The Off Season

by Cobalt Jade  5/97



"Are you sure you want to do this?" he said.

"Yes," she replied, her voice a husky whisper against his neck, his thick sideburns tickling her nose. He smelled of autumn leaves, faint, spicy soap, and grease from the motorcycles he loved to work on.

"We're breaking the law, you know."

"To hell with the law." She nibbled on his ear, the rough growth of his beard scratching gently against her face.

"I am ever at your command, my lady." He took up the thick wire cutters and cut through the fence in a series of snips, peeling back the chain metal to make a hole big enough for them to crawl through. He fetched a few other things from the back of his bike and tucked them under his arm. They crawled under the wire, she first, he following more carefully to avoid catching his fringed leather jacket on the sharp edges. No one would see their entry, concealed as it was by a row of bushes.

The marvels of Playland were spread out before them, the amusement rides like sleeping giants in the November twilight. The pavilions and eating stands were boarded up, the video game parlors securely locked. It looked less like an amusement park then an empty movie set where things might happen once the scene was dressed...deserted, yet quivering with potential. Her excitement and longing grew.

To her, the park was even more enchanting in this quiet evening than it had been during those innocent days of picnics and swimming when she was a child, or the wild nights of her teenage years. Her parents had started her on the kiddie rides when she could barely walk, and graduallt she had worked her way up from the miniature steam train to the ferris wheel, the Scrambler and Himalaya, then the roller coasters and the nausea-inducing Skydiver and Zipper. She had moved away after graduation and sampled other rides, and other thrills, in more modern parks across the country. But this modest place of amusement still had a special place in her heart, which was why they had returned here, on this day, in the off-season of the park.

The day had been warm, and the asphalt they walked on still held the heat even though the breeze was cool. A smell of burning leaves came from a distant field. A few crows gave complaint in the stillness. She imagined the smell of popcorn and hotdogs, the cacophony of screams, laughter, and distant rock music from the rides. 

The rides waited like frozen dinosaurs, mute, yet full of potential power. Their lurid metallic hues looked fluorescent in the fading light. The rotating disk of the Trabant was still now, its garish sign unlit. The swing ride was missing its swings, the flume its water. The abandonment might have looked foreboding to someone else, but to her it only added to the anticipation. 

"There it is."

The pavilion was a marvel. She had always thought it resembled a Moorish kiosk, decorated as it was with gold-leafed minarets, silk banners, and layer after layer of decorative woodwork carved into cherubs, clown's faces, snarling dragons, and other fell beasts. The colors were those of a candy store: cherry red, royal purple, fuchsia, tangerine. She paused to admire it.

"Inside, baby," he said. "Remember why we came here." He gave her a knowing wink.

Technicians had been cleaning the pavilion so the canvas panels that covered the open sides were not drawn down. The thought of exposure both chagrined and excited her. They had already taken a big risk in breaking in here. Why not add one more?

A nearby portable generator told them the park's power hadn't been entirely cut off yet. Probably the crews would be back tomorrow, cleaning the carousel before securing and locking it shut for the winter season. Her husband went off to find the control panel. She didn't have any doubts he could get it running. He was a wizard with his bikes, and had worked for a while as a heavy equipment operator.

She sighed in anticipation. She had loved this carousel ever since she was a child. It was an original Dentzel, and the carved horses were original too, lovingly maintained over the years. The animals on the outside were the best. Snorting, stamping, rearing, they always seemed to be in a frenzy of agonized motion--randy stallions and mares imprisoned by the poles on their backs and set to gallop around the central axis, forever--the up-and-down motion both relieving their lust and adding to it. Some gazed up at the sky, others pawed the earth. The most desirable ones thundered straight forward. They all had names painted on their saddles: Thunder. Flying Cloud. Scout.

A strange nostalgia gripped her. The park was where she had learned to flirt, to kiss, to fuck. 

She had a few animals that were her favorites. She liked the snarling tiger with his moghul-style saddle, even though he did not move up and down like the horses did. Most of the exotic animals, like the ostrich and lion on the other side of the carousel, were standers. They always filled up fast, though. You had to quick if you wanted to ride on the tiger.

Of the horses, she liked Lady, the white Arab filly. Her saddle was decorated with carved roses and she posed prettily with one foreleg raised, her head tucked coquettishly down. Then there was Hiawatha, whose head was pointed straight up the sky ("stargazing," as carousel enthusiasts called it), all four of his legs raised in mid-gallop. He was an Indian buckskin and carried a carved wooden lasso next to his saddle. She liked to pretend she was Annie Oakley when she rode him.

But her very favorite was Tornado. He was one of the largest, a magnificent grey-dappled charger. His neck was arched and his head tilted to the side, so his carved wooden mane flared dramatically in a spiky, wavy crest. His forelegs were bent up as if he was going to charge or rear. She nodded to herself. Tornado, definitely.

She spread the soft quilts over the horse's back, with a few firm cushions in strategic areas. She tied them down with strips of fabric. "How's it going, honey?" she called.

"Nearly there." He stuck his head out of the control and grinned at her. He looked like a 14-year-old with his tousled hair and dimples, despite the fact his high school years were nearly two decades years behind him. "Why aren't you on the horse? Remember you can't climb on so easily when this baby gets going."

"It's cold," she said. 

"You won't be cold for long." He went back inside the booth. It hadn't hurt that he'd worked in this park during his college summers. That long-ago knowledge was being put to good use now.

She took off her denim jacket, her jeans, her sweater and turtleneck. She couldn't help glancing around to see if anyone was staring at her. Silly, she reminded herself. They were in a deserted amusement park in the middle of nowhere, on a quiet weekend when people were more likely to be raking leaves or watching football games on TV. No one could get past the park's fences except those familiar--as they themselves were--with its weak points. They had made, certain, too, to note the absence of security guards. 

She folded her clothes in a little pile, then removed her panties and bra. The cold was a sudden shock on her skin, teasing her nipples into painful little gems. She felt a breeze play along her belly. The atmosphere suddenly shifted from peaceful to erotic. She touched her bush, the soft lips of her pussy, amazed at the sudden sensation and moisture she felt there.

She looked up. Tornado's pole connected to a framework of many others, all worked by pistons in the roof of the carousel. When in motion, all the horses were staggered to move in different rhythms, like an actual herd in full gallop. The rhythm would be implacable, unstoppable, once the machinery got going. She closed her eyes and smiled.

She put one foot into the cold stirrup of the saddle and hoisted herself onto the horse's back. The quilts helped to deter the cold. She wouldn't have wanted to be in contact with the slick, chilly wood. As a child, this horse had seemed huge to her . Now she knew it was not the size of an actual stallion, though it was large enough still to accommodate an adult...or two.

She sat in saddle but faced backwards, resting her back against the pole. Her husband came back with two long strips of cloth. He tied one around her waist to secure her to the horse's barrel, then crossed the other over her breasts to secure her to the pole. Then he took a piece of rope and looped it through the horse's jaw, making an actual set of reins for himself. "Sorry for the kink, darlin'," he said. "But we don't want you falling off now, do we?"

"Oh no, of course not." He kissed her, and his mouth was the promise of pleasure to come. He kissed her breasts. She felt her flesh suffuse with sensation like ripples on a pond. His gentle tongue teased her nipples, compacting them into twin peaks of delight.

"Don't be long," she whispered.

"I don't intend to." He dashed back into the control booth.

She closed her eyes, her back arching against the pole. She raised her arms behind her to grip it in her hands, and waited for the inevitable moment when the carousel would stir to life. The apprehension raced through her like her first time at the top of the park's roller coaster, like the first time she'd told a boyfriend YES. Was it? No. Yes...it was. A tiny movement shuddered through the metal pole, and she felt herself rising. Behind her closed eyelids she saw a blaze of color as thousands of tiny light bulbs switched on, swirling patterns of yellow and red, white and blue. The music began, a triumphant calliope waltz.

The horse slowly rose as high as it could, then dipped down again in a complete revolution. It started on another. Eyes still closed, she felt the warmth of a human body next to her. Her husband. She opened one eye. He smiled at her, eyes crinkling at their corners, as she and the horse descended. She saw his neck, his broad, nicely muscled chest with its coating of hair, his slightly rounded but still sexy abdomen...and his very erect cock, which pointed at her invitingly. The warm colors of the lights danced across his skin.

"Enjoy the ride," she whispered, closing her eyes again and arching her neck. Her long hair rippled down her back. He adjusted the stirrups.

She felt the horse shudder as he put one foot in the stirrup and raised himself up. He swung his right leg over her and placed his foot in the stirrup on the other side. She felt the improvised reins become taut as he took them up in his hands. This was how he would ride, standing in the stirrups over the saddle, as he rode her...and as she rode the painted wooden horse beneath her.

She opened her eyes as his face descended to hers, and she opened her mouth to admit his kiss. The loving invasion sent new sensation through her. She sucked on his tongue like it was all the cotton candy and soft ice cream she'd ever eaten in the park, her head moving with the demanding pressure of his  mouth. The warm nearness of his body drove her into a fever. The music was very loud, the closeness of the calliope, and the absence of other sounds in the park, sending delicious vibrations washing through her. The hard fleece of his beard rubbed against her neck. Her nerve endings kindled, shooting off little synapses that flowered greedy hunger in her breasts and well-moistened sex.

He took up the reins in a single hand and twisted a nipple, causing her to moan. With his mouth he sucked the other, the rhythm rising, falling, like the carousel horse she was now inextricably fastened to. His beard scratched the underside of her breast, a sweet, tormenting itch that started her hips into motion...rising and falling, a faster countermotion to the mechanical plunging of the carousel pole. 

She dug her fingers in his hair, guiding his head and hand lower. 

Sensitized as she was, she bucked and twitched when he touched her mound. A pity she was too well secured to touch it herself, but her safety had been paramount. He moved his fingers in a soothing circular motion. She was so wet they worked smoothly, smearing her fluids over her thighs and belly. She felt the warm juice cool in the breeze as they whipped around the carousel. She felt the liquids tighten on her skin. He touched her clit, and her hips jerked. Twisting, almost sobbing, she pressed herself into his hand, her own fingers rubbing her nipples. He knew she could come from a finger-fuck alone. But the passion must not come to climax too early.

She heard him breathing over the music, a hoarse, excited rasp. She saw he was fully erect, his cock a stiff rod. It was easily the rival of any of the horses'. She gripped it with her fingers, massaging his balls as her other hand slid up and down. As always, she marveled at its length, the sheer hardness of it. As a child, how could she have ever believed that such a limp, pink silly thing could be such an object of terror and delight?

She felt it jerk out of her fingers as he lowered himself onto her, his cock sliding home like a missing piece of a puzzle. Entered her, and clicked firmly into place.

He gripped the reins with both hands and rode her with a wild abandon, thrusting forward as the horse rose on its slender pole, then fell. His rhythm fell into the overall rhythm, the graceful dance of the painted herd, the languid pumping of the carousel engines. Her hands circled her breasts, kneading them in time with his thrusts. Every inch of her skin felt exposed and laved in icy fire. Her mouth opened in glorious cries. She rubbed the soft skin of her calves over his firmer, hairier legs, then crossed her ankles behind his powerful thighs. Her breath turned into hisses. The calliope music filled her, engorged her. The horse flew beneath her. She traveled into a bright and unknown country, gilded hooves thundering ecstasy over every inch of her skin. 

Jolts of unbridled pleasure exploded through her body. The music vanished, as did the cold and the awkward position she held on the horse. The pleasure wracked her, went on and on, then faded like sparks of dying light. 

Limp, filled with sweet devastation, she felt him climb off of her. The carousel slowed. The music stopped.

She felt a glass of champagne touch her lips. She opened her mouth to swallow. She had not forgotten the date. It had happened fifteen years ago, when, overcome with lust, she had let a gawky college junior bang away on her in the carousel's hard, wooden sledge seat. They had been too shy to try this back then, but age and experience had made them more daring.

"Happy anniversary hon," her husband said.


END

This work is copyrighted 1997 by Cobalt Jade (Cobaltjade@aol.com). This work may be be freely distributed over electronic media provided no fee is charged for its use.  Charging a fee for this story, or publishing without author credit or this notice violates my copyright.

