She was on the verge of falling into the routine of all those who find themselves in such a place as this – namely, picking up and flicking through a magazine that boasted ten essential new ways in which to dress your dog this winter – when Drake gave her a little nudge and nodded at a door that had just opened.
The man that walked through was handsome, in an inoffensive sort of way, and looked to be one hundred percent human. At least, that was Abby’s initial impression. She knew, though, that the chances of him not having something strange and supernatural going on were slim. As far as she knew, she was the only person in the whole of the Supernatural Barista Academy who was pure human. No doubt this guy had something exciting going on under the surface.
He was dressed all in white – white pants, gleaming white shoes, and a tight white polo shirt. Abby could see, thanks to the impeccable cut of the figure-hugging polo, that the man had the same sort of V-shaped body as Drake, although he looked much less broad. His hair was a curious dark gray-blue color, like oiled metal, and his cheeks were covered in short stubble. She also noticed that he was tattooed down the inside of both forearms in a series of swirls and dots and dashes that she felt, somehow, was a language or code of some sort, rather than just an arbitrary pattern.
The man walked casually over, his face set in the comfortingly open and friendly manner of the seasoned health-care professional.
“Drake,” he said in greeting, holding out a hand.
Drake took it in the hand that wasn’t still around Abby’s waist and nodded. “Good to see you, my man,” he said.
“How’s that wi– How’s that shoulder?” the man asked. He glanced at Abby to see if she had noticed his slip, but Abby was too groggy and exhausted to spare much care for a mispronunciation.
“Good, thanks,” Drake said breezily. “Not what it was, but that’s life. Could’ve been a whole lot worse.”
“You’re not wrong there,” the man agreed.
Drake nodded sideways at Abby. She smiled as the man’s light blue eyes fell on her.
“This is Abby Hall,” Drake said. “Abby, this is Frederick and, as I told you before, he’s the best healer that we have in the S.B.A. We’re lucky that he happens to be working the late shift.”
Frederick held out a hand and shrugged in a self-deprecating way. “We’re all pros here,” he said. “You would’ve been lucky to get any of our healers. What can I do for you?” He lifted an eyebrow at Abby and said, “It doesn’t take a Master to see that it’s you, Miss Hall, that requires ministering to.”
Drake grunted. “I’ll say,” he said. “We’ve just come from the steam-chambers. I don’t know if you saw Abby and Radella scrap it out in the Assessment Duel earlier?”
“I did. It was… eye-opening stuff,” said Frederick.
“That it was,” said Drake. “Well, I thought after the beating that they gave each other that a steam-chamber session would do Miss Hall some good. However, some of the contusions she suffered – along her shoulders and side especially – I think are going to take more than a little medicated steam to get back to their previous condition. That’s why we are here. If you could and think it necessary, can you give her the works? Rub her down from toes to scalp if you can. I’d greatly appreciate it, and so would Miss Hightide.”
“Of course,” said Frederick, running a critical eye over Abby. “I have to say that that impact on the wall did raise a few eyebrows among the med-block staff who were able to go and watch the duels.”
Frederick took Abby by the shoulders and made her stand up straight, noting how she winced when her body took the weight of her left side.
“Yes,” he mused softly, “you were right to bring her in, Drake. Shoulder bruising can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks to heal on its own, depending on the severity of the injury. I think with some proper treatment we should be able to patch this one up.” He started to lead Abby slowly away, toward one of the doors that led off the reception area.
“How long will it take?” Drake asked.
“An hour,” Frederick said. “Will you wait around?”
“I can’t,” Drake said. Abby turned her head quickly around, causing a ripple of acid pain to blaze across her shoulders and down her side. “Why?” she gasped, gritting her teeth in a grimace.
“I’ve got to go and see Miss Hightide,” Drake said. There was no emotion in his voice, nothing that betrayed how he felt about leaving Abby. Only a tiny flicker deep in his eyes told of how he was loath to leave. “There’s important business that she wants to ask me about. It can’t wait.” He forced a reassuring smile onto his chiseled face. “Frederick will look after you,” he said. “You’re in skilled hands.”
Abby nodded and turned away, trying to conceal the fact that she wished Drake could stay with her.
What the fuck is the matter with you? she thought. You’re just going for a massage and a little treatment. You’ll see the big idiot again later on. Maybe after a sleep and a shower so that you don’t look as if you just fell down four flights of stairs and rolled into a thorn bush. Relax.
Frederick led her down a corridor lit with soothing ambient lights and into a treatment room.
As they entered, Abby blurted out, “Frederick?”
“Yes.”
“You look human. Are you?” Abby realized that this was, in fact, the least tactful way that she probably could’ve phrased a question of species classification. “I mean, you look human, you know, and I haven’t meant any other fully human people here yet. Um… what’re you doing here? How did you end up in the Supernatural Barista Academy?”
Frederick smiled at her, but Abby, even though her brain was sluggish with weariness, could tell that there was something strained about it.
“Let’s just say that I’m repaying a favor – a debt of sorts,” he said. His voice was gentle, but he spoke the words in a way that permanently closed the door on the conversation.
“Right,” Abby said, knowing enough to take the hint.
Frederick ushered her to a changing room and instructed her to get undressed and wrap herself in a towel. He also handed her an iced glass of brown liquid.
“It’s a medicinal-grade super-decaf blend,” he explained when Abby held the drink up enquiringly. “In a nutshell, it’ll numb you and affects your atoms in such a way that you’ll float a quarter-inch or so off of the table.”
“This coffee will make me float?” Abby asked.
“Well, you see, just as the Academy caffeine blends make you wired and jittery, this special decaf slows the vibration of your atoms to such an extent that they’re moving less than the air that surrounds you. It’s hard to explain without a whiteboard and about three hours, but the crux is this will make the massage almost painless.” He gave Abby another appraising look. “And trust me, if you knew what the alternative was, you’d thank me.”
The revelation that this was going to be a floating massage would have elicited a further question or two had Abby been less exhausted but, as it was, she drained the tasty iced coffee.
“I think the best thing, going on what Drake said, is to start with your back, and have you lying on your front. Then we can flip you over once we’ve done as much as we can to ease the pain in your shoulders and side.”
Abby nodded and went into the changing room to disrobe while Frederick prepared the massage table.
When Abby emerged, she was wrapped in a towel which she thought a little too skimpy for what it was supposed to do. It covered the parts that she was most eager to hide from the eyes of the man tasked with rejuvenating her aching flesh – the towel reaching from mid-thigh to just above her nipples – but just barely.
“Um, do you, ah, mind turning around just while I get onto the table?” Abby asked.
Frederick turned away instantly, busying himself with lighting a bundle of herbs in a shallow pottery dish. “This is a bunch of dried teas – basil tea, brandy blood tea, spring joy, and wet-lion leaf mostly – and should h
elp you relax more easily.”
With much grunting and sighing and groaning, Abby managed to get herself onto the raised table, making sure that everything was still covered to her satisfaction, and put her face through the hole in the table. Below her was a small pond, which was home to a couple of gorgeous turquoise fish and one fragrant water-lily. Quite casually, she realized that she was floating a fraction of an inch off of the actual table. She blinked, but found that she didn’t have the energy for proper amazement.
“Ready,” she said.
Frederick turned around.
“I’m just going to pull the towel down from your back to the top of your buttocks so that I can get to your injuries,” he said. “I’m also going to place crescent starfish on a couple of the worst spots.”
“Crescent what?”
“Starfish. These little critters massage the worst contusions and secrete an enzyme that helps them heal faster. What with the super-decaf and the enzymes they release into the skin, you might find yourself a little groggy, a little out of it, but that’s perfectly normal.”
“Sounds radical,” Abby said, already feeling her mind unraveling slightly.
Frederick untucked the towel and pulled it gently downward. He gave a low whistle at the sight of her mottled blue, yellow and black back.
“That good, huh?” Abby said.
“It looks like a piece of modern abstract art,” he observed.
Abby snorted and then winced.
“I think,” Frederick said, “that I’ll start at the top and work my way down, if that’s okay with you?”
“You do what you think is best,” Abby said.
“This might be quite uncomfortable at first,” Frederick warned and placed his fingers gently on Abby’s scalp.
Abby was amazed to feel that even the very top of her head felt as if it had taken a good kicking at the hands of that witch bitch, Radella.
As Frederick started to work, Abby had to scrunch up her face and bite her bottom lip at times to stop crying out. The man worked his way from the top of her scalp, down her head to the base of her skull, then farther south to the nape of her neck. Once he arrived there, having spent a good ten minutes rubbing and kneading her neck like dough, he paused.
“I’m just going to get some coffee bean oil for your back,” he said.
As he went to get the bottle, Abby gingerly moved her head. She was amazed at the way that Frederick had, by the little she could feel in her minute movements, smoothed away the pain like creases in a piece of fabric. Through his careful ministrations, he had decreased her discomfort five-fold.
There was the unmistakable, slippery, undeniably erotic sound of oil being warmed in someone’s hands. Then Frederick’s fingers returned to where they had left off, and he began to massage and rub Abby from the top of her spine down to her battered shoulder blades. Frederick understandably took his time here. Abby’s upper back and one side resembled a piece of steak that’d been under the overenthusiastic hand of an amateur butcher on tenderizing duty. Liberal amounts of the silky, pungent oil were administered, so that Abby could feel little escaping drips of it running down her torso and across the sides of her breasts.
She found herself beginning to get inadvertently turned on. She wondered whether it had anything to do with the combination of the super-decaf and those cheeky little starfish that she could feel creeping and kneading at her back. It certainly didn’t help that, as Frederick’s fingers worked their magic and soothed away the pain in her back and shoulders, the discomfort was replaced by a feeling of peaceful, deep-seated contentment.
Frederick continued to work on her bruised flesh, rubbing the aches out of her shoulders, upper back, arms, and even her hands and fingers. In the wake of his attentions, her body felt lighter, more relaxed and hydrated somehow. The smell of the oil was a combination of freshly ground coffee, woodlands after rain and fertile earth.
“How’s it feeling?” Frederick asked as his hands glided down the knobs of her spine and started to knead at her lower back and the area around her coccyx.
“’ Mmmmmazing,” Abby managed to moan through her slack lips.
Frederick laughed gently. “That’s good,” he said. “Your body is still externally bruised – that is to say, your skin still resembles some weird abstract art piece – but I think we’re making progress on the internal muscle contusions.”
“Oh yeah,” Abby muttered, her eyes closed and a lazy smile of content on her lips. “It’s a real team effort all right.”
Frederick laughed again. “Do you mind if I do the top of your buttocks before starting on your legs?” he asked.
Abby, who was feeling as replete with satisfaction as she’d ever felt, nodded. “You go, girlfriend,” she said.
Frederick massaged the top of her ass cheeks for a couple of minutes. Abby felt the relaxing tendrils of warm contentment trickling through and around her waist like the oil dripping down her sides. A feeling of definite arousal was building in her, though she was too tranquil to think much about it.
“So,” Frederick asked, in the calm half-interested voice of doctors, hairdressers and other professionals whose jobs require them to make small talk, “how did you come to find yourself at the S.B.A?”
“Well,” said Abby, who was feeling a bit out of sorts, but wasn’t going to let that stand in the way of a conversation, “first I was born in Rotwood, you see.” She gazed down into the little pond, thinking how wonderful it’d be to swim through the water like the two small fish in there.
“Yeah, I was born in Rotwood. And that was basically the highpoint of my childhood – being born, I mean – because then my sister and I and my mother were abandoned by my dad, Vassago.”
At the name of Abby’s father, Frederick’s strong, swift fingers seemed to falter, and one of his hands slipped off of her.
“I know, right? What a total raven’s ass. And then our mom left a bit later on, and me and my sister looked after ourselves. Then she went and worked as a seamstress for a while, and I went to study chemistry, and everything was cool, yadda-yadda-yadda, and then I left college and found that no one wanted to hire a chemist, so I got a job at a coffee shop because everyone loves coffee, right? And then, next thing I know, I’m blowing some giant red-eye demon through a wall and being whisked off to this madhouse.”
Frederick’s fingers stumbled yet again at the mention of the red-eye demon.
“You took down a red-eye demon?” he asked in a stunned voice. “By yourself?”
“Oh, yeah,” Abby said, “but I’m sure everyone else around here could too. He wasn’t so tough.”
“I don’t know about that,” Frederick said, and if Abby had been slightly more with the program, she might’ve noticed a definite note of tension in the man’s voice.
Frederick moved on to her legs next. He started at the soles of her feet – a spot in which, luckily, Abby was not ticklish – running his fingers through her toes and rubbing hard at her arches with his thumbs. Abby let out a low, involuntary moan of approval.
From her feet, Frederick’s hands slowly migrated their way north; her ankles, calves and the backs of her knees were each caressed gently and then, in turn, harder as he inched his way upward. With professional firmness and confidence, he oiled the backs of Abby’s thighs and started to rub and squeeze and roll the tight, bruised knots that her hamstrings had become.
As the masseur’s hands crept slowly higher up her thighs, his oiled fingers slipping occasionally up the inside of her legs, Abby found herself falling quickly into a waking dream. In this daydream, it was Drake who was running his fingertips over her oiled, glistening body, his firm, assertive hands that kneaded her tender flesh, moving closer and closer to the hub in her groin from which this dream seemed to emanate. Abby swallowed a couple of times, her breathing becoming more profound, her heart thudding slow and deep in her chest. The natural progression of Drake’s hands would see them sliding unresistingly upward to her crotch – it was the nex
t logical step. Abby readied herself; her mouth open and her body willing for the touch that, no doubt, would light up her senses like a Christmas tree.
“All right,” came an alien voice from a long way off. “Do you want to turn over so that we can start on the front?”
Abby blinked and swallowed. She’d almost been asleep. She’d been inhabiting that silver area where dreams and reality merge and the subconscious runs free. It wasn’t Drake touching her, was it? No, it was Frederick.
Now fully awake, Abby analyzed what had just happened.
Oh my gods, I just had a fantasy about Drake! Gross!
Even to the ears of her subliminal mind, though, she sounded insincere.
“Abby?” Frederick prompted her.
“Uh, yeah, sorry,” she said, her reply coming out gruffly. She cleared her throat. “Sorry, I drifted off there for a second.”
“Not a problem,” Frederick said. “It happens a lot.”
I just bet it does, Abby thought to herself.
“So do you want to turn over so that I can finish you off?”
Abby pulled her mind out of the gutter into which it had all too willingly slid at these seemingly innocent words.
“Sorry. Yeah. Absolutely. Do you mind turning away again, though?”
“Sure thing.”
Frederick turned his back and started reorganizing his oils and towels. Abby rolled onto her back – which was now, miraculously, almost entirely ache-free – and wrestled her unwilling towel into some semblance of decency. It was putting up more of a fight now that it was oiled and she’d been lying on it for about half an hour. In the end, feeling guilty and awkward for having Frederick turn his back for so long, she wrangled it so that it covered her crotch and then lay back and covered her breasts with one arm.
“Um, okay,” she said, making sure that no nipples could be seen, “I’m ready to go, I guess.”
Frederick turned and tried not to smile when he saw how she was laid out.
Caffeinated Magic: Supernatural Barista Academy Page 10
