THE MULE
Chapter 8
I awoke to an empty bed and the aroma of our joining, so strong still in my mind and senses. Blinking to full alertness a few times I sat up and rubbed my eyes, noticing how really good I felt-strong and loose. I hadn’t felt like that for a long time. I called her name, but there was no answer. I knew she’d gone. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It had been several hours since we had entered the apartment. I remembered noticing the clock beside the door just before that very first kiss.
I glanced at the window. It was dark outside and the view of the city from my bedroom window looked glorious. Everything looked glorious, and I felt wonderful. I couldn’t believe how wonderful I felt until I walked fresh from the shower, dressed in nothing but a wet towel. It was almost as if everything that had ever worried or concerned me had been lifted from my mind in that one beautiful joining of our hearts, minds and bodies. I was amazed-literally amazed. I had never felt like that after lovemaking before. I actually believed in every sense possible that I was alive.
I reached over to the bedside table and grabbed the packet of cigarettes. Lighting one and drawing it deep into my lungs, I coughed, then reminded myself sternly that I wouldn’t be alive for much longer if I continued to smoke.
I stubbed it out and walked through to the balcony, allowing my eyes to find their own level as I gazed into the far-off horizon. I breathed the fresh salt air deeply into my lungs to replace the cigarette smoke and felt better slowly exhaling it. Then I repeated the same exercise several times, stopping only when the phone politely told me some needed my attention that found it easier to call on the phone than to come in person.
I walked back inside and lifted the receiver with mental thanks, again wondering if I’d lost the plot in mentally talking to inanimate objects. I recognised the velvet quality of Tina’s voice instantly. My mind and senses swam in a sea of memories. Only her voice brought me back from being drowned in once again.
‘Peter?’ She called softly.
I sighed, wishing things had turned out differently.
‘Yes?’ I answered, enjoying where my senses had been quickly heading.
‘Is everything okay?’ She asked quietly in a concerned tone.
‘Yes. Everything’s just fine.’ Was all I could manage to say, my senses still struggling to come back to the here and now.
‘Peter, I- ’ She began and halted, her voice trailing away to nothing. Now it was my turn.
‘Everything okay with you?’ I asked her.
‘Yes.’ She answered. ‘Everything’s wonderful. Well-almost.’ She added quietly.
I knew exactly what she meant. But it made no difference.
‘I’m sorry, Tina.’ I apologised for nothing that I could think of right there and then, other than it might make her feel better. Then she surprised me completely.
‘Oh. Don’t worry about that. My stuff-up completely. I accept your decision.’ She said. Then, ‘They’ll get over it.’
‘Really.’ I said, unconvinced as yet.
‘Yes. That wasn’t the reason I called. I...er...Was it—’ was all she got out before her voice again trailed away to nothing. I knew what she was trying to say.
‘Tina. It was truly wonderful. I have never experienced making love to any woman ever in my life so beautifully in all my forty-seven years. And I mean that with all my heart. I only hope it was the same for you. It was an incredibly beautiful and moving experience. It’d be a shame if I was the only one enjoying it.’
‘You weren’t the only one, Peter. I wan—’ and again she trailed off. Then, ‘I’m sorry about leaving unannounced. I had something to do. You looked so relaxed when I looked at you, I didn’t have the heart to wake you just to say good bye.’
‘Thanks.’ I answered. ‘I feel as if I’ve slept restfully for the first time in my life. I feel great!’
‘Me, too!’ She said excitedly. ‘It was wonderful!’
I didn’t know what else to say. A thousand thoughts were racing around in my head, none of which I really wanted to entertain right at that moment.
‘Is it?’ Tina asked quietly, the excitement gone completely from her tone.
‘Is it what?’ I asked, a little surprised.
‘Good bye.’ She said quietly.
‘In what respect?’ Was all I could come up with at such short notice.
‘You... and me.’ She replied softly.
‘I don’t know if the two could be separated. Do you?’ I said, sighing softly myself.
‘I told you I accept your decision.’ She answered. ‘I’m only talking about... us.’
It was the way she said, ‘us,’ as if we had become an item in only one meeting. But as I thought about that very thought I knew we had. And it seemed she thought the same way I guess, or she wouldn’t have been calling.
‘Peter?’ She said my name so affectionately, as if she’d known me all her life.
‘Making love with you. It was... so... different. It was as if... as if we... made love on another level. I still felt we were, even after it was over. And it... it lasted so... the feeling I mean. For so long afterward. I can still feel it.’
I closed my eyes. I knew exactly what she meant. I could, too, and right at that moment my body did too. But that still didn’t change things.
‘I know Tine.’ I answered, not really knowing why I shortened her name to that, sounding it like, ‘Teen.’ I just said it. Then, ‘I don’t why I said it.’ I added.
‘I hadn’t asked you that question... yet.’ She said quickly.
‘I know.’ I said. ‘But I thought about it myself the minute I said it.’
‘No. I did.’ She replied, seemingly with a little excitement in her voice. ‘In my head, my mind, I mean. I mean, I was about to.’
I didn’t really know what she was on about, my mind still wanted to go where my body had already been.
‘What can I tell you.’ I said, matter-of-factly.
Then followed a lengthy silence on both ends of the phone where I had the unusual feeling of not wanting to go, yet not wanting to stay either. It was very unusual. I guess I wasn’t giving her much encouragement, and I didn’t really know why, apart from never being really sure whose thoughts would be whose.
‘I guess I’d better let you go then.’ She said finally, sounding a little sad, and making me feel a lot guilty.
‘Okay.’ Was all I said. Then, ‘I do have some rearranging to do.’
Right then I really didn’t trust myself to say anything more than that. I didn’t know what was going on in my own mind, let alone my heart, and, in that area, I always took my time. It hurts when you make a mistake. It hurts a lot.
‘Good bye then, Peter.’ She said softly, wistfully, adding my name at the end as a sentence all of its own, as if she simply wanted to hear herself say it one last time.
‘Good bye, Tine.’ I said, realising instantly what I’d done again without thinking. I thought I heard a soft sob just as the phone went dead in my ear, but I wasn’t sure. What the hell, anyway, I thought-probably for the best, but who for? I questioned, as I placed the phone back in its cradle and walked back to the balcony with the view of the distant horizon.
It was good for man to be alone with his thoughts for a while, I knew-but not for too long. So I allowed my thoughts to find their own level in my subconscious mind, while my conscious mind focused on the blue-green infinity and relaxed as I breathed deeply, deciding to allow whatever wanted to come... to come... and the hell with it.
I awoke feeling better than I had the night before, still not fully understanding why, but not really caring either. I intended to hold on to the feeling for as long as possible. It didn’t come along in my life all that often.
I didn’t dream of Tina or of our lovemaking as I thought I would, and was glad that I didn’t. The sooner I got back into the mind-set of my own practice and my own future without her, the better off I’d be, I figured. But as I busied myself with the re-planning of my life throughout the morning I wondered if I really wanted her out of my life.
Almost a month went by as I swung back into my practice with a renewed enthusiasm. I wondered where it had come from. The expected call from Tina never arrived, and, as the month slowly came to an end I began to think that it wouldn’t, and that both of us were probably better off.
Trying to keep her out of my thoughts was another thing completely-not her so much as our lovemaking. She’d been right on the phone. It had been different. Not different in the normal sense of the word, but... different in a sense I couldn’t quite put my finger on for all the times I tried to do just that-and I did try. I must have re- lived our union every night, always ending up the same way; hot, sweating and hard, and with no one to share it with.
I was tempted to call her several times, and always ending up with the thought of why I should complicate either of our lives with something I wasn’t sure I was ready for, or, if I ever really would be-not that I wasn’t the marrying kind. I was... once... for twenty years.
I took to walking the beach every afternoon after my last patient, as I had always done, but not on a daily basis. Sometimes I caught myself walking along with my head down, then looking up, hoping to see her standing in front of me with that cheeky grin on her face, and wearing those shorts.
I wasn’t depressed. I just felt as if something was missing. But how can you miss someone you’ve only met once? I would rationalise to myself as I kicked the sand and watched the waves wash over my bare feet and ankles, leisurely strolling through the waves breaking on the shore as if I was simply walking through the park. But, for all my mind-games, she was never there whenever I looked up, half-expecting to see her. Always I’d see a beach full of strangers, or no one at all, depending on the hour I finished with my last patient.
I began to experiment with my patients without their knowledge-nothing sinister, just working more experimentally with their trance depth and the degree of control I actually had over it.
It had always been an assumption on my part that I did, in fact, hold some degree of control over their thoughts and actions while in and out of trance, but I’d never actually tested each level of control. It was a learning curve, which I began to document with each of them, looking more and more forward to their visits for my own reasons of experimentation, as well as solving their problems. Their problems were taken care of, of course, but that turned out not to be my priority with their comings, more and more with each passing day and individual visit.
And with each passing day I began to slowly become more and more immersed in my experimentation, finding myself thinking less and less about Tina and our lovemaking. To the point where I realised, only after returning to my apartment and changing after a shower that I had walked the beach up and back without thinking of her once. That realisation brought with it a little sadness, and then finally, after pondering over it for only a little while, acceptance of the inevitable. I figured if I could forget her, as it seemed I had, then my decision had been the right one after all, even though I still wasn’t sure it had been, somewhere in the dim, dark recesses of my mind, even at that point in time.
I sat in my chair beside the middle-aged woman whom I had just brought out of a deep trance. She blinked several times and then stretched and smiled, as they all do. She looked younger than she did before I’d placed her into that trance. Her relaxation must have been very deep. She was smiling and seemed very happy within herself.
‘Doctor,’ she began, after taking a sip of the ice-cold water I’d given her. ‘How do you know what to say? I mean... where do you find the words?’
I wasn’t a medical doctor, of course, although I was a doctor of the mind, so I didn’t mind, and never said anything whenever they addressed me as such. Beside, it helped with the all-important rapport that always needed to be established for successful hypnosis.
After a brief explanation of what I thought she rose and walked beside me to my desk, whereupon she paid for her session and left. I then typed the notes of that session into the computer. It had been going around in my mind since she had asked the question; ‘How do you know what to say? And; where do you find the words? They were questions I had asked myself many, many times over the years.
The only conclusion I could come up with that I now sincerely believed was that as well as my patient being deeply in trance state, whereupon their subconscious mind was fully open and revealing its secrets to me, my own subconscious was also open.
My own conscious mind tranced down with theirs during the induction procedure. And, in the final Causal analysis, the words and everything else I said or did came from the patient’s subconscious telling my subconscious what it needed to hear. It was based on the believed assumption that somewhere within each of us lay the power or the ability to heal ourselves, in whatever way we needed to be healed that would be just right for us at that point in time.
For some reason I had always found it very easy to trance down with my patients-a technique or ability that few of my colleagues seem incapable of achieving, recognising, nor giving it any sort of reality basis, other than one man’s opinion. I knew different, of course, and merely believed it was their loss if they chose not to place any credibility on the concept.
Nevertheless, it was the only way I could satisfactorily explain to myself how I came up with and out with most of the advice and words I did. I have surprised myself on a regular basis, but, given my belief about what part of my mind is actually doing the talking,
I have never really consciously taken the credit, other than for being responsible for inducing the deep trance that allowed one subconscious mind to talk to another. Nevertheless, that was the interest and the key to my interest in the collective unconscious that I believe exists for all of us, and, can be utilised in one way or another if a suitable doorway to it can be established.
I sighed. It was a real shame the thing with Tina’s organisation hadn’t worked out. That was the area I’d intended to explore fully. I was also just as sure that the results of my experiments would have more than justified their of hiring me.
Tina. Once again I found her in my thoughts. I looked at the calendar on my desk. Nearly six weeks had passed. I noted that I rarely thought of her these days, and, if I did, it was always in association with, or because of a thought related to my own experimental hypnosis and work in my own practice.
I lit a smoke, something I rarely did inside my office. What the hell. I had seen my last patient for the day and would soon be taking my afternoon constitutional along the beach. Since making it a daily habit I had been feeling very relaxed in general most of the time.
The euphoria I had experienced after making love with Tina had lasted about a week. After that I had returned to normal, although I found, if I wanted to, I could trance down and recall that experience in vivid detail without any trouble at all. And, whenever I did, again the euphoria would stay with me in my conscious mind and physical body for a few days afterward.
The wall clock told me it was time to take my walk as I glanced at it. I stubbed out the cigarette in response to its message, locked up my office and headed for my now-favourite place of relaxation and winding down. It was Friday, and, it had been a long week with patients and my own experiments and note-taking, as well as my ongoing, continual study and research of an evening until sometimes quite late at night.
I was walking back toward where I had started my walk along the beach, head down, as usual, kicking the sand occasionally, when I sensed the nearness of another walker. I changed direction to the left, intending to simply side step them, not bothering to look up. Then I sensed the person halt as I moved to go around them. I continued walking, but glanced up anyway. My eyes widened. It was Tina, dressed similarly, yet different somehow. I stopped dead in my tracks.
‘Hi.’ She said quietly, with a smile.
‘Hi.’ I answered, returning her half-smile. ‘Long time, no see.’
‘I want to talk to you.’ She said, whatever smile had been on her face now gone.
‘Sure.’ I said. ‘Let’s walk.’
I began to walk slowly, in the same way I always did, while Tina walked beside me on my left. I didn’t bother to wonder what she wanted to talk about. I’d find that out soon enough. I was enjoying the company and the feeling of having her beside me once again, and sensed the slight increase in my pulse as I walked.
‘We want you to come back to the projects. ‘She stated flatly. Then, ‘I want you to come back too.’
I stopped walking and turned to look her square in the eyes, deliberately allowing my face to show absolutely nothing, in spite of what thoughts began to race through my mind, none the least of which was her. Tina’s face was deadly serious-no smile, eyes wide open and fixed on me.
‘We’ve talked about it at length,’ she began. ‘And I’ve... I’ve thought about it, too. I can’t seem to stop thinking about it-what happened between us. It was special. So different, and significant. I don’t know how else to say I’m sorry, but I am. Nevertheless, that was then, and this is now, and here I am. There’s too much at stake-too much to learn to throw the chance away. Our projects need you, and you need them, if you stop to think about it. I’m sure you don’t want to spend your remaining days sorting out women’s anxieties and the likes. Haven’t you thought about what you might have accomplished?’
‘Okay.’ I said quietly. I had decided before she’d finished her first sentence.
‘All you have to do is to—’
It took but a few seconds to sink in, and she wasn’t ready for such little resistance on my part.
‘What?’ She beamed, a hesitant smile slowly beginning to spread over her face as if she might not have heard me correctly. But her eyes had lit up.
‘You mean... you will?’ She confirmed.
I grinned, accepting the sound of my own voice and words in my ears.
‘Yes.’
I couldn’t believe I had said what I had, but I had, and now I couldn’t take it back. I didn’t want to. I wanted to be back on the project, and, I wanted to be near her.
‘Oh, Peter! That’s... that’s wonderful!’
‘Strike two, and you’re out.’ I just continued to grin. I meant it, and I knew she knew that, but I grinned because, I guess, I was just plain happy.
‘I can’t wait to tell them!’ She said excitedly.
I sighed loudly.’ I guess I’ll have to rearrange my life for a third time.’ Then I grinned dismally, pulled a sour face, and smiled. Tina linked her arm through mine slowly, holding my gaze the entire time.
‘It’ll be worth it.’ She grinned cheekily. ‘You’ll see.’
We began to walk slowly back. I knew it would be worth it, too, somehow-just feeling her holding my arm and walking so close to me made it already worthwhile. I sighed deeply. What next? I wondered-feeling her thighs graze lightly against mine-what next?