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PERISSA

Dreamed 1997/9/13, by Chris Wayan.
Big screen, fast loading? Comix version

colored pencil sketch of a long-haired man at a crowded beach; lighthouse and gelato stand in background.

I'm on a beach, in Italy, I guess, because just inland, looming over this sleepy coastal town, is what looks like the Roman Coliseum. But no Rome! An alternate Earth, I guess, where geography and history got a bit scrambled. It happens.

I've been in town a few days. A cute Japanese artist named Giriko has been showing me around. Today, she leads me down to the beach, spreads a towel and peels off her jeans to show off her new red bikini. She looks great, and I can't help gawking a bit. colored pencil sketch of an Asian girl in a dark red bikini: my friend Giriko.

I lie in the sun a minute of two in my ratty blue cut-offs----not long, it's a hot day. Just as I'm ready to get up and hit the water, Giri yells "Perissa!" Aha! She's been talking about her friend Perissa for two days--wants to introduce us. She told me Perissa'd meet us at the beach today. We plan to go to a show at the newly restored Coliseum--Giriko reserved seats, center seats she said. I thought the thing was round, but what do I know? I'm just a tourist.

Giriko yells "Hey, Perissa!" Come out of the water and meet Wayan! We gotta leave soon!"

"We do?" I ask. "I thought we had an hour yet. Damn, I wanted time to talk to her..."

"Oh, we're not really late! But Perissa has NO sense of time."

"Wayan?" a voice calls from the water, and I get up to see a blonde in a lavender shirt wading toward us. She's beautiful but odd-looking: her ears are large and pointed, leaf-shaped really. "C'mon in! It's so warm!"

Before I can respond, Giriko yells "Perissa, OUT!" She whispers to me "I love her, but she's irresponsible. All her kind are... They can't help, being half animal."

"WHAAAT?" I'm shocked. "Just because she's a..." Centaur? But I don't say that, since, as Perissa emerges, it's obvious that centaurs aren't quite like our myths about them.

A centaur girl named Perissa, with an equine tail but much lighter build and four humanoid legs and feet. Click to enlarge.
Perissa seems as fascinated by me as I am by her. She brushes her wet bangs back nervously. I'm a bit shy too, for that translucent lavender shirt is all she's wearing. That seems to be common among centaurs here, and I suppose they figure the tail is modest enough. But on her, it's devastatingly sexy. Not just because her breasts show through the wet shirt, nearly as clear as gauze; I even see hints of a blonde fluffy patch between her forelegs and realize with a shock she's dual-equipped!

Girl in a red bikini yells 'C'mon!', walking off the beach toward the Roman Coliseum. And look up to see Perissa smiling. She pokes her breasts out and suddenly we both burst out laughing.

"Pack UP!" says Giriko. "We don't want to miss the show!"

But Perissa and I can't tear ourselves away. Just talk while poor Giriko packs up around us, unnoticed. Her plan worked too well. By the time we walk inland toward the Coliseum, we're holding hands.

Giriko forges ahead with the cooler. Perissa murmurs with a glint in her eye "So has she told you yet that we're just big kids? We're half animal, you see."

"Well....yeah. I was shocked. Why do you hang with her when she's such a specist?"

"Oh, she's way less prejudiced than MOST! I guess it's because she's from another culture. Giriko's liberal! Around here, human supremacy is mainstream." She lowers her voice till I have to lean in till her breath tickles my ear. It'd be exciting if the words weren't so grim: "Human groups, a bit like your world's Klan, play dirty tricks and discourage us from voting..." Centaur-girl in purple shirt and human boy in blue cutoffs climb the stone steps of the Coliseum, talking. Click to enlarge.

I'm shocked and for the first time a bit doubtful. It's looked very free and equal on the streets--no overt discrimination, and I haven't heard specist jokes from the humans. Though it's true, centaurs are a small minority here, maybe one per cent, and Perissa's the first I've spoken to at length...

As we climb the steps of the Coliseum, Perissa argues a bit, more to the air than really to Giriko, who's ahead of us and hardly listening, "If my equine features are 'animal', what are my primate features--or hers? Vegetable?" and she thumps her left breast, making me start guiltily for staring. Again.

Giriko heads for an arched tunnel-mouth. A carved sign says "CENTAURI." I realized, feeling like an idiot, that Giriko meant she reserved a centaur seat for Perissa, who of course couldn't fit in a human seat. Giriko leans on the stone arch and waits for us to catch up, deep in argument over... the human problem.

I start to realize Perissa trusts me because I'm a shaman, not a human--I just can pass. But I've lived in other forms; I share something with her Giriko can't.

No wonder Giri's jealous...

Dream: Perissa the centaur and I argue about humans, while Giriko teases us and passers-by gawk. Click to enlarge.
I do notice many humans get odd flares in their auras as they pass Perissa. A young girl radiates near worship; a potbellied old man in a straw hat and checkered shorts mutters "animal"--or did he? Did he just think it? I wonder if it was there all along. I was on vacation and didn't want to look under the surface... Now I've been sensitized.

Into the arching darkness of the long tunnel. We hold hands again and lag behind Giriko, a black, leggy silhouette (but not as leggy as someone I know!) in the glare ahead.

Dream: Perissa the centaur and I enter the Coliseum holding hands. Our friend Giriko says 'now don't embarrass me', insulting Perissa. Click to enlarge.
As we squeeze through the aisles toward the special seating (wide, deep benches suitable for kneeling lying or sprawling) Giriko says 'now don't embarrass me, Perissa."

Giri's gone too far. Perissa's aura flares up like a torch, and she vaults the low wall around the arena below, soars in a brief blonde cometary arc, and lands smooth as a cat on the sand!

Perissa, mad, jumps into the arena, saying
Dream: Perissa the exhibitionist centaur flashes the whole stadium.

Giriko seems to be taking it personally... As they argue, the crowd gets a good look at her too. She's hard to overlook, perched in a teeny red bikini atop the inner wall, arguing with a naked centaur.

Perissa's serious, I think: letting the crowd compare them... Is she right? Is part of Giriko's anger and sniping really just jealousy, jealousy at her friend's attention-drawing body with its sexy possibilities? Jealousy over me? And it's justified--soon as Perissa and I met, we both forgot Giri. She deserves a reward for sensing we'd hit it off and introducing us--but all she got was neglect! And quarrels.

Wow... it's obvious from Perissa's sparkling aura and rising nipples and red glistening foreslit that she's really getting off on this! Oh, well, an exhibitionist girlfriend is definitely better than a racist one, right?

But I don't think this is just attention-grabbing. Perissa is sure working up the crowd, and not to anger. They're cheering! Is this really about anti-centaurism?

At last she yells "How about it? Am I welcome here? THUMBS (or other organs) UP?"

And the crowd roars back "UP!" Thumbs wave on upstretched arms.

Giriko's aura is black as a thundercloud.

Perissa trots up to me and reaches up to touch my hand and says "Check out this 'reserved seat' for me--I have a creepy feeling about it." Her look is fierce and intelligent--flushed with sex-energy, but she's riding it, it's not riding her. A man examines a wooden bench marked CENTAURS; loose nails stick out.

So I do as she says. The broad low benches marked CENTAURS AND GUESTS ONLY are just bare wooden slats crudely nailed down. Nailheads and even sharp points stick up from the cracks between boards! What a sloppy job!

Hey... wait a minute. Those nail-points are HOLLOW. Are they... syringes? What IS this?

I yell "Perissa, come look at this!" and she rears up and peers over the arena wall, reaches out and touches a syringe tip with her finger. She looks at Giriko and says coolly "I bet I'd be reeeeeal quiet on this seat. No trouble to anyone."

I can't keep that kind of calm. "You planned to dope her up, didn't you! To shut her up? Or to make her look drunk and foolish?" Extreme close-up of a woman staring at the hollow tip of a hypodermic needle and whispering 'my god'.

"No WAY! They're just loose nails!" Giriko's storm of black hair bristles like a hedgehog and her aura flames as red as her swimsuit--the red of honest anger. Wow, she means it! Giriko may patronize her friend, but nobody better hurt her!

I just stare at Giriko mutely and look back at the "nails." Giriko crouches and peers close. She sees just what we did: hollow, unmistakable hypodermic tips... She whispers "my God..."

Perissa sees. Her face blooms with joy and relief, and she wheels and bounds to the arena's center and dances wildly as Giriko yells...

Perissa dances with joy as Giriko begs forgiveness.
Perissa raising her tail, showing it off... Click to enlarge.

Giri hops down onto the sand and charges over to Peri and hugs her, tears sliding down her face. She knows, now, what her friend's been facing, and that she must change her attitude.

And that she wants to.

I wake.

I wake, knowing I have to change too.

I HAVE been tranquilizing my own urges! Showing off, sex, anger, song, play... I'm ashamed, and talk myself out of them. They're too much trouble, they draw too much attention...

For years, Giriko's whispered inside me "Spontaneity's animal, BESTIAL!" And I bought the lie! I gagged, hid and blinded myself to Perissa's urges inside.

But as Perissa says, to get what I want, whether it's sex or attention or, well, anything really... I have to raise my tail and show it. Oh, how I know it!

It's hard to act on, in the moment. Still--since this dream, whenever I suppress a deep urge, that damn SYRINGE appears in my mind, and I find myself asking a new question, the one Giriko had to face:

"Tranquility? AT WHAT COST?"


Exhibitionist palomino centaur-girl, in only a blue hairband and a lavender shirt, which she's unbuttoning. Click to enlarge.

THREE NOTES

ON THE ART

The illustrations for Perissa were digitally tinted, but the graycale designs were originally generated by an ultra-high-resolution graphics peripheral--too hi-res for the Web, really. It has drawbacks--a clumsy interface (for example, to erase, you have to turn the whole unit upside down! Unbelievable! What were the designers smoking?) that takes time to learn, but it's incredibly powerful once mastered.

The device is called a "pencil"--a silly name, just "pen" plus "silicon" misspelled (and it doesn't even contain any--if industry rumors are correct, it's all carbon-based nanotech), but what do you expect from inventors on drugs?

Anyway, remember, you saw the word here first, folks! Pencil. In years to come, we'll all be using them.

DREAMTALES

Perissa is one just one of a book-length set of dream comics, Dreamtales. I'm ready to publish. Over 250 pages of color dream-comics! Bizarre, erotic, magical, funny, color, expensive damn color... Can anyone out there afford to fund the printing? $10,000 or so. You get the first $12,000 in profits.

Oh well, just asking...

I think I'll put them all up on the World Dream Bank for free, here.

Just be aware they're insanely detailed; best viewed on a big high-resolution screen.

THE PAINTING

I've just finished (I think) a painted version of Perissa's tale, showing a beach vignette from the viewpoint of the dream-figure I've neglected here: Giriko.

Painted beach scene. Asian girl lying on a towel gawks at a centaur-girl talking to a human-looking boy. Click to enlarge.
The painting's meant to look like oil, but since I'm allergic to solvents, it's really many layers of acrylic glazes (enough, and you start to get that Old Master look) on a big leaf-shaped wood panel (smoother than canvas--helps with that Renaissance detailing), which is mounted on a big plywood oval with words telling Giriko's side of the story.

As I painted, it turned out that Giriko's feelings for her friend are even more complex and ambivalent than I realized in the dream. For Giri's a minority too--just a less visible one.

Painted beach scene. Asian girl lying on a towel gawks at a centaur-girl talking to a human-looking boy, raising her tail, obviously turned on. Click to enlarge.
So what about you?



LISTS AND LINKS: alternate Earths - dream dates - centaurs - sexy creatures - friendship - love - rivalry - flirting - racism & other biases - politics - drugs - urge & impulse - direct action - out of control! - exhibitionism - freedom of expression - topdogs & underdogs - praise - dance - joy - trust & mistrust - portraits - pencil art - different girl, similar arena: Perpetua's Last Dream - I picnic in the ruins with a relative of Perissa's

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