Chapter 11

“Tell me about your friend,” Murielle said, sitting on the bed next to Vanessa who was sitting in the middle between Murielle and Miranda.

All three girls were naked – goddesses and phoenixes were normally naked except when they held court. Vanessa was naked because she had been naked and having sex with Sheryye and Kristin all morning out in the forest.

Having awakened after an incredible sex romp with her two new lovers, she discovered that Sheryye had been brutally killed and most likely eaten, and Kristi was completely missing, probably eaten, as well, and she’s slept right through it all! As a result of her guilt, grief and despair, Vanessa had attempted to end her own life using one of Sheryye’s explosive arrows. The hostess of the lodge, Tanya, having just found her, had somehow guessed her intentions and snatched the arrow right out of her hands only an instant before she could use it.

Now, Tanya had disappeared, having sicced these two watchdogs on her to make sure she didn’t try to ‘off’ herself again. Vanessa sighed, knowing that the overwhelming emotional discovery that had triggered that suicidal attempt had passed, and she wasn’t going to kill herself, now. But she was still under watch until the others believed they could trust her.

“Huh? What?” Vanessa asked, sudden remembering that someone had asked her something.

“Tell me about Sheryye and Kristin,” Murielle said, repeating her request.

“Well,” Vanessa sighed, deciding to talk about Kristin first, since she’d been her lover for less than two days. “Kristi is really cute. She looks sweet and shy, and she’s completely not! Did you see her last night? On stage? Anyway, the first night we spent together, I told her about a fantasy I had, and I let her choke me while we had sex. God – it was incredible!” Blinking back tears, she asked, “Do you know what happened to her?”

Both twins shook their heads, ‘No.’

“A goddess could probably find her life-force,” Miranda explained, “but we’re not that advanced in the use of our mind powers.”

“We searched,” Murielle added, “and called out, trying to mind-link with her wherever she might be.”

“We looked for Jimmy, too,” Miranda said.

“And we didn’t find him, either,” Murielle added.

“But we found his gun,” Miranda continued.

“It was lying on the ground, next to where he killed Tara,” Murielle concluded.

“Was it loaded?” Vanessa asked, curious about a fellow traveler. If the gun had shells in it, Jimmy might have been taken by surprise. If the gun was empty, he might have tried to shoot whatever ate him or, more likely, had emptied it into Tara, leaving him completely defenseless if something toothy came along...

Murielle and Miranda looked at each other for a second, then both shrugged their shoulders. ‘We don’t know.’

Miranda closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them and looked at Vanessa. “Tara says the gun was empty. Jimmy used up all his bullets on her!”

“Whoa!” Vanessa replied, surprised at the visual she got from Miranda’s words. “You girls really like being gunned down?”

Both the twins grinned, Miranda turning slightly red. “Well, yeah ... we do.”

“I watched you last night,” Vanessa said, a yearning radiating from deep inside. “I wanted you so badly ... But what I really wanted was for someone to do that to me.”

“That would kill you, you know,” Miranda mentioned, sounding very casual about such a dreadful topic.

Vanessa laughed slightly. “Yeah...”

“C’mon,” Murielle said, suddenly behaving more brightly. “Let’s lay down and talk about this.”

“Lay down?” Vanessa asked, curious about what these two were up to. Vanessa had heard about the special abilities of the goddesses, and the phoenix girls, as well, and had almost gone to a temple to seek out the peace of mind that the goddesses were said to offer. She knew that sex had a lot to do with this mind healing technique they used – the ruling class hadn’t ever tried to hide their sexual excesses. But after finding Jessie, her lover of almost five years in bed with that... !!! Sex! was the last thing she was interested in.

Instead, she traveled halfway around the inside surface of New Eden, finally arriving at Lorraine Station, one of the towns that existed next to a bridge that crossed the Equator River and, incidentally, the site of the only university in the world, which had been founded over two hundred years ago by the Great Bard Geoffrey.

Once there and enrolled, Vanessa was determined to turn her life around and make something of herself. Deirdre, a daughter of the goddess Elaine, was a guidance counselor and the two of them became friends. It was Dierdre’s interest in Earth’s prehistoric past that helped Vanessa decide to become an archeologist, and upon starting her introduction to her new profession, she was offered a spot on one of the monthly expeditions through the wormhole to the Jurassic Lodge.

On the eve of her journey, she’d met Kristin and Danny, who would be her teammates. They were interested in discovering and cataloging the local flora of the Cretaceous era, the most proliferate and expansive period of botanical growth in all of Earth’s known history. (Note: Although this story is titled “Jurassic B&B”, it takes place in the Cretaceous era, which followed the Jurassic age, as the really giant beasts didn’t show up until then – which means the movie “Jurassic Park” had it wrong, too.)

Now, Kristin was missing, and Vanessa was lying on a bed, still in Earth’s far distant past, with two of what she considered to be supernatural beings, one on each side of her.

“What are we going to do?” Vanessa asked, hoping they weren’t going to simply seduce her, but needing something to make this terrible ache inside her go away.

“We ... are going to sleep,” Murielle replied softly, “and so are you.”

“But I’m not...” Vanessa protested, starting to sit up. She felt her body immediately relax, the sudden drop against the soft pillow surprising her. Irritated with the seemingly superior attitude the two twins were giving her, Vanessa tried to open her eyes, only to discover that her eyelids refused to obey her!

Feeling angry and betrayed, Vanessa fought her sleeping body, trying to wake up! She could feel tears leaking out of her eyes, trailing down her cheekbones and trickling into her ears, but she couldn’t get her body to do anything! After a few minutes, she surrendered, too heartbroken to care what these psychic fiends were up to.

The bright sun streaming down on Vanessa’s face awoke her. Blinking against the pleasant but blinding glow in the sky, she raised her arm to shield her face and rolled to one side.

“You’re awake!” Kristin said, grinning at her from only a few inches away.

“Eeekk!” Vanessa peeped, and jerked back, away from the apparition.

“Well!” Kristin said, sitting up in the tall grass. “Good morning to you, too!”

“You’re dead!” Vanessa exclaimed. “Aren’t you?”

“And if I am?” Kristin asked. “So what?”

“But ... but...” Vanessa stammered. “Nobody could find you! You just disappeared! And Sheryye ... Oh, God! Sheryye! Do you know about what happened to her?”

Kristin sighed and looked at her sweet but very frightened lover. Then she nodded. “I know.”

“But...” Vanessa said, growing braver as this Kristin ghost didn’t seem to want to hurt her. “What happened to you?”

“I don’t know,” Kristin replied. “I was probably eaten. I hope I tasted good...”

“You what?” Vanessa practically shrieked. “You hope you tasted... Oh, God! Are you nuts?”

“Probably,” Kristin grinned, lying back in the tall, cushy grass.

“Kir ... Kristi,” Vanessa asked, after just staring at the petite girl for a moment. “What are you doing here? If you’re dead, I mean. How is it that I’m talking...

“Oh,” Vanessa said, visibly slumping as she finally figured it out. “You’re one of the twins. Trying to make me feel better, I suppose? Where’s your other half? Is she supposed to be Sheryye?”

“I am whomever you wish to see,” a too-familiar voice said from behind.

With a startled gasp, Vanessa whirled around, a look of pure delight on her face, almost instantly replaced by anger and hate! “Jessika? What are you... NO! Go away! I’d rather see Sheryye with her missing leg than look at you again!”