Author's Note : I think this will probably be a series, but I don't have a lot of time to devote to this stuff so who knows. Constructive feedback welcome.
This could fit into a lot of categories so I just went generic. All characters are fictional and of legal age.
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"Come on Max, you could use all the help you can get!"
My older sister Casey never pulled any punches, and while I knew she meant well it still got on my nerves sometimes. Casey was home from college for a week, and it happened to be the county fair, and she begged us all to come along with her while she was home. She may have been a little nostalgic for our small-town midwest nonsense but for me, who was still stuck here, this podunk fair was the last place I wanted to be.
The tent my sister was urging me into was a fortune teller's tent. The sign out front advertised the psychic as being a "love guru" that can help "even the loneliest find love!" While it was true I could use all the help I could get, a psychic at a local fair didn't sound like "help" to me.
I had graduated from high school last year and decided to take a gap year and save up some money before college. Which meant still living at home. My sister had gone off to college in the Northeast a few years back, apparently much less concerned than I was about a lifetime of student loan debts, but as I stood here in my hometown thinking about going to bed alone that night in my childhood bedroom, I questioned my life choices for the thousandth time.
As for needing help in love.... Again, she wasn't wrong. I had graduated high school never having even been on a date. I'm friendly and well-liked but just so shy and nerdy that it never translated to anything romantic with anyone. And now that I don't even have school to socialize, my prospects seemed even less. I had dreams of going to college and reinventing myself next year, but also knew deep down that it wasn't as easy as it sounded to change your personality.
I felt another nudge at my back and resigned myself to heading into the psychic's tent. My sister had even given me a twenty-dollar bill to cover the reading, so what was there to lose?
The tent looked like a stereotypical circus tent on the outside -- round, with a pole at the center and a large vinyl flap at the entrance. I pushed the flap aside and stepped inside. It was dark and smelled of incense -- because of course it did. Colorful curtains -- mostly dark reds and purples -- were draped around the space, with a middle-aged woman sitting at a table in the center. Behind her were dozens of shelves in a semi-circle following the shape of the tent, each shelf filled with little bottles. There had to be hundreds of the bottles back there, and all I could think of was what a pain it must be for her to move this tent every week. Maybe they were all just glued to the shelves? I was sure they were just for show, so why not ju---
"Hi there." I was snapped out of my daydream by a soft and friendly voice, and remembered I wasn't here just to consider the logistics of tent moving.
"Oh, uhh, hi. Sorry, I was just... admiring your bottles." Why did everything I said sound stupid?
"Don't worry about it hon. Come, take a seat across from me. My name is Tara" She gestured to the empty chair across the small round table in the center of the tent. There wasn't a crystal ball, at least. Just a white tablecloth, the table, and a chair on either side. I sat and faced her. She was maybe 40, stringy blonde hair. Not bad looking but perfectly unremarkable. The dark tent, the incense, her friendly voice and demeanor all made for a very relaxing environment, and I felt instantly very calm. She raised an eyebrow and looked into my eyes, and while this usually made me nervous I found I could barely look away. "So what brings you in here? Want to know your future?"
I didn't have a good answer. "I uhh... well.... My sister said I should come in."
She smiled, still not breaking eye contact. "And why is that?"
I squirmed a bit. "Well, i guess she thinks I need help in the love department."
Her head turned a bit to the side. "That's what SHE thinks, what do YOU think?"
My discomfort grew. " I mean... she's not wrong. But, no offense, I'm sure you're great and all, but I don't really believe in psychics...."
Tara laughed, and I felt a bit of my building tension ease. "Neither do I, if I'm honest. I just like to help people, and I find this" -- she gestured around her tent -- "is a good way to do that."
"OK, but if you're not using ... magic how exactly are you helping people?"
She stood from her chair and walked towards the shelves. "Prior to following the fair around, I was a biochemist for a pharmaceutical company. And I was very good at my job.... At least I thought so. My boss didn't agree. The things that fascinated me, that I wanted to work on, had to do with boosting the human body's own abilities to heal, but they couldn't make enough money on something like that." She shrugged. "My parents were wealthy, and I didn't need money, so I just left. Took what I learned from school and my brief career and started developing some things of my own." She gestured to the shelves of bottles.
I was a bit confused. "I mean, that's really cool, but... I'm not sick...."
She smiled patiently. "Of course not. Look, in addition to being a pretty good chemist, I'm also a really good reader of people. Hence the psychic front. I can gauge a person pretty well in only a couple minutes of being in a room with them. Most people who come in here are not worthy of any real help, so I pull some flim-flam on them based on my reading of their personality and send them on their way. You.... you seem like a decent person. I see that you're shy and reserved, and have no self-confidence, but you have a kindness to you. I suspect you are very well-liked by almost everyone, but can't get out of your own way when it comes to women. Sound about right?"
I wasn't really comfortable with the compliments, but nodded.
She smiled. "I've been waiting for a man like you to come into my tent. I have just the thing." She grabbed a pint-sized bottle off a random shelf. It had a screw top with an eye dropper attached.
I put my hands out in front of me. "Look, you seem nice, but I'm not really comfortable taking some random drug from a stranger at a fair."
She chuckled at my discomfort and waved me away. "No drugs. Think of this like a cologne. Do you know what pheromones are?"
Of course I did know what pheromones were. But I also knew there were lots of studies on pheromones in humans, and they've largely concluded that we're not particularly susceptible to them. I nodded hesitantly.
"Well, this isn't quite a pheromone, but similar. You dab a little bit on your wrists, and it does two simple things. One, it kicks your own testosterone into gear. This should give you a little more confidence, and a little more a sense of 'masculinity' to those that meet you."
