by Smith, Skye
"I use the trails around U.B.C.. So does my friend. Is there anything we should know?"
"Only that psychos are not uncommon. One in a hundred, mostly male. That means that everyone knows one, whether they recognize it or not. They are usually pretty smart and excellent actors. They role play, and they are good at it. That's why they get away with so much. People believe their lies. You can look up the symptoms on the web. A number of sites show lists of questions to ask yourself about your boss or your boyfriend to measure the likelihood that he is a psycho."
"That doesn't help me recognize one on the trail," Maya observed. She looked around for the waitress. After all, she wasn't paying and she wasn't driving.
"Well," said Emma, "they are truly scary. They feel little empathy or sympathy. They don't feel guilt. They don't fight fair. For instance, they tend to strike first and hard without warning. Normal people don't do that. It means that normal people usually lose against them."
"Oh great. They sound like the vampires on TV shows. Do you guys want any more wine?"
"Yes, one more for me," Emma said. She gestured to the waitstaff for another round. "The man I studied under was an expert who worked for the prison system. After thirty years of working with psychos, his summary was that human kind needs to develop a foolproof test to spot all psychos, and then execute them before they can do any harm. He saw them as the source of most of the evil on the planet,.... yesterday, today, and tomorrow."
"Gee, they sound like, totally opposite to me," Maya observed. "Through my auras I feel other people's feelings. It's like the ultimate empathy, cause, like, I actually feel with them," said Maya, "I only wish that ..."
"Say that again," said Emma. She listened more carefully this time to what Maya was saying. "You may be on to something. I will have to see if anyone else has written anything about empaths being the opposite of psychos." She thought back on the tests she had observed today. "Can you use your aura with your clothes on?"
"No," replied Erik.
"He can't, I can," Maya said.
"And that hand thing, you know with the condom," said Emma. "Was that part of the test?" She watched Erik blush again, and she had to giggle.
"No, and you weren't supposed to peek," Erik spoke first. "The auras stimulate the senses, especially the sense of touch in the skin, thus the sexuality. The sexuality quickly overwhelms all the other feelings, so we sort of have no choice but to neutralize it."
"Then why her hand and not yours?"
"Because," Erik started, and then stopped in thought. "Because she can focus her aura with her hand. Maya, how can we test the strength of the aura coming from your hand?"
"You two can figure that out later. While we are all together, let me explain a problem that I have," said Emma. "The serial killer task force has me interview, or sit in on interviews, of suspects. They hope that I can pick up something from the suspects that will turn into a hard lead. I've given them nothing so far. The problem is that if the suspect is truly a psycho, then he is too smart to be caught out in word games.
I am desperate. It just came to me that maybe Maya should sit in with me on some of the interviews, but instead of joining the word games, just sit there and feel her aura. Obviously she has to be decently clothed, and there can be no hocus pocus. What do you think. Any chance of it working?"
"I'd like to help, really I would," replied Maya, "but I have only been practicing and exercising my aura for two weeks. I have only just learned how to adjust the power and a tiny bit of focus. It's not a crowd thing. It is very personal, person to person. I mean, like, how many people are in these interviews?"
"Will you try?"
Maya looked at Erik. He shrugged. "Will she be in any danger?"
"Much less for her than for me, because there will be no need to introduce my assistant. The suspects are all told my name. It always worries me that possible psychos know my name, but that is a cost of being in the business."
* * *
Maya hated the task force's rented building as soon as she entered. It was a place filled with sorrow. Families and friends describing their lost ones. Women sobbing. Men looking angry. The interview room wasn't anything like on the TV cop shows. It was just a sparsely furnished office. No one way mirrors. No bright lights.
Maya knew it was impossible right from the start, but she stayed by Emma's side just so she could spend more time with her. Every moment she was here she felt as if she were withdrawing into herself. Once in the interview room she gave up. Besides the suspect there was also his lawyer and two detectives. Her aura could not distinguish between them. It was something she would have to practice. She shrugged and sat there patiently until the end, pretending to make notes, like a good assistant should.
There were short breaks between interviews. She pulled at the dowdy dark brown wool skirt that had cost her five dollars at a Kitsilano thrift store. She wore a black cotton blouse from the same shop, which had the advantage of a wide lapel, and therefore she could show a lot of her chest. The skirt itched and she tried to stop scratching at it. It was the best of a poor selection only because it had a tailored pleat at the back that swished as she walked.
She became sleepy in the close, airless room and she kept throwing her head to move her long blonde hair, and each time she would yet again realize that she had it braided and pulled up in a bun, to make her look more studious.
After the final interview, Emma looked at her hopefully, and Maya shrugged and repeat yet again, "It's all a jumble because there are so many men in the room."
"That's okay. I got nowhere with my questions, either. You can see how frustrating it is."
"Can we get out of here now?" Maya asked. "This is a place of so much sadness that I am really bummed out."
"Of course. Just wait for me outside. I have to file my report. It won't take long. I mean, I have nothing to say. Then what? Can I treat you to a late lunch, or do you want to go home. Did you park at the University?"
"I think I want to go straight home. I don't need to sit in any more crowded rooms. I bussed to U.B.C.. I live in Kits, if that is okay."
They were still talking as they hit the hallway, Emma to go one way, Maya the other. Maya was putting on her jacket and walking backwards still listening to Emma. She really liked Emma. She backed onto a foot and stumbled and would have gone down with a thump if a big hand hadn’t grabbed hers to steady her.
"Sorry, I was just leaving," she said to a man large enough to be one of the detectives, and she used his hand to pull herself back up. She suddenly felt strange, very strange, like a black shadow had moved over her eyes, and there was a smell of black. She let go of the man's hand with another mumbled thanks and stood back while the big man's group went by and into the interview room. The big man did not go in.
She leaned against the wall of the hallway and caught her breath and got her eyes back working again. It had all been quite surreal and upsetting. She made a decision and turned a one-eighty and hurried after Emma. She found her typing into a computer terminal behind the reception desk. She shook her shoulder.
"See behind me? Don't look," she murmured, "see the big man outside the interview room? Is he a detective?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Cause if he isn't a detective, you need to interview him."
Emma stopped typing and jumped up to go talk to the uniformed officer at reception. They looked through the sign-in sheet, and at the interview room schedule. The officer used the phone and a detective came out of one of the back rooms and spoke to Emma.
Maya was bored. She minimized the window showing Emma's report and looked on the computer for a game of FreeCell. Playing FreeCell always calmed her nerves. Sometimes she even won. That is how Emma found her ten minutes later. Maya was feeling much better, and sat and waited in silence while Emma finished her report.
They didn't speak of the big man again until they were sitting in Emma's black Jetta. "He is a person of no interest to the task force, or at least he w
as of no interest until I asked the detective to check him out. He had given a ride to one of the women supplying information about some street walkers who had disappeared. She was probably also a street walker. They have his name, so they are starting a background check."
"He smelled funny," Maya said.
"Well, that makes sense. The first run on the name showed him as a farmer. He owns a farm south of here."
"When I touched him everything went black. Even his smell was black."
Emma laughed lightly. "And what does black smell like?"
"Like, um, like, like burnt toast. You know, like really black charred toast."
"Toast, not farm animals, or dung?"
"It was charred toast, and it wasn't my nose that was smelling it, it was my brain. I grabbed his hand when I tripped. Afterwards I couldn't warm up. I felt, like, really weird."
"Well I'm glad I didn't let the detective speak to you. He would have laughed me off the task force. I just told him that he fit the profile I was working on, and someone should speak with him. They will. They are grasping at any straw."
* * * * *
* * * * *
MAYA'S AURA - the Awakening by Skye Smith
Chapter 7 - Three years earlier in Kitsilano, Vancouver
Emma swung her Jetta into the short driveway. From the road, the narrow lot was all driveway and garage. She was impressed, and intrigued, wondering how the slender, just-past-teenaged blonde and the thirtysomething Viking were connected. She hated to sound as if she were fishing for facts from the younger woman, but was dying to know "Do you live here, um, with your parents?"
"It's Erik's house," Maya replied, not quite innocently.
"You mean besides being yummy and smart, Erik comes with a house like this? If I didn't like you so much I'd have to call you 'Bitch'."
"We are just friends," Maya mumbled, flushing a little. "We met earlier this summer on Wreck Beach."
"Wreck Beach? That's the nude beach that U.B.C. is always trying to shut down."
"You've never been?"
"Umm, med school and the rubber chicken circuit sort of knocked the stuffing out of my figure. I don't tend to take my clothes off around other people," Emma said.
"It's clothing optional. Ask any of the Middle Eastern men that sit on logs ogling tits."
"Umm, is anyone home?"
"Shouldn't be. Do you want to see inside? It's not very big but it feels big because every room has a view that goes on forever."
"I'd love to, but if I come in, could you show me something else? Could you show me what an aura feels like?"
"No problem. I guess I should have expected that. Of course you would want to know what you were marketing to the police. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that."
* * *
Emma was quietly pleased at the upstairs when she saw that Maya had her own room. "This is a wonderful layout. This open room between the two bedrooms gives privacy to both."
"Well, Erik had it filled with guy gym stuff and computers, but I pushed it all out of the way so we could use it more like a yoga studio. Auras are more like Yoga than pumping iron."
"I used to do Yoga," said Emma. "I suppose every woman my age says that. It's one of those things that go with a certain age and stage. Y'know, like claiming to be a vegetarian, but still indulging occasionally in that great root-crop, chicken." She was babbling, feeling somewhat uncomfortable as she tried not to stare at Maya, who was nonchalantly shucking her clothes. This young girl sure had the clothing optional thing down pat. She suddenly thought, 'Oh, what the hell,' and started slowly unbuttoning her own blouse.
"You don't need to be nude if you are embarrassed,' said Maya. "Panties and bra is good."
"I am a doctor, you know. I am not embarrassed by nudity." In fact, she was getting a bit of a thrill removing the formal, office-style shirt she had put on only this morning. She'd had no idea, getting dressed, that later in the day she would be stripping down with an audience. And in such a decadent-feeling house. She enjoyed the business of each button, and then sliding the shirt from her shoulders. What a difference a day could make in your life.
"So, like, you are one of those new age nude doctors," Maya mocked. "Your male patients must come to you with every sore throat." The woman was too serious to enjoy the mocking, although she did seem to be taking a sensuous pleasure in sliding down the back zipper of her skirt, and wriggling out of it. "If you want to be nude, it's okay. Just sit in a Yoga pose and meditate for a while. Once your mind is quiet, I will walk around you and try to touch you with my aura."
Emma decided to be courageous, and went for the nude option. There was a bit of a mental struggle with the bra and panties, but once they had joined her other clothes on a chair, she suddenly felt free, and couldn't wait to get started.
For a while nothing happened. Then Emma felt it. It was like the lightest of warm breezes against her skin, but it went deeper than the skin. "Oh my. That is quite delicious. So subtle. No wonder you asked me to meditate first." She fell silent so she could concentrate on the feeling again. Speaking had made her lose it. It became an internal struggle. She wanted to talk about it so much, but she did not want to lose the feeling.
"You are feeling mine. That is a good thing," said Maya, "Erik's theory is that every child is born with the ability to feel auras, but loses it by the time they start school. He says that mine is the strongest aura he has ever felt. If that is true then you may be able to feel mine, but you may not be able to feel Erik's."
"Feel his what?" Emma said, coming into the present again. "Umm, never mind. Do I have an aura?"
"I don't feel one, but I may have to get very close. Perhaps even skin close. Do you mind?" Maya knelt behind her and pushed her belly and breasts against Emma's back. She reached around with her arms and smoothed her hands up between Emma’s breasts. Emma started to moan. It was very much a sexual moan.
"It's very weak," Maya whispered into her ear. "Think more horny thoughts. Maybe that will give me more to work with. Playing with yourself may help." She closed her eyes and tried not to concentrate, but just let her mind flow. Emma was rocking gently back against her. There it was. She withdrew her arms slowly, and then gently backed away until their skins weren't touching.
She stilled her mind and let her core reach out for her. Her heart was thumping, her blood pressure rising, her temperature rising. All she could see was white and then yellow and then a brassy gold. She lost time, but with each pulse of her heart, she sensed more of Emma's aura.
She came back into reality because of a thump and a moan. She opened her eyes, which stopped the gold light, and then she focused them. Emma was no longer sitting high, but was slumped forward with her big behind stuck up in the air. Quite rude-looking, actually. Maya made the mental observation that Emma wasn't a real blonde.
She stood and went to get the woman a bottle of water. Emma didn't move. She could see a slow pulse in her neck, so she just covered her nakedness with a light blanket, put a pillow and the water bottle beside her head and then tiptoed downstairs.
Twenty minutes later, she tiptoed back upstairs to check on Emma. She hadn't moved.
"Don't bother tiptoeing," came a muffled voice. "I can feel you."
"Are you okay?"
"No, I'm not bloody okay," Emma said pushing herself up off the yoga mat. "I just came face to face with the fact that I have just spent ten years of my life going deeper and deeper into debt, so I can have a career that I already detest."
"Well, at least you have a career. Every other girl I worked with in the coffee shop, had, like, a bachelor's degree and were going nowhere fast, and could barely keep up their rent, never mind, like, their student loans."
"Erik generates auras like you do, right? Can he make me feel this good?"
"You'll have to ask him, or try him. I can't say. He always complains that my power swamps his. I felt yours, but I am not sure it was not created by me. It was brassy gold and smelled of warm honey."
> Emma glanced out the windows at the sparkles on the sea and sighed. "Take me to Wreck Beach. Look outside. Hot sun and no wind. Take me to Wreck Beach now. Fuck work. I have to think."
"It's a quick walk from your office at U.B.C.. Why don't you have a shower while I pack us some food and beer. Any preferences?"
"Surprise me," Emma said, prancing towards Maya's bathroom while looking down at how swollen her nipples were, and thinking of how horny she felt.
* * *
It was a typical mid-week sunny day at Wreck Beach. The area where the trail came down to the beach was filled with people who had never been there before, or who were too timid to walk further. They were mostly clothed or in bathing suits. Then came the area where logs had been dragged into squares to serve as wind and privacy breaks. That was where the rounders hung out. The dope and beer sales people and the aging hippies with immaculate tans on wrinkled skin.
Maya put her blanket down on the slope facing west to the sea and the afternoon sun. She pulled it up against a drift log that was halfway between the doper and gay colonies. She always chose a place with many couples for security reasons. She often speculated that some of these men paid the women to come here with them so that they can sit surrounded by other nude women. She didn't care. She sort of liked being stared at now that she knew the scene.
Emma settled beside her. She was feeling the walk down the steep trail and did not want to think about the return trip up. She kneeled up and looked carefully at all the faces around them. There was no one that she knew from her professional life, so she lay down and wriggled out of her clothes. With one final move, she pulled off her panties. There, done.
"Hey sweet cheeks, ya want a beer today," said a voice from a body that was blocking the sun. Emma tried to cover up, but it was hopeless and she didn't want to look foolish. She settled for closing her eyes and appearing nonchalant. Like she came here all the time. Like she could get away with that, with her untanned skin and all. For the second time that day she decided, 'Oh, what the hell.' Besides, the man was looking at and talking to Maya.