Electric Blue

Laretta made me so happy with what she had planned for me. I got the tattoo on my back, spreading up near my ribs. The pain was not quite what I had expected but so worth it. The next day, I woke early, to the sound of the tattoo gun buzzing still in Jet’s shed. We were far too drunk last night. I rolled over to wake Laretta up.
“Laretta?” She wasn’t next to me. That was weird. Maybe she was up already or in the van.
“She’s out the front.”
“Good morning Jet,” Ugh, my head was pounding at a single word I would say, and the tattoo gun like a drill going through my skull. I fixed my dress, and went outside, closing the sliding door behind me.
“Good morning, beautiful,”
“Hey, how did you sleep?”
“Fine, and yourself?”
“Great, ready to hit the road today?”
“Ha ha no, not really, but let’s do it.”
We packed up our stuff, had a great breakfast at the pub and were on the move. We did a big trip this time, taking two days on the road, pulling over at rest stops for food and drinks and like always, we took turns driving. When the sun went down the second day, I decided to pull over, it was getting too dark to see and the rain had set in so the road ahead was foggy. I didn’t know where we were going to stay but I hoped that there was somewhere nice. I turned off the main road and onto a dirt track. We drove for another twenty minutes or so, just until dark, I could see light up ahead so I continued as far as possible towards it. The stars became brighter and the moon shone like nothing else I’d ever seen before. I guess it was something I’d taken for granted for so long.
Laretta woke up, as I stopped the car about a kilometer from what looked like a small village.
“Where are we?” she asked, weary eyed.
“I’m not sure really, it was getting too dark and foggy to drive on the main road so I pulled off and thought I would take us on an adventure for once.”
“Looks like a campsite or something, maybe we shouldn’t bother them.”
“Come on babe, where’s your sense of adventure? If there’s anyone out to hurt us, I doubt they’re here twenty minutes from the main road.”
“And if they’re hunters?”
“They’re here to hunt animals, not people, it’s okay, come on.” I walked around to Laretta’s side of the van and opened the door for her, and gave her the torch so she felt safe. “Put your jacket on, it’s cold and raining.”
She was still a little wary but she still came with me. When we got close enough to make it out a little better, we saw a man approaching us. He stood very tall, holding a big stick, with a bunch of leaves and shrubbery lit up at the top. He wore not much more than a head dress.
“Maybe we should go back now Poppy,”
We stopped in our tracks for a second. The man signaled us to come with a simple wave of the hand. What was an ominous glow in the distance was now a bright light, enough for us to see. I took the torch of Laretta and turned it off, putting it in my pocket.
We reached the camp, and yet again with a simple signal of the hand, we were invited to sit down. The fire was so warm, and so was our welcoming, though none of these people had said a single word to us yet, they talked amongst themselves in their native language and some chanted and sung, praising the earth and the beings on it, playing drums and dancing. The man that greeted us just before, seemed like he was the chief or something. We were given some warm soup to drink; it was a greenish colour and looked like it had chunks of vegetables or something in it. It tasted kind of gnarly but it kept me warm and I was hardly going to be rude. “Mescaline,” he said, that must have been what it was called. Things were really strange, not only was I afraid of a language barrier, but when I was younger I was taught to only speak when spoken to.
When we finished our soups, which were in handmade wooden bowls the chief approached us and took them off us. He held his hand out and introduced himself.
“My name is Sage, I am chief of this land.” He spoke perfect English, but with a slight accent.
“I’m Poppy, this is Laretta. We didn’t mean to intrude, we pulled our car over because it got too dangerous to drive.”
“You never intrude, unless you harm. And you two are not here for harm. You are here because the universe has sent you here, to learn and to teach. You both have an incredible spirit, very strong, lots of love and care for the beings around you.”
I was shivering, so I moved in closer to the fire. The atmosphere was still a bit weird and kind of awkward, but at the same time, really relaxed and welcoming. I
After about an hour or so, listening to Sage tell some ancient legends of their people and their tribe, things started to change a little, my perception was weird, and I felt different. It was a feeling I’d never got from anything before, not hammer not sex, not alcohol, nothing, unexplainable. It was a subtle, yet deep feeling, like I was connected spiritually to things, but yet I was still ‘normal’ and coherent. This went on for hours, a more than beautiful experience.
Sage kept us there until the rain cleared the next afternoon. Those past twenty four hours felt like days, many beautiful days, I learnt many things that I could never explain, but it was a very personal experience.
Another day of travelling until we got to the coast finally, the weather was still beautiful, and I was hoping it would stay that way for the next day. I still felt an afterglow from the mescaline, which was nice. It was good to take that with us on our journey. We made most of the beautiful night and slept deep into the morning, best sleep I’ve had in a long time, and it was really nice to snuggle up to Laretta again after a night of getting in tune with ourselves.
Once we had time to wake up a little more we decided to go down to the boardwalk and have some breakfast and coffee.
“So, what’s the plan for the rest of the day?”
“Hmm, I was thinking,” Laretta covered her mouth and swallowed the rest of her bite before finishing her sentence. “Maybe we could go for a swim down at the beach, and go out to a club tonight.”
“Sounds good, I’m up for it.”
After we finished breakfast, we went for a quick walk on the boardwalk to settle our stomachs before we went for a swim. When we reached the end, we watched the waves for a while, watched the surfers and talked shit, making our own subtitles for people in the distance having their own conversations on the beach. We talked about what could be on the boats out at sea and where they were going. There were lots of kids out that day playing with their friends, having a day with their families.
“Excuse me,” a little girl, no older than five tugged on my dress, she had tears in her eyes.
“Hey sweetie are you okay?”
“I’m lost, I can’t find my brother anywhere!”
Laretta was over the other side of the boardwalk and hadn’t noticed what was going on yet.
“Poppy, look a whale!” she called out, turning around and realising what was happening. She ran over.
“She’s lost her brother,” I said. I took another look at the girl, and I looked around, it didn’t look like anyone was looking for her. I took the young girls hand, and asked her where her parents were.
“They went to heaven.” She said, with a slight pout in her lips.
“Where was your brother last time you saw him?”
“Over there,” she pointed at the café we had come from, so we took her hand and took her back there. As we approached, a guy about nineteen came out, looking frantic.
“Lily! Lily! Where did you go?” He grabbed her and scooped her up, cuddling her. “Thank you so much, I turned my head for a second.”
“No worries, don’t you run away again honey, you nearly gave your brother a heart attack.”
“I’m Nick by the way,” he held his hand out.
“Nick, I’m Poppy, this is Laretta.”
“Nice to meet you, hey we’re going down to the beach if you wanted to come,”
“I’d love to but I’ve got to get this one home to my girlfriend before I go to work. Thanks though! Have a lovely day, and best of wishes to you both, again thank you so much!”
Once they left, Laretta and I headed down to the beach, we each bought an Icee on the way down. “Hey Laretta, come here!” I whispered, signaling towards two surfboards sitting upright in the sand.
“Poppy, no,” she shook her head, but grinned simultaneously.
“Come on, I don’t know how either.”
“Alright,” We made sure no one was looking at us, and casually tried to play cool, grabbing the boards out of the sand and running down into the water, crashing into the waves. Before we knew it we were out the back, laughing our heads off, bobbing up and down on the waves. “Well, let’s make the most of these boards yeah?”
“Ok, I’ll race you in. First one to get their board back in the sand, and run up to the van wins.”
“What’s the prize?”
“Whatever you like,” I said, coming in closer to her and pushing her off the board and catching the next wave in. well, attempting and falling off. I saw Laretta catch the next wave in, by the look of her, she’d done this before. I regained my balance on the next wave and caught up. The Race was on, Laretta was a way better surfer than me but I think I had the running over her any day. Just as expected, she was at the shore line first, running up the beach as I came in on the last wave, ‘that’s be right’ I told myself, ‘catch a great wave and keep your balance at the last minute,’. I was not far behind Laretta and as I came up the beach I noticed two guys up ahead, looking directly at us, they were obviously the owners of the surfboards that we stole, or ‘borrowed’ rather. I ran fast and caught up; we shoved the boards in the sand, and kept running past the guys who owned them.
“Thank you!” We shouted, running away and laughing. The boys stood there, with puzzled grins on their faces. We reached the van, Laretta reaching it before me, as she caught her breath, I walked the last few metres, hurting from laughter and my nose and the back of my throat burning from salt water.
“You win,” I said, still catching my breath.
“So I get whatever I want now, don’t I?”
“I guess so,”
We dried off and got into the camper. “So, what have you picked?”
“You’ll see.” Laretta turned the engine over and we left the busy car park, we found a more peaceful quiet spot just a few minutes down the road on the other side of the boardwalk, we pulled up to the end of an old rock wall with a road that had been built onto it. She climbed into the back of the camper and pulled me in behind her.
“What are you doing?”
“Claiming my ‘prize’ or are you not a girl of your word?”
“Oh no, I definitely am,” I kissed her on the lips and we closed the curtains. It was so romantic having the sun going down as we made sweet love, kissing, cuddling and feeling her body against mine, caressing her face and hair, and holding her tight.
I kissed her on the chest and slowly down towards her waist, I was so nervous and hadn’t done this before, she was the one to do it the first time we made love in the rock pool. “It can’t be that hard,” I thought to myself, “just go with the flow”.
“Don’t be nervous, it’s okay.” Laretta said, softly. I had stopped just above where her pant line would be (had she been wearing any that is). The first little taste of her was more than perfection, perfection that drove me into a ferocious animal. I wanted more, and more. I held her hips in my hands, occasionally caressing her from her chest down to her ankles. She was perfect. Perfect to touch, perfect to taste, to smell, to kiss.
“BANG, BANG, BANG!”
“Shit!” We covered ourselves up and I peeked out the window. “Laretta it’s the police! Fuck!” I was stressed but laughing on the same note. It brought a little more excitement to this new experience, getting caught. I opened the door and climbed out, covered in just a towel. The police man was alone, he was tall, buff. He had to be one of the most athletic cops I’d seen in a long time. “So, are you guys going to clear it up in there or am I invited to join you?”
“Excuse me?” and with that he pushed me inside the van, and climbed on top of me, reaching for his pants. He first grabbed his gun and pointed it at Laretta, who was trying to push him off me.
“Don’t you fucking move, you dirty little slut. You got that?”
What the fuck was going on? Tears were in both our eyes now, we were scared. I had been through horrible things in the past and fucked some pretty awful men in some pretty awful circumstances but this made me sick to my stomach, I’d never been forced before. The only thing I could do was go along with it, which surprisingly, personally was a lot easier than facing the fact, while he was getting his socks off, he was waving a gun in Laretta’s face.
“3, 2, 1, BLOW!” I thought, imagining him blowing and shooting simultaneously and ending Laretta’s life just like that, in front of my face. After that I didn’t care what happened to me. While he was inside me, getting his rocks off I exchanged Laretta a look, she was still terrified but I noticed a sense of calmness in her eyes, like she was telling me that whatever happened its ok. She was so strong, the strength to my weakness. It was weird that even in times of crisis like this, I could forget everything and just see her and I.
Eventually, he put his gun away, but the chaos didn’t stop, he forced himself on Laretta and became more and more rough. When he was done, he was weird, a different person, he cleaned up, kissed us both on the forehead, apologised and left just like that.
Laretta was shaking and pale, I had never seen her like this before, in fact I’d never seen anyone like this before. I was out for blood, I’d never been so angry in my entire life. I swear I knew the feeling that Falcon was talking about, the adrenaline, the rush.
In that moment though, I had to be strong. I had to fight this feeling inside me and comfort her, but first we had to get the hell out of there.
“Come on baby, it’s alright, climb in the front. We need to get out of this town.”
She nodded, still shaking, I gave her my dress to put on, I put on my jumper and some shorts and I climbed in the driver’s seat. At that point in time it felt like the van couldn’t move any slower, but when I looked at the speedometer we were going way too fast already. We travelled in silence for too long, one hand on the steering wheel and one hand clutching hers tightly.
“It’ll be okay,” I said.
“Yeah, I know.”
Another few quiet, tense hours passed, we pulled into a hotel and stayed the night there, I couldn’t drive any further and both of us were way too traumatized to stay in the van again. My anger came and went, it stung like a bitch, I could only be hopeful for our safety and that we still had each other. It seemed like every other aspect of my life was so fucked up.
We checked into the hotel, and spent the night crying, holding each other tight, telling each other we were safe now and it was over. Neither of us were able to sleep, regardless of our eyes hanging out of our skulls, but by morning, we had got our emotions out, and managed to smile and look forward. All we could do was take it as it was, and take it as a sign that we weren’t supposed to be there. If there was one thing I’d learnt after having mescaline it was that, that’s what life is. You take the good with the bad. Life is a perfect balance.
We were still distraught but okay enough to move on. We decided to drown our sorrows in alcohol and a good band that were playing at a club down the road.
I know it seemed a little weird and like we suddenly didn’t care anymore, but we couldn’t live our entire lives sitting and crying about it, we never knew when one or both our lives would come to an end and we wanted to embrace it.
The night started good, we’d managed to sleep for a few hours, and started the afternoon like a fresh new day. We drank cheap wine and got ready, Laretta had curled her long beautiful hair, she wore a nice leopard print dress, I’d never seen her look so beautiful, except of course her pure self when we were connected as one. UGH! I couldn’t even think of a time that was so beautiful in our relationship without thinking about the hurt and pain that followed. Tears welled up in my eyes, again. I was far too emotional and maybe half of it was alcohol talking.
“Poppy, it’s okay, if you’re not ready to go out yet, I will stay here, in this bed with you for as long as I have to.”
“No, no, we need this, it’s not an issue. You just blow me away, seriously. I’m so lucky to have you, you don’t even know.” I got up off the bed, turned the television off and approached her slowly, I took her in my arms, twirled her around like the princess she was and I swooped her down into my arm, barely off the ground.
“THUMP!” Whoops. Before I had time to react, she burst out in laughter, me shortly after, I picked her up, stumbling all over the place and managed to, this time; place her gently on the bed. I was far too drunk to go out, so I changed from my heels to flat, thigh high boots. Laretta told me I looked sexy, and I liked that.
“Okay, you ready?” I asked, sculling the last of my drink.
“Almost, one more thing, I got a little something special for us.” She pulled a small bag of white powder from her handbag, “Jet gave us a little gift before we left, I’ve been saving it for the right time.”
Cocaine. Fuck Yes, this girl knew me. I know I’d just gotten out of rehab but fuck it. I had enough faith in the strength of our relationship that this wouldn’t break us. We were strong together, and I’d made too much progress to go backwards. We snorted it, poured another drink down our throats and left, we only had to walk two blocks which was great because by the time the drugs kicked in we were in past security. What an excellent night it started out to be, dancing, drinking, I even got up and sung with the band. It was a whole heap of fun. The night was almost over now, and to be completely honest, the drugs and alcohol mixed along with how Laretta looked that night were driving me insane, I was so incredibly wet for her and wanted to just take her home and ravage her, but at the same time I wanted to renew what we tried to experience those few nights before. Either way, I wanted to hold her, caress her and show her what it’s like to be truly loved.
We got half way home, and Laretta had to pee, there were no toilets around and my poor girl had her legs crossed, barely able to move. I told her it was okay to go behind a tree in the park and I’d keep an eye out for her. I took her shoes from her, so she wouldn’t sink into the grass and I turned around, my back to her. Keeping an eye out for anyone else.
There was someone approaching in the distance, a tall figure, I whispered to her to be quick that someone was coming.