzzle'. His guess that the fuzzle was used to stabilize fusion fuels under laser blast inspired his fruitless experiments with the surplus aerogel.
He presented Karen with a brilliant violet ovoid as a souvenir. Karen undressed, tossing her clothes in a pile next to her backpack on the bedroom floor. She sat on the edge of the bed, legs apart, with her feet flat on the floor. Karen's fingertips barely touched the skin around her nipples as she gently rotated them very slowly in outward circular motions. Shortly, she responded to the invigorating stimulation, playing with the firm fluid movement of her breasts. Warmth spread throughout her genitals, puffing her mound and lightly-haired outer lips.
Karen kneaded the softness of her pussy while she maintained the gentle manipulation of her breasts, occasionally twisting or tweaking a sensitive nip. Her wattled inner labia were dusky pink, striated with tan. As her sexual energy built, they felt more flush and moist, and looked redder. Karen smeared the abundant juices forming at her hole over the fleshy lips. Karen began a rhythmic pressure against the hood of her clit with a single fingertip. Fully engorged, it poked from beneath the hood. She directed the concentration and flow of her developing sexual energy, bringing it to a shuddering orgasm and an instant of transcendence. Karen withdrew the egg from a pouch in her backpack.
Eugene Fizzlebot couldn't explain why it radiated warmth. As for the pleasure of contact with it, Fizzlebot mumbled something about piezoelectricity, but didn't even seem very convinced about it himself. She stood and assumed the practice stance; her feet shoulders' width apart and firmly grounded, ankles and knees bent, groin folded, spine and neck in alignment. She splayed her succulent lips with the fingers of one hand and eased the egg into her vagina, wider end first. By isolating and contracting her external vaginal orifice tightly, she grasped the egg and relished the pleasant feelings from the it before beginning to move it with her internal musculature.
The movement up and down her vagina was, as always, the easiest. Karen clenched, raising the egg slightly, then holding it for a moment, before relaxing enough to allow the egg to descend to the original position. She completed half a dozen slow repetitions of the exercise, regulating the squeezing to her inhalations. Karen drew the egg up in front of her cervix a
Karen Eliot’s Excellent Adventures # 3 · Part 1 (1/2)
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