Something didn't seem to fit. The shocked-at-nothing, pagan Jillian of the Halloween party, the straight-laced Jillian who seemed almost Victorian in her ethics, and the Jillian who studied herbs and discussed poetry with friends on Monday nights .... How did they all fit together? And how did he get pulled into her orbit? And why had he let this go on?
Before his mind could do more than revel in the absurdity of his situation, the doorbell rang and he was enslaved to the mundane: greeting E.J., taking his jacket, offering him a drink.
In a few minutes the house was full and John was dutifully playing host while Jillian finished a business call from the other room. Anne's friend Joan joined the normal crowd. An occasional participant, she was lured back when she heard they were doing Tolkien. And then Sean arrived.
"You didn't know?" he said, seeing the surprise on John's face. "I've been a regular with this group for years."
And, indeed, a moment later he was chatting freely with the other guests like old friends.
John wanted to ask Jillian what was up, but she came out of the kitchen and greeted Sean with a kiss. "Hello, my love," she said.
John wasn't sure, but it seemed that the corner of her eye twinkled in John's direction, as if she desperately wanted to see his confusion.
After that, the rest of the night was a bit of a blur. John felt like a bone that had been tossed aside. Jillian sat with Sean on the couch, hand in hand, and everyone else seemed to accept this -- as if it had always been this way, and always would be. John was the stranger. A fierce jealousy welled up in him. Part of his mind tried to replay all the events since his first meeting with Jillian, trying to make sense of it all. But the active part of his consciousness tried to keep a hold -- however small -- on this group, and on Jillian.
He realized this was supposed to be his swan's song. Jillian and Sean were trying to embarrass him. He was supposed to leave with his tail between his legs, defeated. But John had two minds now, and while one was brooding and thinking about his behavior in the club, the other was interpreting, connecting the dots and forming a plan. And so everyone was surprised -- even John -- when he invited them all to his house for the next week's meeting. They all agreed, and no one even tried to suppress their surprise.
Gathering as much dignity as he could muster, he chatted briefly with Ed while waiting for an opportunity to catch Jillian alone. He quickly excused himself, grabbed Jillian gently by the elbow and tried to kiss her goodbye as if everything was normal. She pulled away.
On the drive home things started to fall into place. He began to piece together the clues that his subconscious mind had been analyzing. And then suddenly he realized that he had a hidden resource. His dreams.
* * *
"Hi Doug," John said across the office kitchen as the two of them prepared their morning cups.
Doug turned and looked at him for a moment.
"I'm sorry, man," Doug said.
"Sorry?" John asked, trying to be cheerful.
"I can hear it in your voice," Doug said, "and I can see it in the way you're standing. You've learned it the hard way, but ... at least you've learned it."
John wanted to pretend ignorance. He wanted to make a snide, rude comment. He wanted to defend his dignity. But he wasn't up to it. Not today.
"Yeah," was all he managed.
"Hey," Doug said, "I have something for you. I just finished a book I think you'd like. It's called The Rational Male. I'll drop it by your office later."
John simply nodded and headed back to his office.
* * *
Jillian didn't call the entire week, and neither did John. He spent some of this time at the library, and hours upon hours on the Internet, working the problem. His agnostic, logical, scientific mind screamed revolt and rebellion, but something drove him on. His dreams had become more and more lucid, and while he couldn't explain how he could know such things, a pattern was forming, and his strategy emerged ever more clearly every night.
Every morning he experimented with a new mixture, and every night he reviewed what he had learned and tested his plans.
If his mind had been clear for even an instant he would have realized that his former self had died. He was a different man. He no longer doubted that tarot cards could read the unknown, or that hidden messages might lie beneath the vague images of a dream. He began to record his dreams and analyze them, after a fashion, and he began to trust his intuition.
When his mind tempted him to stray back to his former way of thinking, he saw it all in a new light, and he began to create a synthesis. He saw his old mind as a cold, hard, and thoroughly inadequate way to view the world. But he tried to keep the best of it.
He didn't believe in spirits or fate or God. But he knew that his worldview needed to adapt to his new-found intuitive approach.
Logic has its place, but only in the service of the whole man. And that was the mantra of his new consciousness. He was a whole man now. Ready to love and be loved, and feel the pain and anguish of the lover's heart. The senses he had suppressed for so many years were bursting forth in their own Spring, in mockery of the season. His mind was drunk with a new sense of insight into his surrounding. And all of it was focused on one event. A trap carefully laid.
* * *
When Monday evening finally came he stopped and marveled at the work he had done. He couldn't even recount what he had learned in a week's time, but he knew that it was there at the ready. He was eager, like a runner spoiling for the gun to start the race. Long passages seemed to come to his mind at the slightest bidding of his conscious thought. Complicated arguments he'd toiled over in the night now rolled off his tongue like a familiar address. But most important of all, the mixture was ready. He opened the glass jar and smelled the rich aroma. This would be a night to remember.
Late Saturday night he had realized a flaw in his plan. He had no way to be sure Jillian would come. If he was right, and she intended to leave him completely, mightn't she avoid this particular evening?
So he sent her an email.
Jillian,
I'm so glad I'll be seeing you on Monday. I just got back from the doctor, and there's something we ought to discuss. Privately, if you know what I mean.
Love,
John
* * *
A predictable tension hovered over the meeting. The conversations were uninspired, and brief, and despite good food and plenty of wine, things wrapped up early.
Once everyone had cleared out, John, Sean and Jillian were alone around the dining room table, sipping a final cup of coffee. Jillian and Sean looked very nervous.
"So what did you want to talk about?" Jillian asked.
John nodded, preparing his mind for the carefully rehearsed script.
"I liked your coffee so much, I decided to experiment with a few ideas myself. But after drinking several different concoctions, I thought I'd better ask the doctor if I was doing myself any harm with the ingredients."
As John expected, Sean and Jillian seemed to relax at the news. Only that? he imagined them thinking.
"He told me that I was okay, being a man. You see, I really enjoyed the flavor of several ingredients -- chicory and blue cohosh make a very interesting combination -- and they have no effect at all on men, but they can cause spontaneous abortion in women."
Jillian and Sean went as white as a sheet, and Jillian put her hand on her stomach.
"I know all about your scheme. I know that you needed a father for the child, and I know that you trusted the cards to pick the right man. But even though Sean believes in the Goddess, he couldn't help checking on my medical records. You wanted good genes, after all. So he hacked into Dr. Jacobs' system.
"I know you desperately want to keep this child, and I know what part I played. But I won't be used, ..." he continued, but Jillian cut him off.
"What right do you have to poison me?" Her voice was venomous and her eyes blazed. Sean set a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. "How dare you ..."<
br />
"Decide whether or not you'll have my child?" John interrupted. "Oh, but weren't you doing exactly that to me? Isn't turn about fair play? Or, as the Wiccans like to say, don't curses come back to roost fourfold?"
John let them stew in their fear for a minute, but that was all he needed.
"Relax," he said. "There was nothing dangerous in the coffee. And that's all the revenge I'll take on you, Jillian," he said, looking directly at her.
"You're another matter," he said, turning to Sean.
"Officer, you can come in now," John said in a loud voice. Then turning to Sean, "hacking into a doctor's computer is illegal, and we have all the evidence we need to put you behind bars for several years."
A uniformed police officer opened one of the back doors in John's apartment and joined them in the kitchen.
"Sean Kerrigan," the officer said, "you're under arrest for hacking into the computers of the Laurel Medical Center."
Sean looked at John with a hard expression on his face.
"I can understand you being mad at me," he said. "But are you going to deprive this baby of a father?"
John laughed, and shook his head in disbelief.
"Are you really so morally blind that you see it that way? Go ahead, officer," he said, turning to the cop. "Please get this trash out of my apartment."
The officer cuffed Sean and read him his rights, then took him outside. All the while Jillian sat still, staring into her lap, seemingly in shock.
John simply waited, relishing his triumph.
"John," she eventually said, looking up with tears in her eyes, "I never meant for you to fall in love with me. I had hoped this could just be .... Well, I hoped it would be pleasant for you, and no harm done. But things didn't work out the way we expected. I'm very sorry. But this child .... He's done nothing wrong. "
John stared at her coldly.
"You don't know what you've done, " she continued. "My house ... it belongs to Sean, and I can't afford the payments. If he's in jail, I'll lose it."
"Don't dare plead for mercy with me," John said with contempt. "I've already shown you more mercy than you deserve. If I felt any personal responsibility towards this child then even now, after everything you've done, I would offer to marry you and raise the kid. But all you wanted was my sperm, so you took it in the middle of the night while I was drunk. I was thinking of pressing charges against you for rape. I've talked to an attorney, and I have a pretty good case. It's for the sake of the child that I'm not. That's more mercy than you deserve. Get out."
"Sean drove me here," she said, defeated. "I don't have the keys."
"Call a cab. But get out of my house."
* * *
Two months later John and Doug were having lunch downtown, comparing notes.
"You did the right thing," Doug said as John explained the whole situation with Jillian and Sean. "She used you, and she deserved what she got."
"Yeah, well, as my friend Al likes to tell me, I have a mean streak," John said, "and I've made sure things don't go too badly for them. I've helped them find a good lawyer, and I think Sean will end up paying a fine and not going to jail. I wanted them to suffer -- I really did -- and maybe to see how immoral they were being, but after I thought about it for a while … I don't want that kid to grow up poor, with no dad. Sean was a jerk to me, but he's not that bad of a guy."
Doug shook his head. "It's your call, man. But now all that's in the past, and you've learned your lessons. What did you think of that book I loaned you?"
"In a word, amazing," John said. "It took me a while for the concepts to sink in, but in the last month I've had more dates than I've had since college. I'm never going to be the cold player you are, Doug, but I've learned my lessons about women."
"No more witches?" Doug said with a laugh.
John shook his head no and nodded towards the bar. An attractive blonde looked lonely.
* * *
You won't find it easy now, it's only fair.
He was willing to give to you, you didn't care.
You're waiting for more but you've already had your share.
The witch's promise is turning, so don't you wait up
for him, he's going to be late.
- The Witch’s Promise, by Jethro Tull
THE END
If you enjoyed this book ... please give it a positive review on Amazon.com, Goodreads, Facebook, or wherever strikes your fancy, and please recommend it to (or purchase it as a gift for) family and friends.
About the Author
Greg Krehbiel is a happily married father of five wonderful children. He's had a distinguished career in professional publishing, including lengthy gigs in editorial, product development, IT and tech development, marketing, and audio and web conferencing. He has a degree in Geology and studied theology as preparation for ministry -- then thought better of it. He's a home brewer (beer, wine and mead), an occasional jogger, an avid writer, and enjoys camping and fishing.
Other Books by Greg Krehbiel
Patriarch - Sam is a patriarchal kind of guy caught in a matriarchal society. In this dystopian vision of the future, men can't go to college, work white collar jobs, or even own books. They do all the hard and dangerous work that keeps the economy moving, while a select few of the most gifted women rule society and lead ostentatious lives of privilege. Other women are left to breed. Sam isn't the kind of guy to take this lying down.
The Hidden Village - Geof Franklin falls into a strange reality of guilds and clans who live their lives half in the real world and half in the virtual world of Hidden Village – an exciting new online game. The action starts when Geof gets the late-night phone call every parent dreads and discovers that his son has been missing for weeks. As he relentlessly searches for his only son, he gets pulled into the orbit of the cult-like sub-culture of Hidden Village and discovers that the clans live by their own rules and think nothing of killing anyone who stands in their way.
The Underground Escape – The hi-tech gamer clan has become the mortal enemy of the elf clan, and the first elf war begins in The Underground Escape -- the exciting sequel to The Hidden Village. Geof Franklin and Jennifer King have become entangled in clan business and find themselves right in the middle of a deadly conflict. Loyalties are tested and alliances are formed as other clans take sides
The Intruder - Jeremy Mitchell is a refugee from a separatist, anti-technology community who is a fish out of water in the high-tech society of the 21st century. He recklessly plunges himself into his new environment and finds himself caught in a confusing web of technology and intrigue. Powerful forces try to make him a pawn in a contest between rival intelligence organizations, but he doesn't play along with their game and makes his own rules. His loyalties are tested by a budding love affair with a young college student, who, along with her computer geek girlfriend, are unintentionally pulled into the conflict.
The Inner Voice - Al knows exactly what Johnson is up to, and he isn't going to allow him to get away with it any longer. This human cancer has to be stopped before he ruins even more lives. Justice has to be done. But Al has to move carefully. Purchases for the job need to be discreet, and untraceable. He needs to learn how to make his own weapons that will leave no evidence at the scene of the crime. All the while, the tech guys at the office are watching, ... and Al wonders if he'll ever resolve his inner turmoil.
Escape to Mars - Billy Chen and Amber Harris are two 10-year olds who, along with their parents, steal a ride on a next-gen space shuttle to avoid the imp ending destruction of Earth. Billy's father, a particle physicist, believes he has accidentally created a black hole. To save humanity, a team of six adults and two children are rushed off to Mars to start a new colony. This story is exciting and fun -- and age-appropriate for young kids!
About Crowhill Publishing
"Krehbiel" is a German name that roughly translates to English as "Crow Hill." Crowhill Publishing is the imprint for all of Greg Krehbiel's books. Find out more at http:
//crowhill.net, or visit on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/crowhillpublishing.
Table of Contents
Crowhill PublishingLaurel, Maryland
An it harm none, do what you will. - The Wiccan Rede
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
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