Pet Heaven

“So, when you do you think the barn will be ready?”  Arkonel asked Ari the next morning.  He had joined her at breakfast, appearing in the doorway and knocking before entering so as not to frighten her.

“I don’t know.  It depends on how fast we can work.”  Ari said.  “How much of those special powers are you allowed to use, anyway?”

“What are you thinking about?”  Arkonel asked her.  He materialized his glasses that had been there during the first meeting they had so that he could look at her over the top of them, eliciting a giggle from her, the first in a while.  “Its generally frowned on, it takes away from the experience.”

“Moving objects too heavy to move?”  Ari asked him.  She finished her meal and went to empty her plate and put it in the sink as he replied to her.

“Yes.  I can move heavy stuff.”

“Cleaning?”

“I can maybe do three quarters of it, as long as you do some of it.”  Arkonel said.  “It really depends.  What else needs to be done?”

“Well, I’d like to paint the walls, for example, and move some of the farm equipment out into the yard.  The appliances we took care of at some point.  Then all we’d really need is to convert the stables into dog-holders.”

“Kennels?”  Arkonel asked her with a smile, supplying the word she had forgotten.

“Yeah.  Those.  We obviously can’t do surgeries here, but basic care we can handle, you know.  Feeding the starving dogs, etc.”

“How are you doing cats?”  Arkonel asked, interested.

“I was thinking we could just make sure the barn door was closed during the day, and keep them in there; keep the dogs outside, in that barn yard with the fence.  It’ll be hard keeping so many animals in one place.  We could have a limit.”

“You probably should.  So the animals are in okay conditions.”  Arkonel said.  “And you’re keeping them all outside in the barn?  Is it heated?”

“There’s a heater inside, remember?”  Ari made her way to the door and shook her head as the door magically flew open.  “You’re spoiling me.”

“Anything for a princess.”  Arkonel said.

“Not a princess.”  Ari argued.

“To me, you are.”  Arkonel said, grinned and then continued.  “So anyway, how are your cats going to feel about the new visitors?”

“I think they’ll be okay with it.  They tend to stick together, but they won’t mind.  I mean, come on.  They’re inside cats.”  Ari argued.  “They can’t get possessive over an area of the property they’ve never even been on.”

“If you say so.  So what exactly were you going to exploit my abilities for?”

“The farm equipment.  Can you move it outside?  Like the plow.”  Ari frowned in distasted and pointed to it.

“Sure.”  Arkonel said, and directed the piece of equipment outside, floating several feet above the ground and being careful not to hit the barn doors.

“Wow.  I lied if I ever said I was getting comfortable with the whole objects flying thing.  It still freaks me out.”

“You could always shut your eyes.”  Arkonel pointed out as he directed the equipment gently to the ground.  It barely made a noise, setting down without even disturbing the grass around it.

“But that would turn out just like an injection.  It always seems worse without your sight.”

“I’m not sure I understand – the way I see is much different than what is seen through human eyes.”  Arkonel said.  “I don’t…I perceive, more than anything else.  We don’t see with organs – we are in essence, here at least, ethereal beings.  And in our own world, we see, but none of us have ever known blindness like a human would.”

“Well, I doubt you would.  You are immortals, and that tends to put a damper on things such as disabilities and diseases.”

“Well, no.  Hephaestus is not the most attractive, and he limps, for example.”

“But does it hurt him?  Do any of you up in Olympus know pain?”

“Up?”  Arkonel asked, laughing.  “We don’t live in the clouds.  We live…elsewhere.”

“So what direction?  By the way, can you get rid of that lawn mower too?”  Ari pointed to a machine in the corner.  “Its out of gas and needs a little help.”

“Sure.  Um…out would be the best description as to where I normally reside.  Its like…you know when you pray, where you send your energy?  That feeling of bursting out?”

“Yes…”  Ari frowned.  “Can you hear me pray?”

“That’s complicated.  It depends on the person and the subject of their prayer, etc.  We’ll get to that in a minute.”  Arkonel moved the lawn mower closer to the ground so that Ari would be less freaked out.

“Okay, continue.”  Ari gestured.  “Teach me, oh great one.”

“That place you send your energy to – that is where we live.  And when you meditate or cast circle to do ritual, you are in between the worlds.”

“Well, duh.  That’s what we say in our casting. ‘that thou beest a boundary between the realms of Gods and the worlds of Man’.”

“Yes.  We live on the other side of that boundary.  But, just like someone can cut themselves in and out of a circle, we don’t live directly outside – you couldn’t run out of your circle and into my bedroom.”

“I thought you said you didn’t sleep.”  Ari said.

“Beds aren’t for sleeping, in Olympus.”

“Why would I want to be in your bedroom?”  Ari asked him, pointing to a cast iron pitch fork.  “I don’t feel like lifting that one, either.  Throw it outside for me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”  Arkonel said, ‘throwing’ the pitchfork through the door and sending it flying out into the yard, clattering loudly onto the dirt.

“Damn, don’t take me so literally.”  Ari rebuked him.  “I want our yard to have a bit of grass left.

“Yes, ma’am.”  Arkonel repeated himself.  He was really getting the hang of the human translation of being aggressively arrogantly yet cutely attractive.  Ari hit his arm.

“Don’t call me ma’am, either.”

“Yes, sir.”  Arkonel backed away before Ari could strike him for that one.  It didn’t hurt, but he figured that the action would frustrate her more.

“You know,”  Arkonel decided that he wouldn’t aggravate her for a little while.  “Any other mortals I’ve revealed my identity to have cowered in fear or laughed in my face until they regretted it.  And here you are, treating me like another human.”

“Sorry.”  Ari shrugged, lifting a box of smaller objects they didn’t want inside the barn either.  “Do you want me to refer to you as your lordship?  Ask if you’d like a drink perhaps?”  Ari laughed.  “You don’t seem like the anything – god or mortal – who would want to be waited on.  Sorry if I’m judging you wrong.”

“No, you’ve got it about right.  Need anything else moved?”

“Nope.  I think I’m good.  You want to paint?”

“Not particularly.  Even I’ve watched painters before, in my younger years.  There can’t be a more boring job.”

“Oh really?  I think we could make it interesting.”  Ari said, eyes sparkling with mischief.  Arkonel had never seen this particular side of her.

“How is that?”  Arkonel asked her, following her to the corner to retrieve the buckets of paint that they had placed there a day earlier.

“Well, its something that just has to be demonstrated.  I can’t really explain it, and hopefully you won’t invade my mind to discover what it is I want to surprise you with.”

“Its rude to read thoughts without permission or if the person does not have the same capabilities.” Arkonel told her, suppressing the urge to do exactly that.

“Let’s hit the walls, first.”  Ari said.  “If we hurry up, maybe we can go out or something tonight?”

“Sure.”  Arkonel agreed.  If he was going to ‘babysit’ her or something, he might as well have fun doing it.  Assuming he could still consider it babysitting.  He admitted that it might be a little more than that.

Ari handed Arkonel a brush, and moments after she started to work, he got the hang of it.  He chose one wall, diagonal across from Ari in the large barn.

“I’ll race you to the corner.”  Arkonel suggested.  “I won’t cheat, and the walls are about the same size.  And I won’t even penalize you for the fact that you can’t reach the top.”

“You can’t either – oh.”  Ari looked behind her to see Arkonel hovering a few feet off of the ground to paint the top half of his wall.

“That’s no fair.  You know I can’t win!”  Ari complained.

“I really suggest you start painting.”  Arkonel yelled down at her as he continued to paint the top half of his wall.  They had chosen a light and vibrant red, trying to match the color of the faded wood as close as they could.

Without another word, Ari got to work.  She was glad that she didn’t have any clothes on that she actually cared about – in the process of trying to beat the god at his own game, Ari had managed to get paint all over both herself and her clothes.

“Why don’t you stick to the ground?”  Ari asked.  “Make it fair.”

“I am making it fair.  I am obviously more skilled at painting than yourself, so I’ve given myself a handicap.”

“You’re probably using three brushes when I’m not turned around and watching you.”  Ari complained to him and heard almost-demonic laughter in return.  She turned around to find him, indeed, only using one brush.  But his feet were on the ground, and his brush moving of its own volition above him.

“Nope, not at all.”

“You’re a cheater!”  Ari said, and Arkonel shrugged.

“What can I say?  Gods are allowed to cheat.  So since I’m going to win anyway, can I get my prize?”

“What prize were you thinking about?  The virgin about to be sacrificed?”  Ari asked him, still painting as fast and as neatly as she could.

“No, a kiss.”  Arkonel’s voice came from just behind her and she felt his warmth behind her.  His fingers brushed across the back of her neck.  Smoothly, Ari turned around, paint brush hidden behind her back.

“Now…normally, I would say no.  But I’ll make you a deal.  If you close your eyes – the mortal ones – I will give you exactly what you deserve.”

Arkonel shut his eyes and leaned in towards Ari.  Ari backed away from him by a few inches and brought the paintbrush from behind her back.  She dipped her form just a tiny bit to re wet the brush, then ran it from Arkonel’s waist line all the way up the center of his body, ending at his lips.  He spit, surprised, and his eyes flew open to find Ari doubled up on the floor, laughing.

“Very funny.  What if this stuff was toxic?”  Arkonel asked her, eyes dancing as he tried to wipe the paint from his mouth.  Giving up, he changed briefly to his god form and then reentered the mortal world, clean.

“It was.  But I figured you’re immortal, so all it could do was taste bad.”  Ari said when she could breath again.  Arkonel straddled her and squatted over her body, curled into a ball, still shaking with laughter.

“You still owe me my kiss.”  Arkonel said.  “In fact, you should owe me two.”

“Two whole kisses?”  Ari asked him, sitting up as he got down onto his knees, still on top of her.  “What if I wanted to get up?”

“As soon as I get my reward.”  Arkonel said, finishing his maneuver by pinning her arms down to the barn floor.

“But your side isn’t done yet!”  Ari protested.

“Yes it is.  Bright and shiny painted red.”  Arkonel pointed to his side of the wall after trapping both of her wrists in one of his hands.

“You cheated!”

“No, I only used one brush.  Cheating would be using more than one.”

“Still not fair.”

“I told you to kiss me.” Arkonel said softly.  “It’s a…a divine order!”  He concluded, biting his lip in an impish grin.

“Well, I can’t kiss you if you’re holding me down.”  Ari concluded.  “Looks like your luck just ran out.

“Not at all.”  Arkonel told her, leaning closer, until he was centimeters away from her face.

“I thought you didn’t want to sleep with me?”  Ari asked him, turning her face slightly away from him so she could speak.

“I don’t.  I just want a kiss, woman!”  Arkonel said.

Without another word, Ari leaned in and pecked his lips with hers, then laid back down, struggling weakly against his arms.

“Are you using your special strength, or am I really just that weak?”  Ari asked him as she gave up, not able to budge Arkonel more than centimeters.

“I’m using this body’s strength; but he was a young Greek boy, and he’s from the ancient times.”

“You’re using a dead body to seduce me?” Ari yelped and redoubled her efforts to get away.  “Gross!”

“No, just a model of him.  I create a new body every time I appear, but the model I based it on was a boy from the ancient times.  That’s why he doesn’t look like anyone you know around here, and why I could pull off the story that he had moved to the United States from Greece.”

“Oh.”  Ari said.  “Didn’t I…owe you two?”

“I knew you liked it.”  Arkonel laughed and leaned down to let her kiss him, again.  This time she did more than just touch her lips to his, then drew away once more.

“You know, we’ve never really made out.  You kissed me that one night, but barely.”

“You mean French kissing, I assume?”  Arkonel asked her.  “I don’t need to rudely insert my tongue into your mouth repeatedly to invoke desire in you.”

“Oh.  Okay then.  But what if I want you to?”

“I have better things to do with my mouth that can give you twice as much pleasure in half the time.”

“I’m not going to sleep with you.”  Ari warned him.

“You’ve already slept with me.  I stayed one night in human form, all night.”

“I’m not going to have sex with you.”  Ari amended her statement.

“There is more to life than sex, little one.  I have a lot to teach you.”

“What if I don’t want to learn?”  Ari asked him as he leaned down to invade her territory again.  He pressed his lips against hers and then drew back slightly, running his tongue along the outside edge of her lips, and then made another swipe at her lips with his tongue, running it just along the line where they met each other and rested uneasily.  He pressed his own lips to hers again and shifted his weight, still covering her body with his.

Arkonel kissed a line to her neck and then up to her ear where he gently, but possessively took control of her ear lobe, nipping, licking and biting it.  He attacked the ridge of her ear next, biting up the length of it and then breathing almost directly on it.

“You don’t want to learn.  Right.”  He said softly and released her arms from where he had been holding them, sitting up but not getting off of her.

“I never said that.”  Ari protested, a hint of a whine in her voice.  “I just asked what would happen if I didn’t want to!”

“I thought you’d like what I did.”  Arkonel grinned triumphantly.  “We have painting to do.  Remember?”

“I thought you did it.”  Ari said.  Arkonel rose to get off of her and Ari pulled on his pants, yanking him back down.

“I was just making sure you remembered.”  Arkonel said, lying.  He had completely forgotten what he had sent the brush to do while they were busy.
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