That night, dressed in the highest heels and shortest skirt she owned she met Georgina and Stuart and headed to their patch.
When she walked out of that alleyway after her first ‘John’ had left, her head had been spinning with thoughts and conclusions about what had just happened, not least of which was the fact she had just lost her virginity. She stood quietly for a while thinking things through, it had hurt at first but it had gotten easier as it went on. She had focused on something else as she bent over in front of the man, thought of something totally apart from what she was doing and just tried to forget what was going on behind her.
After a time, Georgina approached her and asked if she wanted to leave it for the night and continue again tomorrow.
Amanda said no. In the end it hadn’t been that bad, it wasn’t in any way enjoyable, but she had followed Georgina’s advice and it had soon been all over with. Looking at the money and knowing what that meant, that steeled her and made her go on.
The night ended and she went home, having a thorough shower before she hit the pillows. She left some of the money on the side for Howie to find in the morning.
To his credit, he didn’t ask how she got it. He never asked.
The next few nights Amanda went out again and again, she sorted out her own routine and became sort of at ease with things. She hated what she was doing, it felt pretty much like the most demeaning thing she had ever done and it occasionally made her feel low, but she just tried to remember why she did it. It was for Howie, and that was what was important.
Over the next couple of months Amanda went out two or three times a week with Stuart and Georgina, both of whom seemed impressed with her. The rest of the time she spent with Howie when he was free, or Georgina when he wasn’t.
Over time, it became clear Howie had sensed something, Amanda was sure he had guessed it was something unsavoury that she was doing to get the money. He had no idea of course what it was exactly, and Amanda dreaded to think what might be running through his mind, but she knew it was all for the best and kept her from sleeping rough, so it was worth it.
Two months later, after six months living with Howie, he found out.
Amanda returned to the apartment one day and Howie was waiting. He looked serious and grave and Amanda just knew. She just knew he had found out, she could sense it.
He didn’t shout, and didn’t get noisy, but this made Amanda feel even worse, because he said he felt let down. He felt disappointed in her. He knew what she was doing, he knew people who had seen her, and this was unbearable for him.
He asked her to leave.
She offered to stop what she was doing, but he said it was too late, she couldn’t undo what she had done.
‘I don’t want a whore living in my home!’ he had said.
Amanda felt hurt. With tears streaming down her face she packed her things in a suitcase that he had put on her bed and left. She tried to say goodbye to him but he wasn’t hearing any of it.
She cried all night. She had gone to Georgina’s, it was the only place she knew, and told her everything that had happened. Amanda had been distraught and was a wreck for several days.
Two weeks later she returned to the streets with Georgina and made another go of things. Georgina put her up for a while in her small apartment. Amanda slept on the floor on a blow up mattress and contributed to the food and such as much as she could. Later that month an apartment in the building became free and Amanda took it for herself.
She avoided the Dark Side of the Moon Nightclub and soon enough hadn’t seen Howie in over a month. She was beginning to smile again, she was soon saving money and getting back into something like the routine she had at Howie’s. She kept up the exercise and the self-defence training, enrolling herself in a local self-defence club. She had also started to get her own regulars, for which Georgina and Stuart would tease her endlessly.
Now she felt at ease with doing the job she was doing, and she had started to learn more tricks from Georgina. She learnt how to speak to her clients, to be their girlfriend for the short time she spent with them. She learnt to make the right noises and make it seem like she was enjoying it while her mind was on what she might have for lunch the next day. Some of the johns didn’t want sex, some just wanted a friend, some would just talk to you, and some would just want to kiss. Most wanted some sort of sex act, whatever it might be, depending on their cash flow or their own fetishes. It was soon just another night at the office for her.
Originally she had done it for Howie, that’s how she had justified it, now she did it to make a living, and also for more selfish reasons as she had become used to the cash flow it brought in.
One evening, Amanda had quite by chance ended up at the Dark Side Club and saw Howie for the first time. Both stopped to talk to the other on reflex, they looked at each other. Amanda wanted to say something, and went to speak, but so did Howie which brought her up short, stopping her from saying the one hundred and one things she wanted to say. Howie did the same. Amanda gazed into his eyes a moment more, her expression a friendly one, before she turned to walk away. They would need all night to cover everything they had to say to each other.
‘I’ll see ya?’ Howie called after her.
Amanda turned back to him, smiled, and nodded, before walking away. After that, Amanda had only seen him once more, and that was after Georgina had been diagnosed. He had found out and wanted to express his regret.
The first she knew of him knowing was when he turned up on her doorstep. She had opened that door and she had stood there in shock for god knows how long.
Finally she let Howie in and made him a coffee. She knew why he was here, even though only a few words had been exchanged. He told her that he had heard of Georgina’s diagnosis and that he was so sorry to hear of it. She had thanked him and the room had returned to silence again.
Things had never returned to the way they used to be between them. It was something Amanda regretted every day. She had just wanted Howie to understand. To accept that this was something she did, something she had to do. She didn’t enjoy it, but that was life. Life’s hard. Get over it.
But these things went unsaid. Both were thinking it, she knew he wanted to apologize to her, to say he was sorry for the way he had treated her. But his pride wouldn’t let him it seemed. It would mean accepting what she did for a living and that was something he could never do.
Amanda considered herself to have been over her friend’s death, to have moved on and put it behind her, but the day of Georgina’s Birthday had brought it all back to her, so she had taken a day off from the incessant training and exercise and decided to have a day to herself, a day to remember her friend. She had walked through the valley for hours, wandering aimlessly about, going nowhere really until she ended up in the clearing that she had come to know so well.
It was empty as she stepped out into the open air from beneath the branches of the forest, quiet and serene, just as she hoped it would be. Scattered about the clearing there was evidence of her training regime, but she wasn’t taking much notice of these things at the moment, she registered they were there, but her eyes just slid past them, not really taking anything in.
As she scanned the scene before her she slipped into seeing the world about her through the veil of Essentia and saw the life forms all about her, going about their daily routine.
She didn’t really notice she had focused in on something at first, and that she was heading towards it, it was as if her instinct was guiding her. She didn’t recognise it immediately, but as she knelt down in the grass next to a tree she realised she was looking at the barely alive form of a field mouse, slowly dying in the shade from a nasty looking wound on its side.
It could have been caused by anything, a stray cat, an owl, or some other hunter of mice, but it had somehow escaped and now it lay here, dying in the grass, its life energy slowly ebbing away.
Amanda reached down and gently picked the tiny furry woodland creature up in
the palm of her hand and sat down on the nearby tree stump and looked down at it. She could feel its gasping breath as it strained to pull more air into its tiny lungs, trying to fight the slow approach of its own death.
Amanda placed her other hand over the mouse, cupping it gently between her palms, and concentrated on knitting its wounds, healing its body and bringing it back to complete health.
She felt the energy she was tapping into rush through her body and into the mouse and within a couple of seconds, the mouse was no longer struggling for breath, it was suddenly in the peak of health and very much alive.
She opened her hands and the mouse sat there absolutely still in her palm, alive but clearly a little stunned and scared from what had just happened.
Amanda looked down at it, her mind blank for a moment as she held the tiny rodent in front of her. But then some thoughts came to her quite suddenly, as she remembered what day it was again.
The thought was clear and concise, and one laden with guilt. Why couldn’t she have cured Georgina of AIDS?
She had just stopped a life from coming to an end, just cured something of a fatal condition. She knew that at the higher end of ability she could have cured Georgina of her condition too.
She could have saved Georgina’s life, Georgina could be alive today, alive and well with no sign of infection. She could be here with Amanda, joining her in this journey of self-discovery.
If only she had learnt about Magic earlier, if she had realised what she could do months before hand she might have been able to save her friend. If not herself then she might have been able to find someone who could have done it for her, another Magi, someone more powerful than she.
But no, she hadn’t realised she could do Magic, she had been thick and stupid and because she couldn’t work out the obvious her best friend was dead.
She was furious with herself, she couldn’t believe she was such an idiot, she just couldn’t believe it. It was so obvious, and she must have been able to learn Magic much, much earlier than she did, Gentle Water had said to her a few times that compared to most other Magi she was a late starter. That thought just made her even madder, the idea that she could have learnt Magic before she even left for New York and might have been able to save Georgina herself played havoc with her mind.
Tears flowed down her cheeks, dripping to the ground as the mouse dropped harmlessly to the floor a foot below and disappeared into the grass.
She was an idiot, that’s all there was too it, she was nothing but a stupid idiot who’s friend died because she was too dumb to realise the truth about who she was, and now there was nothing she could do about it.
As she silently berated herself she could sense Gentle Water approaching her, she sniffed to try and control the tears but to no avail. He sat down beside her and placed his arm about her shoulders.
‘Are you okay?’
Amanda stood up and walked a few paces away, furious at such a dumb question. ‘Do I look okay to you?’ She fumed.
‘I only meant…’
‘I know what you bloody meant,’ she interrupted. ‘But you’re just as much to blame.’
Gentle Water looked confused.
‘She could have lived. She didn’t have to die, I could have saved her, you could have saved her, she didn’t have to die at all.’
Realisation passed over Gentle Waters face.
‘Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Don’t deny it, I’m a fecking idiot for not working it out earlier, for not realising that I could do Magic. If I could have learnt about it earlier and saved her, she would be alive today, she didn’t have to die!’
Gentle Water just sat quietly, letting her vent.
‘And you’re just as bad, look at you, sat there like lord almighty, but you could have done something. You could have saved her, but you didn’t, did you. You let her die. How can you live with yourself huh? Knowing you let her die like that.’
Amanda’s tears were running freely as she ranted and raved at her friend, her emotions running high and unchecked, but Gentle Water didn’t react, he let her scream and shout.
‘You got nothing to fecking say have you, you just sit there like a freak and say nothing. I hate you sometimes, you know that? I HATE YOU!’
Amanda stormed off out of the clearing, her sobs intensifying for a moment but they were quickly smothered by the forest as she ran from the clearing while Gentle Water looked on.
Amanda had been a few months past her seventeenth birthday when Georgina returned from a doctor’s appointment that would change things forever.
Amanda had opened the door to her apartment to see Georgina stood there, her hand over her mouth, her arms folded close to her body and her head lowered.
Amanda frowned in confusion, ‘are you OK?’ she asked.
Georgina’s tear filled eyes glanced up at Amanda, before she just crumpled into Amanda’s arms and broke down into almost hysterical tears. It took a long time and half a box of tissues before Georgina was calm enough to explain.
‘The results of the blood tests came in today,’ she said, ‘there was some rather unexpected news. The doctor, he said I had left it too long. It’s been ages since I had a checkup, I’ve had hundreds over the years, and nothings ever come up. I must have gotten careless, thought I was invincible or something. I’ve been feeling a little off it for a good long while now, so I thought I would get checked out.’ She was rambling, her words falling out of her, as if they had to escape.
‘You never said you were feeling ill!’ Amanda said.
‘I know, I…, I don’t know. Maybe I knew, deep down. I didn’t want to worry you, just wanted to keep on going. Ignore it and it might go away, you know? But it didn’t. So, my conscience got the better of me and I got an appointment. I got some of the results today but they want me to go back in. They need to do more tests to be sure.’
‘Sure of what? What are you talking about?’
‘They think I might be HIV positive,’ Georgina’s voice started to break as she said it, ‘AIDS Mandy,’ she sobbed, ‘they think I’ve got AIDS.’
Amanda was stunned. She wanted to say something, anything to her friend to say it’s going to be OK, but she was too shocked, she couldn’t speak, her mouth wouldn’t move. Georgina, her head in her hands, cried quietly to herself where she sat. Amanda felt the wind go from her lungs, it seemed like an age until she caught her breath and could start to think. What do you say to someone who tells you that? Nothing seemed good enough, there were no words she could say to her closest friend that wouldn’t seem like false hope.
‘FUCK!’ Shouted Georgina, slamming her fist into the plasterboard wall so hard it went right through, her knuckles started to bleed.
Her mind slowly rose from the depths of deep sleep, becoming aware of the feeling of the pillow, the covers on her body and the cosy warmth of her bed. Her mind felt contented and relaxed and she snuggled down into the softness of her mattress.
Then Amanda’s eyes snapped open as, like a very unpleasant bolt from the blue, she remembered her outburst to Gentle Water in the clearing and the terrible things she said to the only person she could really call a friend.
The pleasant feeling of her morning bed was suddenly gone and replaced by a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if her bed had just gone over a hump back bridge and she’d left her tummy behind.
The sinking feeling was fear, fear that she might have said something that might have really offended Gentle Water and made him pack up and leave. He seemed a sensitive soul, he had probably never been spoken to like that before, he might have decided that there was a better apprentice out there for him for all she knew.
It was a terrifying thought and as Amanda lay there in her bed she tried to remember exactly what she had said to him, but the details were sketchy, she knew she had sworn at him though, that much she felt certain about, but it didn’t make her feel any better to remember the details, it just made things worse.
She hoped
he would forgive her, she hoped he would realise that things had just kind of got on top of her, which was all it had been. It was her friend’s birthday, her best friend’s birthday and although she might have passed away getting on for a year ago, those memories could still be very raw and sensitive, more sensitive then she thought they would be.
It was the realisation about the Magic she could do which did it though, which looking back was a little rash. Things happen in certain ways and at certain times, and if Gentle Water had come to her earlier, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have given him the time of day, even when Georgina was ill in Ireland, she knew she would have seen him as just a distraction and sent him packing right away. In fact, Gentle Water had arrived at just the right time, just when she was most open and most needed what he could offer.
She had known all these things deep down yesterday as well, but yesterday had been Georgina’s birthday, and that had changed things. She hadn’t been thinking straight at all, she had been a mess.
But that didn’t excuse the way she had behaved, it didn’t mean she could get away with shouting and swearing at someone who had been nothing but nice to her over these past few months.
Amanda thought back and remembered the way that Gentle Water had been nothing but the perfect gentleman to her each and every day. He was always there for her and looked out for her at all times, he was a friend and confidant, just as good a friend as Georgina had been, and now despite all this she might have pushed things too far and pushed him away for good. He might have left in the night for all she knew, and as she listened she couldn’t hear any other movement in the small cottage.
That sinking feeling of being too late to stop it all was back and she knew she had to rectify things as soon as possible, so she jumped out of bed, pulled on a dressing gown and ran from her room almost before the covers had time to settle on the bed behind her.
Magi Saga 1: Epic Calling Page 23
