Do you like to travel? Do you like to fly? I can't stand to fly. Church doesn't much like it either. During this flight he has an unusual experience. Have a look. I think you'll be excited by what you see.
If you're younger than 18 or find these kinds of stories offensive, please close up now and have a great day! If you are of legal age and are interested, by all means keep going. I'll be glad to have you along for the journey. Please donate to Nifty. This is a great resource for great stories and a useful outlet to authors like me and readers like you.
Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
36
Night Flight
The chartered plane was already on the runway and ready to depart when we drove over to it. The craft was what passed for a wide body on Solum. The outside was the same `purple plastic, swept wing, manta-ray with jet engines' arrangement that I was familiar with from our smaller private plane, but this one was easily twice the size.
I knew on the inside we'd find two rows of pairs of seats, like a generously spaced, Earth style first class, with a narrow aisle between them. The seats were like plush recliners and would fold completely flat for sleeping on long or overnight flights. I was glad for that, because by the time I climbed the stairs into the plane cabin it was just ten o'clock, and I'd been awake for twenty-one hours.
To say I was exhausted would be to understate, but as tired as I was, I was also excited and worried and all kinds of other things. My emotions were working overtime and I knew sleep would be elusive at best.
I entered the plane with Paul and herded him toward the rear, well away from the others. He had his copy of Fidum's Bible with him. I noticed it as I offered Paul the window seat. He accepted it without comment, and I settled next to him.
I glanced at the others as they settled into their respective seats. My brother climbed abord and lowered his much smaller frame into a seat several rows ahead of Paul and me. He sat like a fat man would. He eased into the seat and even rotated his hips like he needed to work them between the arms of his chair. The fact that his hips were far narrower than they used to be had not registered with his habits yet. I remembered doing a lot of those same things when I recovered my body after the first mission. It took me quite a while to adjust to being fit instead of fat.
I took a second to think about the handshake Joe had shared with me outside the formal dining room when he'd come back from speaking with Paul in the barracks. I thought about his display of grief over the twelve years he'd tortured his boy and everyone else with his morally superior, high-and-mighty routine. I wondered what Paul had done to shake him enough to admit he was wrong. I assumed it must have been dramatic.
I closed Paul and me into a magic box and asked him. "Did you threaten him?" I asked with a nod toward Joe.
Paul seemed unwilling to talk until I told him we were inside my magic. Even after he knew we couldn't be overheard, he seemed unwilling to explain himself. Paul gave me the barest minimum of answers.
"I didn't have to threaten him. These new powers of mine...they would have been useful, very useful to me as an active priest. I looked into your brother's thoughts, and I told him a story, a story from my own past. I won't recount it to you, young man, because it is private, and quite painful. I believe I was able to show Joseph the error of his ways. I hope so, for his sake, and yours, and that of young Andrew.
"Such an impressive young man, your nephew. He has truly blossomed on this world. He is such an accomplished young man, and not just because of his wealth and business success. The relationship he is building with that Comitis boy, it's very sweet and seems quite intense. I do hope it will last. "Andy was so helpful when my magic first activated. He was so patient with me. It's strange for a man of my years to be new at something, and to have to learn about it from someone so very young. Andy would have made an excellent teacher, or perhaps a councilor."
I let my eyes track along the opposite side of the plane to see Comet and Andy snuggled together. They both had reclined their seats and folded the armrests up so they could hold each other in their makeshift bed. They weren't talking. There seemed to be nothing to say.
Andy was turned into Comet who lay on his back. Andy's left hand held Comet's right, with both resting in the center of Comet's chest. I noticed Andy's thumb working back and forth across the smooth skin on the back of his boyfriend's hand. They looked sweet and innocent, and I was jealous of their intimacy.
"They're great kids." I sighed. "I didn't think much of Comet when I met him, but it's obvious he's good for Andy. Who the hell am I to judge?" I tried to close conversation on that subject with an abrupt shift in topics. "Thanks for what you did with Joe. I hope he really has seen the `error of his ways' as you said. It's been hard watching him torture himself. It's been hard for Andy to watch him. I hope you were able to reach him and that he stays reached."
"We've done what we can." Paul said with a breathy, resigned note in his voice. "The rest, we must leave up to Joe and to God."
I heard echoes, in Paul's words, of the discussion I'd had with Cass in the chapel. I decided I didn't want to hear those echoes just then. I tried to open a new topic. "How's that book?" I asked in reference to Fidum's Bible. "Are you getting through it?"
Paul held the book in front of himself clasped between both of his hands. He shook it like he expected it to rattle. "Incredible!" He enthused.
"This has been the most incredible book I have ever read. It is very much The Holy Bible, except it isn't. It tells the story, but it tells it much more directly. It tells the story like it was written to a different audience, perhaps a modern audience. That surprised me because I assumed, given the age of your friend Fidum, that the story within this book was older than Christianity. That was my initial thought, but since I've been reading, I realized this is the same story that is in The Bible. How old is this story on this world?"
I admitted that I had no idea. Paul already knew that Fidum was over fifteen hundred years old when I defeated the barrier. The book itself was that old. I didn't know how much older the story was. I did know that modern civilization on Solum was much older than it was on Earth. I related what I knew about that.
Paul nodded sagely, like everything I told him fit with a theory he'd been developing. "That makes sense." He said. "This work reads like modern literature. It's still full of metaphor and symbolism, but it's not written like a fable. It's written in the modern tongue."
I was happy that Paul was happy, but I wasn't in the frame of mind to celebrate with him. I was too tired and too emotionally overwrought. I told Paul as much.
He set his book beside him on the seat and apologized for his enthusiasm. "I am sorry, my friend. This is exciting for me, but I can see how it's probably more than you can handle right now. Perhaps another time."
I agreed with Paul. I wanted to convey that I wanted him to tell me about it, but as he said, another time would be better. "I am interested. It's been a long day, though and...you know, what you're saying is...complex."
"Certainly." Paul said in a voice that understood.
Paul and I shelved that discussion for another time and decided it was time to sleep. I released the magic box around us and pushed my weight against the seat back to recline it and to flip up the footrest. Paul did as I did. Soon, we were both positioned for sleep.
The silent electric jets spooled-up with just the sound of rushing air and launched the plane into the air. It climbed effortlessly and leveled at cruising altitude and speed. Someone dimmed the cabin lights as it seemed everyone planned to sleep. I rolled over to try to rest. I tossed around, and tossed around some more. I got mad and sat up. Paul leaned forward to sit up as well. "Trouble?" He asked. "Worry, anticipation, excitement, or `D?'"
"What's `D?'" I asked.
"All of the above." He explained.
"D." I agreed.
"I wish I would have thought," Paul patted his pockets like he was searching for something, "I have sleep aides in my suitcase from Earth. I always struggle to sleep anywhere that isn't my own bed. I even researched the best ones, the ones that aren't habit forming. Do you have anything like that here?"
I rubbed my face in frustration and gripped my bracelet when I took my hands from my face. "There is something...but I hesitate. It's not habit forming, but it has other side effects."
"Oh, I presume it makes you feel dopey the next day."
"No...I wish it were something that simple. Met can make us sleep with a touch, but the technique can give you some vivid, waking dreams. Shawn did it to me a couple times when we first got together, and I swore I'd never let him put me out that way again. I don't think I have a choice though. I need to sleep. I guess I'll just have to deal with the nightmares."
"Are the dreams always bad?" Paul asked me through a half-stifled yawn.
"They were for me." I paused to consider my options and very quickly realized I didn't have any. "Fuck!" I griped and then called for Met to come back to Paul and me.
He came back. I asked him to put me out and asked Paul if he wanted to risk it with me. Paul said that he would. Met put Paul out first, then did me.
I was driving, except I wasn't. There were two of me again, one of me dreaming and one of me in the moment, except that didn't seem quite true either. I was driving the Vic. It was late at night, or maybe very early in the morning and I was southbound on interstate highway 95 heading away from Philadelphia.
I could tell my direction because of where I was and the scenery around me. The Philly airport was on my left, and I'd just driven over the upper deck of the Girard Point Bridge. I was traveling in the middle lane and seemed to be in no hurry. The lack of urgency in the drone of the engine told me the car was loafing along at a fairly conservative highway speed.
The me that was dreaming wondered where I was and what I was doing. Finding myself on 95 southbound at any time of the day or night wouldn't have been unusual at any point of my Earth life. What was unusual was my position on the road and my speed. I wondered what I was doing in the middle lane and why I was taking my time.
My driving habits were typically aggressive. Left lane and eighty-five would have been normal cruising for me. I was still wondering when the eyes of the me in the moment shifted from the road to the dashboard.
I checked the speed-o-meter and saw that I was doing sixty-miles-per-hour, practically crawling. I inspected each dashboard gauge like it was unfamiliar to me and I needed to get my bearings. The only thing that seemed concerning to the me in the moment was the fuel gauge that showed a half-tank.
That me didn't think a half-tank would be enough to get where I was going, but he didn't seem completely sure. That me wrinkled my nose at the smell inside the car and glanced down at the full ashtray. I reached down to close it and to make sure the heat was on `high.' The hand that performed these functions wasn't mine. The hand was neat-looking, fine fingered and smooth, delicate; a far cry from my thick fingered paws.
The hand that closed the ashtray took the two o'clock position on the steering wheel and the other hand took itself from the ten o'clock position to lower the driver's side window in the hopes of getting some fresh air in the car. I ran the power window down and back up several times before I had it where I wanted it.
I was trying to balance letting too much of the frigid cold into the car with getting enough clean air to breathe. The me in the moment wondered how anyone could breathe the acrid, ash-filled atmosphere in the cabin of the car. I cast my eyes to my passenger as I wondered. He was leaned back in the seat, sleeping with his mouth hanging open, breathing heavily. The passenger was ME!
FUCK!' The me who was dreaming the memory thought. I'm Shawn again. This must be the night we met. I'm passed out in the passenger seat and Shawn is driving us, first to Baltimore, then to Solum. At least this is better than the day my folks were killed, so...take it, I guess.'
Even though it wasn't my worst memory, it wasn't one I particularly wanted to experience. I'd always avoided that memory when I made my occasional tours through my husband's memories. I remembered that the misfired addiction removal that led to those memories being lodged in my mind was going to occur two sunrises from the moment I was experiencing.
I knew, wrapped up in those moments, would likely be Shawn's initial impressions of me. I didn't want access to those thoughts. I worried what they would tell me about what he thought of me and why he'd chosen me as the `powerful and compassionate man' that his uncle had sent him to find. It didn't seem like I had a choice, though. The memory was going to play, and I couldn't even avert my eyes.
Shawn had told me about his choice on many occasions. He'd described the gratitude he felt when I intervened in the situation he'd been in, the prisoner and potential victim of four muscular meatheads who seemed intent on beating him to a pulp. We wouldn't find out for another couple weeks that the meatheads who menaced Shawn that night were in his uncle's employ. That they were sent by Ars specifically to menace Shawn to elicit the compassion of a powerful man.
Ars' ruse had worked, in a way. It had elicited the compassion of a staggering drunk who turned out to be the most powerful magic wielder Solum had ever seen. None of us knew that at the time. All I knew as I staggered into the November cold that night was that four strong guys were ganged up on one weaker one and that I hated bullies enough that I wasn't going to stand for it.
I'd intervened and saved Shawn from the bullies when he was nothing more than an attractive stranger to me. Later, when we got to know each other, he would become the single most important thing in my life. Later, he would become my very reason for existing. Still, I didn't like the idea of reliving those moments from Shawn's perspective.
I loved him, trusted the man who was my husband, but I never wanted to know first-hand his earliest impressions of me. I always suspected he'd seen me as the wreck that I was, and that a certain amount of his early feelings for me were based on pity. I didn't think I could take knowing that for sure. I reminded myself that I didn't have a choice. I tried to calm my worried mind and prepare for whatever was about to pass before my eyes.
What was in front of my eyes in that instant, was me. The me, or the Shawn in the moment, tried to drive and scrutinize his passenger at the same time. He monologued in his head as he drove along. `He saved me. He could have just left but he didn't. He saved me.' Shawn smirked as he played the scene from in front of the bar over inside his head. He was smirking at my choice of words as I challenged the meatheads. "Hey douchebags!" My smoke coarsened voice had demanded with just a hint of drunken slur.
He's so commanding.' Shawn thought. He didn't ask if there was a problem or a misunderstanding or anything like that. He got that little gun from his car and shouted at those men. After that, he was committed to whatever happened. Once he said that, he couldn't have walked away if he'd wanted to. He shouted right at them...called them `douchebags' and pointed that gun at them...for a stranger.'
Shawn glanced at me, sprawled in the seat. I'd been wearing a grey sweatshirt full of burn holes from metal sparks and black jeans faded grey from too much wear and too many washings.
He's certainly a big man.' Shawn thought. So big. That doesn't mean he's powerful, but he must be, big and commanding and brave. He's so big. I wonder what he'd be like...what that big body would feel like against mine. I wonder if he's the same in bed...commanding. I wonder if he'd take control. I wonder if he'd let me take control.' Shawn thought, and he felt sexy and naughty as he imagined what sex with me would be like.
Sex was suddenly front and center in Shawn's thoughts. `It's been so long since Roeb. I need it bad. This man may not want me, though...may not be attracted to me, he may like women. The way he looked at me when those men shoved me towards him...I saw hunger in his eyes. Someone his size, someone as powerful as him, he must be a passionate man...with a big appetite. So much man.'
Shawn watched the road for a while, but his attention kept drifting back to me, as he tried to understand who I was based on what I looked like. `His hands...they're scarred, scars on top of scars. What happened to him? An accident maybe. His shirt is burned. Why is his shirt burned? That couldn't be from smoking. He was drinking in that bar. He looks like he drinks...a lot maybe.
`I wonder why he drinks. Maybe he's in pain...from the accident maybe. Maybe he lives in pain. Poor man...in pain all the time and he still helped me, still got involved in something he didn't have to be involved with. That's the compassion. Powerful and compassionate, he's both. I hope he's what uncle wants. I hope he doesn't mind waking up on Solum. I wish I could have asked him to go, but how could I have done that?'
Shawn's mind wandered over various conversations he'd rehearsed for confronting the powerful and compassionate men he thought he'd meet on Earth. He had all kinds of speeches and conversation starters he thought he'd use to convince someone to go with him willingly. He never expected someone to hand themselves over to him so readily.
I laughed to myself, at the way Shawn thought of me. It's so Shawn' of him to think of me as powerful and compassionate, to fit me into the definition of the man he needed to find. I'm glad he did, but I don't think it's possible for him to have been more misguided than he was in that moment.' Shawn started thinking again. The cold air that flooded into the car through the open window had chilled him off. He pulled his jacket around him, gathering the generous folds of the material closer to his fit body.
`He gave me this jacket...even told me to keep it.' Shawn thought and he tried to arrange the garment he swam in. He was able to wring a bit more warmth from the insulated hooded sweatshirt. For good measure, he lifted the front of the neck over his mouth and nose to blow a couple warm breaths into the jacket. When he inhaled through his nose, he thought about the scent he experienced.
Cigarettes,' he thought sourly, truly a curse on the Earth man. Foul smelling and injurious; a strange habit. I wonder why anyone does something like that more than once.' Shawn breathed in the jacket again and let the smoke smell assail his nostrils.
Having learned nothing new the second time, he opened his mouth and breathed through his nose, like a connoisseur of fine wine might when judging the nose' of a new drink. Under the smoke though, he smells like a man...manly. That's a smell I could get used to. Roeb always wore too much perfume. I would think this man, this Church, doesn't even own perfume. He seems like a simple man, a masculine man who doesn't mind smelling like a man.'
A simple, straightforward man.' Shawn told himself as he breathed again and again into the jacket that I'd given him. Need to focus.' He admonished himself. He let the neck of the jacket drop from his face to his chest, exposing his mouth and nose to the fresh air that blew through the open window. He tried to figure out where he was.
Shawn had made what I considered a wrong turn as he continued on 95 south. He'd stayed on 95 and had to drive through the city of Wilmington, Delaware instead of taking the ring road that was 495 to go around it. The late hour meant there was almost no traffic, which meant the route selection amounted to six in one hand or a half-dozen in the other, but had the choice been mine, I would have taken 495.
Shawn's mental discipline, always far better than mine, chased away extraneous thoughts and conjecture and made it possible for him to drive through the night focused only on the task at hand. In his mind, the decision to take me to Solum had been made and all that was left was to complete the act. He drove with purpose and made decent time despite what I saw as his dawdling pace.
I spent that same time on my own wandering thoughts. When Shawn would glance my way, I would be freshly appalled that I had ever looked like I did at that time. My breath came in ragged gasping snores as I slept off the intoxication and the endless cigarettes I consumed. My body was fat and clumsy-looking and I was filthy from work.
Hindsight being what it is, I couldn't believe I was willing to appear in public looking like that, though I knew I did it, night, after night, after night. Of course, I also had to consider the company I kept. Big Nick's bar, and the crowd of alcoholics he catered to, hardly counted as `public.'
I also thought about what I'd learned from Shawn's thoughts; nothing Earth-shattering, that was for certain. There were no great revelations. He thought I was powerful and compassionate and that I might be the man his uncle wanted him to find. It was interesting that he found me physically attractive, even in the condition that I was in at the time. I reasoned that the way I looked was such a departure from what he was used to, he was bound to be at least intrigued.
I tried to chase away those thoughts and focus on the trip like Shawn had done. The ride was calming. Being with Shawn like that, it soothed my worried mind and allowed my thoughts to rest. I missed my husband. I worried for him.
I worried about the time before he'd been taken, worried that we'd been growing apart, falling out of love. I worried what would happen when we reunited. I worried if he'd want me, and if he did, how long that desire would last. I worried about a million things, but somehow as I spent time inside his memory, I felt very close to him. I felt connected to Shawn, inseparable from him, and that made my worries easier to bear.
I traveled with him, inside him in a way, inside the man who would one day be my husband. He and I journeyed through his memory from the darkened streets of Philadelphia to a truck stop on the outskirts of Baltimore. We stopped for fuel and Shawn struggled with the gas pump. He had to have help from a bleary-eyed attendant who seemed too tired to make fun of the confused young man and his difficulty with the everyday process of filling a gas tank.
The man's one comment was to ask Shawn if he was from Jersey. Shawn had answered in the negative. Shawn was confused by the question because he had no frame of reference. He didn't know that in New Jersey, it isn't permitted to fill one's own gas tank, while it is required in all the surrounding states. The attendant shrugged off Shawn's answer, probably because he didn't care.
After the small inconvenience of the fuel stop, Shawn and both versions of me proceeded to the Baltimore Tunnel, and the jump to Solum. We arrived on Solum on a straight road in the Glosbe Mountains and Shawn drove us into the city of Epistylium and eventually to The HALL.
There was a tense moment at the gate to The HALL compound as the guard, surprised by the late hour and the strange, noisy vehicle, pointed an energy weapon at Shawn. Once the guard realized that he'd threatened the nephew of the Steward of the organization, he apologized profusely. Shawn accepted his apologies and asked the man to gather two or three telekinetics to help him with a task. The man fell all over himself to assist.
It was that guard, and two others who were posted on overnight watch, who helped Shawn take my snoring form from the car. They struggled with my drunken, overweight body as they carried it with their magic and their physical strength through the corridors of The HALL, and finally into the small white room where I would find myself the next morning. They got me into the narrow bed, and Shawn felt a pang of guilt because it was too small for me.
Shawn knew that there would be no beds large enough to fit me, so for lack of options, he dismissed the guards back to their posts. Once they were gone, he took my boots from my feet and tucked me in. When he was done, he stood back to have a last look at the dubious prize he'd brought from the Earth.
Shawn leaned close to me and used his soft hand to brush some sweat-matted hair off my forehead. He let his hand rest on my head and spoke very softly to me. "You are my hero and I owe you a debt for saving me. That aside, you interest me, Church Philips. You attract me as well. I look forward to knowing you, and I hope you will like knowing me.
"I also hope you can forgive me...for what I've done to you. I hope you can help my uncle with whatever he needs a powerful and compassionate man for, and I hope we...I...can help you. If you are in pain, I hope...I hope you won't have to stay that way here on Solum."
Shawn seemed to shake himself away from his imagination so he could focus on more practical matters. "I'll bring some clothes back for you, and I'll try to be here when you wake up. Now, I think I'm going to get some sleep."
Shawn went to the chair by the door, where he removed my hooded sweatshirt jacket from his body and draped it over the seat. He put his hand on the door to open it but paused without turning the knob. He reached a hesitant and uncertain hand toward the jacket. He picked it up and gathered it to him. He held it against his chest as the scent of it rose into his face.
He breathed it in and felt possessive of the gift. Church wanted me to have this and it's rude to refuse a gift once it's been accepted.' Shawn rationalized to himself. Besides...besides I'm so lonely.' Shawn decided to keep the jacket, but he didn't actively connect the mental dots between his loneliness and his reasons for keeping the hooded sweatshirt.
Well, I'll be goddamned.' I thought as I left the room inside Shawn and walked the corridor toward the room he planned to use for the night. He wanted me from the beginning too. It wasn't pity, or gratitude, or anything like that. He was attracted to me and thought it would be nice if I was attracted to him. I'm so glad.'
I felt very pleased as I accompanied Shawn toward his room. I felt like I was leaning against the inside of his mind, like I would lean against a kitchen counter, to wait for myself to wake up. I was content with the discovery of how far back Shawn's feelings for me reached. I was pleased that the waking dream hadn't turned out to be the nightmare I'd expected.
Shawn found the room he wanted. It was very similar to the one he'd left me in. He took an extra pillow from a cabinet and zipped my hooded sweatshirt around it. He hugged the pillow to his chest and breathed deeply through his nose, inhaling the scent that rose into his face.
"Hello, sexy." Shawn said to the pillow person he'd made. He pulled down the bedcovers and set the pillow down with its empty hood on the bed-pillow and its `body' on the side of the mattress toward the door. "Be right back." He promised and started to undress. He folded his discarded clothes and set them aside, then went to the bathroom to relieve himself before bed. He paused to look in the mirror and I got to see the face I missed and the body I craved and the man I loved.
As he looked in the mirror, and I enjoyed the sight from inside him, something about the memory changed. The Shawn in the moment seemed to become another Shawn, one that wasn't just a memory from the past. His bare chest expanded with an urgent breath, and he screamed at the mirror. "CHURCH! CHURCH, I'M HERE! FIND ME!"
"SHAWN!" I shouted in his mind, as I was unable to shout it aloud. "SHAWN, WHERE ARE YOU?"
"Church!" He called and seemed instantly far away. A single tear slid down the cheek of the image in the mirror.
"SHAWN!" I screamed again. "SHAWN!" I shouted and sat up in my seat on the plane. I sprang from my seat and ran to the front of the plane. I beat on the cockpit partition until it opened to me. "Where are we?" I demanded of the pilot and copilot.
The indignant copilot answered me without taking his eyes from the controls. "We're making a turn over Litus Descendit, getting ready to land. You need to go back to your seat."
I hesitated as I thought of a million questions to ask the pilots, but I knew all of them would be useless. We were moving too fast for anyone to pinpoint where we were when Shawn shouted at me. There was also no way of knowing how long it took me to become fully conscious and run to the front of the plane. What I did know, what I knew inside my heart, in my very soul was that my husband was in the city we were flying over. He'd called out to me, either in his sleep or awake, and I'd heard him. He was down there, and I was going to get him back.
I returned to my seat, reluctantly. My friends and travel companions, the ones I'd managed to waken with my shout and mad dash to the cockpit, looked at me with a disgusting blend of pity and concern. All except for Andy who must have read my mind as I drew even with his seat. He put his hand up to stop my progress. "You heard him?" Andy asked.
"He's down there." I confirmed. "We're going to find him today."
"I hope so to, Uncle Church." Andy patronized me with his words and lowered his head back into its sleeping position.
I didn't bother to argue with him. I didn't bother to reinforce my assertion. We were going to find Shawn that day and they would all see. I walked the rest of the way to my seat and flopped down next to Paul. He was sitting up. I assumed I'd startled him awake when I shouted. Paul put his hand over mine to get my attention. "Problemas, joven?" He asked.
The strange words and foreign cadence of Paul's speech caught me by surprise. "What?"
Paul shook his head and wiped a hand over his face. "I mean, trouble, young man?"
I told him about the dream I'd had and about hearing Shawn call out to me as we flew over the resort city below. Paul reacted with enthusiasm. I was pleased that at least one person believed me. When we finished talking about my visions of Shawn, I asked Paul if he'd spoken Spanish to me.
He said that he had. "I haven't dreamed in Spanish in many, many years." He explained. "I also had a waking dream, as you called them. Such a strange experience to live a memory from inside my past self...strange and wonderful.
"The dream I had, the memory was of a Sunday during the rainy season. It rained steadily all that long peaceful day. There was little to do. Bernita and me, the me that I was then, we spent the whole of the day together, watching the rain fall. We barely spoke. We stayed in each other's arms for all that whole, long, wet day. We made love many times. It was beautiful and peaceful, and it made me remember how it felt to be loved and to have a woman in my arms and to be intimate with her. I wish I could have stayed there, with her, forever."
I wondered what that meant as Paul fell silent and seemed to retreat into his thoughts. I wondered if that meant he was still dedicated to his long dead wife, or if he was open to another woman, a living woman. I wondered if he could open himself for a very forward woman with an athletic figure who happened to be Shawn's mother.
I turned those thoughts over in my head but didn't have time to do it for long. The plane shook as it neared the ground and slowed. It made a complete stop in the air and set down on the large square roof of a black glass building in the middle of a sprawling, low-rise city.
"How?" Paul asked me as he stared out the window.
"Magnets, I think." I said with a head shake and a shrug. "I don't really know."
I got up from the seat and made sure I wasn't leaving anything behind. "Come on," I encouraged my friend into motion, "I'm hungry. I want to eat, get cleaned up, and start searching. Shawn is out there somewhere and we're gonna find him."