by Smith, Skye
She fled across the park without even looking at the grace of the weeping willows, or the lush colors of the evergreens. She just wanted to get home. She didn't even check for traffic on the busy street. It didn't matter. In Vancouver the drivers stopped for jay walkers. Besides, it was a playground zone. All the drivers would be expecting children chasing wayward soccer balls.
A Bimmer in too much of a hurry almost hit her because the driver chose to swerve around the taxi and the minivan that had stopped for her, rather than brake. Anything other than slow down, like in the SUV ads on TV. She gave him the finger for overtaking in a playground zone.
At home along the winding roads of the Mendocino coast, that was the type of driver that got elk through their windshields. What was wrong with Bimmer drivers in this city? Didn't they know the first rule of driving? When in doubt, slow down.
Emma's Jetta was still in the driveway. Emma was the first person she met as she walked in the door. She was wearing little more than a smug smile, and she looked very happy. She gave her a dojo bow in honor of the pure white dojo clothes and one of her breasts broke loose from Karl's robe. "Oh darling, you've been crying. Whatever is wrong?"
"Food," Maya moaned, "give me food. Is there any of the pad thai left?"
"Oops," Emma said covering her mouth with her hand. "You missed it by minutes. Do you want me to make you some toast, oh, maybe not."
"Toast would be lovely, as long as I have it within the next minute." She watched Emma jiggle and skip into the kitchen. "Where're the guys?"
"Karl is still in bed. I sort of ravaged him this morning. Weddings make me so horny." Emma pushed the toaster lever down, "Well, that's not true, because preparing for weddings is not horny at all. It's like getting a last-minute phone call that your mother is dropping by to visit, and you can't remember the last time you vacuumed or ran the dishwasher. But after the vows, when everyone relaxes, that is when everyone gets horny."
"Maybe it's something they put in the cake." said Maya. "Where is Erik?"
"I think he said something about a sailing dinghy and high water. There is supposed to be a big blow tonight." Emma pulled a block of butter out of the fridge. Someone had used the last soft butter in the butter dish and had not replaced it. She hated that. She was a big Julia Child fan. Keep the butter and the wine flowing. She patted her hip. That explained a lot.
She heard Maya moan behind her and turned and knew immediately what was wrong. She handed Maya her toast, which was a bit tattered from trying to spread hard wedges of butter, and watched her devour the first half while walking towards the deck. "Karl and I have to go to the out-of-towner brunch in an hour. You will have Erik and the house to your self." Time to go and drag Karl into the shower and make him smell less like he had spent the night in a bordello.
"Merde," Maya cursed. The old guy from next door had his sailing dinghy out playing, skipping over the low waves and swerving with each gust of wind. Erik was on the rudder. "Merde." The endless cuddles were no longer enough. She wanted to feel him inside her. She needed to feel him inside her.
She felt a presence behind her, and then a man's arms curled around her chest underneath her breasts and pulled her into a warm body. He smelled of sex, of woman. She leaned back into him and tried to touch her aura to his. His was strong today. They swayed together and watched the tub toy dinghy play in the waves.
It wasn't fair that he was feeling so good. "Is she on the pill?" she asked out of the blue, feeling possessive of one of her men.
"Yes, something to do with women’s problems, not because she is sexually active."
"Well, she seems to be very active now."
"Is that jealousy I am hearing?"
"Envy," she said as she put her toast down on a nearby table and then arched her back and reached over her head to put her hands around the back of his neck. She stopped before touching him to monitor her aura. It was almost asleep, so she touched his neck. He moaned as their auras merged. She rubbed her bum against him and his hands move up to cup her breasts through the linen and silk of her jacket.
Emma saw them through the window. They looked like one of the pictures of erotic statues from one of Karl's books about India. She stepped out onto the deck. "You can have the bathroom now," she said, an edge in her tone. "Go and wash me off you," she said pointedly. "We should leave soon. Your blue check shirt and blue slacks will do nicely."
Karl did not move to her command. He was lost in white light. The position they were holding seemed to have their auras swirling together through her hands into his neck, and through his hands into her breasts. For once, his sex was not prodding and throbbing and getting in the way. Emma had well taken care of that. "Another time, sweetie," he whispered into her ear, and he released her breasts and the swirling stopped.
He slowly backed away from her so that she had a chance to regain her balance on her own feet, and then he swung Emma around in a happy dance to music he was whistling, and then he left them both, together on the deck.
When he was out of earshot, Emma whispered, "You can have Erik, but you can't have Karl."
After the wonderful hug and cuddle, and the swirl of auras, Maya was again feeling as good as when she had first woken up in Erik's arms. "But Emma, I don't have either of them. They have me."
Emma was stunned into silence. She was a professional busybody. She was not often at a loss for words. Maya had her eyes closed and was backing into her and now was arching her back and reaching up and putting her hands on the back of Emma's neck. It was the statue pose she had found her in with Karl. She hesitated, embarrassed, and then wrapped her arms around her to balance her, and then slowly took possession of her breasts.
"Ooooh," she moaned, and moaned again. She wanted to be angry with this, this, competitor for Karl's affections, but how could she be? Something wonderful, a delicious feeling, was swirling through her body. The whiteness she knew was Maya's but it had flecks of gold twisting in it, glittering. It felt so good it took her breath away.
They were balanced against each other and swaying gently to music that could not be heard. She was lost in the pleasure of floral and honey scents, sweet, delicious, fragrant. Time was passing but she didn't care. She had to be somewhere but she didn't care. Her calves were complaining from the long stance, but she didn't care.
She felt his body behind her, pushing against her. She felt his hands on her breasts, his forehead against the back of her head. A new scent drifted across her awareness, a new light, and then everything went dazzling. Everything, everything was pure white.
Maya dropped to the deck to break their connection, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I lost control. Are you all right, oh please be all right." She looked up from the deck. Karl had balanced Emma to stop her from falling. He was hugging her closer to him, and slowly walking her to a chair. She slid, rather than sat, into the chair.
Maya grabbed her elbows and started to speak, but Karl put a finger to his lips and motioned her to be quiet. They left Emma propped up by some cushions in the chair and crept back into the house. "She's ok," he said. "She is just in a very deep trance. Let her be. Let her explore it for herself."
"She's probably just catching up on sleep," Maya said snarkily, "it doesn't sound like either of you slept much last night."
"Actually, we got home quiet early..." he began, "Oh, right, that's what you mean. Yes, that first night was just casual, breathless, get-to-know-you sex. Last night she was intense. I almost feel used," He pushed Maya's bum to hurry her up the stairs in front of him. "Almost."
In the common room as they were parting to go to their own rooms to change, she grabbed him by the arm. "She wants your babies, Karl. She wants a husband called Karl. She will accidentally forget to take her pill, and then seduce you without condoms, and force you to marry her."
"Not for a while," he said kissing her on the button of her nose. "She is on the pill while she waits for some operation or other. With the queues for low priority operations the way t
hey are in the hospitals, it could be months, years."
"Do you really think doctors stand in the same queue as the rest of us? Dream on."
"Still," he said, pulling away.
"True," she said, letting him go. Hopefully, Emma's lust would have cooled, and cooled, and cooled again by then, or hopefully, between her makeover and her new sexual confidence, she would find herself a nice Jewish man and her mother would make the decision for her.
* * *
Karl and Emma had swept off in a hurry and left her with nothing to do but stare through the spotting scope at Erik and his neighbor in the tub toy sailing dinghy. Erik had a big grin on his face. The elderly neighbors name was Aaron, and he was a bit of a grouch, but always pleasant to her.
She always suspected that Aaron had some window in his house that allowed him to watch her sunbathe on the deck. She didn't really care. He could see the same or better, just by walking down Wreck Beach trail, but then, of course, he probably wasn't well enough to walk back up the trail. Let him watch.
The phone pulled her away from the spotting scope. It was Alicia telling her not to bother coming and getting her to go to the beach. Maya pretended that she had not completely forgotten about the date. Alicia could just see the top of the trail from the window of her residence room. Alicia told her that the trail was swarming with cops and they were questioning everyone.
What Alicia didn't mention was her new boyfriend, and Maya knew not to pry. With boyfriends, no news is bad news. They made a date for next Sunday and then spent an hour talking about their folks at home in Albion. Tourist season had been a bust because the fog just would not leave the coast. Her dad was broke again and grape harvest season was late starting. He had just paid the property taxes, late as usual, but two weeks before the penalty date.
After the goodbyes, she dialed her mom. They had their usual cool greetings, followed by a bitchfest about her Mom's latest man. She collected loser men like other people collected stray cats. Eventually Maya got her in a serious frame of mind and asked her if she had paid the property taxes yet. Her mom owned the property outright, so the bank didn't pay the taxes out of a mortgage payment.
Of course, she had to listen to a list of reasons why she didn't have the money to pay the taxes, all starting and ending with the name of her new loser boyfriend. The land wasn't much, five acres that had been a gold claim a hundred years ago, and a cabin that needed a new roof, but it would be stupid to lose it for taxes.
"Mom, I've got some money. I'll pay the taxes. Read me what the notice says." She scribbled the information onto a piece of paper. "Okay.
Okay.
How much?
Okay.
No.
No, I won't send you the money.
No. I'll have my bank pay it, just take that notice in to the bank and tell them to expect a check in the mail from me.
Okay. Love you. Bye."
She sat looking at the phone. Her mom was pissed at her for not sending the money to her. She could tell. No way. She trusted her mom in every way except her taste in drunks. She looked through the scope again. Erik was way out. She went to her room and found her first pay-check for jiggling her boobs at movie cameras. She had asked for it in US funds on a US bank. She looked at the check. Bingo.
She typed up a letter to her bank, giving all the tax information and instructions and hit the print button. Then she carefully made out a check on her own account for one thousand six hundred and thirty-six dollars, made out like the tax instructions said. She popped it all into an envelope addressed to the bank address of her Mendocino bank, put two stamps on it to make sure, put her Robin Hood outfit on, and ran it down the street to the mailbox.
Strolling back, she could see through the spaces between the houses that the tub toy was heading back in. The wind was up and they were being swept home quickly. Erik's house was on a cliff above a narrow beach that disappeared at high tide, but Aaron had built a drift log ramp so that he could winch his tub toy up and down. She cut through Aaron's yard and slithered down the logs using the struts nailed to the logs to slow her decent.
They were closer in now but were fooling with something and not moving quickly any more. She sat on a log and a stray black and white cat in need of a few meals came to visit her.
"Oh baby, you look like you have worms. You can visit but not climb on me." In the way of cats it immediately tried to climb on her.
"Maybe I can cure you with my aura, little one. Would you like that, hmmm?" She put her hands together, now having to use her elbows to nudge the cat away from her. She closed her eyes and stilled her mind. "That should be enough for such a little one like you." She ran her hand along the cat's back without touching it, even when the cat arched its back to be touched.
"Oh dear, I feel some darkness, kitty. I don't think it is worms." She half-closed her eyes and concentrated on whiteness, and started the no-touch stroke again. The cat was waiting for it and lifted its head to be stroked and ran its head and neck across Maya's hand, and collapsed, dead.
Maya leaped sideways along the log and away from the dead, still animal, screaming, "No, no, no, what have I done? Oh kitty, I am so sorry!"
"Are you okay?," came a yell from the water. She looked up. Erik was calling to her from the tub toy.
"No!" she yelled back. "Stop playing in that bloody boat." She watched him steer the thing close to the ramp, and then leap out and race towards her. She stood and leaped into his arms. "I killed the kitty. I didn't mean to. I was trying to help it. I killed it."
"What up?" yelled old Aaron, walking as quickly as he could on the slippery shingle beach.
"Your cat just died," Erik called back.
"I was just stroking it, and it died," called Maya. "I'm so sorry."
"That cat," Aaron said, "he's been slowly dying for months. It's a blessing he is gone with some dignity. The vet said it had some wasting disease. Nothing he could do. Toxoplasmosis."
"That's too bad," said Eric.
"No, it bloody isn't," replied Aaron. "You don't know my wife. She won't give a dollar to a hungry kid begging on the street, but she'll throw three thousand dollars at a vet to help a fifty-dollar cat. I was overjoyed when I found out there was nothing the vet could do. Actually, I was stunned that he was so honest." He made his way up the ramp to stand beside them, looking down at the body. He turned to Maya with a sudden thought.
"Hey, if you've been touching it you should keep your hands away from your mouth and wash your hands as soon as possible. They spread the disease through their poo, and they can give it to people. Barney was pretty filthy. We haven't let him in the house since we found out."
Maya was crying and crying and crying, but between the sobs she searched Erik's pockets for his tiny bottle of hand sanitizer. He never went anywhere without the stuff. He had learned that in India. She found it , rinsed her hands in the sea, and then used up the rest of the bottle.
"Here lad, help me bury the thing. Maybe it will stop her crying."
She finally stopped crying when Aaron had her help him to unrig the boat and help winch it up the ramp.
Back at the house, she raced upstairs to the computer and looked up Toxoplasmosis. Erik had shown her how to get better results from Google by using quotation marks around phrases and by using the plus and minus signs in front of words. For instance, -eBay -Amazon meant you didn't get the first page taken up by companies pretending to sell what you were searching for.
She read for a long time, and kept the best articles in their own tabs. Finally Erik came out of the shower. The dirty dog had gone straight from running to boating. She showed him the best of the articles and he read it while toweling his hair. She loosened the towel around his waist and let it drop to the floor. She began to blow him dry in secret places with her gentle breaths, but he didn't get the hint. He was too interested in the article.
"Okay," he said slowly, suddenly aware that she was not also reading the article, but doing other things. "Maybe we
should take this into the bedroom."
"Hello the house," came a call from downstairs. Erik quickly covered up. Maya said 'merde' about ten times in a row. Karl's head poked up the stairwell. "I didn't interrupt anything, did I?"
"No," Erik replied. "I was just reading an article on Toxoplasmosis that Maya found on the web. Very interesting."
"Shouldn't you be taking Emma home?" Maya hinted hopefully. "She has work in the morning, and she hasn't been home for days."
"Tick, done already. She's not the only one with a heavy day tomorrow. She sends her thanks for letting her sleep over."
"She sent her thanks to me?" asked Maya.
"Her actually words were: give Maya a hug and thank her for me." He crowded in beside Erik at the computer, and pulled Erik's towel down, and stroked his bum while he read over his shoulder. "So why are we reading this again? Oh, isn't that interesting? I wonder if there are any reputable clinical tests going on."
She explained, "I had a bad experience with next-door-Aaron's cat. It had toxoplasmosis." Karl looked at her quizzically so she continued. "Four things happened at the same time while I was experimenting with trying to heal the cat. It rubbed its neck against my hand, I smelled charred toast, my aura went instantly supernova, and the cat died."
Karl thought for a second and then said, "So you are saying that we can explore and experiment with your aura using cats, so we don't have to risk accidents with people."
"I think she is a bit further along with her thoughts than that," interrupted Erik. "If I were you I would be quiet and listen, before she punches you."
"Occam's Razor," Karl said. "It was the obvious conclusion, and a good one."
"Shush, let her talk."
"The article says they have linked toxoplasmosis with psychotic behavior in cats and mice. Cats and mice pass it to each other through the food chain, and proximity. The other animal in the chain is like, us, people. Toxoplasmosis is like a social disease between three animals that have close relationships. It suggests that there is a possibility that it may cause like, schizophrenia or psychosis in humans but there is no good evidence as yet."
