Chapter 15

We crossed onto the school boundary without incident and I went to my homeroom, with a few minutes to spare, so I read messages.

Danni -

Hi, Ash! I get out today at 1500. Come play with me tonight? <3 <3 DGlassshe

>Hi, Danni!

I’m delighted to say there is nothing on my schedule past yoga ... except you. 1800, your place? <3 <3 -Achille

Erik Fong:

>Hi, Erik -

Ready when you, and Ms. Hellingførs, wish it. Your fond friend -Achille

James Clark:

>Hi, Ash, would you come to a picnic, my place, Litha 1/2, 1230? Coordinates attached -JC_sfz -Enclosure1

>Delighted, James. Thanks! -Achille

Mr. Mesrobian walked, or marched, in. “Good morning, gentlefolk. As has been my habit I will once again attempt to assist you in your motivation to finish the year fiercely.

“School isn’t only about stuffing your heads with facts and ideas. It’s also about assisting you in understanding time management, which becomes important in undergraduate work and absolutely critical for advanced study. This finals week you walk the razor’s edge, revising as you require and balancing grades in your various courses. Think of it, if it resonates with you, as a challenge to elevate the grades you wish, while affirming those you have for certain.

“Unless you choose to skive off, and if that happens you are casting your fate to the winds! I implore you, gentlefolk, you are near the end of this year’s race, don’t doubt your ability but give it the kick you have left!”

His shoulders slumped. “These Harangues take it out of me.” Much laughter.

“Anything for the record, comments, questions?”

Silence.

“Come on, do whatcha do!”

Kyche touched my hand. “Lunch tomorrow?” “I’d love to.” “I’m going to want to take you home that afternoon.” “I’m going to want to follow you home, like a puppy after a treat.” They smacked my arm. “You want to fuck.” I bowed. “Yes, and -of course- the idea had not crossed your mind...” They shouted “YES” and I laughed and didn’t get busted when I reminded them, quickly and lightly, of how my kisses seemed to work.

O-chem exam. There’s a ... thing about chemistry that makes sense to me, not that I was going to go much further than physical chemistry next year but it has rules, and order, and conventions and predictable reactions and somehow it all stuck with me and I knew I’d done fine on this exam as well.

Bang-ja asked me about the conversion of ketone to tertiary alcohol. “Grignard reagent.” “Blew it.” “He got the Nobel, somewhere in the 1910s, for that but those magnesium reactions go well beyond what he’d had in mind, and it’s easy to mix them up.” She touched my hand. “Lunch, right?” “Yes.”

English history, exam. “Describe political trends from the end of WW I to the beginning of the Troubles.” It was one of those open-ended questions that could incorporate a mass of facts, but ‘trends’ is tricky and I wrote about the rapidly rising standards of living and the striations in society as they stretched the range of wealth people commanded. Ireland hadn’t seceded until after WW I was over so I had a strange interregnum to cope with, and I wrote without finishing: “down sticks.” Maybe it would be enough.

And ... lunch with two lovers and a third person I wanted, so I ate the charcuterie and raw vegetables absent-mindedly. The feeling was a bit tense so we went out to the glades. These were the three others I thought I desired most and I went down a rabbit-hole of whether I should relax, or intensify, my interest.

Ali went first. “Data. Ash, Bang-ja and Beck have the need to know.” “Ali, they have the need to know.” Ali said “I have a date with Ash on Thursday, he and I want to be together before all of us.” I piped up. “Four is more than I think I can handle, it means a lot to me that Ali and I can try things out first. I hope you understand.”

Bang-ja nodded. Beck said “well, it makes theoretical sense, but I want cock now.” Ali said “I’m there.” She touched his hand. “Yes, tonight?” “Can’t, revision, tomorrow?” She nodded. “And what about you, Ash?” asked Bang-ja. “Standing activity.”

“That’s rich”, she said. “Hey. I’m just starting out!” Ali took my hand. “It won’t be that easy but we know how to, um, suck you into us, I think.”

I wondered. Who was sucking whom into what? “Honest, I’m afraid to be overwhelmed.” So we all joined hands and BAM. “Huh?” “How did that happen?”

‘Okay’, I ‘said’, ‘anxieties overcome.’ For we’d felt the four of us. It made sense, it made everyone hot, and from Ali ‘that was odd, but I can’t deny it.’ ‘Sooooo ... it means Ali and Ash have their date, then we assemble at dinner for O3/31, then we do the experiment?’

We all affirmed, and silently. Bang-ja’s, 2000, dinner, nice but not date clothing. ‘This communication is strange’, said Bang-ja. ‘Yabbut what if it’s like that when we start playing?’ ‘Then’, said Beck, ‘it might be transcendent. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.’ There was general agreement and of course we talked about an off switch so we tried that.

It was touch only, and our next thought was ‘is it just us, or is it something people can learn, or have fucked into them, or what?’ Ali and I knew we’d be trying it, as he and Beck would, and probably she and Bang-ja, but Danni and Kyche were showing signs too. And then again, it’s so strong and affirming of us and, well, good that it seemed a travesty to not help but we thought of those window-less concrete barracks at Fort Meade and resolved to keep it to ourselves until we could find another way to diffuse it.

‘Who can find a fully-off mode?’ I asked. Ali found it, he taught us. At least we could go around without fearing social contact, as long as none of us was tired or stupid or over-beveraged.

The warning chime. How in spirit does all this weird shit happen to us?

I had cooking and yes, there is a cooking final. Fortunately we kept our partners so Paul, fretting, asked “how are we going to approach whatever?” “Paul. I will remember. A no-device final is not a problem, I have a strange memory, down to what we were wearing and the weather that day.” He smiled. I remembered how sensitive he is, and I touched his wrist. “We probably have this, Paul.”

Paëlla. I’d bet Chef Bardy picked it because the field of results could go between inedible and sublime, thereby stretching out the range of likely outcomes, and we went for ‘excellent’ because ‘sublime’ entailed too much risk-taking. Paul weighed and measured and even plotted the pan’s heat, and we knew what to do.

The fact I was thinking about Paul’s cock had nothing to do with the fact we got a “mérite un détour”, the descriptor of a restaurant with two Michelin stars, from Chef Bardy. He delivered that judgment; we’d killed a final whose results would last for the following year. We walked out of the class and onto Riemann and I said “I couldn’t help remembering how you fucked me, Paul, I very much want that date with you during dead week, please?” “I kept having trouble with cooking when I could see and smell you and it made me crazy. Yes, certainly.” I kissed him, slowly and thoroughly. “Schedule’s still a mess, I’ll send three proposals, you pick, OK?” “It’ll be the earliest, Ash.” I kissed him again and ran off to yoga.

Showering pre-yoga seemed sensible considering I’d just spent two hours and change leaning over a stove, and I went into the main room to find a sparse class. There were half a dozen open spots though my customary one wasn’t among them, so I took up a position in the middle row. Maya wanted to do something ‘restorative’ “to help our students focus and find calm during their finals” and her solution was usually inversions. This was a shoulder stand and it’s a pose I don’t ever try to do outside of class, too easy to wreck your neck and without help the wreckage can become permanent, so we eased our way into it, Maya animated and present and reassuring.

I’d have to get home quickly and dress - nice, but not date clothing - for Danni so I took a CVA, they are definitely habit-forming and I felt myself on the verge of over-doing them but I was at Danni’s at 1800. She allowed me to smack into her when she opened the door and I took note: green tattle-tat, so I was pretty sure she’d be in me in a few minutes. I rejoiced, then, but:

“Ash, I fucked up and had a lot of time to think about it, you, me, what I’ve been doing. I notice you are hanging with people you’ve known for years, and I only did that with you - it was the shiny new friend I looked for. So do you know what’s up with that, for you?”

“Maybe everyone is shiny and new when sex begins, I don’t know, Danni, never thought of it before - but it’s true, I’ve known everyone I have played with for years.”

“I just wanted to fuck, and fuck I did, but where are you getting all the ‘celebrating you’ vibes?” I laughed. “That, Danni, is the best and most concise description of how I feel! Much better than the farting around with metaphors about waves. I want to keep that, ok?” She nodded. “Anyway, imagine I’m a flatpic. When it happens there comes a change, flatpic to holo. It’s that dramatic and it’s - for example, you, but way more you. It’s feeling someone - brighten or intensify, being more real than I knew. A friend asked whether it was like seeing a range of colors I couldn’t before, and I said yes then, but now I think it’s an entire sense I didn’t know about.”

“Have you wondered about that? Couldn’t it be something people had, but lost, and you and your wiring are part of recovering it, or something entirely new?”

“I need to think on that, but what strikes me hardest is ‘why me?’, and next ‘how?’” I kissed her. She put her long arms around me, picked me up and carried me into her bedroom.

For all her usual deportment Danni was moving wrong. “Danni, something’s bugging you. Would a massage feel better?” She said “that thing I did scared me, Ash, and it’s hard for me to shake the feeling I was an idiot.” So I smooshed my breasts on her back and big-spooned her. “Yup, when I saw you in that glass box it shocked me. You don’t get put in there for a sore toe or a tummy ache.” She nodded. “This is what I kept thinking of when I was in there, wanting you close and hoping things would be OK.”

“And they are, right?” “And apparently they are but I got myself into a mess by being careless. I can’t blame anything besides myself.” “Okay, and you’re coming out of a stressor and when I do that I feel shaky, is that about right?” “Yup.” “Then I’m going to stay right here, even though it would be nice if we took our clothes off, wouldn’t it? We don’t have to play, you can just be in my arms.” “Ye ... yeah, Ash, I didn’t think we wouldn’t play, but it feels so good to lie here and feel you’re with me.”

We took our clothes off, and yep a lot of skin contact is good for calming someone down. A little at a time I ‘helped’ Danni’s muscles lose their rigidity, petting her and saying things like “I feel your traps relaxing, Danni, do you feel that?” A gymnast’s traps are way developed and hers are magnificent, having her let go of tension and giving her feedback seemed to be helping. In a bit over an hour she said ‘I think I can sleep now, Ash, thanks. Don’t miss dinner on my account.” I kissed her forehead, cheek, and shoulder, “good night, sweetie.”

Heidi was in her kitchen. “How is she?” “Far, far more shaken than she wants to show.” She nodded. “We could tell, but how could you?” “She wasn’t moving right. It was almost as though her body was second-guessing itself, so all I did was smoosh her up and pet her.” “And then?” “She’s asleep.” “She said she only cat-napped in the box because she was so tense.” “It fits. That really did scare her.” Heidi came around the cook-top island, took my hands. “Thanks, Ash.”

When I got home it turned out Serge and Batboy were already gone, they’d revised dinner plans. I’d wanted to meet Batboy at a function that didn’t involve gulping one’s food, but it would have to wait. Auntie asked me to join her at the gazebo, though, and she handed me a glass of some kind of amaro. “There are books on your desk. Not until after your last exam, but then please do some reading. We Aunties have got together and on Litha 1/4 we would like to speak with you, Bang-ja and Becky.” “Would you please add Ali and Winnie Shigezawa?” “He’s doing the ... surprising things ... as well?” I nodded. “Anyone else?” “One other, and there I am on the fence. They understand a lot of the observations I make, noticing tiny tensions and movements, so I’m not at all sure about them.” “Then by Ockham’s razor we would be better off leaving that person out of the conversation this time.” Auntie looked at me oddly. “Do read the books, please, you’re showing signs of what one could call shamanic power, but no one is satisfied.” “No one who?” “The Aunties. They think the idea of shamanic power is nonsense and I am inclined to agree. That leaves a physical phenomenon of some kind and it is that which scares us.” “Know anyone with a bunch of sensitive magnetometers?” “WHAT?”