Erik had the recorder going and was taking brief notes as she
spoke. "So the psycho trying to make parole did smell of charred
toast."
"Yes. Emma the canny fox, like, wouldn't tell me which of the three was the psycho. Although she doesn't usually shake the hands of the men, this time she did to give me an excuse to also shake their hands. There was no doubt at all. Black. I saw black, and that smell of charred toast."
"I think that is very significant. I'm going to have to make a transcript of all your adventures with Emma and send her a copy."
"She'll probably ask you for it in any case. She like, dropped me off and then screeched out of the driveway to go to the task force building. She wants to hurry the questioning of that farmer."
"So that is it. You're finished."
"Not quite. In the interview with the psycho, while Emma was asking him questions, I started showing a lot of leg, and dropping pens and things to give him a view of my cleavage." Erik could visualize the scene, and felt like the anxious father again.
"To get him horny so you could find his aura?"
"Yeah, but like, nothing."
"So your tease failed?"
"I'm pretty sure he had a boner, but like, there was nothing aura-wise to find."
"But that isn't unusual. Most people have lost whatever auras they had as children."
"Then why did it hit me so strongly when I touched him? I can't figure it out. Emma suggested that maybe it was because I was the opposite of a psycho, but to me that means there should have been like sparks flying. "
"Anything else?" he asked.
"Yeah, like Emma wants to hire me as a research assistant."
"You already have a job."
"I know. I told her that. And I also told her that I don't have, like, a social security number for Canada, so she would have to pay me under the table."
"What did she say?"
"She's going to talk to you. I think she just wanted an excuse to talk to you anyway. I think she is, like, sweet on you."
He gave a long low moan. "Just what I need. Being around you so much keeps me so horny that my ass is at risk. It will be a relief when the fall term starts."
"What about that? What am I supposed to do if you are at work all day, and Alicia is in class or up to her eyeballs in, like, papers and assignments."
"Wreck Beach is wonderful in September, with all the U.B.C. students back on campus," he said. He reached over and gave her a hug. Since she had learned to dampen her aura with frequent showers and hot tubs, he could actually be close to her without being overwhelmed by it. They could even touch, but just for a few seconds. Any longer tended to put them both into a meditational trance.
"Oh yeah," she said thoughtfully, enjoying the hug. "I forgot about all the students being back. That could be big fun so long as the warm weather holds."
"Or find out what Emma was planning for you. If she can figure out how to pay you under the table, then you would have extra money in your pocket."
"I don't really need the money, I mean, I hardly spend anything, not that you give me much above room and board. You know, if I still had a coffee shop job then room and board would take all of my pay and I wouldn't be living this well." She thought about this and then gave him another big hug. Without thinking she kissed him on the cheek. She pulled back from him quickly, fearing what she had done.
"Nothing," he said. "I can't believe it. All this time we have been staying away from the head, and that kiss did nothing. Touch my cheek with your hand." He waited for her to touch his face.
"First another kiss," she said and kissed him gently and fully on the lips, then leaned in and deepened the kiss, long and hard, like teenagers in the back of a Chevy. She pulled away. "I've been waiting weeks to do that," she said breathlessly. "Did that have an effect?"
"Yes, the normal one," he smiled at her, "now the hand."
He regained consciousness after about five minutes. For five minutes all he saw was a milk white light. All he smelled was some flower scent he didn't recognize. All he heard seemed far, far away. He looked around, still a bit dazed. She was sitting in his chair reading his notes on his computer.
He shook his head and said, "Well, I feel refreshed. You are really going to have to figure out how to control the focus in your hands. Give it some priority. What if you accidentally touch my face while I am driving?"
"I'll work on it with Alicia tomorrow. We are going clothes-shopping with Emma, and hopefully to the beach afterwards. It's all so confusing. A month ago I had never felt an aura, then that first week with you it was like I was riding a rocket to, like, the moon." She spun the chair to face him. "Why is it that other people's auras grow so slowly, while with me it's, like, whiz-bang an atom bomb?"
"Maybe 'cause we are both generators. I don't know. During that week while yours was increasing so much, mine was too. I'm glad Alicia is going to help. I need to practice focusing my hand like you do."
"If she'll let you. You be polite to her."
"I will, I will. I got your point before."
"Oh, and she got her results from the clinic. She's clean," Maya stuck her tongue out at him. "We should have ours when? Tomorrow or the next day?" She smirked at him and winked.
"Not even in jest, Maya," he winced, "that would cause all sorts of problems between Karl and me. Besides, you would probably turn my mind into a splatter of marmalade."
"Mmm," she licked her lips saucily, "marmalade."
"Here, look." He got up and swung her chair back around to face the computer. He reached around her and took over the mouse. With a few clicks he was showing an engineering diagram of a woman's shape.
"Ya know, there is better porn than that on any web site," she giggled, "besides, you've made my breasts too large."
"Shhh, this took me hours and hours even though it runs for just a minute. Watch the changes." He clicked a 'play' button. "See the areas that grow red? Those are the zones where I estimate your aura is being generated. Most of it comes from your skin. It may be triggered inside you, but it is generated by and flows from your skin. That makes sense because your skin is by far your largest organ."
"So the reddest zone is the one around my chest, shoulders and upper arms. You're kidding. Tell me you made my breasts bright red for a joke. Oh and there is another red zone around my bum and thighs and ... and ... well that explains why sometimes it is so sexual."
"And my theory is that your skin organizes the aura to be focused outward from the closest point of the skin to whatever it is sensing. In many cases that would be along your arm and to your hand."
"And the feet?" She crossed one leg over the other knee and wiggled her toes. "They should be able to focus, too."
"I don't know. We've haven't finished experimenting with the hands yet, so let's leave the feet for now. Karl’s theory has always been that your feet work the other way. That they pull at the earth's aura and channel it up into your body." He started clicking the mouse again. "I've never believed that about the feet. When I was in India, I used to feel auras while I swung in my hammock, without standing on the ground."
"Another graph?"
"The effect of cayenne chocolate," he said, "from that dinner a week ago." Last Friday they had forced Karl to take a night off from his endless work and enjoy himself. Desert that night was cayenne chocolate that Maya had made using Alicia's recipe. Actually Maya had come very close to being the desert herself, but then some friends dropped in unexpectedly.
"What am I looking at?" she said. His graphs only made sense to other engineers.
"Well, basically, after eating the chocolate your aura increases in range. My theory is that the dark chocolate makes you feel good and gets your blood flowing. The cayenne causes all the tiniest of arteries to expand, thereby carrying more blood near to the surface of your skin. More blood into the extremities of your brain too."
"It's a Mayan recipe," she said, "That’s where the world got chocolate from. Those Mayans were pretty smart. I wonder if they knew about auras."
He coughed, swallowing his words. "Umm, you know of course that Karl started writing a book about how ancient and wild men used auras to help them survive, and that modern civilization made auras unnecessary so we lost the power."
"That's interesting." She was tired of the computer and reached forward and turned the screen off. "Alicia has a religious painting in her room. It's of the Virgin Mary, cause she is Catholic, and it's from the Yucatan. You know how the Virgin is, like, painted with a golden halo around her head? In Alicia's picture the halo is around her whole body, and the halo is green, not gold. I call her the great green goddess, which makes Alicia cross her heart."
"I have a book somewhere that shows Indian paintings of all sorts of auras," he said turning the screen back on so he could do a shutdown.
"I've seen that book already. It has pictures of carvings of men and women. Very lifelike. Sexy carvings. Like every sex position imaginable."
"Oh, that's a different book. The other one may be in the same pile, though." He spun her chair around and pulled her to her feet by her arm, not her hand.
She smiled at him and said, "Join me in the hot tub so I can touch you without you going into a trance."
On the way to the tub, he poured Prosecco into some tub-friendly plastic stemware. He always let her get in first before he disrobed. It was safer that way. They wanted to talk and watch the stars and enjoy the peace, so he didn't turn on the noisy bubbles. As soon as he settled into the still and hot waters she moved onto his lap and kissed him gently on the lips.
"Maya." How to start? "Maya, you think you are in love with me. I've told you before, it is the auras. Karl and I made the same assumption. We thought it must be love because we felt so physically one when we cuddled."
"You're still together, after what, like fourteen years."
"By the time we realized it was the auras, we were best friends, constant companions, sharing experiences. In other words, we were a couple. We were both taking long vacations before the home stretch to our degrees. We had tons in common. Even more now."
"That's what I want," she said softly.
"Oh Maya, I don't want to hurt your feelings. You have become very precious to me. To us. I meant to us. Karl feels the same way. How can I explain. Ummm. Okay. Because all of us have been bathed in your aura, we are all feeling lovey-dovey. Soft and open. You aren't the only new woman in my life who I fear may be falling in aura love with me. I think both Alicia and Emma are as well."
"Oh, I know that," she kissed him again. "But that is just the aura thing, this is differe...., Oh, Ohhh."
"Alicia wants to save me from homosexuality by bonking my brains out and making me love her, a woman." He had to shift her weight for an obvious reason. "Do you realize that there are men who fake homosexuality to prey on girls like her?
Emma wants to take Karl's place so she and I will become a professional couple, and then immediately start a family. We are both at the critical age for that, especially her. So far, she is focusing on me either because she met me first or because she thinks I am better-looking than Karl. Eventually she will refocus on Karl. He is better husband material.
And you, Maya, have woken up from your humdrum existence into a wonderland, and I am your Prince Charming who made it all possible."
"You are charming," she said trying not to think about the truths he was telling her.
"There are lots of charming men in Vancouver. Well groomed, well mannered, worldly, respectful of women, and ..."
"Gay," she said too loudly. "I talk to other women, you know. On the beach, at the supermarket. They all say the same thing. Vancouver is doubly cursed. The best men are all gone, and all gone to other best men. San Francisco shares the curse. The coffee shop I worked in catered to gays. That's why I worked there, so I wouldn't always be leered at by hard-hat types."
"So you know what I am talking about, then?"
"I suppose, but I hate it. I want the romance. I want the romance so badly that I've already decided to bed both of you, if that is what it takes to keep the romance going."
He whistled. "Not until you have more control, otherwise you could end up turning us into zombies."
"But it's okay, right?"
"Well, to be honest, the subject has come up between Karl and I, but there is more to it than that. Now is not the time." He handed her a glass and tinked his to hers. "Meanwhile, I am quickly running out of free time. I have to start getting ready to go back to work. Did you say the three of you are going clothes-shopping and then to the beach tomorrow? Good. Invite them back here for supper, and don't let them eat a lot of munchies at the beach. I am going to prepare one of my five-course gourmet dinners."
"What's the occasion?"
"The civilizing of Alicia," he replied.
"Manners and stuff."
"Right on. I will pretend to teach you deportment and formal table manners, and you must help me make sure she is my star pupil. I even have an excuse. Karl can't come with me to the faculty benefit dinner so I need an escort." He stopped talking because she was giggling. "Not that kind of an escort." He shifted her weight again. She was being naughty.
"Oh I get it, like that old movie my mum likes. Umm"
"Pygmalion," he said.
"No, it's not Miss Piggy. That's the Muppets. My Fair Lady, that's it. You know, where the professor makes a lady out of Miss Piggy." She settled her head against his chest, but was careful to keep her hands under water. She really had to find some way of turning them off. Maybe gloves. She started giggling as she pictured herself wearing welder's gloves. Didn't Miss Piggy always wear lavender elbow-length? It was a look. She wondered idly if that was why the English queen always wore gloves. Did she have aura problems, too?
"So, it's on," he said. "Dinner after the beach. Drop your new clothes off here on the way to the beach and we can have a fashion show afterwards."
"Do you want to come to the beach?"
"I'll be busy cooking."
"If there's going to be, like, a fashion show with our makeovers, d'ya think you should invite Gerry?"
"Good idea, he, she will balance the seating."
* * * * *
* * * * *
The house smelled deliciously of cooking when they sauntered in after the beach. They bee-lined to the deck shower beside the hot tub to wash off the sand, and then went upstairs to Maya's room to change. There was a handsome man upstairs talking to Karl. Both were in dinner jackets. Karl looked very smart, but the other man looked like a tall version of Johnny Depp. Mr. Depp waved and it took them a moment to realize it was Gerry.
"Erik told me he ne..." he started in falsetto but then switched by octaves and continued in a deeply resonant voice, like a radio announcer, "needed another man at a gourmet table." The women all blew him kisses and then closed the guest suite door behind them.
"My ears are burning," he said to Karl.
"They should be in flames," Karl chuckled. Gerry had been his stockbroker before he decided to earn his living making women beautiful for the local movie industry. He loved the company of women, but as sisters. It could be very confusing and entertaining, which made Gerry a welcome guest in this house.
Maya poked her head out of the door and told the men to go below and wait for their entrance down the staircase. They laughed to each other, grabbed the bottle of sparkling Shiraz and their glasses and went down to help Erik.
The women played odds or evens to decide who would start the fashion show. Emma went first, on tiptoes because no shoes were allowed in the house, especially not the dark green stilettos that were still in the bag upstairs. She descended very slowly, kicking her knees gently out to make the skirt work. She wore a grey suit of a 1940's cut with straight shoulders and a pleated skirt that flicked with each step. Her blouse was of hunter green silk with an open neckline that was filled in with a faux emerald necklace. Her dark brown hair had been styled into a pageboy, parted on the side, and with the 40's spy movie she was channelling, she could have been Ingrid, or Veronica or Katherine.
The men clapped long and hard. "Don't you..." Gerry switched out of falsetto, "don't you dare take another step until I have a camera. Karl, never mind, I see yours." He whisked over to a book case and snatched up the SLR digital and after inspecting all the buttons and options, handed it to Karl. "Click, click for me, darling. I want a record of my makeover successes."
Alicia was next. Her strapless deep red poly-silk gown cinched her in a bodice from the waist to the lower ribs and pushed her breasts high, but it was smooth across her hips and then dropped straight down to below her knees. She had to pull the skirt up slightly with two hands in the front in order to go down the stairs. The effect was to allow the skirt to dance eloquently behind her knees. Her glossy black hair was swept up to the crown of her head, and cascaded in curls down her back, setting off the necklace of faux rubies nestled in her cleavage. She exuded a 1950's movie-star glamour worthy of a young Ava or Elizabeth.
Maya waited until the wolf whistles had stopped. She was wearing a backless turquoise dress from the heyday of the 60's jetset. Her breasts were hidden by two wide straps that hooked around her neck and made eyes watch for jiggle whenever she moved. The heavy jersey fabric draped close over her waist and hips and then flared out so that with every step it swirled around her knees. She wore a strand of white pearls high on her chest, and long white gloves. Her blonde hair had been styled into a modified bee-hive, and she had lined her sea-green eyes with kohl. With her lower lip pushed into a sexy pout, she was every inch the young Bardot attending a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Gerry stepped forward and grabbed her hand, to worried gasps from Karl thinking he would be sent to the floor unconscious. He raise her hand high and then twirled her in a ballet pirouette, so that they could watch the dress do what it was designed to do. She stayed on tiptoe and twirled and twirled, until Erik made an announcement.
"I have five courses and five guests, so each of you must volunteer to serve one of the courses with me." He held up a very wide, frilly apron in one hand. "Alicia, do you want to go first?"
"Oh right!" snapped Alicia. "Let the Latina be the maid first. They're good at it." With her mouth tight, and a mutinous expression in her dark eyes, she seemed to have just stepped off the set of a TV novella.
"I'll go first," Emma called out hurriedly, so no one would volunteer before her. She grabbed the apron and Erik's arm and allowed herself to be led into the kitchen, her skirt swishing pertly around her knees.
Alicia watched Emma's eagerness and said, "Rats!" and then sat where Karl was holding a chair out for her. She looked down at the table setting. Three forks, two knives and two spoons, all different. "Uh oh," she said as she unfolded the large linen napkin and protected her new-to-her gown.
"Never mi..., I mean," Gerry switched to baritone, "Never mind, sweet cheeks. I've supped here before. I know the cutlery well." He swung a breathless Maya into her seat and pushed her closer to the table. "Professional courtesy, dear, but where did you find all the luscious gowns?"
"Almost everything we bought was from Jenny's Consignment, you know, on West Fourth. These were just the formal outfits. We put together some work-a-day outfits too, with the help of the thrift store two blocks from Jenny's." She looked across the table at Emma and beamed. "Thank Emma, it was her credit card."
"I was glad to pay," replied Emma. "I saved a fortune not buying from the boutiques, and besides, look at the styles we found. Not that frumpy stuff they sell in malls."
"Just a hint when you are looking in magazines for ideas, take them from the ads trying to sell you perfume, and not from the ads trying to sell you clothes." He gazed at each of the women ending with Maya. "Jenny's place is a cave. Half the stuff isn't even hung up. I can never find anything in there. There is no organization. It's just a jumble."
Maya sat back while Karl poured the wine. "I start by touch. No one wastes time tailoring cheap material. I can pick out quality material just by touch, and then I decide if the color is one of those I am looking for. Only then do I actually shake it out and see what it looks like, and find the labels. It goes pretty quick. For every outfit we bought we tried on maybe three."
"She has a knack," said Alicia. "I have four new go-to-class skirts that make me look classy."
"And she found me clothes, that I would never have even tried on if I were shopping alone," said Emma walking in from the kitchen with two steaming bowls. "But when I did, well, I looked feminine. Maybe that's why I wouldn't have tried them on without her urging me." She put the bowls down on the place mats. "I just realized, I don't have to look like I don't bother to take time for myself anymore. I am already a successful feminist. That is who I am. Why shouldn't I look feminine?"
Once the miso soup was served and they were all sat, Alicia bowed her head to say thanks. The others flicked glances at each other and then bowed their heads as well. Erik then had an announcement. "This Friday Karl and I are double-booked. I need to attend a faculty benefit, a formal dinner. He needs to attend a company social, also formal."
"It's slightly more complicated than that," revealed Karl. "My new employers have no inkling of the sex of my mate, and I don't think they are ready for that yet. They are very Korean. We were hoping for volunteers to escort each of us, but later, after dinner. This dinner is sort of a practice run for us all, since none of us go to formal do's very often."
"Yes," continued Erik, "and though there are five courses, each is light and small because I thought we should practice our ballroom dancing afterwards." He watched each of the women look at each other nervously. "Don't worry ladies. We men are all gay, which means we can all dance, and either in the Fred or the Ginger role."
"Umm," said Gerry, using his deep voice automatically now, "if I may also add that this Friday I must attend a cast party for the movie I have been working with. Sort of a formal and/or costume affair. They are all expecting me to arrive in flaming drag, so I thought I would go in this outfit and look more like James Bond. I would be forever grateful if one of you ladies could hold my hand through the ordeal."
"Stop slurping your soup, Maya," Erik called out sternly.
Maya shot him a look, and was about to tell him off. She hadn't been the one slurping, but then she remembered. "Sorry, Erik," she murmured sweetly. She took a demure taste. "Erik is teaching me deportment and table manners this week, you know, so I appear more grown-up."
Alicia put her spoon down and looked guilty, then picked it up again and used it without slurping.
"Actually," said Karl , "if we are served this soup by the Koreans, then the proper way to drink it is to," and he demonstrated, "first raise the bowl and turn it in your hand to savor its beauty, and then put it down, and then raise it again and take a sip directly from the bowl, always putting it down between sips.
And always leave some in the bowl when you are finished. Actually I don't like Korean food very much. All cabbage and noodles. It's sort of the German cooking of Asia." No one could resist trying the Korean way of drinking the soup.
The dinner continued slowly and elegantly, with many corrections and instructions to Maya, who was a good sport about it. With the desert of homemade raspberry mousse and homemade natural vanilla ice cream, just a tablespoon of each, they retired to the deck to watch the sunset make a painter's palette over the spectacular Tantalus Range of mountains.
Alicia licked her plate and gave Erik a challenging look. She had figured out what was going on. "Why don't we get on with the deportment part of the lesson," she said, "while our food goes down?" Erik was collecting plates and as he bent to pick up hers, she kissed him on the cheek. "Please sir, may I have more moose and squirrel?"
"Later," he said quickly straightening out of peck range. "After we dance, and before bed."
"Promises, promises," she cooed. Then she stood up, took the costly china plate from Erik's hand and put it on top of her head. Without holding on to it, she walked around the deck. Erik put his hands over his eyes, fearing he would never find a replacement for the plate. "Isn't this how a lady is supposed to learn how to walk?" asked Alicia.
She swirled effortlessly passed him, with the plate still perfectly balanced. He grabbed the plate. "Yes, but we will use the hot tub plates. Melmac doesn't smash." She curtsied to him. He was sure that if the plate were still balanced on her head that it would not have fallen despite the shallow dip.
"Ladies don't carry things on their heads," Alicia said matter-of-factly, "peasant women do."
Karl hurried into the house and came back holding a large laptop. He already had the lid up and was typing as he walked. "This was the most perfect posture I ever saw by the most graceful women on the planet," he said, swinging the screen around for all to see the photograph. "Women in Bali, carrying offerings to the temple."
The photo showed three women of three generations walking elegantly in white blouses and maroon sarongs down a mud foot path with a flat basket on their heads. Piled on each basket was a tall cone made from various fruits stacked in layers. "Uphill, downhill, through traffic, over sties, along rice paddies, the baskets never lost balance."
"Okay, smarty," said Alicia, "go to Google Images and search for Mayan women." It took less than a minute for fifty thumbnails of photos to be displayed. "That one," Alicia chose, and with two clicks it was full screen. The photo was of women who looked and dressed very similar to the Balinese women, and also had baskets on their heads. "That is my heritage," Alicia said proudly, "or at least half of it."
Slightly tipsy, full of good humor and good food, they all, both men and women, walked in a circle balancing Melmac plates on their heads until they were laughing so hard that no one, not even Alicia, could keep a plate balanced.
Karl disappeared into the house and put on an album of waltzes. Slowly at first, the men showed the women the steps, then as they got the hang of it they waltzed, but bumping each other and the deck railing while they tried to stay clear of the hot tub. Eventually they went inside and pushed all furniture up against the walls and rolled up the Persian rugs. Now they had room to twirl and swirl to the music.
A good time, a very good time, was had by all. At one point, Karl stopped twirling Emma and said with a formal voice, "Of course it is obvious that it is you that must escort me to meet my Korean bosses. If I am not too forward, could you pretend to be my fiancée?" He looked around at Erik. "You don't mind do you, Erik? Having a good-looking MD PhD on my arm may get me a promotion."
Erik was about to respond when Gerry spoke over him. "Maya must come with me. I gave the agents some of her photos after the makeover but they just yawned. I want her to stun them in person."
Karl groaned. That could happen, literally.
Erik looked at Alicia who had been dancing with Gerry. "Alicia, if you consent to accompany me to the Faculty Benefit, I promise to introduce you to all the eligible bachelors that are ready to, or have just graduated. They may be nerds, but they are mostly nice guys. A few of them are quite dishy." Her eyes lit up as she gave him a queenly nod of consent.
Gerry swung Alicia into Erik's arms as the song ended and then called out, "What about the rest of the fashion show? I want to see everything you bought. Professional interest, you might say."
Emma looked at the clock on the wall and stood back from Karl's arms to see his face. "Pretty late, and some of us work early tomorrow." She saw Karl nod. "Okay, if it's fast. The men will have to watch us change, so I guess it's a hen party in Maya's room." All six of them skipped up the stairs in time with the Viennese Waltz.
* * * * *
* * * * *
MAYA'S AURA - the Awakening by Skye Smith