Maya's Aura: The Awakening

by Smith, Skye

  "Do you think this is what they call love at first sight?" she asked.

  "I used to think so," he replied.

  "You mean you have felt it before?"

  "Yes, with my mate. That's why we live together. Neither of us were gay when we first met." He looked around. "You know, this is not the place to talk about this. Come over to my blanket. We have much to discuss."

  "Uh, no." She was still feeling exposed, and was clumsily attempting to tie her new sarong around her. "If you want to talk, you must come to my blanket. I have a friend there."

  "Will he beat me up?"

  " Well, she's tough, but no, I don't think so," she chuckled.

  "Okay then. Wait here for me while I get my stuff. There are sneak thieves on this beach, you know. When they see you walk away nude, they close in hoping that no one is watching your stuff."

  She played with her sarong while she waited for him to return. She just couldn't get it wrapped to look like the other women on the beach. Eventually the nearest woman, a heavy woman, stood up and wobbled up to her and showed her how to tie it.

  "It's not fair to dress and undress in front of the men," the older woman said as she smoothed the fabric. "Not fair to the rest of us women. There's probably even an unwritten rule against it." She giggled a dope giggle. "Tweet! Two minutes' penalty for teasing."

  When the guy returned, he put out his hand. "We should exchange names if we're going to exchange 'feelings'." He smiled. "That sounds corny. Anyhow, I'm Erik."

  "Good to meet you, I'm Maya." They shook hands. "Now, Erik, I have a little problem. Looking around, I don't remember where Alicia is lying down." What with all the oversized drift logs, and without anyone wearing memorable clothing, she had no landmarks. Alicia could be hidden behind any of these logs. Then she remembered the green umbrella that the people next to them had. She spotted it and then danced her way between the blankets and logs. Danced, because the sand was getting too hot to stand still on.

  They arrived minutes before the green umbrella was taken down. The couples around them seemed to all be packing up to go, and they were being replaced by shirtless young men wearing baseball caps and cutoff shorts and holding open beer bottles.

  "Alicia," she said, "this is Erik. He came to share our space and talk."

  Alicia squinted into the sun at the old man. He was even older than thirty. "If you say so." She wriggled her towel to the edge of the blanket to make room, and even though she covered her breasts with one arm while she did it, she still showed too much jiggle. She heard a man moan and looked over to the next log where a Joe six-pack had just arrived.

  "If I may suggest," said Erik, "all the rest of the women are leaving the beach. The boys from Burnaby are here early today. Why don't we talk over lunch? Sushi. My treat."

  "Sushi, you mean raw fish?" Alicia made a face.

  "Yes please," said Maya. She also had been noticing how quickly all the women and couples had been packing up. In her home town, it was a good rule of thumb that you left the Saturday night dance when the rest of the women left. "Fresh tuna. Please. I haven't had fresh tuna since I was in high school and helped the fishermen with their catches. Sushi is so expensive in Frisco."

  "Well, welcome to Vancouver," he said, "land of the six-dollar lunch tray."

  * * *

  The cliff trail to the street was a wondrous forest walk going down, but grinding and breathless going back up. They puffed up the rough steps in a straggled line of groups of women and their escorts. Meanwhile, groups of loud men carrying cooler chests were rocketing down towards the beach.

  "He's a lurker, a perv," Alicia warned her, yet again, when they stopped, yet again, to catch their breath.

  "He's gay and very polite."

  "Yeah, I saw his politeness when he took off his sarong to put his shorts on. He's on the make."

  "What are you complaining about? He gave the sarong to you, didn't he? Now we both have sarongs."

  "Sarongs are cheap. So is sushi. I'm not," Alicia said between gasps of sucking wind. Three women pushed passed her chatting as they walked up the rough steps. She hated Canadian women. They were all twenty pounds lighter than their American equivalents, and fitter. She wiped the sweat from her forehead. and glared at Maya. "Fine for you miss, like, size four. Go ahead, dance up these next steps and make me hate you forever."

  She looked at Erik waiting patiently behind them. With his clothes on he looked very GQ. He probably was gay, like Maya had told her. Repeatedly told her. Maya was so naive. Gay in Vancouver just meant bi-sexual, meaning that they would hump anything.

  At the top of the trail they crossed the cliff-top road and followed Erik to his car. It was an almost new Mercedes two-door in a reserved parking space. "Don't you get a ticket for, like, parking in the staff spaces?" asked Alicia.

  "I am staff. This is my space," replied Erik. He opened the passenger door and flipped the seat to give access to what passed for a back seat. Alicia tumbled into the back. He had not even driven out of the parking lot when he stopped the car. "Maya, please trade seats with Alicia. You are too, umm, distracting."

  As they got out of the car to switch seats, Alicia whispered, "If he wants you, ask for a thousand."

  "What," Maya replied, "a thousand what?" She saw Alicia give her that stare, like she was being naive again.

  "Dollars," Alicia whispered as Maya ducked her head into the car and crawled into the back.

  While they were playing musical chairs, Erik had phoned in an order for sushi. They drove directly to the Japanese takeaway, and while he was inside Maya asked, "A thousand dollars for what?"

  "He's an old perv. Who cares for what, but whatever he wants, it will cost him a thousand."

  "He's not a perv. He is very polite."

  "If he won't go the full thousand," Alicia said thoughtfully, carrying on as if Maya hadn't spoken, "tell him he can have us both for the same price."

  "You're disgusting."

  "You're stupid," Alicia replied. "You're going to end up giving it away. He is drooling over you. You need money. Look at this car. He has money."

  "This isn't about sex," shrugged Maya.

  "Yeah, right. Maybe it's not about sex to you, but I saw his boner. It is totally about sex to him."

  Erik came out of the shop carrying a large plastic tray, which he put down on the seat behind the driver. Alicia looked at the order. It looked expensive. "You're spending a lot of money on us. What do you expect for it?"

  Erik smiled at her. "I just want to talk to Maya in private. I have no problem with you coming along like her security blanket, just like women in a pub go to the powder room in pairs. No problem, there's lots of food."

  He drove calmly while they all enjoyed the breathtaking views that Vancouver threw at you around every corner. He followed the coast route towards town alongside miles and miles of beaches, now busy with ethnic family picnics, and beach volleyball tournaments. No one spoke until he turned into his driveway.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  MAYA'S AURA - the Awakening by Skye Smith

  Chapter 2 - In present day Hollywood

  She allowed the beach scene in her mind to be hazed over by a milk white light. It was her aura. Whenever she was busy with big city things, and especially when she was in close quarters with stressed-out men, her aura seemed to go into hiding deep inside of her. She felt a nudge on her elbow and so she dropped her hands and opened her eyes.

  Damn, the man of the moment was almost up to them. She looked at her gloves in Mike's pocket but she didn't have time to put them on. She looked at the man walking slowly along the red carpet occasionally pressing hands, and sometimes saying something to people he recognized, or pretended to recognize.

  He was a tall man, a handsome man, with coiffed hair from the latest cover of GQ, and wearing a dark suit that was obviously especially tailored for him. His smile was gentle and pleasing and his teeth shone pearl white. She heard Mike whisper, "Pay attention. He'll s
top at you for a photo op. You are the only woman."

  Mike was right. The man grabbed her hand and lightly pulled her towards him and then twisted them both to face the cameras. At first touch, his hand felt warm and dry but then she sensed a darkness, a darkness that was creeping into her. The calm from her aura deserted her and then all the man smells were overcome by another smell, a stronger smell, an acrid smell.

  Every woman would know the smell. Everyone at one time or another had set off the smoke alarm because a poorly-sliced bagel jammed in the toaster. While the charred toast smell fills the room they flap the tea towel frantically under the smoke alarm, or use the broom to reach up to the smoke alarm's reset button.

  An inner coldness chilled her, and she gasped for breath, and took a half-step to regain her balance. She had to do something quickly to break his touch, otherwise she might have swooned with the darkness and the smell. She yanked her hand out of his grip and then moved ahead of him as if she had pulled her hand away only to pose for the photographers.

  Behind her she could hear Mike telling him three times the name of the studio and then twice the title of the film, and then finally her name and that she was the starlet of the film. The man nodded his head as if he were listening. He wasn't. She knew actors, professional actors, and this man had the same awareness of the camera as an actor. It was the camera above anyone else. He was posing without being seen to pose.

  She closed her eyes to try to fight off the sudden dizziness she was feeling, and there was white light, which made her feel better, until she realized that it was the camera flashes and not her aura. A photographer asked her to open her eyes and smile, which she did. After all, she was actress. She could smile on command, even make love to the camera on command.

  Finally, when she thought that she couldn't hold the false smile any longer, the dashingly handsome man kissed her on the forehead and then started moving along the red carpet again, working the crowd.

  She took three steps, luckily without falling to the dizziness she felt, and grabbed hold of Mike's arm.

  "That went well, don't you think?" asked Mike looking away, following the procession with his eyes. "Nothing works better than a pretty girl to stop an important man in his tracks. I hope he remembers the studio name and the film name if we ever should need his support with the censors."

  "Yeah, I guess," she said weakly. "Can we go now? I'm not feeling well."

  "It's those damn jet planes and their air conditioning systems," he said, forgetting the politician for a moment and looking down at the young actress. They still had some scenes to shoot at the studio. They had flown in only yesterday from the movie location in Vermont to use the special effects set in the company's main studio. "Don't you be getting sick on me, love."

  "You can stay if you want. I need a bath and a bed and quickly. I feel, like, the heebie jeebies, you know?"

  "Why would I want to stay? I can't even vote. Let's get out of here. We can pick up some sushi on the way back to the house. We should probably do an eggs, milk, bread run at the same time. The refrigerator looked pretty bare."

  "Just remember that you won't find Vancouver prices for sushi. This is Hollywood."

  "What do I care? It's an allowable expense. I'll stick the company for it," he snickered.

  They made their way through the crowds, who were now all pushing forward while the couple were trying to reach the doors. Mike started pleading her sex to get through the crush of men. "Make way, let her get through. Hey fella, you're a big guy. Could you clear a space so she can walk through?"

  Eventually they made it to the coat check. They both had long trench coats; hers concealed her body from neck to mid-calf. It was a good thing. Dressed as she was, they would never have gotten through the paparazzi that were always blocking the access to the limos. He gave the parking ticket to the valet and they waited as he rushed off to find their car.

  As they stood waiting for the car, the paparazzi started to take an interest in them. Hiding Maya's dress and body and pulling her collar high would not fool them for much longer. She was too pretty of face, and her hair was obviously professionally done up.

  A Town and Country minivan pulled up and the valet exchanged car keys for cash, and the paparazzi drifted away from them. VIP's never rode in minivans. "Don't tell the studio that I rushed you past some photographers," he warned, "or else the PR office will have my balls."

  She settled back into the leather passenger seat and did up her seat belt. In the minivan they would disappear behind the incognito mirage of a young and boring married couple with kids. She relaxed and smiled, thinking of the tricks VIP's used in order to evade all the cameras these days. In a world where everyone had a camera on their phone, privacy was rare and cherished.

  She sat in the car the whole time Mike was in the sushi joint waiting for the order. With the doors locked she was safe. She could allow herself to find her special place again and find the comfort of her aura. She spaced out while Mike drove to the supermarket and while he was buying groceries. She did open her eyes as she was pressed back in her seat when the car began the ascent up into the Hollywood hills above Sunset Strip.

  She was feeling better, and finally spoke. "So that guy said that what's his name, Glover, was..."

  "Was the front runner to lead the Republican Party into the next Presidential election. He seemed like a good choice. Very polished, very personable. He even controlled himself and didn't play grab ass with you. That puts him high in my books."

  "Yeah," she said scornfully, "well, I'll reserve judgment on that, like, until the day he gets me alone all to himself without twenty camera flashes going off." She looked down the steep slope of the hillside and watched the streetlights slowly become fuzzy in the thickening smog. "I really miss Vancouver."

  "So do I, but it can't be helped. The company is getting heat about not making enough of its films in the USA. How long has it been since you were there?"

  "Way too long."

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  MAYA'S AURA - the Awakening by Skye Smith

  Chapter 3 - Three years earlier in Kitsilano, Vancouver

  Erik slowed the Mercedes to a crawl as he rolled into the driveway. He had already clicked the remote and was timing the garage doors to open.

  "You live here?" said Alicia, "really, no fooling?" The house was newly renovated and was on the waterfront side of the beach front road that wound along the coast towards the trendy neighborhood of Kitsilano.

  "Karl and I are both engineers. We both earn well." He pointed to the other car in the garage, a roughly-used Dodge mini van. "That is our real car. The Merc is just a toy."

  "A soccer mom van," Alicia giggled.

  "Not any more. Soccer moms all drive chick SUV's these days. Mini vans have become the car of choice for tradesmen and university students."

  "Y'now, life just isn't fair," complained Alicia, "two women working can barely pay the rent on a basement suite, but two men working can live in a place like this."

  "Shoes off. This is a no shoes house," he said. "We like to sit on the floor."

  He convinced Alicia to give herself a tour of the house, so that he could snatch some moments alone with Maya. They sat on the two high stool-chairs at the island in the kitchen, him picking politely at the tuna sashimi with his chop sticks, and her wolfing it down with her fingers.

  "That feeling we felt on the beach, let's call it the aura. I was feeling yours and you were feeling mine," he began.

  "It was delicious," she said as she slurped another square of Ahi down, "and so is this tuna, and so is this house, and so is that view." She waved her hands at the view of Vancouver's outer harbor and the North Shore mountains stretching high behind it.

  "I have been feeling auras since I was twenty-one, so that's, umm, fourteen years now. That is why I live with Karl. We both feel them. We both have them. We liked the feeling too much not to live together."

  "I've never felt it before. So was
it, like, because I smoked some dope, or, like, because we were both naked, or just because I was feeling, you know, excited, by walking around in the nude while men watched me."

  "Umm, all of the above I suppose. Karl and I explored it and researched it and practiced it a lot when we were younger and first together. We had lots of questions and found few answers. We still don't know what it really is or what causes it."

  "So why haven't I felt it before?"

  "I don't know. How do you know you haven't?" he asked.

  "Oh, believe me, I would have known. It felt like - I mean it was, like, well, I liked the feeling a lot." Maya grinned impishly at him. "Why do you think I am sitting in a strange man's kitchen eating raw fish? I want to feel it again."

  "No." Alicia had walked into the kitchen at that moment and reached between them to grab a California roll. She popped the whole piece into her mouth and smushed it between her teeth and tongue. "Mmmm, good." She had the American habit of talking with her mouth full and the slurred words came out between noisy chews. "She is not doing anything for you unless you pay her a thousand dollars."

  "What?" He gave her a hard stare, annoyed, but he couldn't keep it up without having to watch her tongue mushing rice and seaweed, so he looked back towards Maya. Maya was also looking annoyed at her friend. "I don't want to have sex with her. I just wanted to talk."

  "Yeah, like I believe you." Alicia said reaching passed him for more rolls, and purposefully brushing her large, braless breasts across his arm as she did so. "Been there, done that. First you only want to talk, but hey, why don't we share some wine, and then presto, you accidentally end up doing her, and then never pay up."

  "Are you her pimp?" he asked Alicia with a hint of anger, then he looked at Maya and softened his voice. "Are you a prostitute?" He really hoped the answer was no.