Chapter 2 - 002: a plate of babylon

I don’t know if you could call what we did walking. It certainly didn’t feel like walking. Though Ani had labeled what we had been occupying a road, I wasn’t entirely certain it was even solid. Motion was strange and intangible. Like I was watching a panning shot from a movie instead of seeing it. Blurring and warping my perceptions of things. Ani was the lone focusing point that stayed solid. Her dark dress and intense visage a constant. But in time even they started to blur. The colors spreading like ink blotches on the cloudy messy canvas. Making her appear wider and thicker, bigger and rounder, rippling at our transport. Spreading and warping till the black shadow of her dress enveloped all of my vision. A heady feeling flooded my mind. I could feel myself slipping somehow. Fading out, getting lost in that void. Then, a stinging sensation spread across my check. An audible crack of a hand, on what I realized was my face echoed out. I blinked back to my senses. Opening my eyes to find a solid tangible world surrounding me.

“How on earth did you screw up something so basic as traveling in a straight line?” Ani interrogated me. But I hardly heard her. I was a little distracted by a little something. Namely her outfit. Which had changed considerably during our little trip. Gone was the long flowing black dress. In it’s place a trailing loin cloth of black fabric that crossed in a v shape across the top of her petite hips. Her long snow colored legs entirely bared. A black sash was wrapped around her chest. Though there wasn’t all that much to cover, it was a sharp contrast to her previous more flowing number. As much as I fronted and flirted, even I needed a couple of seconds to process the then half naked beauty in front of me. Coincidentally, it took her about that same amount time to realize what I was doing. Immediately her face lit up like a Christmas tree and she crossed her arms across her chest. “Yeah I wasn’t looking there anyways” I teased her as she covered up her meager chest. I suspect she was probably looking me with murderous intent, but I was too busy checking out her midriff to tell.

“You are truly awful, it’s just a side effect of crossing the divine boarders” she objected loud enough to break my stupor a little. “If you wanted someone without a sex drive you should’ve grabbed someone on their way up” I objected. I looked up for suitable thespian presentation. But as I did, there wasn’t a pure sky overhead. It was concealed by large trees, their vast foliage only allowing god rays to poke through the gaps between them. I could feel my feet sinking slightly into dirt. Further inspection confirmed what I had come to suspect. “We’re in a jungle?” I asked stating the obvious. “Yes, you moron, and have been for the last five minutes” she objected. I could practically see steam rising from her ears. “Try looking less stunningly attractive next time I’ll notice sooner” I shot back as I fully absorbed my surroundings.

It wasn’t just any jungle either. It looked utterly vast, stretching out as far as I could see in any direction I looked. I had experienced a fairly well traveled life, but I could immediately tell this place wasn’t like any I had ever experienced beforehand. It exerted a sort of pressure, in its scale. The longer I absorbed the more alive the place seemed. Bird song, mingled with the calls of animals. Insects climbed up the sides of the extravagantly oversized plant life. The place absolutely pulsed with life. Ani sighed. “Welcome to the Domain of The Babylonian Goddesses, try not to get eaten by the wild life…. you know what, actually please do” Ani announced in a passive aggressive tone. I found myself unable to discern which one of her suggestions was sarcastic. “Well if your job is to guide me, I don’t suppose you’re actually going to guide me to where I need to work, because this just looks like the wilderness” I suggested with a head tilt I knew was going to frustrate the skinny divine. Inspite of my earlier protests I couldn’t help but realize why I had been on my way down. But that revelation didn’t make the murderous look on Ani’s face any less cute, as she pointed frustratedly in a direction and began to march off.

With the revealing cut of her altered outfit I almost found myself more distracted than I had been before we arrived in Babylon. Though I never felt like I was fading out of existence. Ani managed to sate her rapidly building killing intent by swinging branches back in my face. A task I made easy with my constant more downwards facing view. But even with my unabashed lechery even I had to turn my eyes up as we reached the edge of the jungle. It opened up into a clearing and standing before us was a much larger attraction than Ani’s skinny bottom half. It was a vast structure. Constructed out of a bright red stone and carved with a mathematical sort of precision. Rising high, a massive temple stood in the center of the clearing. Vertically extravagant with giant staircases on each side. Accompanying smaller structures were built into the side of it. I didn’t need my frustrated little guide to tell me what I was looking at. As client homes went, I had to admit it beat out the Hollywood McMansions by a large margin.

As we ascended the steps it soon became clear that much like the Jungle surrounding it Ishtar’s temple was teeming with life beneath the surface. With its very open design space I could see men and women going about their business, carrying fruit and wheat in giant pots. They were all almost worryingly attractive albeit in a basic rugged sort of way. The men all seemed gigantically tall, and were shredded and muscular in a fashion that spoke to eons of hard work. In a contrast the women looked soft and certifiably well fed. With thick thighs and generously wide hips. A decent few even had certifable pot bellies which weren’t concealed at all by the same style of revealing outfit Ani had wound up wearing. Yet none of them were ever quite so obese as the fat girls of my own era. I wagered that had more to do with their lifestyles and the quality of the food than anything else. I was more than a little distracted. It was alien to say the least. It was only just starting to hit me how completely strange my circumstances had become.

At the top of the staircase, two female guards barred our entry. Unlike the soft matronly women I had seen around the temple, those two were every bit as intimidating as the civilization's men. With cropped short hair and muscular yet light figures that complimented the razor-sharp spear each was carrying. “We’d like an audience with the goddess” Ani announced in a dead pan bored sort of tone. “And I’d like an explanation for why that is” the guard shot back in a tone that indicated an immediate dislike of my gothic guide. “I have neither the time nor the interest in explaining these obnoxious circumstances twice, just let us in” Ani objected. If she was put off or threated by the tall and fierce guard, she didn't show it at all. It seemed that the only weapon that actually worked on her was teasing. “Ah, Children just let her in would you, at the very least it might entertain me, it’s been eons since I’ve experienced a surprise” a rich and accented voice called in from behind the guards crossed spears. It was rich and deep like coffee, with a sing song sort of confidence that whispered superiority in the subtext. It was admittedly sort of sexy, if ever so slightly condescending.

The guards uncrossed their spears. A single motion that revealed to me the woman on the other side. The source of the voice. She was draped over a throne of carved red stone that seemed ever so slightly too big for her. She was leaning on one arm, cupping her chin with her hand in a lackadaisical sort of way as she looked us over. Her skin was a soft workers tan, yet unbelievably perfect none the less, its shade a perfect complement to the earthy brown tones of her long curly hair. Her figure was startlingly attractive. It was shapely, with a waist that was slimmer than her wide hips and generously soft thighs. An accompanying pair of breasts that were oversized and held firm and round like ripe fruit gave her a solid hourglass. Yet it held a matronly sort of softness. There was a hint of roundness to the cheeks on her pretty face. Her stomach bore the slight beginning of a paunch, and her thighs were slightly too wide for it to be muscle that had thickened them. She had a mature look to her, and on closer inspection you could just about see it on her face. It gave her beauty an unquestionable character too it, rather than detracting from it.

Though as radiant as she was there were other features that caught my eye. More than just her body. Simplistic black tribal tattoos covered both shoulders, and encircled one of her plump thighs. And her eyes were a ferociously expressive golden color, that I could almost swear was literally glowing. There was no questioning that the woman before us was the goddess Ishtar of Babylon. I had been expecting a retiree. An easily placated grandma. Instead I was having to keep from crossing my legs. Because the universe had decided to set me up with the goddess of milfs instead. I opened my mouth to actually voice that line aloud. But instead I wordlessly closed it instinctually. In contrast to Ani, the woman before me was radiating an almost physical pressure. Yet at my silent fish mouthing she laughed. A melodical, yet earthy sort of sound. A pretty noise which seemed to dispel all my worries, and the pressure that had been building. “Not quite what you were expecting Honey?” she joked and laughed, like someone teasing their friend's teenage son.