“What do you suggest?” he asked with all the patience he could muster.
“I don’t know. It’s just not going to work this way.”
“Of course it’ll work.” He huffed in frustration. “Look; this is a meditation. I know you’ve meditated.”
Her eyebrows lifted at that.
He gave a sharp nod, affirming his own new direction. “Kissing as meditation. Let your mind go blank. Any time a thought comes around, you bat it out of the way and ignore it. We’ll get spiritual enlightenment together.”
The corner of her lips twitched into a snicker and he caught it quickly with his own mouth before she could protest again. He began with soft kisses, pilgrim’s kisses, and she relaxed slightly.
Lina was amazed. Swatting away thoughts actually seemed to help. Then he slid both hands around her waist, and the center of her back started to crawl away from his touch. She pushed him away and breathed out the tension there as it rose to the surface. Maybe that was how she could get through this.
“Rebirthing,” she told him as hope dawned. “We need to stop now and then and let me do that.”
He cocked his head at her. “Re-birthing?” The slightest of snorts escaped him. “Do I need to call a midwife? Boil hot water?”
“It’s called that because... oh, you don’t need to know that. It’s just a breathing technique. As things bubble up to the surface, you can breathe them out.”
“Are things bubbling?”
“Yes.” She pushed him farther away. “Just every so often we need to let me get rid of it. Please.”
He watched as she did it, taking about thirty seconds before she relaxed again. This phobia of hers was a royal pain.
“A royal pain,” she agreed out loud. “You don’t know any Tony Robbins techniques, do you?”
“I only go to certified shrinks.”
“Too bad. I’ve seen him get rid of major phobias in minutes. I’ve almost done the same thing with some of my clients.” But it hadn’t worked to do it on herself. Maybe she just hadn’t been properly motivated before.
“Maybe you haven’t had the motivation.” Londo smiled knowingly and moved in for some more kisses. They had to stop after a few minutes for her to rebirth, and then began again. He held her head so she couldn’t squirm away. She made a sound, an oh, and he introduced her to the fine art of french kissing. They had to rebirth almost immediately, and Lon tried hard not to chuckle at his innocent partner. He ran his fingertips up and down her arms as she breathed.
“That’s not helping,” she warned him.
“So rebirth it.” He pulled her to him for another session, and now he allowed a little feeling up, non-major erogenous zones only. He could feel her go rigid whenever he encountered new territory.
“It’s just a little too much,” she whispered. “Please.”
“Live in the present,” he murmured into her ear as he backed off. “Don’t dredge up bad memories. Concentrate on how it feels now.”
“Just on the moment,” she breathed, her eyes half-closed.
“Good,” he said. She relaxed again. Time to move onto new territory. He rested his palm on her shoulder and then eased it down. Bingo.
“Lon.” She squirmed. “Too far.”
“You’re doing great. If it feels good, enjoy it, chérie.” He stroked the covered breast lightly, amazed at the give of it. Her breathing was deep and hard. He could feel her heart under his hand as well as through the pulse point under his mouth at her neck. It sped up—too fast.
“Biofeedback,” he whispered. “You must know that. Match my pulse. Match my breathing.”
“Back— back off, Lon.”
“Biofeedback. You can do it.” He moved back up to her mouth, still holding her breast.
“You promised!”
“Chérie, just give me a chance—”
“Getoffgetoffgetoffgetoff—!”
Londo pushed himself away hurriedly. “Sorry! I’m off, I’m off!” He watched her attempt at rebirth. “What can I do to help?”
She lay there panting, glaring at him. “You can keep your promises,” she finally gasped.
“I didn’t think...” he realized the stupidity of it as he said it, “...that you were serious.”
“I was serious!”
“I’m sorry. I apologize, I really do. It’s just that... women say things they don’t mean. You know. Society forces them.”
The glare darkened. Perhaps it was accompanied by tiny lightnings. Her fists tightened around the grass she’d pulled. “Like society forces men to have no respect for women.”
“I have respect. Great respect for women. Some of my best friends are women.” He frowned at himself. “And I know one woman who’d clobber me if she could for what I just said. She’d love to have me in this position; she’s been threatening me with bodily injury for years. I’m sorry, Lina. I said I’d stop when you asked, and I didn’t. My fault completely. You can hit me if you want.”
He looked like a puppy dog caught with a shoe in his mouth. “I don’t hit people,” Lina finally decided to say. “I’ve only hit one person in my life. This afternoon. I don’t want to do that again.”
“I have no excuse.”
“Well. You’re forgiven, I guess.”
“You’re an angel, love.” His face brightened. Was he a man or a little boy to rebound this quickly? Hope blossomed in his eyes as she watched him. “So tell me, can you do biofeedback?”
“I can do it in my sleep,” she retorted.
“I don’t want you to be asleep when you do it.”
He really thought they were still going to go through with this! The utter confidence of the man! “Londo, in case you haven’t noticed,” she said in exasperation, “this is not going well. And we’re not that far into it.”
“I wouldn’t say that, pantoute.” He lay on his side and looked at her with that sly, crooked smile of his as she adjusted her clothes. “Not at all. This morning, as I recall, you were a 200% virgin. Now we’ve gotten to second base, and you’ve enjoyed it—to a point. I know I certainly have.” He fastened his eyes on hers. “Did you think you could get that far? In less than one day, with a perfect stranger?”
“So you think you’re perfect now?”
“Lina...”
“All right, no I didn’t,” she told him. “But I don’t see how I can go much farther. “
“Come over here, chérie, and I’ll show you.”
She had to chuckle behind her splayed fingers at that. “You are a big ol’ horndog, you know that? One thing on your mind. Must I remind you that there are a couple dozen big, burly men down there a piece on the beach, and they’ve got guns? We’re both filthier than dirt right now. If we must be frank, Lon, you don’t smell so good, and I’m surprised that those guys down there can’t smell me from where they are.”
“Details,” Lon tossed it away. “We can forget it all in the passion of the moment. Come here and give me a kiss, my fragrant little cabbage.”
“Do you act this way when you’re out gallivanting with the ParaNet?”
“They’re not here now,” he said softly as he touched the remaining strap of her gown. “Let’s just loosen this up, shall we? As long as we’re on Tiawa, we can go native.”
She put her hand on his to stop him. “Let’s not.” She craned her neck to make out the mercenaries down the beach. “You’re crazy, you know that? Doing this with them there—on a time schedule yet. You’ve been listening to ‘Sixty Minute Man’ too much: fifteen minutes of this and fifteen minutes of that.
“Look,” her voice took on a desperate edge, “this island has a few villages. Everyone can’t be gone. If we can make it to one, I know that every woman in it would throw herself at you and demand that you take her right then and there.”
His eyes narrowed into triumphant slits as he found it. There, behind the embarrassment: her attraction to him, pulsing to the beat of her heart, after he’d thought that maybe she didn’t feel anything for him
other than a priestly duty. “And why is that?”
She gave him an exasperated look. “Because you’re who you are. Because you’re the handsomest, most heroic man on the planet. And that French accent would drive any sane woman crazy with desire.”
He wrinkled his nose at the compliments, unable to hide his smirk. “Mmm. Except you.”
“I said sane.” She shook her head at him. “Look at me, Lon. I’m a walking basketcase of fears and phobias. I’m terrified of everything.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
She snorted. “That’s because you don’t know me.”
“But I do,” he said in all seriousness. “When you thought you were in danger this morning, you came up with a plan of action and executed it with those god-awful sheets. You protected me against the blast by covering me with yourself. You were afraid of working on my shoulder, but you pulled it off—well, not exactly the shoulder, though you sure as hell tried, but the procedure. We’ve been wandering around all day with terrorists on our heels, and you’ve kept your head and helped out. Lina, six men died at your feet and you stayed fairly calm. I know full-blown paraheroes who would be gibbering idiots by now if they had to go through this. But not you.”
“That’s because I had to do all that.”
“That’s how everyone gets through life. Doing things because they have to get done.”
“You mean, Do It Despite Your Fears.” She made two-finger air quotes.
“What is that, a book?”
“Uh huh. It’s in my room... I mean, it was blown up this morning. I’ve been studying it.”
“So do it despite everything. And have fun while you’re doing it. This is Adventureland, after all.”
“Now I know you’re crazy.”
“My shrinks have been telling me that for years.” Londo checked the position of the moon and sun, and then returned his gaze to Lina. “I can afford the best.”
“I can tell you’ve learned some visualization techniques from them.” Lina blushed.
He grinned at her. “Tsé, I can do it, too. You were an inspiration. It’s an adaptation of some things I’ve had to do.” He raised her chin so she looked into his eyes. “Maybe we’ll just repeat it tonight, eh? The pattern I’m seeing is that you need to get revved up before you relax and let go.”
“Tell me something. Are you ever unsure of anything?”
“Never.” He leaned in for a kiss. She drew back automatically. “C’mon, Lina,” he urged, and she met his lips, but quickly.
“We’re going to have to have another session. You seem to have forgotten how to do it.” His eyes crinkled. It was fun to tease her. “We’ll do that after we get across the bay. It’s been almost an hour; is anything different? Tide’s back in. It’ll be dark in a couple hours.”
Lina checked in her own way as Lon scanned their environs with his para-vision. “The currents seem to have eased, but there’s something else. Something in the air...” Her eyes focused again and she looked around. “Do you smell fresh air... like ozone?”
Lon sniffed. “Ouais, I think there’s a storm over there.” He nodded his head at a cloud wrapped around a mountain down the coast.
Lina smiled slowly. “Maybe that’s it. Come here, little cloud deva,” she said to the air.
Chapter 8
“Cloud deva? What’s that?”
**Can you link with me? Like a conference call.**
**I don’t know. What’s a deva?**
**A spirit or sentient force in charge of something that’s not human, like an animal or a thing or a concept. In this case, a storm. You’ll like storm devas; they’re almost always happy and half-crazy, like a kid on a roller coaster. The worse the storm, the happier they are—except for the really bad storms. Use your imagination: picture a being sitting on top of the cloud there.**
**Just visualize?**
**And listen. It’s like, like a whisper in your mind. You’ll think it’s you thinking to yourself at first, but let it whisper.**
Londo tried it to humor her as a tradeoff for the night ahead. He pictured a genie riding the cloud like a magic carpet, and the picture morphed into that of a rather calm but happy bodiless face, blessing the earth by raining on it.
**Hello,** Lina said to it. It smiled pleasantly at her, recognizing a human who could speak to devas, although it was not incredibly interested in doing so. It wanted to bless the earth instead. **Could you work up a bit of a storm for us here? We really need one.**
The deva sighed benevolently, and there was a feeling, a whisper, that full-blown storms were not what it wanted to do, but that there was a system just upwind that might be interested.
**Thank you,** Lina said and dissolved the connection. “Always be polite to entities,” she told Londo. “It’s always appreciated and it gives you good habits.”
That was a deva? No, that was just Londo’s imagination... wasn’t it? Of course it was. Was he so desperate that he’d see nature spirits? “I’ll keep that in mind. What’s this storm you want?”
Lina gestured at the beach. “If we had a nice downpour, we could go across close in, maybe even at a deep wading depth. You wouldn’t have to swim all the way across. The creeps down there would be taking cover from it. They wouldn’t be looking.”
“That’s an awful lot of if’s,” Londo mused. “So you’re saying you can control the weather now? How about lightning?”
“No, I can’t control the weather. But the devas who make it can sometimes—sometimes—be talked into doing things, as long as it won’t cause any harm that would counter the Universal Will. Humans are pretty powerful beings. We have Free Will, and no one else in the cosmos does. At least that’s what Sue says. Devas are confined by the Universal Will, but sometimes the two go hand-in-hand. Then you can control the weather.”
“Now we’re getting to the and’s and but’s,” Londo said, rubbing his nose. Pretty weird stuff. Maybe... maybe he’d give her the benefit of the doubt. Options were running low. “Where’s this other deva?”
“Let’s see...” Lina’s eyes got dreamy, and Londo almost bent down to kiss her. She refocused. “You’re interfering,” she accused.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just let me get comfortable here.” He settled onto his back, same as her, but he lay his head on her shoulder and placed his hand on her stomach.
“Londo.”
“What?” he asked innocently. He rolled onto his side, keeping his head and hand in place.
“I can’t concentrate.”
“Good.” He snuggled, getting comfortable on her shoulder, and kept his hand quietly where it was. The more points of contact, the better. “How’s that?”
“Move over.”
“Baby, this is as good as I’m going to give you,” he said. “Work with the cards you’re dealt. Now, where’s this other storm? Concentrate on it, not me.”
She huffed at him in frustration, giving him a nice sensation as he watched his shirt rise and fall on her. When her eyes unfocused he tried to tune into her, tried to figure out what she was thinking. He seemed to be resonating to her thoughts now. Surely he could do this.
Lying above the ocean to the west of the island was a mass of clouds like a tightly-packed herd of animals, heavy with rain and off-balance with electrical potential. Londo pictured another genie riding the herd, but the image changed into that of a wild stallion, a frenzied dancer. He tried to force the image back.
**Let your mind picture what it wants to; don’t control it,** Lina instructed him gently. **Imagine what the images are saying. Play with it.**
The images went through all kinds of wild and crazy permutations including a berserk clown, a daredevil motorcycle rider. The clouds bubbled and the bubbles were laughter and the image steadied even as the bubbles bounced along.
A man... Lon thought it was male. Yes. Chubby, dressed in a loose jogging outfit, an iPod clipped to his belt. Balding and happy—joyful with life. Delighted with his situation.
Lon h
ad to smile just to imagine him. The deva that danced on these clouds chortled, letting the clouds roll under him as he somersaulted over them as if they were trampolines strung together for his personal recreation.
**Hello,** Lina said. **Could we ask a big favor, please?**
Lon couldn’t hear until the reply echoed, amplified, through Lina’s mind: **Of course, of course. I’ve seen your request coming for days now, and I’ve been gathering myself.**
**Really?** Lina beamed to Londo: **That’s new.**
**Oh yes, rain is needed, rain is needed. Recycle that atmosphere, stir things up! In the human realm, too, a great stirring begins. I am pleased to be part of it. A nice storm you’ll get. Dancers of lightning! Dancers of rain! A chorus of wind!**
**Then dance and sing!** Lina laughed at the deva’s enthusiasm. **How long from now will you be where we are?**
**Not long, not long.**
Londo got the feeling of a half-hour to the beginning, until they had to take their places for their run.
**Can you spare striking the ocean with the lightning? We don’t want to get hit.**
**Ah, this bay is a lazy bay. It doesn’t want to be awakened. I’ll strike out to sea. And there are some trees who want to go home. I’ll take them.**
**Thank you. Thank you very much!**
**Have fun, Speaker. Don’t forget to dance to life. And you too, other human—the Protector. He learns about us today, no?**
**He learns,** Lina said.
**Good. Teach them all.**
Lina opened her eyes to see Londo raising up on one elbow and blinking. He shook his head incredulously. “I feel I was just talking to Yoda on happy pills,” he said with a wondering half-smile. “I feel... I think...” He looked at her, wanting to say something and not at all sure what. “It was real. It was real?”
She nodded. “It’s a different vibration from what we normally perceive.”
“Do you do this kind of thing all the time?”
“This is after-hours stuff, if I still have any energy left after my regular job.”
“But you could make a living at doing this, couldn’t you?”
Touch of Danger (Three Worlds) Page 12