Paranormally Yours: A Boxed Set

by Alisha Basso

  He worked a hand between us and pressed a finger into the seam of my pants.

  I fractured, splintered, and blew apart. The tattered bits of me disintegrated, poof. What was left was whole and new, and very, very relaxed.

  Yeah. That was the orgasm.

  As I floated peacefully, a happiness bloomed in my heart, and something more. Something warm and tender, like love… my mind kerchunked back into my skull and I ducked out of the cage of his body and ran to the other side of the room.

  Sex, at least with Rafe, was not just sex. It was not “just” anything.

  Damn it, I was not falling in love with a jinni. That was the karmic equivalent of plate tectonics, of the Pacific plate grinding against the North American plate and leveling California. Major destruction.

  Plate tectonics also raised the Rockies. Rafe turned fluidly to face me, hands framing his hips. The fire in his eyes had gentled again to something almost human, perhaps a twinkle of amusement. Major construction balancing the destruction. The perfect balance, in fact.

  “Who taught you to debate?” He was dangerous and not just on a cosmic scale. “No, no, no. No more orgasms.”

  Why not? One black brow raised, and he sauntered closer.

  “You know why. Sex can bond. I am not bonding with you. Stop right there.”

  He stopped, three steps away. His head tilted, braid cascading to one side. Would bonding be so bad?

  I opened my mouth to reply—and stopped. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he sounded…wistful.

  We were three steps apart, so I considered it. Would it be so bad? Me and him on a bed, a string of orgasms saving the world…tying my heart to him, my guardian angel…so what if he was a passionless jinni who could never love me in return? Love didn’t have to be mutual to be a wonderful thing. The old adage is, if you love a thing, set it free. Choosing to love is part of what makes it good. As long as it was my choice, one-sided love was okay, right?

  I took a step toward him.

  In fact, choice was connected with love. Being human meant loving with free will. Connected at their root. Monstrosity was connected to fear and slavery—fear, not hate, was love’s true opposite.

  I took another step toward him.

  One step separated us. As long as it was my choice…a true choice…but sex, all about feel-good hormones was a chemical trick. Not a true choice at all.

  He smiled at me, encouraging me to take that last step.

  My heart, without consulting me at all, smiled back.

  Tricked by sex, just like my screaming parents. Fuck. Even if it was only for a moment, I had to get out of there. I turned and fled.

  ** Rafe **

  Rafe called after Amaia, but he didn’t really expect her to stop. She wasn’t running from the sex, or even from him.

  She was running from herself.

  He let her go, for her peace of mind, and because it gave him distance as well. This being incarnate with her…it was more difficult than he’d thought.

  For the first time in eons, he wanted, desperately. He wanted Amaia with everything that he was. Her orgasm sparkling under his fingers had only made him want her more.

  Is that why you took a physical body? Jibril walked into his mental landscape. Just to have great sex?

  Rafe sighed. Jibril’s timing was…special. “You know it’s not.”

  Well then. Much as you want to wallow in your physical needs, you have work to do.

  “I do, hmm?”

  Yes. Go see if the Venus magic has healed humanity. It will tell you how many more orgasms are necessary.

  “Must you always be right?” Rafe understood now what Amaia meant when she’d said it was annoying. When Jibril started to answer, he raised a mental palm. “I’m doing it.”

  He snapped the bonds of his physical form, his body dispersing as his essence soared, taking the power required by feeding on the massive black hole that sustained him. In this state the earth was a dimple in space-time, its living creatures smaller than a dot.

  What do you see?

  “Not much. I’ll have to get closer. You know, when I was a young jinni I could see each individual person as a tiny point of color. It was a rainbow.” Red were those in physical health, orange had sufficient shelter and safety. Yellow were emotionally healthy, green a healthy society, and blue was intellectual health. Gold was spiritual strength, the last step before ascending to jinn. “Now all I see is a fuzzy blend.”

  Your eyes must be going, Jibril said. It happens with old age.

  “Ha, ha.” Rafe zoomed in on Earth’s dimple, afraid he’d see the sick white it had been before Amaia had called him. Physical sickness showed dirty white, societal illness was muddy brown, and gray was death.

  To his surprise, humanity’s wash had brightened to a warm red. “Good news. They’ve lifted a level. How far do you think we need to go?”

  Green should do it. A cohesive society can withstand global fear.

  “Green it is.” Rafe was pleased. Amaia would be happy it would only take another three orgasms.

  Thinking of Amaia made him seek her amid the ruddy blur. He picked her out instantly, her bright gold strand clear and lovely.

  Apparently your eyes are improving, if you can pick her out.

  “She’s attractive to me. She stands out.”

  Just a glittery gem, hmm? Of course. That’s all there is to it. No personal interest on your part at all. Certainly not.

  “Aren’t demi-deities supposed to be elevated beyond sarcasm?”

  Me? The cosmos twinkled with something suspiciously like a laugh.

  “Fine. You’re right. She’s funny and smart and genuine, and makes me happy.”

  The twinkle mellowed. She sounds very human.

  “Yes.” Rafe stared at her vibrant string on the ethereal, yearning to touch her, longing to be with her physically. “You know, I was aware of her from the moment of her birth. But I stayed away.”

  Impeding a child’s development is incredibly bad karma. You did the right thing.

  “Until her parents died. Then I had to take a direct hand. Or I thought I did.” Rafe remembered Amaia at eighteen, depressed and alone. The dark sorrow and confusion of the teenage girl who’d just lost her parents pulled at him, drawing him from his contemplation of the wide cosmos to focus on the single, simple act of caring for her.

  You did the right thing then, too.

  “But I still don’t understand it. She couldn’t have stopped the car accident. Why does she feel guilty?”

  She thought if only she were stronger, better, she could have saved them. Jibril shook his head. Reminds me of another young wizard, before he became jinn.

  “Me?” Rafe frowned. “My father didn’t die, and I certainly didn’t try to save him.”

  Really? You never thought that if only you were stronger, better, he wouldn’t have forgotten you? My mistake.

  “Not the same thing.” Rafe’s anger warmed on Amaia’s behalf. “She couldn’t have done anything to save her parents. And she…” Half-remembered shame rose, but he bulled on. “She didn’t go into a fit of rage as a result.”

  No, she spiraled down into melancholia.

  “You make it sound like a simple case of the blues. It was suicidal depression.” Rafe’s jaw hardened, remembering. That was the first time he’d spent life force directly on her, to make the daffodils bloom early through the snow. A simple bit of sunshine in the darkness of her life. Something stupidly bright, insanely optimistic in the dark, cold world, to help her to live another day.

  Your love saved her that day.

  “She saved herself.”

  She’d started college and recovered her joy in life over the next four years. He was fascinated by her resiliency. When she’d turned bright gold on the ethereal, it seemed as if he could stare at nothing else.

  At which time you searched for her on the material plane.

  Rafe’s attention jerked back to Jibril. “How did you know that?
Nobody knows that.”

  Um, yes. Well. Jibril’s tone tinkled with something that almost sounded like embarrassment. I’m a bit omniscient now.

  “Wonderful. I don’t suppose, with all your cosmic knowledge, you know why?” Rafe had walked as a man, scouring the continents, searching for her. Even as he did, he wondered at it, wondered what pushed him to endure blisters and headaches and pangs of physical hunger just to find her.

  Rafe, please. I don’t read minds unless invited. There was a hint of reproach in Jibril’s tone. Besides, why you did it doesn’t matter. It was good for you. Your millennia wore on you, to the point that I thought you’d give up and free your life force into the cosmos. She made you rediscover the wonder of living.

  “And that’s not mind-reading?” Rafe laughed, ruefully. “Yes, I searched for her. It’s how I know that what I did for her wasn’t real love.”

  How do you mean?

  “Real love smacked me in the face when I saw her in the midst of her friends. Her human friends made her truly happy.”

  You made her happy.

  “Just that one time. I pushed stupid yellow flowers through the snow for her, once. Seeing her with her friends…damn it Jibril, human love is a constant that never gets lost in contemplating the stars. Never makes promises it can’t keep simply because it no longer cares.”

  I’m sorry. The cosmos enfolded Rafe with gentle empathy. Damn your father for hurting you like this.

  Rafe grit his teeth. Of course Jibril knew what underlay it all. “Damn him and all jinn, including me, for losing track of what’s really important.”

  Is that why you left her?

  “And why I cut my physical connection to her. Then this crisis came, but when I returned to her, I thought I knew the score. I didn’t love her, I wasn’t human enough to love her. But Jibril, being with her, physically, touching her…”

  There’s more to love, isn’t there? Something beyond the love of friends.

  “I don’t know,” Rafe said honestly. “But I do know that she’s more. With her, I want more. I want it all. Minds, bodies, hearts.” He paused. “But she’s dying. I won’t have her much longer.”

  Are you sure? Look at her.

  Rafe blinked. Amaia’s life’s strand burned so bright on the astral plane that it almost blinded him.

  Jibril said, The fire in her heart means she’s close to subliming. She’ll be a ruby jinni, drawing her life force from the living weight of a red giant star.

  Rafe shook his head. The possibility that she’d be with him, for the rest of his life…it was too alluring. “She’s close, but not close enough. She has six months at most. That’s not enough time to ascend.”

  Unless, through the power of a single selfless act…no, you’re probably right. Probably not.

  Rafe was astonished how sad he felt. He shook himself. He was jinn, she was human. He wanted to love her as she deserved but couldn’t. Nothing had changed.

  Rafe, look, Jibril said. What’s that?

  A writhing lump tunneled through the glowing patch of humanity. It was the same corrupt slithering Rafe had seen through Amaia’s eyes. He growled. “The enemy.”

  Another individual you can see?

  “No. I see only his path of disturbance. But I know about him, from Amaia. I saw this enemy through her eyes, as a silver needle and rough twine.”

  What do you see now?

  Rafe narrowed his gaze, concentrating. “I’m not sure. A malevolent hump burrowing through humanity. Making it sick and slimy. Wait. It’s…it’s sprouting. Oh, that’s disgusting.”

  Weedy tendrils shot out, crawling over the rosy wash of humans like a swarm of centipede legs, spreading sick, corrosive fear. Rafe’s stomach curdled. A single sucker shoot curled sinuously around a swatch of humanity—and tightened suddenly, choking vibrant threads into dead gray veins.

  Rafe felt a rare surge of anger, at the wanton killing and that the health gained by Amaia’s pure, joyous pleasure was being corrupted. He raised a mental heel to squash the disgusting thing, collateral damage forgotten and karmic consequences be damned.

  Rafe, wait!

  A rotten tendril wrapped sinuously around Amaia’s golden length.

  Rafe jerked away.

  More tendrils shot out, an explosion of worms, covering humanity until it was a writhing bilious brown.

  In an instant, Earth was sicker than before.

  “Damn it.” He clenched mental teeth. “That worm is more powerful than we’d guessed. I should have stomped him when I could. If it’s too late—”

  Rafe, no. Humanity is ill, but green health is still within reach of Venus magic—if you charge her pleasure with your own.

  The thought of sharing pleasure with Amaia, of having sex with her, took Rafe’s breath away. Yearning and desire collided in him like thunder. He spiraled down immediately into the material world, condensing, drawing his body from the air around him.

  He formed in the lotus position.

  With a raging hard-on.

  * * *

  I fled the room. Rafe called after me, but I mentally shouted something about needing proof that his way would work, and he let me go. I ran downstairs. Within a flight I was starting to pant, but I kept going.

  In my cube, I fell gasping into my chair. My spreadsheet was still up on my computer screen. With nothing better to do until I stopped wheezing like a punctured accordion, I punched the calculations update.

  To my surprise there was a decrease in the panic factor and an upswing of hope. A real measurable change had taken place in the half hour since I’d run the numbers last. Since my orgasm.

  Wow. Six months of Serenity chanted by a whole team of wizards equaled one jinni-induced climax. Maybe I should go back and let Rafe give me another handful. My breathing evened out as I calmed. What was I doing here? Why had I run? Yes, that orgasm had been shocking. Yes, the reality of Rafe was scary. No, I didn’t want to fall in love with a powerful inhuman being and regret it for the rest of my life.

  But I only had five months or so for regret. Rafe was right, I was dying anyway, and I did want my death to have meaning. Save the world? Huge meaning. Mind-blowing pleasure? Added bonus.

  Okay. Gonna do this. Have sex, avert doom, save the world. Sounded like a tag line for a television series.

  I pushed myself to my feet, still wheezing a bit, to head upstairs.

  And bounced off an incoming tied-off shirt.

  “Master, you’re back! I’m so happy to see you.” Francie’s smile hit me like a truck—shining teeth and twin dimples blinding me until it was too late and I fluttered broken-winged on her grill.

  “Francie, not master—”

  “I’m still hoping for that action, Master. What’re we doing?”

  “Not…wait, we?”

  “You and me and Dennis. He wants in on the action too.”

  I still had Rafe and Venus climaxes on the brain. With “Action” and “you and me and Dennis” rolled in, it threw up a big-screen mental image of me and Rafe on a bed, Francie popping over the footboard to cheer “Action!” and Dennis shouting, “Just like your parents!”

  Ye gods. If I lived past tonight I was scrubbing my brain with bleach and a toilet brush.

  “We’re, um, splitting our forces for now. That will be more efficient. I’m going to, um, and you’re, well, not.” I tried to sidle past her.

  “Let me in on the plan,” she pleaded. “I know about the public fear. I can help.”

  That stopped me. Did she know about my efforts to stop the Mayan Doom? “How can you help?”

  “I’m a top level adept.” She pulled her clicky pen. “That’s as good as a wizard, right?”

  “As good, but not as powerful.” Lack of oxygen from my jinni-O had made turkey meat out of my brain. I had to get back to Rafe. “I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll see you Monday.” I turned resolutely and marched off.

  “Wait!” She darted between me and the exit, blocking my escape. “Please, Master.
I want action.”

  One big disadvantage to dying of lung cancer is not having the breath to outrun the competition. I was going to have to try to outwit her instead.

  Maybe I could stun her with government speak. “Francie, I understand you want to help, but in the cost-benefit analysis we must consider the implications of hierarchy. True, deploying lower pay gradations allows reduced capitalization, but the efficacy of utilizing top echelon personnel, with their greater clarity, more than makes up for it.”

  She scowled at me. “In English?”

  Damn, she saw through it. Score one for the adept. “Just because you’ve learned the theory doesn’t mean you’ve got the focus to be effective.” I tapped my taijitu tattoo.

  “Oh. I’ve got a flower. Wanna see?” She started untying her shirt.

  “No! I mean…aw heck.” It was Francie two and Amaia nothing, and if I didn’t come up with something quick I’d be mentoring her in a subject far too private for comfort. “Okay, action! You saw my spreadsheet, right? I’m sure you know what that plunging line means. I want you to analyze it and come up with three counter spells to reverse the trend.” I grabbed her shoulders, shoved her toward my desk. “Write them up in standard quote format, including all supply and production costs. Forms are in the documents subdirectory of the internal wiki. Have them on my desk by Monday morning.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  I pivoted and scooted. One thing depression taught me—if you’re fighting a losing battle, it’s better to run away than plunge screaming into the depths of despair.

  “Isn’t it more important,” she called after me, “to find out who’s stoking fear of the Mayan Doom?”

  A hammer to the back of the skull couldn’t have dropped me quicker. I turned. “How—?”

  “Your spreadsheet, remember?” She dimpled slyly at me. “I already analyzed it. I ran it backward in time. Didn’t you ever think to do that? The fear’s been building slowly for a year. A whole year. Without you ‘top echelon personnel’ catching on.”

  Damn, that was smart.