An excerpt from A Secret of The Plains. In this scene, Cheng falls into a dark cavern and under the spell of a beautiful woman.


A sticky heat crawled over his skin as Cheng slithered into an enormous steaming cavern that funneled up to the sky. He stood. Steam snaked around him, choking him. Yet, even that was preferable to his chest being pressed between two slabs of rock. He tilted his head up to the yawning opening and gasped for breath. The sky looked so open, so blue.

“You’ve come,” said a soft feminine voice through the steam. He felt no surprise. He expected her.

“I’ve come,” he responded, echoing the local greeting. Before him, a woman with dark cavernous eyes and wildly fanned hair the color of water floated across the sweltering steam. She approached as a wingless dragonfly, her dark skin illuminating the water. The steam twisted up her and encircled her naked body like a misty gown. Unlike White Tara’s noble stature, this goddess assaulted his senses with her blunt, fiercely feminine form. All thought and fear left Cheng, and his groin pulsated. Had he learned to accept these many faced goddesses? He felt giddiness in his acceptance.

Cheng licked his lips. “Where am I?” he tried to ask, but only a breathy muttering emerged. She stood before him, her full breasts moistened with clear drops of misty water, her ruby nipples erect. Her rounded belly rose and fell as she flowed closer. She stopped a hand width from his own burning skin. Her long, lotus petal eyes fluttered. Cheng waiting, feeling her closeness, smelling the mossy, burnt scent of her, like a pit fire.

She placed her arms across her breasts and kicked the water. “You’ve come,” she said again a warm smile spreading across her sensual face. This voice was softer, more feminine than the other Tara’s. She lowered her head to his neck and giggled again. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, her soft voice whispered into his neck, prickling him. Her hair smelled like ash and a strange dust filled his nose. He felt so lightheaded that he reached out and squeezed her hand to keep from falling back. This feeling was nothing like the sweet shiver of anticipation he had felt with the Karaoke woman in Fuzhou. This was the Yangse River coursing through him, flooding him.

“Tara?” he whispered, tipping his chin back, willing her to wrap herself around his pliant body.

“You have come! My tse-das,” she said a feather from his neck. Tse-das. The one who cannot be named.

“Tara,” Cheng whispered, naming her, closing his eyes and leaning into her so that her lips touched his skin. “Tara.” He lifted his neck into her lips. His body shook. To fall to the earth and melt into her. He didn’t know why Tara had picked him, but felt a sureness he’d never felt at any other time in his life. This spirit filled him, empowered him. He almost laughed at the pleasure. She moved her lips across his Adam’s apple to his shoulder.

Cheng licked his lips, leaned into her. This was what it felt to touch the divine.

--Copyright C. Tkaczyk