Jason wiped the condensation from the bus window with the back of his hand and looked out at the emptying festival site. The British weather had been unremitting since Thursday, and the once-green fields had long since become a swamp.
His attention was suddenly drawn towards a beautiful young Indian woman in a group of festival-goers leaving the site. The girl was barefoot, calf-deep in the cloying mud, with the hem of her long, tie-dyed gypsy skirt caked in filth. Her raven hair clung to her as tightly as her mud-spattered vest top, and on her back, a small rucksack was flanked by two copper drums, which bounced on her hips as she waded through the mire. Unlike the other festival-goers, whose faces crumpled in disgust as their Wellingtons once more became stuck, the young woman smiled as she moved, laughing each time she lost her footing, her eyes ablaze with the carefree abandon of youth.
“Don’t you dare close these fucking doors!” Jason yelled urgently to the driver.
**********
As Jason sat in his tent doorway, strumming absent-mindedly on his guitar, he became conscious that he wasn’t alone.
“Wanna jam?”
The young Indian woman before him had seemingly just arrived on the site since she was still carrying all her belongings on her back, including a pair of copper drums. On her head, she wore a daisy chain tiara.
“Don’t you want to pitch your tent first? It will be dark soon,” Jason replied.
The young woman smiled coyly. “I don’t have a tent. I’ve never… had the need.”
The weather forecast had told of several days of rain, so coming to the festival without a tent seemed foolhardy. However, the young woman didn’t seem unduly concerned as she dumped her belongings on the ground beside Jason’s tent.
“So, you wanna jam?” she asked again.
There was no question of Jason saying no. The young woman was as intriguing as she was beautiful, and as she bent over her rucksack to pull out a rug, her short denim skirt rode up to the top of slim, Wellington-clad legs. Then, rummaging deeper, her loose pink crop top gaped at the front, affording Jason a view of even more luxurious dark flesh.
“What are you playing?” Jason asked as the young woman sat cross-legged facing him and dragged the two drums into position between her wide-open thighs.
“Tabla,” she replied. “When played well, the sound can be mystical… spiritual, even. Sometimes, it’s as if the gods are walking among us.”
The young woman began to play, and Jason paused, listening to her beautiful, haunting rhythm before deciding how best to complement it on the guitar. But the young woman’s serene, exotic beauty distracted him as her palms and dark, slim fingertips picked out the rhythm. Eventually, with the long strum of an E minor chord, Jason launched into a slow blues progression.
Jason was happy to continue playing until his companion became bored, but the young woman showed no sign of losing interest. Instead, with each new improvisation, her rhythms became more complex and her proficiency on her instrument more apparent. By the time the first spots of rain began to fall, a crowd of over twenty festival-goers had assembled in the half-light, enjoying the skill and dexterity of both players.
As the rain became heavier, the audience reluctantly sought shelter; however, the young woman’s eyes remained closed and her face tranquil as she played, apparently unaware of the deluge now beating down upon her.
Eventually, she looked up coyly from under long, dripping lashes. A gentle smile crept over her lips, and after a slight nod, her playing became increasingly frantic as the jam reached its climax. Finally, with a two-handed slap on the tabla, she drew the music to a close, and with applause rippling from inside the nearby tents, she and Jason quickly dragged their instruments and belongings into his tent and closed the zip.
The tent could only sleep two comfortably, and the small plastic dome wasn’t sufficiently high for either to stand once inside. The young woman sat on Jason’s makeshift bed, and with the rain battering the tent relentlessly, she was seemingly going nowhere.
Jason switched on a small light, pulled a towel from his rucksack, and passed it to the young woman. As he sat down next to her, he watched the gentle curve of her breasts rise and fall as she breathed, and noticed the unmistakable contours of her nipples through the thin wet fabric of her top. Jason felt his body begin to respond to her undeniable allure.
The young woman removed the daisy chain and roughly dried her hair. “Don’t you just love making music in the rain?”
“That was my first time,” Jason conceded, more concerned by the strengthening erection increasingly visible through his clingy wet shorts. “Now, why don’t I wait outside while you take off your wet…”
Jason stopped mid-sentence as the young woman crossed her arms, gripped the hem of her crop top, and pulled it over her head. Having discarded the item into the corner of the tent, she immediately reached behind her back and unhooked her bra, which soon joined the crop top on the tent floor.
The young woman’s breasts were every bit as beautiful as Jason had imagined. Her flawless, tawny globes were crowned with small, dark peaks, already erect from the cooling rain. Jason couldn’t help but stare as the shadows danced on her velvet skin.
The young woman looked at Jason, seemingly offended. “You don’t like me to strip in front of you? Why so?”
“No, yes… It’s just…” Jason couldn’t find the words.
“It’s just that you have never seen a woman this way before,” the young woman replied, a sudden realisation on her face. “I understand,” she said, insouciantly unfastening her skirt at the back and raising her bottom from the bed to simultaneously remove both the skirt and her panties.