BEGUILED
by perletwo
Joan lay still, listening to Randy's breathing. The weight of his left hand on her right reassured her it was safe to let go of her self-control and surrender conscious thought. Darkness swallowed Joan's mind, and she slowly gave herself up to floating in it.
Floating in warmth was a delicious sensation for a good long time, but eventually, other sensory impressions made themselves felt.
A sound/touch sensation of something cool and long sliding against her skin; a strange texture both rough and smooth...Joan felt herself wrapped in something heavy and muscular, thick as a tree trunk, and she shifted slightly in its embrace. Its grasp was firm and steady but not too tight, and oddly she felt no fear.
Dim light hovered around her, seeping into her closed lids, and she opened her eyes, which adjusted gradually. An immense snake, something like a Burmese python or a boa constrictor, had slithered around her body.
Some eight inches in diameter and twice as long as she was tall, she was sure, it was able to wrap itself around her more than once. Its skin was cold and smooth but bumpy with scales, the color of pale cream tinged here and there with yellow and green, ridges smudged with black. The sensation of its cold-blooded embrace was strange, but not particularly unpleasant.
She held its head at the neck in her right hand; its eyes met hers, shining golden with a round, red-rimmed iris, and its brow was ridged with reptilian lumps and creases. Occasionally its strong jaw would slip open, revealing sharp fangs and unfurling a long, forked tongue before snapping shut again.
Joan and the snake both held motionless, staring into each other's eyes and silently taking each other's measure, for an interminable time. Joan observed the snake with the clinical detachment of a zoologist, while the snake studied her as if she were the only member of a strange new species it had ever seen, and couldn't decide whether to strike, to eat or to flee. On the whole, it seemed disinclined to do any of those things.
She could feel the strength within the snake's heavy trunk, muscles contracting and releasing underneath the thick skin. Her grip on its neck was equally as strong, however, and she could see it knew it. They held still in mutual menace and mutual respect.
Then Joan felt the snake wrap its lower body around her leg, its trunk bisecting her pelvis and resting its weight on just the right spot to make her melt. She began to move in her sleep, shifting her hips the tiniest bit upwards, and the snake's grip around her tightened ever so slightly, making her aware of the curves of her body, the taut skin of her waist and belly, the heavy heat of her breasts. She stretched sensually in the snake's grasp, tensed and released.
As she held the stretch, the snake's head slid easily through her fingers, up her arm to send its pointed tongue darting along the side of her throat, nuzzling its mouth against her earlobe. Unconsciously she let her shoulder fall to give it better access, giving the powerful creature her total trust.
Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the snake seemed to melt away into the darkness. Shifting in surprise, Joan felt herself begin to wake in sudden fear; then she felt Randy's hand in hers, registered his nearness above her, and half-thought, 'It's all right. Randy won't let anything bad happen to me.'
Comforted, she relaxed, abandoned the effort of thought again and sank back down into oblivion.