Postcard from Panoria, a short story by Joe Nobel, part one of two

Postcard from Panoria
by Joe Nobel

“The border guards check the size of your pencil when you’re entering Panoria. Mine was 19.2 cm. See, here's my receipt. They made me countersign it,” Taz said to his lunch date.

“Yes, they do that,” Ellie told him in her Panorian accent. She smiled as she looked back at him over the café table. “It is silly, but life is even harder when you live here. Not only do we have to register how many pencils we have and how long they are, we are only allowed to write on paper with a carbon copy. We have to turn in a duplicate of whatever we write. If it doesn't match how much pencil we use, we have to account for the difference.”

“Wow, it isn't like that in Westernesse. I can write on anything I want. But, I never do. If I need to make a note to myself, I just tell my nTab and it reminds me.” He held the device out to her.

“Nice, I see you have the newest model,” she said. “You can get them here, too. But, they have disabled almost all the features. All you can really use them for is phone calls. So, I don’t buy one.”

“Funny, the guards at the border didn't much look for anything else. I guess they're all wound up about pencils.”

“That's the way it is here. They're all idiots — at least fifty years behind the times. So, Taz, tell me what's it like driving across the prairie sea to get here?”

“I slept through most of it,” he said. “The last little country I visited on our side was Cubikland. People are polite there. The streets are clean. But, I've seen their quaint villages before. So after a day there, I just pulled on the highway heading east. I set the cruise control, and after a few hours of watching the wheat and corn fields ripple in the breeze, I dozed off. Next thing I know, my car is pulling to a stop at Panoria's border checkpoint.”

Taz had stayed with his cousin's extended family for a few days in their house in Barna, Panoria's capitol. However, the old aunts and uncles just wanted Taz to sit around and talk to them even though he only spoke little of their language, which made conversation painfully slow. His five nephews and nieces, whose ages were between three and twelve, had been all giggles when his car found its way to their address with Taz sleeping at the wheel. They were wide-eyed when he passed out a bag of Westernesse candy, but later, these same kids just annoyed him with the way they played around in his car, incessantly raising the roof then pulling it down again.

He had explored the neighborhood in the first few days. His cousin lived in at 7/4 Batheny Stair. That's what they were: stairs.

They led up a hill that was too steep for roads. They were the 4th house on the 7th landing. As Taz came and went, he’d wondered how people got heavy things, like furniture, up and down until he saw a crew of laborers carrying pallets of bricks and sacks of cement on their backs even further up the stairs. In Westernesse, they'd just lift whatever material was needed on a mega-crane. The charm and quaintness of the neighborhood wore off quickly.

His cousin saw Taz's restlessness with the slow place of their lives and found him a cottage he could rent for a week or two. It was in Senvar, a town by an inland sea, a real sea, with water. It was a popular tourist town with lots of swimming, sailing, and night life.

Taz found himself a few days later sitting across a café table staring at a brown-eyed girl. He'd met her in one of Senvar's hot spots the previous night. Taz had picked her out from among a group of her friends and asked her to dance. She accepted, and they spent the rest of the evening together. She spoke Westernesse with a dreamy Panorian accent.

She met him the next day in a café in the town's main square for lunch.

“You know,” she said, “we can't be more than friends.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. The authorities would frown upon that.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because everyone is equal here,” she said quietly. “If you make — how you say? — bed-time with me, then you are obligated to make with everyone.”

“Everyone? That's silly!” He smiled. “Of course, that could be fun, if everyone is as cute as you.”

“And then I must do with everyone, too. It is only fair. Everyone must be equal.”

“Ugh! Then how do people get married and have kids?”

“Oh, that is different. In reality, we do have friends, and when we find someone we apply to get married. The authorities do a compatibility test. The couple is almost never refused. Then, they marry. But, for singles it's different.”

“That’s terrible!” he said. “You must all be so frustrated.”

“There are rules,” she winked. “Then, there are rules.”

Ellie took Taz for a walk along the bluff that looked out over the inland sea. She led him to a spot away from the festive tourist night life. When they were well into their walk the wind picked up and a misty rain started to fall. The cool air was a welcome relief to the dry summer heat, but soon Taz felt goose bumps along his arms and back. Yet, he never stopped wondering what Ellie meant by “rules and rules”.

“Come.” She took him by the hand. “I know of an abandoned castle just a little ways inland from here.” She pointed to a trail in the grass. “It used to belong to a millionaire before the Great Equalizing. No one will come up here, now that the weather has turned bad.”

By the time they got to the old granite structure, the mist had turned into a wind-whipped rain. They ran the last hundred feet to keep from getting soaked.

“I think we could be here for a few hours,” Taz said as he looked out a window from which the glass and frames had long been removed. They found a small room in the back side of the castle that may have been a bedroom at one time. Now, it only stored a pile of hay for a nearby farm.

“Brrrr, now I am chilled,” Ellie said, as she turned and hugged him.

“I can remedy that,” he said. He took off his backpack and pulled out a can of instant fire. He placed it on the floor away from the hay and built a cairn of rocks around it. With a pop from his control key, the can ignited and began to warm the rocks.

“This should heat the room in no time,” he told her. “And the glowing rocks will keep us warm long after the instant fire is exhausted.”

“You bring so many curious things from Westernesse,” she said. “It must be fascinating to live there.”

“Well, it’s mostly ordinary —”

She kissed him before he could finish his sentence. It wasn’t a polite peck on the cheek, rather, was a full-frontal attack on his lips. She held him against her as their lips locked. He fell back onto the bed of hay with her on top of him. Their legs intertwined. He sensed the heat in her loins, the urgency, the need.

“Wow,” he said.

“No one’s watching us here,” she whispered as she took his hand and pressed it against her bosom.

“Now I understand what you mean by there being rules, and there being rules.”

“We’re breaking both kinds,” she murmured, as she unzipped his fly and reached into his pants.

Taz had always considered himself an average kind of guy in Westernesse, holding down an average job, and living in an average apartment. Now, it dawned on him, that while visiting Panoria, he’d always be considered two or three cuts above average, just because he came from a far-off (and more advanced) land. Perhaps he was taking advantage of her, but Ellie was so willing, and so giving. And, he sensed that she desperately needed him.

He fondled the breasts she so freely offered. He let her feel the cock in his pants grow to its full splendor.

“Take off your wet clothes,” he said.

She did. He watched as she pulled off her windbreaker, then blouse, then bra. Not even waiting for him to do the honors. Then she attacked his shirt, unbuttoning it with a fury. She cast it aside, then held her body against his. He felt her fever again, not just in her loins, but in her breasts and belly, and everywhere her skin touched his.

Ellie moaned as if she was coming just by rubbing her nipples against his bare skin. She buried her head in his chest, kissing him along his rippled abdomen. It was as if she were memorizing his every scent, sucking in every molecule of testosterone his pores exuded.

He rolled her over in the hay. With him on top, he unclasped her skirt and pulled it off. He slipped out of his jeans while she watched. She reached for him, taking hold of his bulge, not even waiting for him to pull down his underwear. She gasped in pleasure when he pulled his briefs off, and his cock sprung up in its freedom. He entered her, shoving his member furiously into her pussy: and fury was precisely what she needed. She arched her back, taking him all the way.

They made love while the cairn-fire warmed the room, until the rain stopped. By then, the sun started setting. They lay in each others arms watching the clouds roll away, making way for the setting sun.

“We should be going,” Taz said, lazily. “I think our clothes have dried, and it will get dark soon. Why don’t I take you out to dinner? There’s that tourist-only restaurant by the beach.”

“No,” she interrupted. “I can’t see you tonight. I have to be somewhere. Perhaps we can have lunch again, maybe tomorrow?”

She kissed him. “Then maybe we can have another hike. There are many abandoned houses by the sea.”

All the way back to town he wondered what her other plans could be. Did she have enough of him for one time? She was clearly satisfied with his performance, so why put up the barriers? Was she afraid or ashamed to be seen with him? Then Taz had another thought, what if she had another date set up for the night? Something that was arranged long before their chance encounter.

Conclusion to follow ...

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