The Last Magician

Amanda

Jack awakened suddenly.

There was no transition through the various layers of subconscious, just a sudden alertness. His vision was not so quick to focus. A layer of mucus, straying from his nasal passage, blurred his sight, clouding the dimness before him.

He blinked, a strangely familiar routine. The room around him slowly came into focus, and the clarity brought about answers to some of the questions that were already haunting his head.

He was not in heaven, of that he was sure. He could not so easily dismiss that notion that this dingy place could indeed be Hell. He supposed that it actually could be; dour, dreary, lifeless...

A shape, a shadow within shadows, shifted. Jack started, only the persistent dryness in his throat preventing him from screaming. The emerging figure reacted by raising its arms. It was a gesture that, initially, could have carried many diverse meanings. Only when it shook its head, long hair lashing from side to side as a result, did Jack realise the gesture had been telling him not to panic.

He did not panic. He cried.

It was Charlie. It had to be Charlie. He had almost died trying to see her again, and now she was here. The vague memory of the moments preceding his blackout returned to him. The click of the door, the voice calling urgently. It had been Charlie, and Charlie had saved him. Charlie was...

She stepped closer, into the struggling light of day that tried to penetrate the gloom of the house. The yellow glow was just enough to illuminate her features.
Jack’s heart sank, and his tears became cold and sorrowful.

It wasn’t Charlie. He had never seen this woman before.

In the minimal light he could not see every line of her face, but there was enough on show for him to be certain it was not Charlie. This woman was ever so slightly larger than his Charlie, but she was a long way from being anything more than slim. Her chest was considerably larger, her hair was longer, and she was a good six or seven inches taller.

The mystery woman, who could be no older than eighteen or nineteen, had moved towards him again, but he was still not able to see her full features clearly. She seemed better than Charlie in every respect, and only her face remained to be seen. It was a comparison he was in no desperate hurry to make.

It suddenly struck him where he was. He was in his own bed; his and Charlie’s bed. With a strange, seemingly attractive woman in the room with him.
Jack flung back the bedcovers, swinging out his legs, and standing from the mattress, which signalled his departure with a dull creak.

In his head the next step was clear. He was going to find out who the hell she was, and what she was doing in his house.

Then he stopped. Something was wrong, but for a second he struggled to comprehend exactly what. A cool draught drifting through the broken window brought a realisation that forced him to fall back onto the bed and sweep the cover over him.

He was naked; someone, presumably the girl, had stripped him before putting him to bed. What made the situation far more embarrassing was the pulsing erection that was bearly concealed by the covers.

The woman giggled in front of him. He looked up sharply. She was so close to him that had he took half a pace forward a moment earlier, then the tip of his dick would have prodded her He had the idea that being dead on the doorstep would not have been so bad after all.

In the minutes following, Jack pondered on his predicament. Unless there were others in the house, he had been carried to bed and stripped by this woman. She looked like a strong breath would cause her to stumble, yet maybe she was stronger than her appearance indicated. He also knew that his panicked reaction to his nakedness had been entirely unnecessary. She had clearly seen everything he had to offer.

Jack opened his mouth to speak, attempting to rephrase the obvious question forming there. He allowed it to come regardless.

”Who are you?”

She hesitated slightly before answering; a small uncertainty crossing her features.

”Amanda,” she said, then added, ”I think.”

“You think?” Jack asked, already sure of what she meant before her explanation came.

”I’m not really sure if that is my name,” the assumed Amanda replied. ”I’m not sure of anything at the minute. It’s like... like...”

”Like you woke up and didn’t have a life anymore,” Jack finished solemnly, as much to himself as to her.

”I suppose,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?”

”Jack,” he stated positively, confidently almost, before adding, with a wry, unforced grin, ”I think.”

Amanda smiled back at him. There seemed to be more light in the room, or his eyes had adjusted to the dark. He could see, with almost crystal clarity, her facial features, and he found that his expectation of her beauty to be true.

He was unable to discern the colour of her eyes, but he guessed them to be deep blue. Her blonde hair was almost golden, tinged a deeper yellow by the queer atmosphere. Framed by her golden hair he found the outlines of her cheekbones, a dainty nose, rounded chin and sultry lips. She had the features of perfectiont and he expected nothing but smooth unblemished skin to cover them all.

“How’s your head?” Amanda asked.

It took a moment for the question to make any sense, then Jack remembered the blackout and the wounds on his face. He had hit the ground more than once during his attempt to make it those final few metres to the door, and he now noticed the dull throb.

”Not too bad,” he answered truthfully. ”How long have I been out?”

“I don’t know.”

Jack gave her a puzzled look.

“Look,” she said, holding out a gold lady’s wristwatch.

Jack took it gently from her, though his eyes never left hers. He felt he was searching for something unknown in her deep, dark pools. Finally he let his gaze fall to his palm.

His slow mind found what lay there incomprehensible. He gazed down at the moving pointers, struggling to understand what he was seeing..

The small gold hands of the watch were moving backwards. Jack was about to comment on this, when they suddenly reversed, taking the more conservative motion up that they were used to. Before he had time to readjust to this, they changed again.

”What the fuck?” Jack muttered.

”My thoughts exactly,” Amanda said, reaching out and taking the watch from him. “It was my grandmother’s,” she added as if by way of explanation. “She died a few years ago. At least I think it was a few years ago.”

Jack nodded; he knew all too well. He had awakened some time ago, how long ago he did not know, in the middle of a dead village with no idea of how long he had been there, how long he had been unconscious, or how long it had been since the world around him had

(moved on)

changed. He knew exactly what Amanda meant.

“I don’t know where the rest of my family are,” she continued. ”I can’t even remember how many brothers and sisters I had. Three, I think. Three sisters...and one brother. Do you have any family around here?”

Jack let out a small expulsion of air that could have been a laugh, a sigh, or the sound of the last hope escaping.

”I should really be asking you that question,” he said with a defeated smile..
”What?” Amanda asked, moving towards the window.

”This is my house,” Jack said. ”This is where I used to live with my wife. I think I already know the answer, but is there anyone else in the house?”

Amanda glanced at him, a gesture of someone who dearly wanted to avoid being the bearer of bad news, then turned to look out of the window.

”No,” she said quietly. ”There’s just me. Before you came I thought I was the only one here.”

She turned to look at Jack. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head bowed. At some point the bedcovers had shifted in his lap, revealing his now flaccid penis, but even she knew that he now had more to come to terms with than a strange woman catching sight of his manhood.

”Jack,” she said meekly, taking a step away from the window. ”Are you alright?”

It was a redundant question. She knew that as she said it. Of course he wasn’t alright. She had just confirmed his fears and blown apart any hopes he had held close. Her words had brought his world crashing down and she wanted to know if he was alright. Stupid cow.

Jack raised his head as she chastised herself. She saw instantly that his eyes were damp. He had not cried as such but a moistness glistened there. Behind the sorrow, behind the weary glaze and the dispirited hurt, she saw something that she had not expected to see in the eyes of a man’s eyes ever again. Until this handsome stanger had collapsed at her feet she had never expected to see anything in anyone’s eyes again. Yet now, things had changed.

She moved up to him, her eyes locked with his, her steps uncertain. She could have been fourteen again; the year she lost her virginity to a garage mechanic on the leopard-skinned back seat of a customer’s BMW.

Jack watched her cautious steps. He needed some love and comfort. Only a short time ago, wandering through the streets, he had come to believe he may never see another living person again. Now he was alone with this beautiful girl, a beautiful girl who could be his only possible salvation just as he could be hers. He needed to forget himself, the pain, the house, the fungus, the world. Everything was lost to the good of the fire ignited in their despair.

He reached down and pushed aside the already dislodged covers from his rising member. He too rose, to his feet, and took one short pace to meet Amanda.

They stood before one another, he with his head tilted downwards slightly, she with hers mirroring him. There was nothing to be said. They wanted to forget, not to be reminded. Words would only betray them, make them cause unnecessary pain to each other. There was no place for pain in their thoughts; maybe later, but not now.

Amanda raised her hand to her blouse, her eyes remaining lost in his, and slipped the light material down over her shoulders, her breasts, her stomach. It fell to the floor in a heap around her ankles. She casually stepped out of the ring of cloth, and pressed her body into Jack’s.

Jack responded, equalling the pressure of her chest with the hardness of his groin. He bent slightly and kissed her, soft and slow. As their lips connected, Amanda’s hand caressed a line down his torso, down to the thick pulsing erection that pressed against her belly.

With her hand gripping his shaft, gently working him, she began to force him backwards, slowly, towards the bed. Her tongue snaked from her mouth into his where it danced with his.

He struck the edge of the bed, half falling, half sitting onto the protesting mattress. Their lips had parted with the sudden movement of his decent, and it was with an urgency that he reached for Amanda and pulled her on top of him.

She put up no resistance to his action, instead taking the initiative and directing him into her. She did not want foreplay; it was not about satisfaction. She just wanted him in her, wanted to satisfy him, wanted to take away his pain and replace it with blissful pleasure.

Amanda guided him into her warmth. As she parted herself with his tip, Jack suddenly thrust upwards, burying himself inside her.

She squealed in surprise, then forced herself down on him. He groaned under her, lifting his head to take the hardened buds of her nipples into his mouth. He bit down gently on her tips, bringing forth another squeal.

She pressed her hands suddenly into his chest, roughly pushing him back down on the mattress. She immediately gyrated her pelvis, grinding her groin into his. Jack tried to move towards her again, but her hands held him down.
Rhythmically she caressed his shaft with her wet walls, building a heat in the pit of her vagina, drawing his ejaculation closer and closer.

Jack moaned deep in his throat. Amanda cried out as her own orgasm raced to the surface. She pressed down on him, urging her own satisfaction on, the need to please herself now as great her initial desire to please him.

Her senses exploded in a ball of white fire that began between her legs and burned up her body with a sensation she had never expected to feel again. Her orgasm blinded her to the world within and without, and only when she collapsed on Jack’s wet body, her own sweaty breasts and stomach creating the slapping noise of skin on skin, did she feel him unloading into her.

Then there was a calm in her mind and body. She rested her head on Jack’s shoulder, oblivious to her damp hair that stuck to her face in several places.

They lay in the semi-darkness and dead silence, with only the pounding of their hearts to disturb the still.

Outside the world waited. For what, it did not know. It was no longer in control of its actions.