Chapter 9

You're making a mistake, Leah told herself. You should have called him to make your report. Seeing him alone will make the pain fresh and intense again, not dulled a little by time and distance like it is now.

You had a choice; you made the wrong choice.

No, be honest. You didn't truly have a choice. You had to see him again. Touch him. Feel his touch. Be with him again.

When he'd told her with a thought that he still loved her, the choice went away.

Loni, huh? Beautiful! She looked familiar. Sable was a model. Is Loni a model? Is that why she looks familiar? Have I seen her picture in fashion magazines?

Doesn't matter. She validates my concerns. As I age, become old and wrinkled, and Clint doesn't, he'll still attract women like her. Growing old with Clint just isn't possible. In ten years, maybe fifteen, he'll discard me like a pair of worn-out old shoes. Why wouldn't he? Love? Hah! He might still love me, but when I stop being desirable, he'll...

She sighed. I know what he'll do.

I love him. I want him to be happy, and to be happy, he needs to love and be loved. Could I give him ten or fifteen years, give him the best year of my life, and then walk away? Graciously?

No, not graciously. I'd become bitter and hateful. And I'd be childless.

The alternative isn't much better – saying yes to another man, a man I admire and respect perhaps, but a man I wouldn't love, not like I love Clint. I'd have babies, though, children to raise and cherish. A boy, a girl, one of each. I'd have love in my heart.

I made the right decision. I didn't truly have a choice. I did what I had to do.

Then why am I here?

I know why. I want him again. One more time.

She fondled the cardkey for a room in the resort.

I want him to cover me with his body, fill me, take me to heights of passion and pleasure where only he can take me. I want him in my mind, in my body, joined in complete intimacy. No other man can make me feel so loved. His love fills me. Fills my mind. My body.

She shivered with passion.

When his mind had touched hers earlier that day at the ballpark, she had finally understood. Another man can touch her with his hands, caress her flesh and excite her. Another man can enter her, and the physical joining could be exquisite and thrilling, but no other man could touch her with his mind, enter her mind with his, and share his most intimate thoughts with her as he experiences her most intimate thoughts.

No other man could make her feel whole.

Suddenly, she felt him. He'd entered her mind. Yes!

You are beauty and grace, he said. I love you, Leah.

Then she saw him, saw his boyish smile that turned her into mush. And he leaned over and kissed her, a friendly kiss that quickly became romantic.

He sat next to her, and she handed him the cardkey.

Room 1032, she said silently. We'll talk about Jim Evans after we make love.

I watched her sleep. We'd made love and then talked. She'd told me what she'd said to Jim Evans, and what he'd said to her. She'd done a better job at casting doubts in his mind than I'd thought possible, so I put Jim Evans out of my mind. And then we'd made love again.

Leah amazed me. She knew I was in her mind, but she hadn't guarded her thoughts. They'd come to me uncensored, open and candid. She'd told me her fears and the reasoning behind her decision to search for the love of another man, a man she could grow old with, a man with whom she could have children.

I feel so selfish, Clint, she said silently. I have it in me to make you happy for a while. It would be so simple now. You need to love and be loved. I could fill those needs, but later I'd become bitter.

It angered me that she believed I was so lacking in character that I'd cheat on her. I tried to assure her that I'd never leave her to be with a younger woman, but she hushed me.

You aren't lacking in character, Clint. If you could grow old with me, I know you would honor our love until you died, or I died, but aging diminishes desirability. Women like Sable or her sister would tempt you. And what happens in twenty or twenty-five years when you must stage your demise as Clint Wilson and start over again under a new name? You can only hide your unending youth so long. Would you take me with you? If you did, what would I be in your new life? Certainly not your wife. I'd be fifty-two years old then, and you'd assume the identity of a young man in his late twenties.

No, Clint. You said it yourself. You can't grow old with me. If we tried, I'd become bitter, and you'd become resentful.

I wish I could start aging again, I said.

"No!" she said out loud. "Don't wish for that; don't even think of it. You are unique among men. You were born at the dawn of the Great Depression. You've been through hard times and good times. You've experienced times the rest of us can only read about. You've watched the world change, lived through the last part of the Industrial Revolution and into the Information Age. And the future! Imagine the future times you will experience! A wondrous future full of change! Some day, centuries into the future, perhaps you will leave the earth and journey to the stars."

She took a deep breath. "You don't get older, which forces me to deny my love for you, which angers me and makes me cry out that life isn't fair, but I envy you, Clint. What you should wish for is for me to stop aging, for me to forever look and feel like I do now, for me to be like you. Then we could live through the ages, spend the future together forever. That's my fantasy. That's my dream."

Later she asked me about Loni.

Does she want you? Leah said silently.

Yes, but as a lark, a fling while she's visiting, I said with a thought. Out loud, I said, "I like Loni; I don't like Zane."

"Zane?"

"The name she uses when she models."

"Ah, now I know why she looked so familiar. I remembered her when you said her professional name. Zane is very distinctive. Her beautiful face once graced the cover of Vogue. Are you saying that Loni and Zane are like two different women?"

"I am. Loni is like the girl next door. Zane is an icon, the supermodel, a woman who uses men and has been abused by them. When she's Loni, her thoughts are fresh and clean. When she's Zane, she's hard, manipulative, and her thoughts are dark and foreboding."

"How have men abused her?"

"I don't know. Her thoughts as Zane imply the abuse without addressing specifics. When she's Loni, the implications disappear. Sometime soon, Loni will defend her dissertation. She'll become a psychologist, specializing in counseling and plans to set up a practice to help beautiful women cope with the trials and tribulations that attend being beautiful. Unless she subjects herself to therapy and fixes her mental problems before hanging her shingle as a therapist for others, her plans will fail. She has a dual personality, Leah." I chuckled. "Which, by the way, isn't as rare as you'd think."

"Like an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other?"

"That's overly simplified, but yes."

"My devil wins most arguments with my angel," she said with mischievous glints in her pretty eyes.

"Your devil compared to Zane's is an angel," I said and kissed her.

"Hmm, my devil just made a suggestion. My angel didn't even try to argue against the suggestion. Can you guess what my devil said? Can you experience my devil's thoughts?"

I laughed and nibbled on the side of her lovely neck. Again? I said silently.

"Please," she said out loud, and then with her thoughts she told me exactly what her devil wanted me to do.

The devil on my shoulder agreed with her devil, and my angel, like hers, remained silent.

That was earlier. Now she slept peacefully, unhampered by devils or angels. I left the bed silently and carefully and dressed in the dark, fulfilling an earlier promise she'd forced me to make.

"Leave me while I'm sleeping, Clint. If you don't, if I wake up and you're still lying next to me, I might not be able to let you go."

At the door, I turned to her and whispered, "I love you."

In the elevator, I thought about another subject we'd discussed.

She'd said, "If you wish, and as a lark, give Loni her wish, Clint. I won't remain celibate. Celibacy isn't in my nature. That's one of the reasons I rented this room."

"If I rented a room, would you come to me?" I said.

"Yes, if you asked. Please don't ask."

"Will you rent another room for us?"

"When I saw you at the ballpark, I knew I had to be with you one more time, so instead of calling you, I drove here and registered for this room. When it comes to you, my love, I am weak and shameless, so yes, it's possible that I will rent another room for us. To see you is to want you, and I can't avoid seeing you, not with my parents moving to your ranch, but I'll strenuously resist the temptation because tomorrow morning when I wake up without you the pain I will go through will be just as intense and cruel for me as it was the first time I denied my love for you. That's why I made you promise to leave while I slept."

I didn't like it, but I kept my promise.

"When you were Vince, what was your last name?" Zane said.

I knew the question was coming. She'd been gathering her courage to ask it since Sable went inside. We were enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon on chaise lounges out by the pool but under the shade of some umbrellas. She wore a sexy black bikini, not skimpy necessarily, but like most bikinis, hers didn't cover much of her amazing body. The woman was leggier than a purebred colt.

"Sable says Clint Wilson might be an alias, a name you selected for a new identity, like Sable Darcy for Robyn Masterson," Zane said.

"I'll admit that I've teased Sable with that concept," I said. "I won't admit to its validity, Zane."

"I prefer Loni."

"When you take on the Zane persona, I'll call you Zane. When you're Loni, I'll refer to you as Loni," I said.

She frowned. "I don't understand. Never mind, you're just trying to change the subject."

I chuckled. "I am. By the way, I like Loni; I'm not sure I like Zane."

She huffed with dismay. "You're not going to answer my question, are you?"

"Nope. I might speak to the issue with Loni, but then Loni wouldn't ask the question," I said. "You've used men, Zane, and they've abused you. How? What did a man, or more than one man, do to you that altered your personality from the sweet girl next door that Loni is to the cold, hard woman that Zane represents?"

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Paul Phenomenon

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