by Smith, Skye
"No, mostly just shy, just watching the parade of life hoping to meet Mr. Right."
"Do you want me to stir things up?"
"You mean more than you already have?"
"I could turn my aura on full and walk along them like I do at Wreck Beach."
"You wouldn't," Erik said chuckling. "That sort of feels wrong. Like abuse of power."
"So you think that I should only bring out my aura for serious occasions. I do it at the beach to troll for other aura generators. You did that for ten years. Wait. You mean you never did it in this club?"
"Well, I did, but that was different. Mine is weak. It doesn't have the same effect."
"It does if you make skin contact. And you would come here without Karl. Are you telling me everything? Are you telling me that you didn't use it to cruise? Face it, men are much easier to turn on than women. Like much easier. For straight men, an arched back and a bit of cleavage is enough."
Erik was giving her the silent treatment.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." She lifted herself up again and kissed him. He didn't kiss back. "Okay then, be a stiff. Take me home."
"That would probably be best,"
"Right then," she said. She wanted to scream. She was having so much fun and now he was behaving like a, like a, an engineer. "Oh, my bra, I'll be right back." She walked away from him and into the club.
It took him a minute more of being hurt and stubborn to come to his senses. She had just walked back into a room with four hundred horny men, alone. Worse, he knew what she would do to spite him once she had retrieved her bra. He started to run.
* * *
Maya walked very close along the row of men leaning against the bar, all the way to the end where the bra drawer was. Hers was still on top. There was no sense in putting it back on. The Malay princesses had come back to that corner and had taken it over again. She had decided to be good. Honestly she had, but when she went to say goodbye to the princesses they snubbed her.
Snubbed her like the cheerleaders used to snub her in high school. Snubbed her like all popular girls do to less popular girls. There is a part of the brain especially reserved to make rejection hurt and keep hurting. When the princesses snubbed her, all the hurt of all prior rejections swept through her brain, her soul, her heart. It was a hurt for which there is no defense.
Fine, she thought, be princesses. I can play that game. She did an oriental style bow to them with her hands clasped. Her aura had been on edge all night because of the crowds, now it was free. She felt it growing inside her, and she kept her eyes closed until her mind was filled with white light. Then she opened her eyes, and stepped closer to the Mayan princesses.
She gave them air kisses on each cheek, and then did the same to their dancing partners. She stepped over to the bar and asked the bartender for the last of her drink and she emptied it in one continuous swallow, before she turned to watch the princesses and their partners. They were dancing again, but this time was different. They needed to get a room.
That was when Erik grabbed her by the arm and spun her around. "Don't do this Maya," he said. He was inches from her. He, better than anyone else in this club, could feel the full power of her aura. "Please, I apologize. I overeacted because you discovered one of my dirty little secrets. Please, grab your elbows, and let's pick up our date again and have fun." He looked down. "Quickly, before I embarrass myself."
She grabbed her elbows and closed her eyes and calmed herself. While she calmed herself she wondered if her aura was stronger when she was angry. It certainly seemed to grow more quickly when she was angry. Was it just anger, or was it any emotion? Something else to explore.
Whatever it was, she wouldn't ask Erik about it tonight. She didn't want him to spend the rest of tonight developing tests. She just wanted him.
There was an old saying in Albion about the Saturday community dance. When the women left, don't stick around unless you want to fight. It was even true at this big city gay night club. When the women in expensive gowns began to leave, Maya dragged Erik back to the car. She drove. She had been drinking water for the last two hours.
The only thing that she had ever learned from the drunks that her mom seemed to attract was how not to be a drunk. That meant knowing how alcohol hit her system. She was a lightweight. She had learned to drink fast early and then switch to water. She was at her drunkest an hour after she had switched to water, and the drunken euphoria lasted about an hour after that. In the morning she was fine, because the last thing she drank was water.
The trick, of course, was in switching to the water once you were flying. In Albion she had used the ten o'clock rule because parties started early and finished early. Absolutely no booze after ten. In Frisco and Vancouver she had switched to an eleven o'clock rule on weekends, because the parties started later and finished later.
She had to put Erik to bed, for a second night in a row. Not his bed. That was fully occupied. Her bed. This time, however, she showered with him, and stood by and made sure he drank two glasses of water before turning in. She wanted him up and ready when she took him in the morning.
* * *
* * *
MAYA'S AURA - the Refining by Skye Smith
Chapter 5 - Three years earlier in Kitsilano, Vancouver
She couldn't get a break. Erik woke at six in the morning needing to pee. When he came back to bed he shook her awake. "It's Sunday. Tai Chi starts at seven in the park. You promised you would go."
"No," she moaned. "Next Sunday. Oh, cuddle me some more, I'm cold."
"Up" he said. "Say, this two glasses of water thing really works. I feel great. No hangover, but my throat is still sore from trying to speak over the music."
She dragged him down to her and began caressing him and kissing him. He relented. It felt so good. But then she rolled out from under him, and called out "gotta pee" as she raced for the bathroom.
He never let her back into bed. He had to carry her downstairs for coffee while repeating "you promised" about a dozen times. The smell of the coffee made it all real. She had just a half hour left to get there.
"What should I wear?"
"Sweats," he said. He had decided to go for a run and then meet her at the park.
"I don't have any."
"Well something warm. It's chilly out there this early."
The best she could do was some winter tights and a wool sweater that she never wore because she had washed it and drip dried it on a coat hanger so that it wouldn't shrink. Instead it stretched a good six inches in length. She wrapped a belt around her waist and looked like one of Robin Hood's men. The sweater created a short straight hemline about three inches beneath her bum.
"Not bad," Erik said, "the tunic look. It's catching on at U.B.C. you know. It means the girls can keep warm and still look feminine. Come on. I'll walk with you and start my run from there.
Mister Li was not impressed by her fashion sense. "How you going to have bare feet in that? Look around. See what others wear. Why you not?"
She looked around. Everyone was in judo gear, and Chinese slippers. "Sorry," she apologized, " I didn't know. I will buy some and come back next Sunday."
Mister Li looked at her and shook his head. "You go to my shop. Ask my granddaughter loan you. Her name Joy." He watched her start walking across the grass, and he yelled, "Run, quick quick!" Then he went back to the warm-up stretches with the rest of the class. He looked at the old man in the front row who had been coming for years. "Young people have no respect." The man nodded and smiled.
Maya came trotting back in a judo outfit that was almost too small but would do for today. The lesson was already going, and she stood at the back and tried to copy the smooth flowing motions of the others. Mrs. Li left the front row and came to tutor her.
It was like ballet in slow motion. She could see why so many that took Yoga also took Tai Chi. It was like Yoga in motion. It was not her motion that Mrs. Li kept correcting but her style. It was ver
y stylized. The rest of the class continued onto harder and longer sequences of movements, but Mrs. Li kept her practicing the basic moves.
When the class was over, she walked to the shop to change clothes, and Mrs. Li walked with her, or rather floated, because even though Mrs. Li's feet were touching the ground her upper body seemed to float along effortlessly. She reached for her sweater bundle but Mrs. Li kept her moving through the back door and out into their strange garden.
There for an hour she learned a different kind of Tai Chi. This was a sequence of moves to defend against attacks using balance and subtlety. Deflecting not blocking. Dodging and retreating. After each defensive sequence there was the opportunity to attack with one or two hands.
She then spent fifteen minutes at the giant punching bag where Mrs. Li tried to teach her how to concentrate physical force in front of her hand without exaggerated movements and without her main balance being committed to the movement. Maya didn't quite get it but she tried her best, and the old woman seemed to be satisfied that she was trying.
"You do this" Mrs. Li said putting her hands in prayer position.
Maya did as she was asked, thinking it must be the ceremonial end to the practice. Just in case, she closed her eyes to monitor her aura. After a few minutes she felt Mrs. Li grab her right hand away from her left. She left her peaceful white tranquility and opened her eyes at once. Mrs. Li was moving her hand towards her wrinkled neck. She tried to pull it back but it was no use because Mrs. Li just stepped forward into it.
"No, you mustn't, not on the neck," she pleaded. She watched as the old woman touched it to her neck quickly and lightly at first, but then held it on. Maya was finally able to snatch her hand back and stepped forward to catch the old woman. She lowered her to the ground and a wave of panic swept through her heart.
She could do nothing to help with her hands still so dangerous, so she held her elbows, closed her eyes and forced, yes forced, her aura to sleep. When she opened her hands the old woman was standing again and looking at her.
"Not hurt," said the old woman. "White power. Monk's power. Rub out evil. Not hurt good. Make better."
Maya was still trying to focus her eyes and she looked up to focus on distance. A curtain was swept closed in an upstairs window. Someone had been watching them. The old lady turned and stared up at the window.
"Come, you come," she said and grabbed Maya's hand and pulled her back into the shop, but this time she pulled her up the stairs. It was a very strange building with many narrow steps and ancient wooden doors blocking her view on each landing. The old woman pulled her into a room that must have been the room with the window.
There was a woman there, middle-aged and Chinese, wearing a flannel nightie and a hat and lying propped up with pillows on the bed. The bed had been shifted to a strange angle so that she could lie in any midday sun and watch out of the window.
The old woman grabbed both of Maya's hands and put them together as in prayer. She then pointed to the woman in the bed. "Use white power, monk's power."
"You are the girl they have been telling me about," said the middle-aged woman in perfect English. "I am Lin, her daughter, mother of Joy downstairs. My mother wants you to use your hands to heal me. She doesn't understand but she has hope."
"I am Maya. I'm not a doctor. How sick are you? Do you want me to call a doctor?"
Mrs. Li rattled off something in Cantonese and the woman answered her, and then scolded her.
"I have leukemia. I have seen many doctors. They gave me chemotherapy, and it went into remission, but now it is back." She reached up and removed her hat and threw it on a chair. She was bald. "I couldn't face the chemo again, not even if they found me a donor. I would rather watch my daughter play in the playground and cherish that time together, than be sickened and depressed by the medicine and die anyway."
"What is it that your mother expects of me?"
The two women spoke. "She says I have blackness inside me. She wants you to use your whiteness to get rid of the blackness. She is from the old country. She has many strange beliefs."
"Not so strange," whispered Maya. "I have a white aura that lives in me. I am just learning about it. I can give you like, an aura massage. Do you think that would help?"
"It can't hurt."
"Oh, but it can. Sometimes the aura streaks out of my control. Last month it stopped a man's heart. We must be careful, go slowly. You are weak. Do you still want me to try?"
"It can't hurt. What my mother believes is that the white will rub out the black, but it can't rub out what is not black."
"Well, I don't know how she would know that. I don't know that and I like, live with the aura."
"Please do something, or else my mother will become angry."
"The aura is strongest if we are both naked, but your mother must not leave the room. If I go too deeply into the trance, she must touch me to waken me, and if that doesn't work then she must lift my hands away from you. Tell her that."
After listening, the old woman closed and locked the door.
Maya took off her Judo gear while the old woman helped her daughter out of her nightie. The woman was ghastly pale, but not as thin as she had expected. "Ask your mother if she thinks it would be better for you to be on your back or belly."
She clasped her hands in prayer while they spoke to each other. She could not gauge the power because it had already been wakened, so she changed position and grasped her elbows and then began again. As soon as she sensed the floral scent she separated her hands.
"She says on my belly. You are to start with my spine." With help from the old woman she turned over.
Maya let her aura wash over the woman and she tried to find out if the woman had an aura herself. She hoped she did. She knew instinctively that if she could strengthen this woman’s aura then she would strengthen the woman. She tried and tried but she could not find one.
Her own aura was continuing to grow in strength. She opened her eyes and moved both of her hands very slowly along the woman's spine. She could sense blackness and gray and an odor of dirt, but it was not an aura. It was something else. She pulled back and sat quietly.
"That felt nice," said the woman. "Perhaps gentle is best. If I asked you to come back tomorrow, would you?"
"Of course. This is the closest shop to my house. I am not a stranger. Tell your mother that I am going to meditate and use the white light. She must watch the clock and tap my shoulder after a minute. Are you ready? "
She closed her eyes and concentrated on whiteness. She pushed all else from her mind except whiteness until it dazzled her. She opened her eyes but did not need to focus to move her hands to the places where she had felt black and gray. She did not touch with her hands, but they almost touched. There was a tap on her shoulder and she pulled back.
There was a knock on the door and a girl's voice. "Mister Erik is looking for her." Maya got up, put just the judo jacket on and went downstairs to talk to him. "I can't explain now. I will come straight home after I am finished here."
He looked suspiciously at the little that she was wearing, but this was a family home, so he sighed and walked out of the shop. Maya went back upstairs. She tried to find the black and gray again. They were still there but seemed slightly lighter colored, or was she just seeing what she hoped to see. She meditated and used the white light again, and again, and again, a minute at a time.
"No more," she finally said, not because she couldn't go on, but because she feared the weakness of the woman. "Tomorrow I will come back and try again."
"Thank you for trying," Lin said, as her mother fussed to get her covered and warm again. She watched the lithe blonde with the allover tan unroll the bundle of clothes with the misshapen sweater as she got ready to dress. She snapped some words at her mother, and they argued, but eventually her mother stood on a chair to reach for a box from the top of the wardrobe and then hand it to her daughter.
"With my thanks," Lin said as she offered the box to Maya
and watched the nude girl open it.
Maya held up the snow-white Judo coat, and there were matching pants underneath it. Well, at least it was like a Judo coat, but of much finer material.
"It is of linen and silk," Lin explained, lying back on her pillows. "My parents had great hopes for me when I was younger."
The mother reached into the box and snatched away something that was not white as she snapped some words at her daughter.
"She says you must earn the belt. It cannot be given. Before you dress, could you please touch me again? Touch me on the head where my hair should be. If only my hair would grow back, I would regain some dignity."
Maya moved closer to the woman and pulled her face in between her breasts and closed her eyes and thought good thoughts about her, and then without touching her mottled bald head she stroked the hair that should be there.
She woke when Mrs. Li tapped her on the shoulder. Lin was asleep, and Mrs. Li gently lowered her head to the pillows. Maya stepped away from the bed and wanted to cry, but she sniffed and held the tears back. She dressed in her new clothes, and Mrs. Li pulled something from a drawer and wrapped it around her to serve as a belt. It was a long white silk prayer scarf.
Maya bundled her other clothes together and left the two women upstairs. She passed through the shop. Joy was, as usual, doing her homework and watching the cash drawer. Two girls no older than Joy were buying red licorice and paying her. They ran away to play.
Joy looked up and saw her dressed in her mother's fine clothes. She jumped off her stool, and after marking her place in her school book, pulled something down from shelf behind her. She stood in Maya's way and gave it to her. Maya was hoping for licorice, because all she had on her stomach was coffee and it was now almost noon. It was a prayer scarf. Joy looked at her with tears welling in the corner of her eyes, and knelt in front of her.
Maya draped the scarf over her neck and said what she felt in her heart. "May all of your tears be tears of happiness," and then she ran out of the store. She had to get away. Away from Joy, before her own tears became unstoppable.