Passages
Ray was alone in bed when he awoke the next morning. He knew that Jasmin had gone for a run, as was her custom on Sunday mornings. He followed his own customary Sunday morning routine, which pretty much involved just getting himself out of bed. He cleaned himself up, got dressed and even made the bed, all, amazingly enough, he thought, without Jasmin's help.
He'd just sat down with his first cup of coffee, and the Sunday paper, when the door to their apartment opened, and Jasmin came in. His jaw dropped, and his eyes bulged from their sockets when he saw her.
She was covered from head to toe with dirt, and dust. The cloths she wore were torn, and dirty. Her hair was wildly disheveled, the right side of her head, and nearly the whole right side of her body was caked, and smeared with half dried mud. She was covered, everywhere, with cuts, scrapes, scratches and bruises of varying degrees of severity. She carried her left shoe in hand, and she moved while barely touching her left foot to the floor.
"What the hell happened to you!" Ray shouted at her, aghast that anything could make her look the way she did.
"Oaw," Jasmin groaned painfully, "don't ask."
It was all she was willing to volunteer at the moment. Ray hurried to her as she moved to close the door. He put an arm around her waist to help, but it only caused her to wince, "Ow-wow-wow, please, my side hurts." He immediately removed his hand, and looked helplessly for a way to assist her as she hobbled to a chair. She was about to sit when she paused.
"Oh, I can't sit there," she moaned.
"Why not?"
"Ray, I'm filthy," she explained.
"Screw the chair," he ordered her, "jus' get off yer feet."
Readily complying, Jasmin eased herself onto the chair, heaving a tremendous, groaning sigh of relief as her weight transferred from her right foot to her aching butt.
"My God, you're a mess!" Ray sputtered. "What happened?"
"I fell," she said, her mind vainly searching for an area of her body that didn't hurt.
"At least," he said as he looked her over, wondering where to start administering first aide. "Uuhhh, okay. Okay, where . . . where are you hurt the worst?"
She weakly pointed to her left leg, and murmured, "Ankle."
He crouched, and looked it over. Her left ankle joint was severely swollen.
"Is it as bad as it feels?" she asked.
"I don't know about that, but it looks like you sprained the hell out it."
He pulled the coffee table closer. Jasmin carefully raised her leg, and placed it on the table. The extreme bulk of her muscle-swollen calf kept her heel safely lifted of the table's surface.
"Thanks," she offered as she eased herself back in the chair. The first contact of the chair back with the injuries on her back caused her to wince terribly. She was gradually able to relax, however, and sat leaning away from her right side.
Seeing her foot at a different angle, Ray noticed that there was a gaping tear in the flesh on the lateral side of her upraised foot that extended from the heel all the way up to the base of her little toe.
"Auw, Jeez, Jasmin!" he exclaimed. The sight of the wound made him feel sick. "What happened to your foot?"
"That," she noted, "probably happened when . . . " she raised her left shoe, which was suspended by the heel from tan index finger. The entire lateral side of the shoe was torn along the sole. " . . . that happened."
Ray looked at the shoe in disbelief. He couldn't even imagine the force required to do that kind of damage to an athletic shoe. He refocused his attention back on Jasmin.
"Okay, uh," he said as he headed for the kitchen, "just . . . stay there, and I'll, uh . . . get some ice."
After he was gone, Jasmin idly watched the shoe dangling from her finger.
"Who said I was going anywhere?" she asked rhetorically.
Ray returned with a baggie filled with ice cubes, a hand towel and a pair of scissors. He carefully cut away what was left of the double layer of socklets that were still on her injured foot. Removing them wasn't easy for either of them since the torn, and ragged, edges that surrounded the breach in her flesh had bonded with the forming scab. Once her foot was bare, he draped the towel over her injured ankle, then prepared the ice bag.
"Brace yourself," he warned her, and then he carefully draped the bag over the towel.
Jasmin winced more from the weight of the ice bag than from the sudden temperature change. The added discomfort, however, quickly subsided, and she was able to relax again. The major emergency having been, at least, temporarily addressed, Ray went back to feeling frightened, and concerned. He fussed over the ice bag, seeking perfection in its placement, then caught sight of the wound on her foot again, and gasped. To avoid looking at it, he returned to fussing with the bag.
"Talk to me Jasmin," he quietly, but urgently, requested of her. "What happened? How'd you get like this?"
Telling would mean remembering, and that was something Jasmin didn't want to do just then. Not to the extent of giving voice to what had exclusively occupied her mind since the whole thing had happened, at any rate. But it was Ray who'd asked, and, because of that, she spoke.
"I went for a run, over by the canyon road. It was nice . . . going along. I was actually running faster than I usually do. I figured that the new muscles allowed for that. It was nice . . . and then these two guys in a car came up along side of me. I don't know what they were after. They were bored, I guess. They paced their car with me, staying beside me all the time. I didn't take any notice of them, hoping they'd get bored, and go away, but then the guy on the passenger side rolled down his window, and called out, "Lookin' good, girl!" I ignored them, but they still wouldn't go away. The driver just kept pace with me. I could hear them talking, and laughing. The whole thing was getting me really nervous, so I sped up a bit. Well, they sped up too, and just kept pace again. So I tried slowing down a bit, and they slowed down. I tried speeding up again, and they sped up. It went back, and forth like that. They were not going to leave me alone. All the while they're just talking and laughing, and I was getting more, and more scared all the time."
"What the hell were you afraid of?" Ray demanded, his protective outrage rising. "You probably could've tossed them, and their goddamned car into the ravine."
"Ray," she pointed out to him with a gesture to indicate her transformed body, "this just happened not twenty four hours ago. I'm not accustomed to thinking of myself as being strong, and powerful."
They regarded each other in silence for awhile, then Ray had to look away, shamed by the kind of rage that only a man is capable of feeling. His woman had been harmed, and there was nothing he could've done to either foresee it, or prevent it. Jasmin looked on him with gratitude. She understood how he felt, and she appreciated it. She looked away for a moment, and then resumed where she'd left off.
"Anyway, finally I just stopped, and stood still, thinking that they'd have to keep going. Well . . . they didn't keep going. They stopped right beside me, still talking, still laughing. By that time, I was scared to death, and didn't know what to do. I wished to God that there'd been some way I could escape but, you know, in that section, there's nothing, but cliffs on one side of the road, and the ravine on the other.
"Finally I panicked, and just took off running as fast as I could. I could hear the sound of peeling rubber, and knew they were going to catch up to me. After a couple minutes they were along side of me again, keeping pace, only they weren't laughing anymore. I think I heard one of them say that I was doing thirty-five, but I knew that wasn't possible. But then, everything was going by so fast. Anyway, we got to that windy upgrade where the ravine deepens and the curves get really tight. I thought that maybe I could loose them there, because they'd have to slow down to make the turns. Well . . . I was wrong again. They still kept pace with me, or, at least, they tried to. The driver was having a lot of trouble making the turns as fast as we were going. The whole thing just kept getting more horrible. They ran another car off the road that was coming from the opposite direction, and they nearly ran into me a couple times. By then I was running completely on instinct. My legs were, somehow, way ahead of my brain. I knew I couldn't slow down, so I tried running faster. That seemed to work as I started pulling ahead of them. I guess the driver was afraid of going any faster. Once I got past them, I just kept running, running, trying to go faster. I was able to look back over some of the curves, and I could see them falling further, and further behind. I tried to run faster. It took awhile, but finally I couldn't see them anymore. And then I fell."
Jasmin stopped at this point, apparently unable to go on. The recollection of what had happened next overwhelmed her, and she began to cry. Ray took hold of one of her hands.
"It's okay, Impy," he told her through his own heavy emotions. "You don't have to say anymore. It's alright."
"No," she answered. She tried to recover, and wiped the tears from her face. "No," she said again, and then she took some time to calm herself before she continued.
"I don't know how fast I was going, well over thirty-five, but then I hit a sharp turn. I felt that I could make it, but the first step I took to make the turn, my foot tore through the shoe from the side pressure, that's how my ankle got sprained, and . . . down I went. I skidded on one side for a second, then I started to role. I rolled over the side of the road, went airborne for a moment, not long enough for me to get any bearings, then I just . . . fell all over the place down the hillside. I only stopped when I hit bottom. I knew I should've been dead, but I just lay there, and I hurt so bad . . . everywhere."
She was crying again, and so too now was Ray.
"I lay there for the longest time, waiting for the end, expecting each breath to be my last . . . but. . . it didn't end. I didn't end. So I lay there, too scared to move . . . not knowing if I could move. After - God - I don't know how long, I started to feel the pain begin to lessen. I didn't know what was happening. I think I could actually feel my body recovering from the fall. When I realized that I wasn't going to die, I started to move around a bit, checking for broken bones, and other injuries. I could tell that my foot was in bad shape. After awhile I was able to get up. I saw that I'd made a crater where I'd landed. It was like four inches deep. The ground was fairly soft, but still . . . to hit that hard. I could hardly believe it, and yet it was there. Anyway . . . after that I crawled, hopped and hobbled my way back to the car."
Both of them had recovered from their tears. They sat quietly for a long time, holding hands, each of them preoccupied with their own reflections about the events Jasmin had related. At length, Ray kissed her hand, and asked her, "How's your ankle?"
"It's feeling better," she said quietly, "and . . . I'm feeling better generally."
He looked at her hand in his. The back of it bore a number of minor scrapes, and cuts.
"Those two guys," he asked tentatively, "were you able to get the plate number on their car?"
"No," she answered, shaking her head. "They were either beside me, or behind me."
Ray was quiet for awhile. It was difficult for him to let go of his desire for retribution. He wished with all his heart that he had the power to heal her the way that she seemed to be able to heal others. Knowing that she didn't need him feeling wretched over impossibilities, though, he changed the subject.
"You know, you're right," he noted. "A fall like that would've killed anyone else, but you not only survived, you recovered as much as you did, and without even thinking about it." He looked at her intently. "We already know that you can heal others. Why don't you try healing yourself?"
Her response to his suggestion was a baffled stare.
"That never even occurred to me," she confessed in a tone of muted amazement,
Ray's look softened, and then he smiled.
"Well," he noted softly, "it's occurring to you now, isn't it?"
She didn't answer. Instead, Jasmin turned her attention to her injured ankle. Ray saw her change of focus, so he removed the bag and towel from her ankle so she could see it better, if, indeed, she needed to see it at all. Neither of them knew. She gazed at her ankle, and pictured it as being whole again as it had been before the fall.
After a few moments, Ray saw the angry swelling that encased the joint gradually diminish until it appeared to be completely normal again. Jasmin then changed her mental focus, and, within a minute, the gaping wound in her foot closed, healed, and then vanished altogether without leaving so much as a trace of a scar. When she thought she was done, Jasmin tried moving her foot, cautiously at first, then a little bolder as she didn't feel any pain. She closed her tired eyes, and laid her head back.
"That feels so much better," she sighed. Her eyes opened again, and she looked on Ray with loving gratitude. "Thanks for the suggestion."
Returning her look, Ray quietly beamed with admiration for her.
"Physician, heal thyself," he remarked with a smile. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she answered, carefully working her ankle, and wiggling her toes. "It feels so good to be free of the pain."
"So," he then suggested, "how about getting the rest of yourself cleaned up."
Jasmin visually surveyed her thoroughly bruised, and bleeding body.
"Ugh, God," she moaned. "Where do I start?"
Ray had to smile again as he gave her hand a squeeze.
"Anywhere you want."
"I don't know," she muttered dubiously. "This may take awhile."
"Well," Ray said, rising to his feet, "miracles don't happen overnight."
He disappeared into the kitchen to put the bag, and towel away. He took his time, busying himself with other 'kitchen' things in order to leave her alone so she could concentrate. When he couldn't bear to away from her any longer, Ray returned to the living room. He saw Jasmin standing in front the full length mirror by the hallway. She'd stripped out of her tattered clothing, and stood naked before the mirror, using her reflection to search out injuries she couldn't readily see. She'd find a cut, or a scrape, or a bruise, and heal it with either a look, or a touch.
"You're not done yet?" he cracked with mock exasperation.
They eyed each other in the mirror.
"You're interrupting me," she cautioned him with a demure smile.
Ray just smiled back.
"Sorry."
Jasmin turned to him as she drew her hair over a shoulder.
"Could you help me with my back?" she asked. "I can't see it very well."
Answering the call, Ray approached her as she turned her back to him. He stopped close enough to see her fully, his eyes lingering over the vast topography of muscle her back had become. Blemished though it was by injury, the sheer amount of obvious brawn so forcefully displayed would be intimidating, even fearsome, had it not been for the fact that, yes, this was his Jasmin, and so Ray felt at peace, and very much in love.
"How do you want to go about this?" he asked.
"Well, I got all the stuff that obviously hurt," she told him, "but I know there's got to be a lot of little things. If you see something, touch it, so I know where to focus."
He readily obliged her, serving as a tactile mirror for her to direct her concentration. He'd see a bruise, then lightly touch a fingertip on it. After a few moments, the blemish gradually faded until it was no more. They repeated this procedure with every remaining bruise that Ray could see. That left only the tiny cuts, and scratches then to deal with. Reluctant to subject these raw wounds to the acid on his skin, Ray cupped his hand over the first scrape he saw.
"Could you be a little more specific," Jasmin asked him, wanting to pin-point the area he was referring to.
Ray frowned. He still didn't want to touch the injury directly, and then he had a thought that made him smile. He leaned close, and gently kissed it. Within moments, her little hurt miraculously faded, and went away.
"If you're doing what it feels like you're doing," Jasmin told him, "you're going to make it very hard for me to concentrate."
Ray looked at the area where the little hurt had been, and thought of how they'd made it go away. He had to smile. He wanted to cry.
"You seem to be handling it okay," he said as casually as he could.
And so, on they went. Ray gradually worked his way down her back until he was on his knees, delicately kissing away the little hurts on her buttocks. Finally, he ran out of little hurts, but, conscientious as he was in his purpose of assisting her, he began inventing them.
"Excuse me?" he eventually heard his woman intone suspiciously.
"Opps, there's another one," he noticed just before he applied a loving kiss.
Not! thought Jasmin. She'd actually known for some time that he was faking, but now the urge to get the dirt washed off her outweighed the tender thrill she felt from his attentions. With a twinge of regret, she moved herself away, and turned to face him.
"You've helped to remove every pain in my ass," she noted wryly, "now you're becoming one."
He was still on his knees . . . her naked beauty within his reach.
"Ooo, that's a nasty gash you got there," he informed her, then he hastened to kiss the newly discovered 'wound'.
Jasmin squealed, and backed away as she clamped her strong hands on his shoulders. Maintaining him at a 'respectful' distance, she crouched so she could face him.
"If you keep that up," she warned him sternly, "you are going to find out just how nasty, and mean - and bad . . . and strong my aching little 'gash' really is."
Her tone had grown progressively more imbued with lust as they regarded one another. Ray bravely looked into her exotic, smoldering eyes.
"Is that a . . . promise," he asked her curiously, "or a threat?"
"Both," she vowed an instant before their lips met.
They'd barely wet their appetite for one another when she broke off the kiss. She looked at him. He looked at her. They both drew close until their foreheads touched.
"Thank you, Deedee," she more felt than said.
Jasmin showered, then joined Ray in the kitchen wearing an oversized tank T, which, on her, had become a decidedly undersized tank T. She had her hair wrapped up in a towel while a second towel swathed her pelvis. She'd knotted the bottom of the T-shirt to take up the slack around her waist.
"We need a bigger shower," she announced matter of factly, patting the towel on her head here, and there. "I can barely move in that stall now."
"I'll tell the landlord to get right on it," Ray told her, inferring the likelihood of her request becoming a reality.
"Well?" she demanded, miffed that she wasn't being taken seriously.
"You want some coffee?" he offered.
"Yes, please," she answered in a calmer tone.
Seating herself at the table, Jasmin was, yet again, surprised by the fact that she could now sit on a chair, and actually touch her heels to the floor. She took a moment to adjust to the still novel sensation, then scooted herself forward a bit so she could lounge back in the chair, and stretch her legs out.
"You could probably make that shower stall larger yourself," Ray suggested as he prepared her beverage, topping his own mug off at the same time.
"Oh yeah, right," she responded sarcastically, accompanying her next sentence with gestures. "Just grab, and pull."
"No, not with your strength," he said thoughtfully as he placed her mug before her.
"Thanks," she said, curling a finger around the mug's handle, and raising it to her chin.
"But with your mind," Ray said, concluding his thought as he meandered back to the counter.
Jasmin waited until his back was turned to surreptitiously finger-test the liquid's temperature before taking her initial sip. She'd been listening to him, though, as she frowned in thought over his statement while holding her mug with both hands poised just under her nose so she could enjoy the warm caffeine odor.
"You mean . . . tele . . . uh, whatever it is. You know," she queried.
"Yeah. Tele-kinetics," he informed her.
He leaned against the counter, crossing one ankle over the other as he jammed the fingers of his free hand into a front pocket of his jeans.
"That's something like what I'm talking about," he went on to say. He wasn't really clear on how to relate what he was thinking, "but not just moving an object, but actually changing its shape."
"Hmmm," Jasmin intoned thoughtfully, taking another sip of coffee as she ran some possibilities through her mind. Then another thought occurred to her, and she asked him half seriously, half teasingly, "Don't you think you might be starting to expect just a little too much of me?"
A scowl appeared on Ray's mouth as he mulled over her question.
"Mmm, perhaps," he absently conceded with a shrug, "but you can't fail if you don't try."
She gave him a knowing smirk. He was challenging her, and she was liking it. Still, she wondered.
"How do you figure that I can change the shape of matter?" she asked over the rim of her mug.
"Well," he offered in explanation, "I think it's pretty obvious by now that you're capable of manipulating energy. Why not matter?"
"The two aren't quite the same," she duly noted with a smile.
She set her mug on the table, and pulled the towel from her head, allowing her semi-dry hair to flop over her powerful shoulders and across her broad, thick back. The two of them studied each other's face, as Jasmin did some spot drying with the towel, her upper body executing a dazzling ballet of muscular exertions as she worked the towel over her silken black mane. They were both thinking, in their own way, about the question Ray had brought up.
"Well?" Ray finally asked her in a manner of prompting.
Jasmin continued studying him, and thinking, as she rubbed her head some more with the towel. Ray gave her a knowing smile. He knew he had her curiosity peaked. Jasmin eventually returned his smile.
"Okay," she conceded with a sigh of resignation. She finished with the towel, and deposited it on a far corner of the table, then pointed to the chair beside her, and invited him to, "Sit down."
Ray happily accepted.
"And wipe that smile off your face," she told him.
His smile blossomed into a full blown grin.
"That's more like it," she said with a smile of her own. She then got down to business, "Alright now. Energy, and matter, are very different."
"Agreed," Ray said with a nod of ascent.
"So explain your assertion," she prompted him, then she added as she took up her coffee mug again, "aside from my probably being able to crush a beer can like nobody else."
"By manipulating the energy within a given object," he explained, using his own coffee mug to illustrate his point, "as well as the energy surrounding that object."
"But that's energy again," she pointed out between sips, "you were talking matter."
"Manipulate the energy," Ray asserted, "and the matter will follow."
Jasmin spent some time mulling this over. Her schooling in engineering ruled against what he was proposing, and Ray could see that she was having doubts. In an effort to demonstrate his point, he dug into his pocket, and produced a penny. He placed it on the table in front of her, then sat back, and waited. Jasmin studied the penny, wondering just what kind of thoughts it was being offered for. She couldn't keep from smiling as the multiple meanings began to tumble over one other in her mind. Instead of offering her a penny for her thoughts, he was offering it for her abilities of thought. She glanced up at him.
"If you're asking for the kind of thoughts I think you're asking for," she wondered pointedly, "is a penny the best you can do?"
Ray smiled back at her, and raised his open hands.
"Why mess with tradition?" he asked her gallantly.
Their gaze lingered for awhile.
"See if you can move it," Ray said to challenge her again.
Jasmin's oriental eyes narrowed, welcoming the dare. She fixed her gaze on the coin, and concentrated on moving it. Nothing happened for the longest time as they both sat staring at the penny between them.
"Anything?" Ray finally asked.
After a few more moments, Jasmin answered, "Nothing."
Ray shifted his position, and sat up a bit in his chair.
"What's the problem?"
Jasmin continued staring at the coin.
"I'm not sure," she said thoughtfully. "I may not be doing it right - well, of course I'm not doing it right, because it's not moving. Duh!"
They shared a laugh over this, then got serious again. Jasmin took a moment to reflect, studying the coin all the while.
"There's energy there."
"Really?" Ray asked. "How can you tell?"
"I . . . can see it, for some reason," she told him, "or perceive it somehow." She studied it closely, focusing more of her concentration on the coin. "I can see it in the penny. I can see it in the surface it's sitting on. I can even see the energy in the air around the coin, but none of it seems to be enough for me to manipulate."
"How do you know that you can manipulate it?" he wanted to know.
Her eyes rolled up to him.
"You want me to blow up another flashlight?" she asked.
Ray looked away, and smiled.
"No, thank you," he said.
He returned his attention to the penny.
"If there's not enough energy there for you to manage," he speculated, then he reached over, put a finger on the coin and slid it along the table, "maybe I can give you a push start."
He laughed, then he took up his coffee mug again.
Jasmin joined in his laughter, but then a light bulb went on in her head.
"Wait a minute," she intoned thoughtfully.
She put her own mug down, then placed her own hand on the table, and pointed her index finger at the penny. She then slowly moved her hand forward. When her fingertip was a little less than an inch away from the coin, it began to move away from her advancing finger, maintaining a constant distance.
"What're you doing?" Ray asked, watching the process intently.
"I . . . think I'm projecting an energy field," she said, concentrating on keeping the penny moving. "It's acting like an extension of my finger."
Jasmin kept the coin moving a bit further, then lost control of its direction. It arced around to the side of her finger, and stopped, still about an inch away.
Ray looked up at her.
"It's movement again," he observed.
Jasmin looked up at him.
"The difference between static, and vibrant energy," she noted.
Ray relaxed, and leaned back.
"Seems like your powers reflect you," he ventured.
"Yeah," she said, looking back down at the penny as she took up his train of thought. "I can't initiate vibrating energy, but I seem to be able to amplify it if it's already there. The penny, and everything around it, was static energy. I needed a vibrant energy source for," she raised her eyes to him again, "like you said; a push-start."
"So it looks like you can project vibrant energy beyond yourself," Ray concluded.
"Kind of . . . like . . . an expanding field," she noted, her voice sounding somewhat distant as she became lost in thought.
They sat there for awhile, both of them involved in their own reflections concerning what had just happened. A sparkle appeared in Jasmin's eyes as she sat up in her seat.
"May I . . . try something?" she asked him with a subdued, yet unmistakable, excitement to her voice.
"Mmm, that depends," Ray responded after taking a sip from his mug. "What've you got in mind?"
"I can't manipulate static energy," she noted. "Maybe I can manipulate vibrant energy."
He eyed her warily. He could see that she was becoming excited.
"Yeah?" he prompted in a slow, melodious tone of caution.
"Well, aside from me," Jasmin reasoned, "you're the only other source of vibrant energy available."
Ray laughed nervously, staring into his mug.
"Ahhh, I can see where this is going."
"Well," she noted significantly, "you're the one who said that I had to explore my abilities."
Ray knew she had him.
"Alright," he conceded, finishing off his coffee with a final gulp, and placing his mug on the table beside him. "I can't argue with you."
"Good," Jasmin chirped, enjoying her little victory, then she got serious. "Okay, uhm . . . may I 'take' your hand?"
"Which one?" he asked, wiping a droplet of coffee from one corner of his mouth.
"Right hand," she told him as she pointed, "and forearm."
"Where do you want to start?"
"Umm," she wondered momentarily, then, "just put it on the table, and relax."
"You're not even going to let me put up a fight?" he teased as he shifted in his seat.
"Well, not until I figure out how to do this," she replied. "If I can do it, that is."
"Okay."
He placed his arm on the table, but then, changing his mind, he flexed his elbow to raise his hand away from her.
"What are you going to do?" he asked with a tone of playful suspicion.
She looked at him a bit surprised.
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?" he asked her knowingly.
"Because then how would either of us know if I was doing it, or if you were doing it?" she explained.
"Doing what?" he teased.
She just smiled at him. He returned his hand to the table.
"Okay, let me know when you're ready."
"I can't tell you that either," she stated. "No, just . . . close your eyes."
"Why?" he asked.
"Just close them," she instructed. "Bugger."
Ray smiled at her, and closed his eyes. Observing his submission to her, Jasmin started to feel nervous when she suddenly realized that she had no idea of what would happen. She was afraid of hurting him, but she also knew that they both had to find out just what her abilities were, and how to control those abilities. She reached across the table, and took his hand into her own in the hope of reassuring herself as well as him, and then she came to gently stoke his arm with her other hand.
"I don't think this is part of the experiment," Ray noted as a way of prompting her along.
"Okay," she sighed with more than a touch of regret. She left his arm where it lay, and sat back in her chair. "I'm going to try to take control of your right arm, and move it as I wish."
"Understood."
It was one of the many things about this man, she thought. The more serious he was, the briefer, and more succinct, his speech became. Jasmin knew that he was all business now. She thought a prayer for his protection, then concentrated her gaze on his hand. She explored it, amazed at all the detail she could see. She sensed herself getting a feeling for the structure of his hand, and focused her attention on the motor nerves, and their connections to the various muscles.
When she felt comfortably familiar with it, she envisioned a mental image of the position she wanted his hand to be in, then tried imposing the image onto his hand like a glove. The hand did not respond, but remained as it was, resting on the table before her. She tried the same method with a couple other position images. The results of both were the same. Then she had the idea of reversing the image in her own mind so it would appear as Ray would see it. The imposition of this image also failed to elicit a response.
"This may take awhile," she warned him, frowning to herself, and wondering where to start next.
"Okay," was Ray's only response.
Jasmin then tried a succession of several different things. Nothing worked. After about twenty minutes, she felt tired, and frustrated.
"Open your eyes," she finally told him.
Ray complied, and looked at her briefly.
"You okay?" he asked her.
"Yeah," she said, frowning in thought. "I just don't know enough about what I'm trying to do to know what I'm doing wrong."
He studied her for a moment.
"You want to call it quits for now?" he asked her.
"No, not yet," she replied, her mind busier than ever. "Leave your hand there, and just relax."
She rested her own hand on the table to one side of his. Her open palm began to glow, but then it faded, and went out as she changed her mind. She cast about mentally for awhile, then concentrated on generating a force field. Within seconds, Ray's hand moved away from hers by a couple inches. She then placed her other hand on the other side of his, and succeeded in moving it back to where it had been.
"It's like the penny," Ray noted.
"Yeah," Jasmin agreed before she qualified, "but you're vibrant energy."
She watched intently as she compelled his hand to move a bit more.
"It's inside, and outside," she observed, speaking as she thought the notion through. "Your hand's emitting energy, but once it gets beyond your skin, it becomes static. I can't move your hand from the outside, because it's like trying to manipulate static energy, which we already know I can't do. In order for me to move your hand, I have to get inside it to where the vibrant energy is."
"Invasive surgery is definitely out," Ray jested.
"No, not that," she replied, having taken him half seriously. "With my mind. Let's try it again."
"I am not closing my eyes."
"Okay."
Jasmin settled her gaze on his hand, and concentrated on establishing a mental map of what his motor nerves looked like. From there, she worked on directing the energy traffic that moved along those nervous roadways. Both of them witnessed as one of Ray's fingers suddenly twitched. Jasmin looked up at him quickly.
"Did I do that?" she asked.
"I sure as hell didn't," was his answer.
It was a breakthrough, and they both knew it. At once, Jasmin began to fear herself, and what she might be capable of. She, and Ray, knew, however, that she had to explore these strange abilities she felt accumulating inside her. She had to find out what they were, what they could do and, most importantly of all, how to control them. Ray didn't move, but Jasmin could sense his eyes on her as she took some time to get herself calmed down. She took a few moments to recall, and review how she was thinking when Ray's finger had moved.
"Okay," she said, still tentatively feeling her way along mentally on how to proceed, "let's . . . try a little more."
She changed her focus a bit, and concentrated again. After a few moments, Ray's thumb began to tremble. After another moment, it slowly began to rise from the table. The tip of it rose an inch, or so, above the table's surface. It hovered there, shaking violently, then it suddenly dropped back to the table, and was still. Jasmin squeezed her eyes shut, pressing a thumb, and finger to their inner corners as she sighed aloud. Frowning with concern, Ray leaned forward, and stroked her brow.
"You okay?" he needed to know.
"Yeah," she said quickly, moving her hand away, and opening her eyes again.
Their upraised hands found each other. Their fingers interlaced, and lightly toyed with each other. She managed a tired smile.
"Your nerves are intricate little suckers."
He smiled back, and offered, "Sorry."
Some of the tiredness evaporated from the way she looked at him.
"How about you?" she needed to know in turn. "You doin' okay?"
"Fine." He took her hand, and kissed her palm. "You wanna continue?"
"Eh," she intoned noncommittally. She felt tired, but she was also intrigued by what they seemed to be discovering. "Maybe we'd better leave it alone for awhile. We know that I can, and I know how. The rest is just going to be practice now."
Ray leaned back in his chair, but their hands remained embraced,
"It'll be less strenuous as you get accustomed to it," he assured her.
She glanced up at him.
"I hope so," she said. She observed at their hands as their fingers delicately played with each other. "It is pretty draining."
"Why don't you try narrowing your focus?" Ray suggested. "It sounds like you're trying to stimulate every single nerve ending."
"Well, that's where the control is, isn't it?" she ventured.
"Yes, and no," Ray said thoughtfully. "That's where the final command to do something winds up, but it's not where it originates." He grasped the the sum of her fingers, and shook them to illustrate his point. "Why concern yourself with all of these," he asked, "if," he went on, releasing her fingers to grasp her wrist, "just stimulating the main nerve will suffice?"
She took awhile to think about this, then decided that she wasn't quite so tired.
"Okay," she said thoughtfully, "le' me try a larger muscle this time."
"We're still on the arm though, right?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said, "same as before, just . . . le . . . leave it there, and . . . relax."
Ray let his arm rest on the table as before. Jasmin settled back, and gazed at it. She chose his elbow, taking some time to mapped out the area for herself visually, then she set her focus, and applied herself. She'd reasoned that a larger nerve would require a proportionately greater degree of concentration, but then Ray's elbow flexed suddenly, causing his hand to swing upward with such speed, and force, that it crashed into his face.
"Oww!" he protested, instinctively raising his free hand in self defense.
"Oh God Ray, I'm sorry!" Jasmin chattered, shocked by what had happened. She lunged forward to help, frightened that she'd really hurt him.
"No, it's okay," Ray assured her while massaging his brow.
"You're sure?" she asked, trying to get her fingers to the injured area.
"I'm alright," he insisted, waving her away.
"Let me see," she insisted.
Ray hesitantly allowed her access to his brow, which Jasmin immediately touched. She lightly pressing her fingertips to the area.
"Wow," she commented, "I really bopped you a good one, didn't I?"
"Yeah," Ray intoned uneasily. He felt a bit peculiar about what she was doing, but then he noticed that his pain was gone.
"There," said Jasmin, feeling that she was finished. She withdrew her hand. "You okay now?" she inquired.
"You're asking me?"
"Well, I want to make sure I got it all."
She let her hand hang at her side, and shook her fingers. Ray noticed the air turn gray around her fluttering fingertips. The affect lasted only a moment before the color faded, and disappeared. He frowned at her perplexedly.
"What did you just do?" he asked.
Jasmin came to reflect upon her action as she worked her fingers gingerly.
"I . . . ," she began, and she looked thoughtfully at him, "I relieved your suffering."
"And how did you do that?"
"By taking away your pain, and then healing your trauma," she said. She took some moments to think over what she'd done before she ventured, "It's . . . like I knew what had to be, and then my guidance system made it so."
"And how did you know what had to be?"
"Ray, I hurt you," she declared impatiently. "How could you possibly expect me to let that stand?"
What she'd done was, again, something which no other human had been known to do. It was happening more, and more. She was accomplishing . . . impossible things, and Ray was now certain that she was becoming stronger, and more powerful, on a constant basis. For lack of a better frame of reference, the way she'd touched him had been a miracle, just as when she'd healed the woman's ribs the day before, and herself no more than an hour ago.
"Did I get it all?" he heard Jasmin ask him.
Ray saw her watching him with a concerned expression as she worked the fingers of her one hand. He probed his brow with his own fingers, and took a quick mental inventory of the area.
"You . . . got it all," he assured her. "How's your hand?"
Still working her fingers, Jasmin took note of how her hand felt.
"It's okay," she reported. "It just takes some time to work the pain out of these dense tissues of mine is all."
Ray sat there for a time, gazing at her hand, amazed at what she'd done. He recalled how he'd helped her heal her own injuries earlier.
"You know," he began with a coy smile, "when I was little my mother would kiss my hurts away."
"Umhm . . . ," Jasmin responded with a knowing smirk. "You're not so little anymore, for one thing," she noted, and then she raised her hand to observe her still tender fingertips, "and for another," she added, "every time I heal you I don't want to feel like I've just been slugged in the mouth."
So Ray would have to be content with her healing touch alone. He was about to consider how he was ever going to get over this diappointment when Jasmin raised her arms high, and stretched luxuriously. The sight of her massive, ultra-defined musculature, straining and undulating, as well as the view of the bound hem of her T-shirt creeping up over her intricately chiseled tummy, aided him greatly in overcoming whatever it was he could no longer remember.
She relaxed, and leaned back in her chair, entertaining the notion of having another cup of coffee. The chair, however, loudly cracked beneath her. Jasmin froze, and the cobblestones in her tummy instantly jumped out in bold relief as she tensed to brace herself. All thoughts of coffee were suddenly consigned to a back burner of her mind as her eyes widened in fearful anticipation of being unceremoniously deposited onto the floor.
"I think I need another chair," she very cautiously surmised.
"I think you'd better get up," Ray told her.
This was easier said than done, however, since she had to pull forward to get her feet under herself. When she exerted the effort to do this, the chair ominously cracked again. Reluctantly, Jasmin decided it would be best for her to remain where she was as she held out a beaconing hand to Ray.
"Please?" she meekly asked him.
Ray obligingly rose from his chair, and took her hand, but he warned, "As big as you are, I don't know if I'm going to be much help."
Jasmin tightened her grip on his hand enough to let him know that he wasn't going to get free until she was good, and ready, to let him go.
"If nothing else," she informed him, "I can take you down with me."
Knowing he was committed weather he liked it or not, Ray opted to use both hands.
"No way lady," he said.
He gripped her tightly, and then pulled with all of his might. Both of them were surprised to discover that her physical density had become so great that he could'nt budge her. His effort did help enough, though, to where Jasmin could get a supporting foot beneath herself.
Once she was safely standing, the towel slipped from her hips, falling to the floor around her feet. She let herself fall forward, just so Ray could catch her, and they found themselves in a mutually cozy embrace. They shared a lingxurious moment of quiet, just between they two, and then they shared an even more lingxurious kiss. When they could bring themselves to part, each was feeling pleasantly light headed with the other.
"You are, uh . . . in a rather revealing state of undress," Ray took care to inform her as he liesurely caressed her hips, and buttocks.
Jasmin softly moaned her appreciation of his concern for her.
"You, uh," she asked with coy aggression, "got a problem with that?"
Ray considered the question carefully.
"Mmm-no," he answered easily, "I don't have a problem with that, but . . . I'm thinking you're about to have a . . . big problem," he forewarned her with a suggestive thrust.
Jasmin got his point. She moved her belly against his as she replied in kind.
"Well, fortunately I'm the kind of woman who can handle . . . 'big' problems."
Each of them was having the desired affect on the other. Jasmin closed her eyes, and came to rest her forehead against his.
"I wish we knew what would happen to me," she sighed.
Ray understood her hesitation, and pressed his supportive hands to her back.
"I . . . think this is the part where we start grunting, and panting," he suggested, hoping that some levity might help.
She didn't respond, but stood with her huge arms draped around his neck. He stroked her back firmly.
"You wanna call it off?" he suggested.
She looked up at him.
"No."
She didn't want to call it off.
"I . . . "
He knew her look.
"I'm just . . . "
Her tone.
" . . . scared."
He gathered her close. She held him tight.
"I'm sorry," was all he could think of to say.
"I'm so scared," she told him with a broken, halting voice.
"I'm so sorry," he told her with deep regret.
They stood together for a long time; holding, hanging on, thinking, feeling. At length, Jasmin moved away a bit. Not far, but just a bit.
"So . . . are you going to start grunting?" she asked.
He was proud of her for trying to get past her fears, because it helped him to get past his.
"No," he answered. "I did the grunting last time. It's your turn to grunt."
"No, I grunted last time," she informed him. "You obviously weren't paying attention."
"Well, I was . . . kind of busy at the time."
"I wanna pant this time," she insisted.
"But I wanna pant," he insisted.
"Panting is feminine," she pointed out. "Grunting is masculine."
"Oh," he noted, "now you're being sexist."
"Sexism is something only men are guilty of."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah," she said. "Women just get away with it."
"Oh, I see. Thanks for clearing that up for me."
"So, now that we've decided that it's my turn to pant - "
"How about if we both do a little grunting, and a little panting?"
"Mmm, I'm negotiable on that, but then how're we going to tell who's doing what?"
|
|
|
|