Fucking Magic - A Potion Problem Ch. 10

"No. This is a jump in the river situation." Which, of course, was damn cold this time of year.

"Sorry, time to go." Ending it all of the sudden, was she tempted? I liked to think she was tempted.

"See you."

Smiling at how much of a hurry to get away she was. She waved and practically tire squealed away. I was just reaching for my own door handle when my eyes traveled across the parking lot to find... Samara! Samara Aquilo sitting in her car, staring at me. Our eyes met for half a second before she jumped, spilled her coffee, and started freaking out because of it. I heard her, not anything magical, she had her window open, clearly listening, or trying to listen to what our other classmate and I had been talking about. I wasn't too worried, she would have had to have great ears to hear everything from that far away.

I went over. The plainly pretty Latina not noticing me as she hurriedly cleaned the coffee from herself and her car. She was wearing scrubs, her dark brown hair was pulled back into a bun that had probably been tight and neat in the morning. Hadn't been touched since then. There was the remnant of a donut on her passenger seat, and it was hot chocolate not coffee. After getting it off herself, running a handful of napkins across the splattered dash, she looked for me. Where I had been by my car.

"Hey Samara." I said cheerily from right beside her.

"Nahh!" She cried, frightened by me being right there. I smiled and held my hands up to pacify her, she darkened in a blush, trying to look like she hadn't just been spying. "I was wondering if that was you over there, Westley, it's been... So long."

"It has." Eyeing the (now empty) cup of hot chocolate (filled with drenched napkins) I said. "Looks like I owe you one, want to go in?"

"Won't your date be upset?" Motioning the way Lucy had gone.

"Did it look like a date?" Was I immediately selling Lucy out? Was I the shittiest Beard of all time? Maybe, but I knew Samara had zero social media presence and both Jessica's memories and mine told me she wasn't the gossiping type. The present day Samara worked so damn much, who was she going to tell?

"N... I don't know." Still looking that way, at what she'd seen Lucy and I doing, or not doing.

"Did we... Kiss at the end?"

"No." I shrugged and agreed with her answer, the corner of her mouth quirked up as if this news pleased her.

"Let's just say that she wants to get her mom off her back about being single, so what you saw there..." I thought about it but there was just something about this brown eyed girl. "What you might see on social media later is a way to do that." She blinked, I shrugged with a little bit of a frown. "Anyways, why would she be upset? Just because you might be the person who I always wanted to ask out all through high school?" It was the truth, there were a couple others that had 'gotten away' but Samara had held the spot from freshman year until graduation. "If she was my girlfriend, which she isn't, do you think she would be jealous because of all those years I wanted to but couldn't because I dated your best friend? Why would that ever bother her?"

"You didn't!" I felt like I'd done this once or twice already today.

"I did! Didn't you ever notice how I would always pop up and talk to you the rare times she wasn't around?" But of course she didn't, although she started thinking about it now. "Hmm," I looked left and right, "She's not around now. So how about that hot chocolate?"

"I just got out of work and..." Hands and eyes (in the rearward mirror) skimming over herself, clearly reluctant from still being in her work scrubs. Ones that were now freshly stained with hot chocolate. Expression saying a lack of make-up and 'messy' hair was even more so. "And even though it's been years, Jessica..."

"Is married with three kids. And it's just a hot chocolate. It's not like we're going to end up banging in the coffee shop bathroom." Pause. "Although I wouldn't say no."

It was something from Jessica, from her memories of Samara, her knowledge of her best friend forever. The pleasant looking latina went all shocked, but more because she was playing that over behind those big dark eyes of hers. A download of information that had come along during my living the memory of that threesome. Samara was... Not submissive but... accommodating. Maybe it was different sides of the same coin but it seemed her life sort of showed it. She accommodated her grandparents by working at a place to get a discount on their care. She accommodated her family by paying for most if not all of that. She had accommodated her best friend and cousin by being part of the threesome, plus some other fun before then.

"Come on." Those stolen memories made me say it friendly, delivered with a smile, but also kind of an order.

"Okay. But I did just come from work." Wanting me to remember that so I wouldn't judge her too much in the light of the coffee shop.

"Still doing long hours at the nursing home?" Oops.

"Yeah, how... did you know?"

"Small town Samara, small town." She bought that, got out after rolling her window up and taking her keys.

"How does your boyfriend feel about that? His pretty girl doing... what? Twelve hour shifts?"

"Fourteen this week, but only because I'll have next week off." Trying to fix her hair and clothes when I wasn't looking, as we stood waiting for our fresh drinks. The rather adorably pretty barista gave me a look, recognizing me. I wondered if she would write some warning on Samara's cup since I'd just been here with another woman. "Lots of the residents get out for the holiday and so they go on minimum staffing. It's double time all next week so the people with seniority always take those shifts." Sounding upset about it. Also I got the impression that the poor thing didn't have anything else to talk about besides work. "I'm only getting these extra hours because we do extra cleaning when the capacity is down."

"Ah. It's got to be hard right? Working there?" We found a booth, there was no warning on the cup but the baristas were all gossiping back there, glaring out at us, Samara didn't notice at all.

She started talking about her job, it was difficult but it was also rewarding. I listened but mostly felt bad for her. It was her life, she could do whatever she wanted. But taking up the responsibility of her grandparents was not exactly like she was living her life to the fullest. Jessica's thoughts gave me a vague idea that they weren't exactly old, just ill. So they could be around for a while. Decades more of taking care of them. I was aware of how morbid and bad that was but... Wasn't it morbid and bad for Samara to work ten or twelve hour days as much as possible? Putting her entire life on hold.

"But I get to see my abuelo and abuela everyday, so that's a perk." I nodded, it was almost half an hour later, the anger from behind the counter had dialed down to a couple of glares here and there. "I... Oht, that is my mamma, we're planning out Thanksgiving dinner still, be right back." Answering her phone, after getting up, going over to the other side of the lobby by the entrance. Not because it was a guy, it was certainly a woman, loud and speaking Spanish.

"What are you doing?" It was the most glaring of the baristas, coming over and slapping both hands on the table. It might have startled me but I'd caught a footstep or something, started turning her way just before she arrived. The pretty black girl who was probably eighteen or nineteen. "Huh? What do you think you're doing?"

"Me?" I asked in surprised.

"It's none of my business but that poor lady is in here a couple times a week, alone and tired. She works hard to take care of her abuela and abuelo." Not a Spanish speaker she struggled over the words, trying to say them while being mad was kinda adorable. With that thought, after sitting here thinking the same of first Lucy and now Samara... I found the ring, trying to yank it off, feeling like my sex drive was ruling me since putting it on. But the barista was beautiful, black with natural hair, big pretty dark gorgeous eyes that were a close second to Samara's. But I did like the glasses the barista wore. "You were in here with Fake Boob Nerd earlier and now her! I don't care if I get fired. What is it? Are you trying to get money or.... Or..." Apparently she couldn't think of another reason I would be with Lucy and Samara. "Or what?"

"What." I answered for her, not (well not really) checking her out as I looked down from her angry expression.

"What?" Confusion going across her features, which I saw after returning from looking over her slender form. No nametag, she either didn't wear one or had taken it off for this confrontation.

"Yeah, what. You said 'or what' so I'm telling you, it's what. I thought the thing with Fake Boob Nerd was a date, ends up she is in a relationship and just wanted to put me in my place because she thought I was only interested in her because of the Fake Boob thing." Motioning towards Samara I hesitated, "Hmm, let me guess... Tired Latin Nurse?" Their nickname for Samara was close enough to my guess, guilt washed over the barista's face. "Yeah that's close to what you call her... Nice you're on such a high horse and can't be bothered to learn people's names. Well, we went to high school together. I dated her best friend freshman year and so I could never ask her out, even though I really wanted to. We just ran into each other in the parking lot."

"And y..." She looked towards the door and away so quickly that I thought Samara had overheard us, or some nemesis from her past had just walked in. I glanced as well, there was absolutely nothing there (Literally nothing, a deep gray yawning abyss of nothing!) and exactly nothing would have registered in my head, if she didn't start mumbling. "It's never come in before. Never, never, never. It always stands out there looking in..."

Her big dark eyes filled with tears behind the glass, seemed if she wasn't leaning against the table she might have collapsed. Stupidly my brain called up a detail I'd heard, some study that said there was a third instinct. Reports of people doing it on crashed planes when there was only seconds to get out before the jet fuel caught or the smoke choked. It was Freeze. Flight, fight, or freeze. I knew she was afraid, she was the epitome of fear in every angle of her lithe and lovely form. Fear had frozen her. Her body, but not her mouth. It was difficult for me to think, but feeling was easy, it was also bad. It was the last thing I wanted to do but I slowly, painfully, turned to the open door. The bing, bing, bing sound that came when the door was open, was doing so still but it was far far away. Looking that way... All I felt was... bad. Cold and bad.

"My aunt Franny, my favorite aunt, she was always so nice to me. Went out of her way for me! I skipped her birthday, there was a boy who liked me and I skipped her birthday for him..." The pretty barista was looking at nothing, nowhere, rambling, distraught. "I skipped her birthday and never...."

"Hey!" I called and added, "No!" Reaching out to grab her, wanting her to stop because if she finished saying what I thought she was going to say then it would destroy me. My heart felt heavy with my own thoughts of regrets, mistakes, and every insult I'd ever been handed. If I heard the miserable end of her mumbled tale then... No. "Stop! Please!"

Reaching out for her was what saved us, saved us all. The touch of my hand on hers was like a lifeline. It was just my thumb, barely brushing her bare flesh, the rest nothing but her coffee and dessert splattered sleeve. It was enough, she gasped for air, like she had stayed under water too long. The touch put color back in the world for me, I hadn't even known it was gone. Hadn't sensed the world had been turned gray. And the barista was like a furnace (but not feverish) she was alight with the warmth of life. It wasn't stopping her story that had helped, I was smart or morbid enough to guess the ending. It was the touch! At once, by instinct, we took each other's hands. It wasn't sex... Wasn't kissing. But it was intimate and all my instincts put there but society told me not do this with a stranger, especially one who just seconds ago was reprimanding me. But I did, fuck society. Fuck their norms. I was doing this for dear life!

We looked into each other's eyes, confirmed that we weren't insane, we had been feeling the same thing. The same gray cold void creeping into our souls. Our focus dropped to our entwined fingers, feeling that the contact had something to do with... Staving off the cold. A cold that was both physical and spiritual. I looked around trying to figure out what it was, what chemical had spilled or gas was pumping into the room. Needing to know how we got away from it.

What I instantly saw was Samara. Samara was against the wall! Her big dark eyes were giant saucers filled with deep brown chasms of fear. Despite the years in between us seeing each other (or even talking), she was my friend. I had become a horny mother, aunt, MILF, and married ex-girlfriend fucker but I was not a bastard who would leave my friends to suffer. She was suffering and I knew why, it took almost everything I had to look at it. There was something horrible between me and her. That my brain kept refusing to believe, but she was my friend and she was scared and crying. CRYING!

"Don't!" The Barista yelled, I guess I had been about to let go of her hand, but she was right.

"We have to get Samara! Samara!" I might have been near tears myself, just looking at Samara's expression said so much of the despair she was feeling.

Knowing her (through Jessica's memories mostly) I knew exactly what pain she would be living now. Like the Barista it would be family, her grandparents.

Scared or not I rose. Samara was close to the door, thirty feet away? Might as well be miles and miles away. There were two people over there, or a thousand. One of them (The only for sure one) was the curvy latina, my friend collapsing more and more to the ground and in anguish.

The other... I felt it more than saw it, because it was so gray. So cold and so gray. And all it really seemed like was an after image. Like looking at a bright light and then looking away and closing your eyes, only whatever the opposite of that was. Because you saw it by looking but when you blinked your brain instantly tried to say it wasn't there, had never been there. Your brain wept for it not to be there. And at the same time that it was a shape, it was a thousand things, a laughing thing, a crying thing, a howling thing, and gray thing. It was a thing in a casket, a bully from school, a first love dumping you, a first love trying to steal your magic. All of that, more, and always a gray thing.

So gray and so cold. I thought about this evening. How it had gone from some RomCom plot of meeting two girls I liked in high school and having coffee with them at the same shop. Getting yelled at by the barista and probably finding out neither was interested in me. That this evening had gone from a 90s SitCom episode to a mother fucking Stephen King novel. With the only thing stopping me from being swept away by oceans of sadness and galaxies of remorse was the touch of a stranger. A stranger who gripped my hand tighter, causing more reality (if being in the presence of a gray void monster could be called reality) to surge back into place.

"Samara!"

"Don't!" The barista tried to anchor her feet and tightly gripped my hand, shaking her head. But it was come with me (closer to it) or be left alone. The alone was the worse choice, as insane as it should have seemed as I stepped away from the booth and towards my high school friend. The barista whimpered, "God! It's so cold, cold, cold, cold!"

Three feet felt like a mile jog (before I had the ring) another inch and the cold gray was closing in. The bing, bing, bing, of the door open alarm dropping to... Nothing. I knew that was bad because it was so loud and annoying by design. I saw Roger Whitehall laughing at me the time he'd shoved me over, out of nowhere, for no reason, and then joked like I had just tripped because I was a clutz. My eyes pulled away from it, to her hand. It wasn't enough! A hand wasn't enough, not as we got closer. The advice that followed, my own instincts I'm sure, told me to retreat. I didn't know Samara but for ancient conversations in a past life where I wasn't even the person I was today. I truly hadn't known her in half a decade, but for somebody else's stolen memory. Maybe even my attraction and affection to her was all Jessica's!

"I'm sorry." I told the Barista taking another step forward.

She made a huffing noise that was acceptance and relief, as she reached over with her other hand. Slipping her small fingers up the sleeve cuff. The extra contact made us feel slightly better. In the least it fought down the worst. I was preparing for the next step, but she made me stagger. Retreating from my forearm but slipping her hand under my shirt. All on her own. At first it was more urgent than anything else, the way she gripped my flat stomach. But a moment more and her soft touch was roaming around; over my pecs, down my ribs, and almost clawing my abs.

"What?" I asked as her hand went from feeling around to pressing.

"It's not enough!" The name-tag-less woman said, strengthening her resistance.

"It has to be." But no matter how brave I was, I knew there was no way I was going without her.

"It's not enough." Stepping in front of me.

I opened my mouth to argue but she put the hand she'd been holding up under her shirt. Well she tried, the apron in the way put a stop to it and almost angrily she yanked it not just undone but off. A few hard and heavy breaths while she glared up at me challengingly, then she tried it again. Her top was mostly a thin sweater, her two hands and one of mine easily moving it aside. Showing off a section of her midriff that instantly had me fighting the ring powered needs. I couldn't stop myself from staring, her skin was so freaking dark and her midsection was small but she was not fit either. Waiting until my eyes found hers through her glasses, she put my other hand opposite the first.

I gulped, "I'm sorry this is happening." Both for it being here and making us do this to save Samara, and the fact that my cock pushed the front of my pants out.

"It's okay." Sensing there was more reasons she broke her eye contact from mine. Looked right at my still growing tent, "Oh my god." Slowly she looked back up at me, staring me deep in the eyes. "Okay."

"Oh... Kay?" I asked.

"Okay." Very obviously NOT looking in the direction of it for a moment, her tone set, her expression begging me to get it.

I didn't get it, "Okay?"

A moan from Samara and the girls at the counter, almost could have been on cue. My thoughts ran further than that, wondering if it was pushing harder, getting hold and digger deeper into their souls.

"Okay!" It might as well have been "IDIOT!" with all the anger it was delivered with.

She went up on her toe tips, yanked my shirt and... we kissed. She kissed me but I was always fucking ready and willing now, so I for sure kissed her back. It was barely long enough for both of us to flutter our eyes shut, but it seemed like a grenade had gone off. Only instead of ears ringing or blurry vision, like in movies, all the sound and colors came back. Feelings and smells too, ones that weren't sadness and chill. And dear god was it good! Her lips tasted like the soda she had been sipping back there, a squirt of vanilla in their locally sourced cola. I started to blame the ring that made me want to go back for more, much more. But then I saw the look in her beautiful dark brown eyes and remembered she'd kissed me.