by Jo Sparkes
She wasn’t ready to release her anger. But she was listening.
“Once when I was ten, he made me do yard work,” Jon continued. “I wanted to play with my friends, but Dad refused to let me go until the leaves were swept clear.
“I stuck a hard metal rake under his car tire.”
Jill choked on her iced tea. “Uncle Ray’s Porsche?”
He nodded. “Half the reason Dad’s so stern is I flat-out defied him practically as soon as I could walk. I’d do anything Mom asked, but no man could order me around.”
“Dad did say something once,” Jill told him slowly. “When I kept pushing to spend the night at a friend’s house. He said I was getting as annoying as you.”
Jon’s grin faded. “I did learn to hide it better…but the resentment itself remained. Until the day I met Dr. Mallory. He convinced me to get regressed.”
Jill’s brown eyes narrowed again - but he sensed he had her full attention now.
“Turns out I served a vicious master in a previous life. Really vicious. My choice that lifetime was to go along with it and serve his ways…or stand against him. I rebelled.”
“Well…good.”
“Don’t you see? Jill, it explains everything to me. I rebelled because I was so determined to rebel - actually scared of NOT rebelling. I saw poor Dad through a haze of anger - anger at someone else from another lifetime.”
The brown eyes widened. Jon saw the startled recognition. “What did Nita show you?”
Her lips pressed firmly, and for a moment he was sure she wouldn’t speak. A tear welled in her eye.
And then she told him.
The red hues of a dying sun sparkled everywhere as the taxi stopped by the Sadicor. Jill practically sprang out, feeling better than she had for a long time.
Jon proclaimed her regression successful, even miraculous. She wasn’t ready to buy that yet; it was sharing experiences with her cousin that brought this feeling of relief. They’d genuinely bonded over dinner.
Just the fact that he hadn’t laughed at her, or patted her on the head like she was still five-years-old, proved he’d accepted her as an adult. She’d finally heard about his own regression, a tale she doubted even Mike knew. And he, too, had been led to a second life, where he had an odd vision of himself as a young girl, dancing about an angry young man who couldn’t see. That man stalked around a large manor house, and the young girl had been exasperated at his anger. She’d also been delighted that her bare feet could no longer feel the chilled floor. Apparently the girl had just died, and wished the young man would just get over it. She’d been happy to be dead.
And when Jon, in his regression, had asked this dead girl if the man was a brother or a lover, she’d told him it didn’t really matter. At a higher level, love is the same.
Now Mike hailed them with a beer bottle, leaping off the Sadicor before Jon stepped aboard. He was dressed for a night out - Mike’s idea of dressing up being his red “Sadicor & Burke” t-shirt.
“The Barnacle still serving Mama Lena’s best?” Mike asked as he swung Jill onto the teak deck.
Jon nodded. “And she’s made a sort of fresh berry cobbler tonight.”
The muscle man sent a grin over Jill’s head. “Perfect timing.”
Jill turned as Nita appeared and hugged Mike’s arm to her. “How do you feel?” she asked Jill.
“Okay. Fine.” Wary of Mike, Jill answered awkwardly.
The big guy, however, had no trouble putting two and two together. He took a step into her space - a gesture he loved to do - fists on his hips. “Not you too?”
Jill’s normal reaction was an immediate hop backwards, often colliding with a wall or a bystander. Now she held her ground, though her cheeks burned. She had, after all, snickered with him over some of Jon’s more outrageous foibles.
Nita yanked him towards the taxi. “Don’t knock something you’re afraid to try.” He snorted, casting Jill a last look before draping his arm around the beauty.
Jon scooped her up in a surprise hug. “Well done.”
“What?”
“That was the first time you didn’t react when Mike invaded your personal space!”
She shrugged, though the back of her neck prickled. “I just knew it was coming.”
Jon smiled warmly. “Maybe.”
Feeling her pull stiffly away, Mike knew he’d annoyed Nita.
Why women - and Jon, of all people - believed in that lentil stirrer nonsense he couldn’t figure. Living over and over as squirrels and butterflies seemed pretty stupid - and anyway, what fucking difference would it make?
No - dead was dead. And people would be much better off just accepting it. That prevented you from wasting time doing foolish things.
“Live like there’s no tomorrow,” he told Nita. “Saves you from wasting time.”
Watching her skirts twitch with her walk - not in the smooth, ‘watch me walk’ glide but an all-out angry march, he knew he needed to fix this. Or spend the night alone.
He clamped a hand on her arm to stop her. Halted, she faced away from him, shoulders square, head straight. Hair dangling down her back in a fancy braid. “Sorry baby,” he said, and kissed her where the shoulder jutted out from the delicate neck.
When she didn’t react, he drew a circle with his tongue. He felt the air escape her lungs in a long hiss, the shoulders suddenly pliable. Her head tilted ever so slightly, and he knew he’d won.
The taxi driver peered out the window.
“How hungry are you?” Mike murmured against her skin.
“We can eat later,” she sighed softly. Mike waved the cab off.
He thought he’d averted the crisis - but as frequently is the case with women, he’d only delayed it. Females had this capacity to store each perceived slight, tucking them away only to hurl them in your face when you least expected it.
What he loved about Nita was her lack of inhibition. An island girl trait. It made for a spectacular evening.
Later, as they lay among the scattered bedding, dozing in a particularly well-earned afterglow, her face pillowed on his abdomen. He cuddled her close, and weighed the wisdom of mentioning dinner. His wristwatch, propped strategically against her bed table lamp, showed ten seventeen p.m.
Her muscles tensed - so he tried to head it off.
“My lioness,” he murmured into her hair. When she didn’t whisper “My warrior,” he knew he was in trouble.
Nita caught his surreptitious check of the time.
It needled her as nothing else had. Not his refusal to consider her ideas, not his outright laughter at her work. Not even his implication that the Center’s purpose was to bilk money from fools.
The room glowed in candlelight, the aroma of lavender oil flavoring the atmosphere. Crystal pendants hung in each window, one of them refracting the moonlight such that only she could see it.
She was tired of being the only one to see things.
“Let me regress you.” She rose up to watch his face. “Find out your past adventures.”
His eyes rolled, blinked, and then looked blandly at her. Considering his best move to get his dinner, she realized. Humor her or sweep her off to town.
Her annoyance doubled. She felt used, even though she didn’t believe in such things. Others do not use you - you allow them to use you.
Well, not this time. Nita sat up, rolling on top to straddle him. “What are you afraid of?”
That he couldn’t well refuse. He knew it, too, seeing right through her words. One of the things she loved about Mike - he played the male rogue to perfection, but he never took himself too seriously. He knew he played the role.
Just as he knew now that she had played him. He would do it, she saw in his eyes, not because she’d trapped him, but because he’d decided to allow her to do so.
How did he always make her want to punch him and ravish him simultaneously?
“Get your crystals,” he growled.
Nita would have preferred to do it in her r
oom in the old house, with her table, her incense, her soothing taped music. She didn’t dare press him, however.
Despite his cocked eyebrow, she placed crystals at his crown and feet, lit her expensive sandalwood incense, and even tucked a pillow under his knees. He presented a picture of a relaxed man.
On impulse she sat herself at his head, moving the crystal to lie on his third eye chakra and slipping her hands beneath his shoulders.
His one eye opened, pivoting to her. “Do you do this for all your clientele?”
“Relax,” she murmured, massaging the muscles beneath her fingers.
On instinct she sang to herself, softly and without words. Minutes passed without any affect, but eventually she felt his tension seep away.
“In your mind, Michael, form the image of a meadow. The grass underfoot, the trees nearby. The sun on your face.”
Her palms felt no reaction, so she continued.
“Stride, Michael. Stride through the grass, feeling the sun. Feel your legs pumping rhythmically, easily. You love the physical. You enjoy movement.”
His eyebrows twitched and she smiled in triumph.
“Ahead of you, yawning in the grass, is a staircase down into the earth.”
His body felt relaxed, at ease. For a moment she thought he’d succumbed.
“The stairs loom larger as you approach. You can see now they disappear in the dark. A warm, safe darkness, like the womb of your mother. You’re curious…you want to see what’s down there.”
“Not without a flashlight,” he chuckled. Grinning, he winked at her. “And a picnic lunch. If I’m going to play Indiana Jones, I need sustenance.”
Rising from the bed, he stretched in a very masculine maneuver. And reached a hand down to her.
“Come, sweetie. Fix your traveler his dinner.”
Exasperated, she finally took his hand. Naked, they strode to the kitchen.
“Say it,” he commanded as she spread mayonnaise on bread.
“My warrior,” Nita sighed. He always won. And no matter how outrageously he did so, she could only laugh and shake her head. Ever since the day she met him, he’d somehow commanded her heart.
When she closed her eyes and tried to look into the future, she saw them together. Married, no less, and living in this house. He and Jon had somehow sold the business, and he had enough money to play for a while.
It was a strange future, but full of comfort. Happiness.
“Mmm - I like that,” he said. It took her a moment to realize he spoke of her words, not the future she saw. “Warriors are fighters, fierce and true. We always win,” he bit into his sandwich.
“Warriors always die young,” she shot back.
It took Melanie all night to undo the damage.
Not to Wall, of course. All that required, when he found her in the bar between those two lawyers, was to rise eagerly to her feet, bestow a dazzling smile and take his arm. Giving him the role of the victor in a male dispute.
Not that he acted victorious, of course. But the two who had bought her the drink had been disappointed.
Massaging him in the fancy hotel room later, as he lay face down on the expensive satin bed cover, kneaded away any lingering doubt. They made love over champagne and strawberries.
And in the afterglow conversation - why didn’t Wall just fall sleep like every other man? - he spoke of diving and buying a few specialty food items early tomorrow as a gift to the others. No mention of the lawyers.
The true damage had been to herself. Wall’s face when he saw her with those men reminded her of Craig, her first fiancé. His look of startled hurt, swiftly covered up. In Craig’s case it fostered beneath the surface, rising again when least expected. Brian, her second fiancé, had simply walked out then and there.
A self-destruct gene ran through her family tree.
Her mother frequently demonstrated it; her father too, or so the stories said. Whenever Melanie had a man in her life, a relationship headed someplace, it blew up in her face.
She blew it up.
Those men tonight had certainly smiled at her, but it was she who approached them, edging her way between the two to order a drink. Knowing they would pay for it - delighting when they dueled over whose credit card to use. It had been a kick to manipulate them into buying her a drink.
Brian had accused her of deliberately embarrassing him, but that wasn’t true. She’d had no thought to Brian at all. Her mind sat quietly in the background, watching as her base nature took charge.
Now it had happened again, and Wall wasn’t even her fiancé. Just the poor sap who’d paid for this vacation.
The next morning the Brit smiled softly as he helped her aboard the Sadicor. His face showed no doubts, no recriminations. She may have gotten away with it this time.
For chrissakes, she was less than two months away from her thirtieth birthday. The big three zero. She couldn’t afford to keep ruining her life.
Good thing they were going to be at sea for a while.
Jon leaned his face into the wind. He loved the feel of his Sadicor under sail.
Mike had just taken the helm, so he ought to go below to grab some breakfast. Maybe check in with Wall - find out how the prospect of wreck-diving affected his British caution.
Still he stayed.
“We forgot the paint,” he said aloud.
Mike shrugged. He didn’t know what Jon was talking about.
“Paint - to fix the boat name. You know - redo the ‘R’ on Sadicor.”
Mike shrugged again to indicate he didn’t care. Mike was a direct communicator, as his dad used to say. His dad had meant it disparagingly, but Jon always appreciated that about his partner. The big man never hid his true meaning in misleading words.
Like, say, his dad.
The sailboat leapt over a rough patch, momentarily airborne before slapping down enthusiastically. Eager to race on, eager to return. As eager as he was.
A shipwreck. Undiscovered, unknown. Oddly split in half, as if some giant had sawed it straight down the middle. Wall was probably right - it had to be a modern day vessel. No gold doubloons or antique jewels. But that didn’t mean it was worthless. Could be a safe onboard. Might even hold enough to startle his father.
The famous Ray Sadicor might actually be impressed with his son for a change.
Ray had played twelve years in the NFL, nine of them as cornerback, three more as safety. He’d made more money in his first signing bonus than most people would see in their lifetime. And he’d expected Jon to outdo him.
Jon had tried.
He tried in high school, getting brutalized as a running back, then as a receiver. Undaunted, Ray pushed him into playing quarterback, explaining Jon’s intelligence would make him legendary. At least that’s how the colleges saw it, and most were happy to take a chance on Ray Sadicor’s son.
But if Jon had the smarts, he lacked the skills. Or perhaps, as one coach gently suggested, he simply lacked the drive. Jon quit the team in his sophomore year, and quit school altogether the next.
Since then nothing he did interested his father. Ray cut off his allowance, telling him a man made his own way, and firmly closed the front door.
Mike, Jon’s best friend since third grade, had a dream of owning a dive shop. They got a loan from a bank - even after explaining to the bank manager that Jon’s father was not cosigning - to open the Crusty Porthole. And while Ray never lifted a finger, Mike’s grandmother and Jon’s Uncle Chris had made a few calls to nudge a few friends. Once they started diver certification classes, the shop turned a profit.
Uncle Chris, Jill’s father, had also played in the NFL, but no one ever paid for his endorsement. His career had lasted three years as a special teams guy before getting cut. He was blue collar, or so he liked to say, and never made more than a basic living. Perhaps that was why he seemed more human. For him, storybook endings belonged in storybooks.
Jon envied Jill her father.
Even as he thought that, his cousin
popped out from the cabin. “Hey! Wall says I can’t wreck dive!”
Mike threw him a look.
The brunette plopped on the bench beside him. “You’re the Captain, Jon. You make the decisions.”
Jon sighed. “Jill, you’re a beginner. You’ve barely logged two dives since certification.”
“I was the best in class!”
In some ways Jill reminded him of his father. No fear, no doubt. And no reasoning with her. “Acing a ‘ditch and don’ drill doesn’t mean you’re ready for wreck penetration. It’s vastly more dangerous.”
He caught the look she sent Mike. His partner treated her like a kid sister, and often took up her battles. But not this time. “Mermaid, you probably ought to control your buoyancy better before we take you into an overhead environment.”
Watching her face, Jon knew she didn’t see the problem. Just like his father - it never occurred to either of them to weigh the risk, to consider that they might fail.
That a failure could be catastrophic.
Reaching under his seat, he plucked out the book Nita had sent, Revisits: Theory of Soul Returns to the Earth Plane. Randomly opening it, his finger stabbed a passage and he read aloud.
“Experience, the goal of life, teaches walk before run, glide before fly. Patience then is the true virtue.”
Mike burst out laughing. “The Universe has spoken!”
“I hate it when you do that,” Jill told him. “Wall’s never wreck-dove either, you know.”
“Wall’s been diving for seventeen years. I think he’s ready.”
She actually flounced on her seat. Or to be fair, it might have been the motion of the boat. Jon tucked the book away - she pulled it out again.
“Would you like to read it? I can wait.”
Mike guffawed. “You’re both a little old for fairy tales.” Jill shoved the book away.
Noting her red cheeks - too red to be from the wind and too quick to be from the sun - Jon sent her a wink. “Many cultures believe in some form of reincarnation. I think it answers many of life’s inconsistencies,” he told Mike. “You’re welcome to read it.”
The big guy snorted.
Jill stared out over the water. “Did you buy the paint to fix the ‘R’?” She folded her arms, obviously knowing the answer.
