She stretched out full length under the blanket. She was feeling
absolutely, luxuriously delicious. The guys' alarm had got them
moving about an hour ago, and got her moving back to her own bed
while they crashed around getting ready for work. Work. Bugger. She
was being filmed today. In a panic she grabbed the schedule from
the paper clip on the calendar and scanned down. Oh, thank
goodness. Not until ten. Today at the school, tomorrow at the
park.
She jumped through the shower, braided a pony tail, and grabbed the kilt and dressed herself once again as predator bait. Why did private schools still demand uniforms that made girls look like sexual targets?
She ran out of the house, and immediately ran back in. The morning fog had dropped the temperature big time. She grabbed the plastic rain coat for more warmth, a good idea in any case to shield her from lustful looks, and she ran to the bus stop.
The school was 'temporarily' closed. Another example of the government starving the kids so they could feed more caviar to the bankers. The school grounds were well-organized with signs and security, and the side street was clogged with big white trucks and motorhomes.
She soon found out that movie extras were at the bottom of the food chain. They were kept in 'hurry up and wait' mode while the main shots revolved around the stars. Wow, they were well-organized. It wasn't like watching a play that starts at the beginning and runs forward to the end. They had everything punched into a computer program that organized every shot accorded to similar needs of location, actors, props, and costumes, no matter what the sequence in the movie.
Today they would take all the school shots that needed most of the extras. Most of the extras were girls dressed as predator bait, and Maya was one of the oldest. The true actresses were all much older. One looked, like, thirty, and she was supposed to still be in high school. Yeah, right, like that was believable.
For the first two hours, all of the girls were filmed walking up hallways, walking down hallways, opening lockers, closing lockers, sitting in classes, standing in classes, sitting in the lunchroom, and leaning against outside walls and fences. After the assistant director, Mike, was satisfied that he had enough filler, he sent all the youngest girls home. They were done.
She and the other older girls were given lunch vouchers and shown to the catering van where they ate with the crew. The important people ate in the motorhomes. They were given a half hour, but then had to stand around for another half hour in 'hurry up and wait mode' until the important people were ready.
Her name was called. This was her big speaking part. It was part of a washroom scene and the 'chosen' extras got to say short phrases while they put on lipstick. Her line was, "I don't trust him."
The cameramen were pros and they organized themselves and their equipment in the washroom while waiting for the important people. Mike then arrived and took charge. The girl at the end of the line of sinks and mirrors had the biggest part, because the angle on her offered the least complications with the mirrors.
"Okay, gather round girls, and listen. I want you touching your hair and straightening your clothes and putting on makeup, especially lipstick. We'll do it a couple of times without cameras, just so you get the feel of it. When I wave my hand I want you to say your lines, in the right sequence, please."
He watched them and at the end grimaced. "We need more spice, okay. Pretend you are being watched by some cute guys, instead of by this motley crew." They started again, and he was still grimacing. He pointed to the girl on the end, and looked down at his script. "Uh, Liz, the camera will be mostly on you. Can you be a little less... stiff?"
"Maybe if she swept her hair up in the beginning?" Maya called out.
"Quiet," Wendy, who was Mike's right hand woman, told her.
Mike looked at her. "What's your name?"
Maya blushed. First day in a movie and she was going to be fired. "Maya."
"Maya, swap places with Liz and show us what you mean."
She took her tiny purse and walked passed Liz who gave her the evil eye. When they were in their new places, Mike told them to start again.
She opened her purse, pulled out some hair clips, and then swept her loosely braided pony tail up the camera side, over the crown of her head and clipped it in place, all the time making sure she arched her back and her arms so that her skirt would rise. She rolled her head, looking at herself in the mirror so that her neck extended.
Then she picked her lipstick out of her purse and leaned towards the mirror making sure that she leaned down and forward from the waist and arched her back even more. She screwed her lipstick much higher than was needed and then looked at it in the mirror and said Liz's line, "I think he is nice. Nice enough to give me a good mark," then she slowly pushed the extended red lipstick up to her top lip. The other girls said their lines, and then they all relaxed and waited for Mike to say something.
"We'll go with that. Wendy, swap Maya for Liz in the script. Get her a shorter skirt, and a longer lipstick. We'll go with cameras in ten."
Wendy grabbed her and Liz by the arm and asked for their schedule sheets and then swapped them. Liz looked down it and was obviously furious, but knew better than to argue. Maya looked down hers and realized that she was suddenly committed to the rest of today, tomorrow morning, and all of the day after that. It was a much bigger part with many more lines.
As Wendy hurried her along to the wardrobe truck, Liz called out "It's only because you have an American accent. This movie is for an American audience."
"Pay no attention to her," Wendy said, "she was stiff. You flowed. She played the innocent, you played the slut. That pose where you bent with the stiff legs and arched back was classic vamp."
After two takes, the crew started moving equipment. Mike told her that she looked good on camera.
"What did I mess up on the first take?" she asked him.
"Nothing, it was perfect. The first was for the full scene, the second for additional close ups. Wendy, give her a script for her next scene. It's a lot more complicated."
* * *
She had to wait around in hurry up mode for hours, so she sated her curiosity fix by looking over the technicians' shoulders, and having the programmer show her the software they used, and posing for the cameramen to mark their ranges for the starlet scenes.
Finally it was her turn again. She was quite nervous. She was the only girl in the scene and she was to be the first victim of the teacher-slash-vampire.
"Where's the star that plays the vampire?" she asked Wendy as they walked out of the school towards the playing field.
"The camera is the vampire in this shot." Wendy was walking her through the scene while the cameras were setting up. "So you are being chased by him. You run out of the gym's back door here, and then run across that lawn. The camera will be behind you, so be sure you wiggle as you run and keep looking over your shoulder. Then you reach through the links of that chain link gate and slide the bolt to open the gate, but your hand gets caught and you can't free it. Then you hear him and turn around with one hand stuck and lean with your back against the fence."
"Hold on. I'll remember it better if I actually do it."
"Go for it," Wendy said and watched the girl run, and get her hand caught. "No, wrong hand. Trap your other hand so that when you turn around you have the most breast time towards the camera. Never upstage yourself. That's a big no-no."
Wendy came closer, pretending she was the camera. "You see the vampire. You are terrified. Then you feel his animal magnetism, you know, the hypnosis thing vampires use. It seduces you and you go from being terrified to being scared and then aroused, and then you look like your are about to come and you offer your neck to him. Fade out. You're dead. In vampire movies the bad girls always die first. Them and any black guys."
"So do I come back to life? I'm booked for the next two days," she asked and then felt foolish. They didn't film in sequence. She rolled her eyes. "Never mind. Brain fart." She looked at the camera crew. They still weren't ready. Mike was still not here. "I'm going to do it a couple of more times, okay?"
"Please do. Keep in mind you are playing a bad girl. A tease who led him on."
She felt almost ready but terribly nervous when Mike finally arrived. Wendy reminded him that her name was Maya while he refreshed the scene in his mind from his personal notes on his copy of the script. "Guys, I see doing this in four sections. Coming through the door. Running across the grass. The gate. The seduction. Are you okay with that, or would your rather break it up more?"
The lead cameraman poked his head up and said, "I've been watching her practice. I think we can do it in two sections. We only need to move the cameras once. She looks real cute running without a bra, so half the running scene should be from the front. We can shoot the door on close-up."
"Okay, move your camera to where you want it." Mike looked over at her. "I want you to run through it with me. Pretend I am both the camera and the vampire." Mike went over and stood where the camera was being moved to. "Okay, whenever you are ready."
She went inside the building, took a deep breath and looked at her reflection in a window. After all her practice she looked rumpled like she was being chased. She bolted through the door and swung it wide so she could look back down the hall before letting go of it. She turned into the camera and then ran across the grass keeping her arms tight to her sides so that her breasts would sway under her blouse.
As she passed Mike, she let her arms sway so they accentuated the sway of her bum. She hit the gate with both hands forward and shook it. Looked down to see the bolt. Did a stiff leg, back arch bend to reach through the links. Got stuck. Pulled and pulled each time raising her bum higher. Looked over at Mike. He was coming closer. She pulled at her hand frantically, looked again. Twisted around. Gave a look that she hoped was terror. Started sliding lower on the fence. Caught her breath and stopped fighting her trapped hand. Slid a little further. Smiled at Mike like a lover. Presented her neck. Took a long deep breath, opened her mouth sensuously and moaned.
Mike stood staring at her. "You've done this before." He turned around. "We'll go with that, anyone see a problem?"
Wendy walked into the scene. "The end, against the fence, has to be a separate section. I need to pin the back of her blouse so that the buttons strain on the front, and I need to pin her skirt to the fence so that it rides up as she slides down."
"You guys hear that?" he yelled to the camera men. "Anything else?"
"Nipples," called the light man.
"Shit," said Mike, "you're braless. Are you over eighteen? Thank the lord. Okay, we'll go with braless. Wendy, we need her nipples taped over. This is a family movie. We can slash her into pieces but we mustn't show nipples."
It took another hour to film her three minutes of fame. Afterwards, she went over to Mike to apologize for the amount of time to get the shot. "Are you kidding?" was his response. "Wendy, tell me she is kidding. Get the guys to copy the digital version onto a memory stick for her, and go and get a copyright agreement for her to sign."
A technician brought over a small computer card and handed it to Mike. He turned to Maya and said, "We had this scene penciled in for three hours. It's an important scene, or at least it is now. Hey everyone! Take a cake break, courtesy of Maya." He handed her the computer stick. "Next time you answer a casting call, show them this. You've just started a career in the movies."
"Is this where you tell me that you can make me into a star," she said taking the memory stick, "and you want to talk to me about my future tonight in your hotel suite?"
"Thanks but not tonight, love," he smiled warmly. "I've too much to do before tomorrow. Ask me again when we make the sequel."
Wendy barged in with a paper. "Signing this means you agree that you will never ever make a copy of the contents onto any form of media, and that it remains the property of the company, to be returned at their request."
As she signed, Mike walked over to talk to the crew that was packing up equipment. She looked up and watched him kid around with the crew. "He's very nice."
"Get in line, honey," whispered Wendy, "there are a lot of women who want that one. Me included."
"Do I have to pay anything for this memory stick?"
"Oh, give me a break! Your scene probably added a million bucks to the box office of this dog, never mind the TV rights. It will be the track of the rental shop DVD that wears out from all the rewinds and slowmos of the twelve-year-old boys. Even I wanted to rip your clothes off." Wendy reached into the pocket of her smock. "Do you have an agent yet? Here take this card. She's one of the honest ones. They are rare."
She read the name on the card. "But isn't this you?"
"You don't think I want to be the assistant to the assistant director all my life do you? Hey, we need to trust each other. Allow me to push your name for a couple of days. If I do good, then we can cut a deal."
"Sounds fair. Okay."
Wendy lowered her voice and gave an evil snicker. "I'll need you to sign in blood, little girl." Then she laughed. "How’s about we shake on it instead?" and she offered her hand.
* * *
She was glad she had beaten everyone home. It gave her a chance to figure out how to load the computer stick into the computer and how to play the files, and to see herself on camera alone and before anyone else. It also gave her time enough to use the hot tub to soak the heavy tape off her nipples.
The video was raw footage, and not from the movie camera, but from the much smaller digital camera that was linked to the movie camera. There wasn't one file but twenty. She watched all of them and then chose the four that were the most complete and changed the numeric file name to begin with an 'a'. She was careful not to copy them onto the computer, and thus break the copyright.
The guys were late getting home, but for once she didn't care. She was mesmerized, watching herself play the tease and the victim, over and over. She now understood why Wendy had said that even she wanted to rip her clothes off. No wonder the taxi cab driver was such an ass the other night. She was every dirty old man's dream come true.
An hour later, Karl said almost exactly the same thing word for word. Erik was less kind. He told her again what the monk had said. "Don't you get it, Maya? This is exactly what Sarthani was warning us about. You seem to be hell-bent on bringing yourself to the attention of psycho predators." She felt crushed at the unexpected rebuke for something she was so proud of. She stomped into her room and slammed the door.
At about midnight, after Erik had finished seducing his man, and they had both fallen asleep entwined, they felt another weight on the end of the king mattress. Maya crawled in between them, and then told them to go back to sleep. They did so bathed in her almost sleeping aura.
The next morning she got up with them and the alarm clock, and made a real pest of herself trying to help them get ready for work. Now that she didn't need to cloak her aura, she was cycling through her wardrobe of thrift store treasures including some Victoria Secret shortie nighties that could have been used to seduce the Pope. Needless to say, between this morning's nightie and her soft aura, they were both so distracted that Erik had to return home for his forgotten lesson plans, and Karl for his Blackberry.
She was one of the first extras to arrive at the west parking lot of Jericho Park, where most of the huge white trucks were parked for the duration of the filming. She was early, despite having walked the whole way along the various roads and paths that kept her close to the waterfront, and then along the entire length of Jericho Beach to reach the movie camp.
She was ever so thankful to the plastic raincoat, because the early mornings were now chilly, and the school-girl kilt that the wardrobe department had issued to her was six inches shorter than her own, and of lighter material.
Mike was already drinking coffee when she arrived at the catering van. "Oh Maya, thank you for being here early." He pulled some pages out of an envelope and handed them to her. "I had the writers pen you into one of the main scenes with Karen Marshall, you know, the star. She has that TV show where she runs around killing vampires.
Anyway, she has all the lines, but we are going to use you to add some wiggle and jiggle." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Karen is way too old to play a school girl anymore, and she looks it." He motioned her to sit. "Anyway, it's the scene where some of the school girls are on a hike in the forest and they discover a cave, and in the cave is a musty old coffin. The cave is protected by Ravens, which chase them away, but the close proximity of the girls makes the vampire in the coffin wake up.
You don't have to do much except walk and crawl, run and duck, and of course scream. Unfortunately we can't have you in a close up with Karen," he dropped his voice again, "because the youth of your face and figure will give her age away." He went back to his normal voice, "but I will try to give you a few close ups. Stand up and turn around. Do you have another white blouse?"
"Is it dirty?" Her heart dropped, "Last night I washed out the mud from yesterday's take. Did I miss some?"
"No, it's just that it will be simpler if we don't have to pin it back to strain the buttons. Go and see what wardrobe has. If you have a choice, get one without breast pockets and of a thinner fabric."
"Okay, sounds good. Do I have any lines?"
"You mean other than screaming? We may be able to work something out. It would give us an excuse to include a close up of your face and mouth. "
His Blackberry barked at him, and he jumped up and disappeared into a motorhome. She took her coffee and wandered over to where the ravens were caged, and talked to the raven wrangler. She expected them be like crows, but the likeness stopped with the color. They were huge, and their beaks were huge, and when they looked at you, you felt like shivering.
"How will you get them back after they fly around chasing us?"
"Oh, these ones all have clipped wings. They can't fly more than, say, ten feet off the ground. They are for the close-ups. The ones that will fly and swoop at your are imaginary. They will be added to the film by special effects."
"Aren't vampires supposed to turn into bats?" she asked. "I don't get the ravens."
"I get them, I get them all the way to the bank."
She couldn't talk longer because they were gathering all the extras for the mass shots. School girls walking across a meadow, walking on paths though high bush, walking under the forest canopy. Being told to split up and collect specimens for biology class. Small groups of girls goofing off, and so on. Then all the young girls were sent home, and the more detailed shots began. Maya's, or rather Karen's was first.
Karen did not even acknowledge Maya's presence. They and two others were the bad girls, hiding from the teachers and smoking and talking about boys. There was an entrance to the cave, but of course no cave. The cave shots would be done in the studio. Maya did what was expected of her and skipped and wiggled, bounced and jiggled, but again with taped nipples.
The light man took ten minutes setting up exactly the right light to give the impression that her blouse was diaphanous when it was her turn to crawl into the mouth of the cave. She now understood the need for lightweight fabric and no pockets.
She was almost glad she didn't have a speaking part, because the dialogue was terrible, as in embarrassingly silly. The last thing they did was the panic of the raven attack. That was because their clothes were to be strategically ripped by thorn bushes as they ran.
The part of the huge park where this was being filmed was quite wild and overgrown. She was running behind Karen so that the camera could focus on her pert bum rather than Karen's spreading one. Karen misstepped or tripped over a vine, because the next thing she knew Karen went down hard, and then there was an ominous hum.
One of Maya's duties growing up in Albion was helping the migrant bee keeper who turned up every year during fruit blossom season. This was not the hum of bees. This was the more agitated hum of wasps. Karen must have crashed into a nest, and she was starting to swat at them, trying to get up to run away. Maya jumped on her back and held her down.
"Stay down, stay down. Stop swatting at them. If you panic and run they will attack as a swarm." She sounded brave, but all she could think of was how short her skirt was and how bare her legs were. If she couldn't calm Karen down they would both be repeatedly stung by the whole hive. She decided to try using her aura to calm Karen down. She put her hands together in prayer and calmed her own mind. Her aura leaped out of sleep mode.
She was touching Karen, skin to skin, in many places, so she concentrated on sending her aura through Karen's body. She felt the woman relax. It was working. The loud hum was calming too. Then she felt them. It was as if a thousand teeny tiny feet were crawling on her aura. She looked to the left of Karen's hand. There was a ragged hole in a mudded over decaying stump. Mud wasps were floating in and out of it.
"Karen, are you still with me or have you passed out?" she asked. She heard a muffled answer. "I am going to lift my weight off you and then we have to crawl backwards, very slowly, very calmly. The wasp nest is next to your left hand. When we get about ten feet away, we are going to very calmly stand and walk towards the cameras." There was a muffled "okay".
Maya lifted herself slowly and crawled backwards, and then Karen did the same. Three feet, six feet, ten feet. She started to stand. She helped Karen to stand. They turned their back on the swarm that was now circling the nest like a tornado, and walked towards the cameras. As soon as they reached them, blankets were thrown around them both.
The raven wrangler came running up to them with some roll-on underarm deodorant. "Here quick, put this on any stings right away." Maya had none. Karen had four, all on her left arm. The deodorant worked like a charm. The stings didn't even swell up, or turn red. Within a minute, all you could see of the stings was the tiny blemish where the stingers had gone in.
"What is that stuff?" asked Maya.
"Just roll-on," said the wrangler, shrugging his shoulders. "It's got a lot of Aluminum chlor-something-or -other in a vanishing cream. It's a strong base. Most natural poisons are proteins, you know, amino-acids. Bases neutralize acids. This stuff goes right under the skin and cancels out the wasp poison immediately." He saw the blank stares around him. "You know, like baking soda and vinegar." Finally, some of them nodded.
Karen was looking at her stings, waiting for them to hurt or swell. When they didn't, she turned to Mike and to the camera crew and started yelling at them. "You didn't even come and help! You effing well kept the cameras rolling the whole effing time!"
"We didn't know there was a problem. We though it was great stuff, like you were ducking the imaginary ravens. It was only when Maya jumped on your back to hold you down that we realized there was a problem. By then, what could we do that wouldn't get everyone stung?"
"Actually, it was pretty weird," said the wrangler. "Something I've never seen before. The wasps created like a dome around them, almost as if they were protecting them as part of their hive. Weird, I say, and I train ravens for a living."
"You'd better say that is a wrap, Mike," seethed Karen, "else I'm on the phone to L.A."
"That's a wrap for the girls!" yelled Mike. "Let's go back up to the cave and do the close-ups of the ravens. The girls can take an early lunch break."
"Come on, Maya," muttered Karen, still angry, "let's get out of here and have some decent food, on expenses." She waved to her personal assistant and then yelled for her get a limo.
"We don't need a limo. The Dinghy Club right there has one of the most scenic snack bars in the world. They make fabulous nachos."
"Do I look like I'm allowed to eat nachos?" snarled Karen. "Every nacho would go right onto my ass. I'm on a starvation diet."
"Uh, well, I'm finished for the day, and my place is pretty close to here. If you drop me at home, I can offer you sushi and sashimi and sake. It was all blessed by a Buddhist monk."
The limo bumped over the rough trail and stopped in a long puff of dust. Karen waited for the door to be opened for her, and got in, then slid over and patted the seat inviting Maya. The assistant got in beside the driver. "I'll see where you live before I commit. Give the address to the driver."
* * *
"Nice," Karen said as she walked from the front door right through to the deck. "So how come, you a nothing extra, gets billeted here, and I am in a downtown hotel suite?"
"I'm just couch-surfing with friends. Wealthy friends. Do you want to eat in the sun or the shade?"
"This is Vancouver. The sun is about as strong as the shade in L.A. Sun, for sure." She then stripped out of her torn and dirty costume and lay out in her bra and panties. When Maya came through with the cold sushi and the hot sake, she placed them down on the deck and then shucked her own clothes.
As soon as the sake and sushi were put down beside her, Karen started motoring through the choicest bits, never touching the rice. "Mmm," she spoke while she chewed and slurp with her mouth open, "this city has the best sushi outside of Japan."
Maya was taken aback. This was a wealthy and successful star, yet she had the same lack of common table manners that the guys had complained about with her and Alicia. She was now very, very glad the guys had given them lessons in manners.
What had Sarthani quoted after she had chastised them for eating at the computer. "I watched them eat and I knew who they were." Well if that was true then Karen was a pig. She looked away from Karen, and towards the view so she wouldn't say something rude. She watched the view until it seemed like Karen was slowing down.
"Sorry about that," Karen said. "I sort of porked it down, didn't I? Like I said, I'm on a starvation diet. That’s the real reason I joined you for lunch. It meant I could shake loose from my driver and my assistant. They are my watchers, you know, and my conscience." She looked along the deck. "Hot tub work?"
"Yeah, but we rarely use the Jacuzzi. Too noisy. Do you want me to open it?"
"Sure, but no splashing. It took them an hour this morning to put this base coat on my face." She looked at the lithe young blonde as they both put up their hair. She looked like that, once, about ten years ago. She sighed and undid her push-up bra and felt her breasts drop, then she slipped out of her panties and let the passing sailing dinghies see that she was not a real blonde.
They sat in the tub, armpit deep, drinking sake. Karen asked her if she had ever played the truth game.
"You mean truth or consequences?"
"Not just the truth game. We take turns asking questions. The other person has to answer them completely truthfully or take a drink and miss a turn at questioning. You can be truthful or miss, but no lying."
"Sure, who goes first?" asked Maya.
"I do, I'm the guest. What did you do to me when you were on top of me? You said you were calming me, but it felt more like you were making love to me."
"I have a strong aura. I can project feelings into people. I was trying to calm you, but I was scared myself, so I probably got the feelings mixed up," Maya said crisply. "My turn. Why are you making this movie? Any episode of your series is better than this dog."
"I have points in the movie."
"What are points? Oops is that another question? Do I have to drink? I think I will anyway." They both drank and Maya poured more.
"Points are percentages of profit. Zero profit, zero dollars. For every million profit I get a hundred grand. My turn. Are you a lesbian? I mean there are a lot of them in this town, no offense."
"No."
"Bi?"
"I don't know yet," replied Maya. "My turn. Why kill vampires in your series and not, say psychopaths and serial rapists and murderers?"
"Vampires are an allegory for serial rapists and murderers. They can't be human or else the censors wouldn't allow us good guys to brutalize them without losing our family rating. Besides, there are a lot of powerful people who are psychopaths, and they would shut us down if we came too close to telling the truth about them." She started to snicker. "Executive producers come to mind, you know, our bankers, our money men."
"Alleghony, what's that?"
"Allegory, um alternative, in place of, sort of," Karen replied. "My turn. Will you do that aura thing with me again? This time with no wasps and no cameras and no thorns sticking into my belly."
"Sure. It would be good practice for me."
"I mean now, before my watchers come back."
"Come on then, let's go upstairs to the yoga room, or would you prefer a bed?"
* * *
She watched Karen lying peacefully on top of her bed. She was one tightly-wound lady. That explained why her efforts to calm her in the bushes had come across as sexual. It was the fastest way to cut through her defenses and start calming her. She'd had to do the same thing here on the bed. Well, that answered another question about her aura. It wasn't just men that she could sexually arouse.
She had sort of suspected that with Alicia and Emma, only they were too proud to admit it to her, or too ashamed. Not Karen. She begged for more and more, until she was writhing in sexual ecstasy. It was just like Erik and Karl. Once their sexual organs were satisfied, then you could reach the inner person and their inner feelings. This woman, however, felt as empty and as cold as a cave.
She took her elbows in her hands and started withdrawing the waves of sensuous non-touch from the woman. For the first time in any of the people she had swathed with her aura, she found no trace of one to strengthen. There was none. What had Sarthani told her? The fauxpaths have no aura left. What was the psychological name for fauxpath. The name of another white flower. Narcissus. Narcissistic personality disorder. Consummate actors. Well, she was a well-known actress.
She had felt so sorry for Karen that she had tried and tried to find and then build an aura in her. That was why she let the sexuality get so out of hand. In hopes that some aura would emerge from deep within her womb. That was the other thing. Her womb felt gray, sick, dead.
Karen opened her eyes and looked at her and moaned in pleasure. "My turn," Maya said. "Can you have children?"
Karen flopped back into her pillow and said, "You know, any other girl your age would ask me what Brad was like in the sack."
"Do you want me to get you some Sake?" Maya asked.
"No more, I have to go back to work. Okay, I'll answer. No, I can't. I grew up in a state that did not allow abortions. In high school I was butchered by a dentist who did abortions on the side." She rolled onto her side and then crawled off the bed. "I'd better call my ride. Hell, they are probably sitting in your driveway as we speak."
"Ooh, ooh, I'll go back with you. I'll get out at that last shopping precinct and catch a bus to U.B.C.."
"You a university student?"
"Nah, I just use their nude beach. You know, Wreck Beach."
"I envy you. I can't go anyplace where there may be cameras. All the new phones even have cameras built in. I have zero privacy any more. The other day I was recognized coming out of my hotel and twenty people formed a ring around me and held up twenty phones and started taking stills and videos. It was disgusting."
"Yeah, the nude beach is hanging by a thread for the same reason," replied Maya. "What U.B.C. debutante wants to take her clothes off for an allover tan, only to have her boyfriend find her on YouTube?"
"The way I hear it," said Karen, "it's the boyfriends that are taking the pictures and then selling them to porn sites. I hate them, I hate them all. If I had my way, taking photos without permission would be a hanging offense. What's that old saying? They are killing the golden egg."
"Something like that. I know what you mean." The door bell chimed. "Damn, that will be your watchers. Wait for me. I have to put some clothes on."
Karen stood and did a nude pirouette. "Yeah, like I am going anywhere dressed like this. Where did I leave my clothes?"
"On the deck, but they are ruined. Sorry, but I don't have anything that would fit you."
"Rub it in. I hate getting old. Thirty next birthday. Yuk. Ancient."
"Here, how about this?" Maya said coming out of the closet. "It's the spare silk robe in case we are entertaining in the hot tub."
"Good enough. I was worried you were going to offer me Wal-Mart sweats. God, wouldn't the gutter press love to get a picture of me in sweats." Instead of taking the robe she wrapped her arms around Maya and hugged her and hugged her. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," Karen whispered into her ear.
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MAYA'S AURA - the Awakening by Skye Smith