Chosen Mate Ch. 05

"You certainly are," Gerry said, looking up at her words and quick action. Donna cuffed him lightly on the face of his shoulder with a look of annoyance; he smilingly returned to his plate and began to eat.

"Harry does some nice work." Donna declared as she looked longingly at the simple elegance of the design. "That copper really goes with your hair well." Sandra's hands fluttered at the top that she had looked at in the mirror during every free moment that day. Her face clouded.

"You should have seen the thong he made for me." And then the rain fell, gently at first, then becoming a torrent of pain-filled tears. Donna gave up, passing into the middle world under Backwater with Sandra. Putting her to bed in their hidden bower of her father's abode, she let her cry her breaking heart to sleep.

Gerry looked up as Donna returned to the table.

"Did you get her to sleep? Tuck her in?" She smiled gently and answered quietly.

"Yes, she'll sleep till morning." She looked at him closely as he removed the sunglasses and turned his bright blue eyes to hers. "Was I that bad?" The corners of his eyes wrinkled in amused remembrance.

"You were a demon. I think I still have bruises." His words were blunted by his soft husky voice and enfolding wings as he took her in his arms and kissed her. Donna leaned back as Gerry traced a line of kisses from her neck to between her breasts wondering how Harry was doing.

Harry was not doing well. Sandra's insufferably sudden departure had flayed then crushed him. He sat hunched over the bench while Oldman made small items from the scraps left over from the construction of larger things. Harry raised a whiskey bottle and drank from the neck. Oldman complained.

--Every time you drink from that bottle, you know you stop me. Harry waved an arm in a drunken gesture.

--What do you care? You get to ride for free. Oldman spat back angrily.

--Free ride? If you weren't me, I'd kick-your-ass good and proper.

--Kick my ass? He laughed; ...I'll make you disappear back to... he waved the whisky bottle in vague arcs in the air. ...well, wherever the hell you came from. Oldman cackled long and mocking snatches of laughter.

--Boy, I am tied to your ass. You need me to get your dysfunctional self to do anything. Give me that bottle! They struggled for the bottle; Harry finally let him take it. Oldman wiped off the bottle, then turned it up drinking deeply and letting the bottle gurgle in a long forgotten melody. Oldman put the bottle down with a sigh of satisfaction.

--I wanted a drink any way. Harry said petulantly.

--Well then, you are welcome. Oldman answered with affable ease.

They sat together and shared the bottle down to its dregs, while discussing the impossible situation. Oldman just wanted her body; Harry wanted her heart, her soul, and her love; and ultimately, he wanted to know why his world was upside down in strange occurrences. They locked the shop and stumbled home to bed.

Harry woke with a nasty taste in his mouth and a pounding headache. The clock said 10:00 A.M.

--Holy crap, Oldman whined, as Harry opened his eyes to let in the light, then shut up.

--Yeah, suffer baby. Harry said miserably and drew the covers over his head. ...You started this.

--No, no, no, said Oldman. ...Beg to differ; you're the one that opened that bottle. Oldman countered.

Harry gave up, wondering why he ever began speaking to him in the first place. He looked for the Green Warrior, but he wasn't there: he was absent for the first time since he came striding out of the darkness of his blank mind.

--The Jack Daniels cure. Oldman declared. ...Works every time. Harry ran to the bathroom and spewed. They left for the kitchen and coffee.

--We're in luck... he said ...still hot. Harry drank coffee and returned to the fact that he still didn't have a plan.

--Allow me to recap out situation, Oldman interjected. First, a beautiful woman finds us attractive and then lets us know about it in really direct ways. We take her on a date. Found out she was a truck freak. Then, during breakfast, her toe assaulted us. I had a pretty good idea we were going to get laid then. You gave her the keys to the truck, idiot, then she took us to the graveyard and assaulted us. And she has been every day since, until you found her real image buried an hour into a photograph. So, tell me; what is she? Harry shrugged mentally.

--Your guess is as good as mine, some Fay creature, The Gentle folk, The Shining People; and that list goes on and on. And there are things on that list that I don't want to talk about.

--So, what are we going to do? Oldman asked.

--There's only one thing we can do, ask. The phone rang; Harry ran to answer.

Sandra opened her eyes to the sound of birds chirping and the whisper of the wind as it blew through the leaves and limbs of trees. The scent of jasmine and honeysuckle perfumed the fresh, invigorating, clean air. Butterflies and bees moved from flower to flower, buzzing or fluttering at their own pleasure over the walls of foliage surrounding the bed. She stretched out lazily, luxuriously in the soft bed sheltered under a gnarled dwarf oak. She was in Donnas and Gerry's bower in the family quarters of the hidden Fay redoubt under Backwater. Donna must have brought her through after she had fallen asleep. She had not known how much she missed the peace here.

She sat up, running her hands over her body, finding her latest present on her, and caressing it in sensually enjoyment. It was as comfortable now as it had been when it was first fitted for her, even after sleeping in it. She had not thanked him properly; she must see him soon. The longer she waited the more painful it would be for him, but where? She decided on her apartment. Soon they would finish what was going to be long and painful process. She would let Harry ask what was what, and who, was who. she would answer the questions truthfully. What happened after that nobody knew. The prospect still frightened her.

Sandra flew out of Donna and Gerry's bower and down the hall toward her own rooms. Gently glowing lights of lesser Fay moving along the passage drew back calling in welcoming choir-like greeting.

--San Dra na, Regis, Hail. A warm chiming tone acknowledged them and the greeting. She stepped in her bower past hanging green vines that drew apart at her approach. Running to the shower, a waterfall plunging from heights unseen, smiling as she thought about how much Harry would enjoy it. She washed, and then passed through to her own apartment in the real world for fresh clothes.

She played with the bra in the mirror of her walk-in closet, putting it on and taking it off, pleased with the ease that it required removing and replacing it on her body. She was especially pleased that it could be taken off in one piece, a single garment that was unnecessary to be pulled on the body, just clasped on. Her knowledge that Harry enjoyed feeding her insatiable appetite for intimate garments had her eagerly anticipating his next gift. She also knew she was postponing the inevitable. She tossed the bra on the bed. Clothes would not matter either. She picked up the phone and dialed.

Harry saw her name and number on the caller Id. and answered the phone quickly.

"My Lady" he breathed into the mouthpiece.

"My Lord," she whispered back. "Come to me." Harry hesitated, and then pleaded as the need and desire to rush to her was hindered by his sticky, sweaty, sleep stained skin.

"I need a shower really bad. I was up late last night. I woke up late this morning. Give me an hour to clean up." Sandra frowned at the phone.

"Come to me now." She called in a pleading, petulant voice. "You can wash here, hurry... Harry? ... Hello? ..." She smiled widely, teeth showing, as she hung up the phone and walked down the hall, naked to make coffee and snacks.

He ran around the house like a mad man, stuffing clothes in an overnight bag, filling his toiletries pouch and tossing it in with the cloths. He ran to the truck, bending over and taking deep breaths, trying to calm his beating heart. Then he remembered the photographs and sketchpad and raced back to the house, thundering through the rooms that separated him from them. He took a moment to leave a message for Maddie. ...Gone to Sandras', call if you need me. He placed it on the table where she would eat lunch on returning from church. A deep breath saw him once more on his way.

Harry pulled in the empty lot of the bar. He and the Frog jumped and bounded across the lot, spinning about, then repeating the antics in a juvenile manner. Sandra leaned on the railing of the balcony and watched him until he noticed her, then standing up, hands on hips, yelled down to him.

"When you get through playing; the garage door is open. Park it, close the door, and come on up."

Harry stared at her while she talked. She was nude; at least he thought she was. The plants along the railing made it hard to tell from here. He swallowed the lump in his throat, speeding out of the parking lot to find out.

Sandra's door was unlocked; so, he pushed on in, throwing his bag, sketchpad, and photographs on the couch. Sandra called from the kitchen.

"Breakfast," and walked into sight with a platter, setting it on the table. Yes, she was nude. He moved to her and kissed her, hands roving over her body automatically. "Oh, you do smell, straight to the shower after you eat. Now, get busy." She put him in his chair, filling and refilling his plate with eggs, hash browns, toast, and bacon until he held his hands up in surrender. Taking his hand, she led him away to wash.

The shower was pleasant; it was everything he had come to expect of her when they were near water. She said little; what words she used were in the form of instructions and directions; he turned, stretched, raised his arms, and knelt before her, in and out of the rushing stream of water. Always he watched, her face, her eyes, her glowing luminous form, as he complied with her wishes. She led him from the shower and placed him on the coarse rug of woven fibers before the mirror. He stared back at it while she toweled him dry, and then combed his hair and beard. Sandra wrapped him in a long white bathrobe of heavy towel cloth, and then walked him back to the living room.

She sat him in the single plush chair, big enough for two, that was separated from the couch by an unfinished wooden coffee table. Both their eyes turned to the photographs on the couch across the room, and then to each other; where they remained, locked, welded, tied together, in silent communion. She knelt before him, still unclothed, and began to speak in the waning moments that she was merely his girlfriend.

"Before we begin I want to thank you for the bra you made me; it's wonderful." He answered back with a wistful, loving smile, as she ran her fingers along his side.

"I love making things for you, seeing your excitement when you behold them for the first time, your delighted shining eyes as you look in the mirror to see them there on your body. It's me who should thank you for the opportunity to give you such things, to see an idea that went rushing out of my brain and into my hands." He stopped speaking.

She rose and brought him coffee, setting it on a small table beside the chair, then brought the photographs and sketchpad back to the wide, matching footstool nearby.

She looked at them while he sipped coffee contentedly, watching her. She sighed, laying them aside, then picked up the sketchpad and looked at him, questioning silently. He nodded. She began turning the pages one by one, seeing drawings and sketches of places that had caught his eye, designs for landscaping, and the greenhouse he was saving for, the hill that seemed constantly on his mind. Then there were the leather goods. There were rough drawings at first, then with finer detail as he had begun to narrow how they should look and fit together. Finally, her thong and bra followed by other designs that she found tantalizing.

She turned the page and there were the sketches of the three photographs, exactingly copied on the large sheet; the missing, hidden, and unseen details were rendered as well as a pencil was able to infer. She looked to where his eyes remained intent on her face.

"Nice sketches." She hazarded.

"Thanks," he answered, adding, "They don't do you justice." There was a long silence as they looked at each other. The details of the room faded, leaving the two of them with eyes only seeing the person before them. Harry began speaking, since it was apparent that she would not.

"Strange things have been happening around and to me this past year. It began with small things moving just out of my vision; when I looked there was nothing there, not a mouse, not an insect, nothing. It got worse over time. It seemed that everywhere I looked there was something that I was not quite seeing.

I was digging at the underground spring in the cedars one day, resting for a moment, when a large hornet zoomed close by my face and hovered, not a foot from me. Its wings sounded like a miniature motor as it held position before me. It was beautiful." Harry's narrative stopped for a moment as his eyes went back to the remembered encounter.

"I had the impression that it was inspecting me as closely as I was observing the various shades of brown and gold running in lines both thick and thin over its wide body. A tiny red stinger hung from the rear of its yellow-jacketed belly. The large black head was looking at me as it hung there, moving hardly at all in the gentle breeze. We spent a long time looking hypnotized at the other. And then it began to change, much the same as the photographs changed." He said, gesturing to them and letting his eyes go unfocused as he examined the memory. "It was a metamorphic impossibility that had me falling back in surprise." His eyes returned to the world. "When I looked again, it was only a hornet buzzing away." He met her eyes and found her gaze intent on him.

"I continued digging down, until I cleared the shaft, cleaning dirt off the walls, washing the floor of that tiny cavern; all the while looking at the creatures drawn to the area by the moist flow of the air escaping from the cavern. I spent a lot of time there, hidden from the world, staring into the mirror by the flickering light of a candle. Then things got really strange." He said nothing of slipping away through a found door in his mind that led to a strange dimension of glittering paths that led into the distance.

He could not speak to her of when his image in the mirror began to answer spoken and unspoken questions that he asked himself. The tears ran steadily from his wounded eyes, down his life-roughened face and onto his grizzled beard.

"I think I'm going insane." He said in a wavering hushed voice, broken by the intensity of his emotions.

Sandra moved to him, flowing swiftly into the chair, pulling his robe open and entwining her body with his; her empathy filled with the pain and uncertainty that radiated from him. Both their tears fell unchecked.

"Show me," he said. "It won't change the fact that I love you." She cried out and moved away clumsily, staggering to his breakfast chair and clinging there as both their emotions filled her head; fear, uncertainty, love, and something else, unnamed, unknown, observing. "Please don't say I'm crazy," Harry cried. "That, I'm imagining all these things. Just tell me one thing; and if the answer is no, then I'll go away and not bother you anymore." Harry paused, drew a deep shuddering breath, and looked to her where she stood, clutching the back of the chair. "Do you love me?"

And there it was, the one question that would bring their houses of secrets crashing down.

"Yes Harry, Yes, I love you." And then the world changed for both of them.