Many years ago, I accompanied my friend, Leatrice, to New York where she was promoting a young Jim Carrey. We stayed at the Algonquin Hotel and spent our evenings at comedy clubs or at The Lone Star Cafe on First where another act she managed, Shox Johnson and the Jive Bombers, were playing. It was a deliriously fun trip but one afternoon I decided to shop for shoes while she went to a business meeting.
I turned left out of the hotel and left again onto Fifth Avenue. He was handsome, thick dark hair brushed back from his face, black slacks and shirt, toying with silver rings. Our eyes met and he began…
It was a magical magic performance and I was entranced. Wordlessly, he beckoned me, had me hold a square of paper, lit it on fire, and scrunched the flaming paper into my hand. When I opened my palm, it was clear, empty—no ash, no remnant.
When his show was over, I landed hard. I was in love. No, I was hypnotized. I threw a five-dollar bill in his upturned hat and walked away, shaken.
I heard his voice through the crowd, “Hey, you’re not leaving, are you?”
What was I to do? Go back and be his groupie? His sidekick? His lover? I turned and gave a sad little wave. Instead of a shoe store, I found a quiet bar and ordered a double scotch.
The following short story is a magical spin on the encounter that haunted me for years.
A Love Story
Before she noticed what floated in his hands, the man’s hematite eyes drew Gemma in close. She was to meet her client in twenty minutes but the man wearing a black shirt and pants with silvery-black hair slicked to the sides, smiled as if sharing a memory. Under him, the sidewalk gleamed with a green and white stain. She hesitated. In his open hands hovered a ball-shaped crystal that looked to be made of ice. The street thrummed with pedestrians—shoppers, business suits, strollers. If they bumped Gemma she took no notice.
The crystal undulated, giving off green and white sparks from its sharp points. Without touching it, the man’s hands seemed either to follow or guide the object’s perpetual motion. Her eyes fixed on the crystal, Gemma sensed the man’s eyes on her.
“Would you like to try?” His voice warm as butter.
Gemma put out her hands and the spikey ball lifted, hovered, and floated into them. Her palms fizzed with electricity that penetrated the skin, shimmied up from her wrists, and ignited in her throat. As it shifted and spun green and white light shot out in all directions.
“How do you like it?” The man asked.
To Gemma, he appeared to be drifting away. “It’s… It’s…” The shimmering sensation sizzled down her spine and into her belly. When it opened into her pelvis, she said, “Oh,” and fixed her focus on the diminishing man. “Oh,” she said again. “It’s wonderful.” It was exceedingly more than wonderful. Bystanders had become cut-outs. Smaller and more distant grew the man. The crystal points of the object heated and brightened, stabbing sweet needles into her hands, in turn sending pleasure shocks through nerve and bone.
His voice arrived, now more chrome than something spreadable. “I’ll take it back now.”
Before he finished speaking, she answered, “No.”
“You must.”
When Gemma’s hands closed around it, pain seared her veins.
“You cannot keep it,” he said. “But I cannot take it. You must release it.”
Gemma pulled it in close, hugging it to her belly, but she fell in agony to her knees. “Please. Let me keep it.”
“Time to let it go,” the man said.
And the shapes around her chanted, Let it go, let it go.
“I can’t,” she moaned, her body surging with liquid fire.
After several unanswered calls, Gemma’s client found another advisor.
On the sidewalk, a handsome man with hematite eyes and a buttery voice stood over a luminous green and white stain. In his palms floated a crystalline ball. Jazmeen hesitated.
Whooaaa!! Mysterious sexy Magick enigmatic...
That is a story crying for "more"