An Angel's Touch Page 4

  I kissed her mouth, letting my tongue linger there. Then I nipped her lip and whispered, “It will dry soon. Then, you can don your sweater.”

  Her voice quivered, “She’s dangerous, isn’t she?”

  I drew my face back to examine her inquisitive azure eyes. “Not very,” I answered. Lies to her were coming easier and easier. To hell with truth. The truth was fucking me up anyway.

  In my mind, I heard Aruka’s voice, Kill her. I felt the urge. My heart thundered.

  Jen jumped back.

  “What?” I asked, wondering what she’d sensed.

  “Your eyes flickered like a predator ready to leap on its prey.”

  I handed her the jar. Though I was concerned, I said casually, “Smear some on me, the way I did you.”

  Her eyes flared. “Why johnny? Why do you need this?”

  “Just do it, Jen!” So, I was irritable. So, I was nervous about mother. So fucking what.

  She took the jar hesitantly. “Do you want to hurt me, johnny?”

  “Of course not,” I said, even though the urge was real.

  She looked demurely to her feet. She’d felt my urge.

  I placed my finger under her chin and lifted her face to look at mine. “I will not harm you. I certainly have proven that to you by now.”

  Then, I pulled my black, sleeveless sweatshirt up over my head and dropped it to the ground. I glanced at the jar, signaling her to do as I bade.

  She winced while encircling me, spreading the bright red paste around my ribcage. She glanced at me periodically as if I might excuse her from the task. Blood freaked her. Too bad. I fantasized a day when she might drink mine for pleasure. So much from her I wanted. So much I couldn’t get. A first for me. I loved the frustration.

  She finished and handed me the jar. I made it disappear. She stared at my empty hands. She continually seemed surprised when I used magic, no matter how often she witnessed it.

  She swallowed hard, and seemed to have trouble inhaling. When she finally did, she exhaled again on a quivering breath.

  I touched her shoulder. “Relax.”

  “She must be very dangerous, johnny. I’ve never seen you do this to yourself before.”

  “I’ve never tangled with my mother before.”

  “Your mother! That woman was your mother?” She grabbed my wrist. “johnny, you are shaking. You are frightened! I’ve never seen you like this. You never get frightened, but you are. I can feel it.”

  I guess I was. Damn. Fear. Another new emotion. I rather liked it. It made my adrenaline rush in a wonderfully sick way. I smiled faintly with a faraway look, imagining ways to intensify my fear.

  She shook her head, backing up, her palms facing me as if to ward me away. “I can’t take this, johnny. People don’t smile when they are afraid.”

  “I’m not a person—not really.”

  “This is sick. You are sick.”

  Her shock aroused me. I approached her with twinkling eyes. “It’s a new experience, Jen. I crave new experience.”

  She held her hands against my chest, trying to push me back. “But that look on your face—you are delighted that your mom could kill us!”

  “She probably won’t.”

  “Probably! Probably!” Her back rendezvoused with the thick hide of the tent.

  My own fear exhilarated me . . . aroused me, even more than she did, but not by much. “Fear is a gift to an insatiate creature like me. Let’s celebrate.”

  I pressed my palms forcefully against her cheeks and invaded her mouth with my tongue.

  She fought against me, until I sent my heart energy into her and whispered, “I love you.”

  Then she melted in my arms. I knew she didn’t want to. I knew she hated herself for it. I was bad enough not to care.

  She murmured, “I wish I didn’t love you, johnny.”

  I brushed my fingers through her hair. “But you do. Another reason to celebrate.”

  I kissed her more gently, putting my lust into my love and my love into her. She let my fire rise in her, for she had none of her own. Channeling, Shens were good at that. She became the sexual aggressor. Shens love . . . love. And I was beginning to love it too.

  Chapter Three

  We lay naked on the guanaco fur blanket after our lovemaking. Jen’s weight on top of me brought comfort. Her cheek on my chest wet my skin with her cool sweat. Tazmarks don’t sweat, but if I could, I would have drenched her. She rubbed the side of her foot on my shin with an affection that stirred me. Feeling only the pressure and not the tickle humans speak of, saddened me some.

  Our tent slowly filled with natural light, the smell of burning wood, bread cakes, and roasted potatoes. The villagers had awakened: clanging pots, beating drums, and singing tribal songs, “Pom pum pum mari mari,” to inspire them in their morning ritual.

  Jen stroked my arm. “I like these people.” She twirled strands of my long hair around her fingers. “It’s a shame we have to leave after only one day.”

  I glided my hands along her ribcage to her waist. “You like the sense of unity they give you. It rings of the Angel world.”

  She kissed the hollow of my neck. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “What’s wrong is that these Alacalufes are not civilized—or Christianized, despite the modern Catholic world that surrounds them. They do not believe in benevolent gods. The Alacalufes will go to any extreme to please the demons who they believe control their lives. The Chilean Government and the religious establishment are currently breathing down their necks to become civilized. The Alacalufes are planning a rebellion. It is best we don’t stay long.”

  She lifted her resplendent face. “I could teach them about peace. I could—”

  “No Jen,” I rolled us over smoothly, landing Jen on her back. Staring at her face, I said, “Leave them alone.” With a hand on each side of her head, I pushed myself up and slid back on my knees at her feet.

  She sat up, curling her legs to one side daintily. “I want to care for them.”

  I said, “To them, you would be no different than the missionaries who attempt to coerce them out of their ways, an act deserving death.”

  She cocked her head, sitting there all naked and beautiful. She was always less modest after we’d made love. My talisman hung between her bare breasts. I loved seeing it there. The LSD paste, though a bit smeared, was still intact and would protect her as long as she wore it. Her head was cocked with mouth ajar, innocent about how to fight me on this.

  Finally, she said, “It can’t be that bad.”

  “It is.”

  She sighed, shifting her cocked head side to side, fixed on finding a solution to violence. She possessed true beauty, not the kind I make males lust after in men’s magazines. Her beauty was natural: of spirit—of woman, more breathtaking to me than those in the pornography I propagated to answer man’s call for dark power and woman’s call for suffering. Both sides fed me well.

  Jen finally found her words, “But they are your people! You have Alacalufe blood. This binds you to them, johnny. They are your family.”

  Responsibility. She should know better than to try that tack with me. I’m extremely irresponsible. “They are not my family. I feel no allegiance.” Maybe the fear tack would work better. “Besides . . . mother is here.”

  “Maybe we can turn her . . . maybe.”

  Converting. A Shen’s pride and joy, hands down.

  “Jen,” I took her hands in mine and rose, bringing her up with me, “you don’t know what you are saying.”

  I stared at the injured expression on her face. She invariably seemed a child to me despite the fact that she made love like a wild woman and made life like a mother’s lullaby. I said, “You are so naive.”

  She broke away from me, then kneeled to her underwear on the fur blanket. “I think that if we love others, they will change.” She looked up at me. “You did.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but I loved you first.”

  “Still,” she g
rabbed her panties, “it affected you in a good way.”

  “That’s debatable,” I retorted, reaching for my black jeans.

  She knew what I meant, so she did not rebut, not wanting to argue about her inability to love me unconditionally, or the frustration I had endured to love her. So she silently slipped on her white lace panties and bra, while I slipped on my jeans.

  As she donned her white turtleneck sweater, and I my sleeveless sweatshirt, I thought about the babies, how she didn’t know they were in her. It was an underhanded thing I did. This conscience stuff was rough. I was beginning to understand the affliction of guilt that humans so often suffered. Another new emotion, but a young one, neither old enough, nor strong enough to induce a change of tack.

  The tent flap rustled. Jen looked and jumped when a bestial nose poked through. “johnny, what is it!”

  “It’s a guanaco, the beast whose hair you’ve slept upon.”

  Its head poked in, flaring nostrils, and batting big brown eyes.

  “It looks like a camel.”

  “It is like a camel.”

  “He’s so cute!” She approached the beast with her blue jeans in hand.

  The guanaco stepped in with its two front legs.

  She took a step back and laughed a little. “Why is it doing this?”

  “I think he wants you.”

  “Why?”

  “Ask him.”

  “johnny, don’t tease.”

  “Get into his mind.”

  She looked at me and cocked her head. “You’re serious.”

  “You talk to flowers, Jen, why not animals?”

  “Oh, I talk to flowers, but they don’t talk back.”

  “Still—give it a try.” I knew she didn’t talk to animals because they were bestial, and the beasts of the world unsettled her. And I knew she talked to flowers because they bespoke her essence and they posed no threat. But hell, she fell for my logic games all the time.

  “All right then.” She stared into the guanaco’s great, big eyes. “Hello there, guanaco.”

  The guanaco snorted.

  She shook her head. “I see a woman’s face, that woman, your mother.”

  “Stop Jen.” I stepped toward her and yanked her back. “She’s accessing you through the guanaco.”

  People’s voices shouted on the other side of the tent. The guanaco stood firm against whoever was trying to pull it out. A stocky woman in a blue woolen tunic and guanaco hide skirt, barged into the tent, went to guanaco’s chest, and pushed. Her guanaco hide boots pressed firmly into the ground to give her thrust, but the guanaco wasn’t budging.

  Jen moved bashfully behind me and pulled on her jeans.

  The guanaco pointed its snout down and spit slime on the woman’s head. She shrieked. Her face crinkled in a sour expression as she wiped the saliva off her forehead. The goo dribbled down the bun of her black hair.

  Jen peaked around my shoulder, her hands on my back. “Oh geez johnny, what happened?”

  “The guanaco doesn’t want to leave.”

  The guanaco neighed like a horse, and lunged forward nearly trampling the woman.

  Jen gasped, “johnny, do something!”

  With my mind, I forced the guanaco to back out of the tent. The woman followed, apologizing to us in Alacalufe. Using mind magic, I doused the guanaco in black light so that mother could no longer make it do her bidding.

  When I turned back to face Jen, she was staring at me intently. She said, “I think you fear your mother simply because she’s your mother. Surely she wouldn’t harm her son. I think this guanaco thing is her attempt to meet me, and I want to meet her.”

  “She’s no Donna Reed.”

  “I know,” she said with a lilt of excitement, “but I bet I could befriend her.” She headed over to the guanaco blanket, sat down with her back to me, then ruffled through her pink, grey, and blue floral cloth bag that looked like something out of Mary Poppins.

  “You cannot befriend her.”

  She pulled out white fuzzy socks from her bag. “I bet I can.”

  I gathered my boots and joined her on the blanket, sitting shoulder to shoulder. “Tazmarks don’t bond. You know that. Well,” I glanced at her, “not generally.”

  She slipped on her white socks and reached for a white boot. “She’s related to you.” Pulling the boot over her foot, she said, “She must care, a little.”

  “No,” I said, “she doesn’t care at all.”

  I manifested black socks on my feet, for Jen. Though I didn’t need them, as I didn’t sweat or feel comforted by them, this small act seemingly made her feel better.

  She slipped on her other boot, not looking convinced.

  I pulled on my boots, pondering how to persuade her.

  She scooted around in front of me, sitting on her knees, hands in lap like a good little girl. “I think your mother does care.”

  Resting my elbows on my upward bent knees, I said, “Do you remember hearing about the earthquake of 1929 when the San Francisco Bridge collapsed?”

  “Yes,” she said, kind of edgy.

  “Mother,” I said.

  Her face froze.

  “You know the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Pompeii?”

  “Yes,” she said, even more edgy.

  “Mother.”

  Her jaw dropped.

  “Do you know who catalyzed the creation of the h-bomb?”

  Her hand flew to her heart. “Your mother?”

  I nodded.

  “The hydrogen bomb? johnny, do Tazmarks tamper with humanity to that extent?”

  I took a slow deep breath, wondering how much I should tell her. “They can.”

  She shook her head lightly, her passive eyes pronouncing me not guilty. But I was guilty.

  She said, “Then she’s far worse than you.” She touched my forearm lightly. “Right, johnny?”

  I cocked my head a little, peering at her, wanting to tell her the truth about me. I wanted to tell her that while mother fed a human the formula for the hydrogen bomb, I, in the twentieth century alone, orchestrated the Russian Revolution of 1905, and the Chinese Revolution of 1912. I wanted to tell her that I’d devised World War I and ll, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and lack of peace in the Middle East. I wanted to tell her that I was responsible for drug wars, gang wars, and corporate wars—for addiction, affliction, insanity, and profanity.

  Her hand drew back from my forearm. She hugged her stomach. “johnny, right?”

  Hoping to assuage her doubts, I held my hands out for her to take them.

  She did, lightly, still waiting for an answer.

  I tightened my grip with warmth and love.

  She reciprocated, still uneasy.

  And so there our hands were, in a secure embrace. I only wished we could be. I wanted to speak, but I just peered at her wordlessly tumbling into all I wanted to tell her, but could not. I wanted to reveal my exploits, and hear that she loved me anyway. However, I knew she wouldn’t. Shen or not, Tazmarks are not creatures to be loved. We weren’t bad really. Destruction was our nature. And we only answered, ‘the call.’ There were no accidents—ever. People just received what they asked for: suffering, escape from life, revenge, excitement, blood, death. Were we so bad for delivering the goods?

  She was barely breathing. “Right, johnny?” she asked again, needing verbal affirmation.

  “Right,” I replied, lying once more. I rose, drawing her hands up with me. “Let’s go.”

  Standing in front of me, she said hesitantly, “All right, then.”

  I swept her up in my arms in the romantic fashion she so loved.

  “Wait,” she said, “aren’t we going to the airport?”

  “No. I don’t want to grant mother a chance to crash the plane.”

  “She wouldn’t!”

  “You don’t know mother.”

  “But my travel bag . . . ”

  “I will teleport it, don’t worry.”

  “But aren’t we going to say
goodbye?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s impolite to leave without doing so. The Alacalufes were kind enough to give us a tent.”

  “I gave them a hypnotic suggestion to give us a tent.”

  “But—”

  “Jen, I don’t care what they think about us.”

  “But we have to return that knife.”

  “The one who I took it from has an arsenal of knives, and more weapons than you’d care to know about.”

  “But—”

  “Let it go, Jen.” Sometimes, the very sweetness I loved about her, aggravated me. I ignored her protest and flew us into the sixth realm. With arms squeezed tightly around my neck, her eyes were scrunched shut, avoiding the sight of my sixth realm face, not wanting to see me any other way than what she would term, the johnny she knew.

  We flew through blinks of light across the meridians of sixth realm time for about eleven minutes and landed in a lavishly decorated hotel suite in Paris.

  I lowered Jen to her feet. Her white boots sank into the plush gold carpet. Her floral cloth travel bag appeared next to her. She seemed transfixed with the carpet. I wanted to laugh. She’d been such a hermit; the smallest thing was novel to her.

  She moved her feet up and down, testing the sensation. “I’ve never known a carpet so spongy and rich.”

  “There is much you’ve never seen.”

  Her head turned slowly, surveying the expansive living room: black love sofa, lined with gold embroidery, set off with black and gold pillows; a shiny, rectangular, black oak wood table and four black wood chairs with gold seats. Through an open archway, the lavish bedroom highlighted an ornately carved black wood, four-poster, king-size bed, so high, it companioned a three step stool. The shimmering gold comforter and black, gold-ribbed, satin pillows appeared stunning against the pale yellow wallpaper embossed with black velvet paisley.

  “Oh my,” she sighed.

  “You’ve never experienced a place like this?”

  “No, johnny. Never.”

  “I thought not.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Le Grande Mansion, in Paris.” I took her hand and led her to the bay window, edged with shimmering gold drapes, symmetrically tied to create dozens of arches. She looked down two stories at the streets crowded with well-dressed people, streets vendors, and ornate statues of famous humans.