"Your chakras need realigned."
Walter turned around from his seat at the hotel bar. He was taken aback by the woman before him. She was small, but exuded an energy that felt like electricity humming behind a power plant fence. She wore some sort of crystal around her neck on a hemp cord and either a pewter or turquoise ring on each finger. She was dressed like she'd just come from a Phish concert, but her clothes looked like they were bought at a high end boutique instead of a thrift store. She smelled of incense, and her long blond dreadlocks were streaked with silver to match her Ganesha earrings.
"Were you talking to me?" Walter asked.
She held out her hand. "I'm Devi."
He had a Hindu friend back home, so he recognized the name. "Like the Hindu goddess?"
"I always appear in times of need," she said.
He smiled. "And what do you think I need?"
"Your chakras are all out of alignment," she said. "You need a serious adjustment."
He took a sip of his mojito. "And you can do that for me?"
"It's my specialty." She took the mojito from his hand. He didn't protest as she took a drink from it. "Your root, genitals, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye, and crown. They're all out of whack."
"How can you tell?" He wondered if she was a guest at the hotel, but he couldn't imagine missing so striking at the daily breakfast buffet.
"I can read your aura," she said as she sat next to him. Her ankle-length dress slid up to her knees as she crossed her legs. She had a toe ring on each foot. "It's a nice aura, but jumbled. You need one of my balancing treatments."
He was too tired, and a bit too drunk, to put her off as a loon just yet. He took his drink back. "Just what does that entail?"
"Some crystal therapy, maybe some aromatherapy, definitely a sharing of tantric energy through chakra manipulation."
He smiled. "I have no idea what you just said."
"You're here for the electronics convention, aren't you?"
He was shocked by the question, but only until he remembered the bar was full of other convention attendees. People everywhere were jabbering about the newest high definition televisions, iPod headphones, or home theatre displays on the showroom floor. Many bar patrons still wore their convention badges.
"I work in digital cable," he said. "You're a masseuse, I'm guessing?"
She nodded. "Your work has affected your body's energy. Too many hours behind a desk looking at a computer screen. Your posture is quirky, and your third eye is tense. You get lots of headaches, I imagine. Lots of stress from working in sales and the unnatural light from your computer doesn't help. You look fit, though. Free weights?"
"Rowing machine."
"More artificiality. An outdoor exercise forced indoors."
"I live in a landlocked town. No lakes to row in. I grew up on a river where I could row every day. The job took me to a different state and away from the water."
She nodded again. "And away from your natural element. You're a water spirit living around too much earth. More imbalance."
"So I should dig a pond in my back yard?"
"It would help." She smiled. "Or get in the water once a month."
"I'll take a swim here at the hotel." He decided to try his luck. "Are you staying here?"
"No, the bartender's a friend. I was here to drop off his house key. I feed his dog while he's here."
The bartender brought her a fresh mojito, winked at Walter, and then went back to work.
"That's nice of you," Walter said to her.
"It's the least I could do for all the yang energy he gives me."
"Yang energy? Isn't that some Chinese thing?"
"Yes, to help me balance out my natural feminine energy, my yin power."
"How does he give you yang energy?"
"From his hot come."
He almost dropped his mojito, spilling a good amount of it on his shirt.
"See?" She said. "You're way off balance."
"I just wasn't expecting you to be so bold." He would've dismissed her as crazy minutes ago if she hadn't been so damn alluring.
"You have to take life by the horns." She took an ice cube from his glass, sucked on it, and then dropped it into her drink. She wrote her phone number on a napkin. "Call me if you want that alignment."
She turned on the stool, smiled one more time, and then left. The butterfly tattoo on the small of her back flapped its wings with each step.
He paid little attention during the convention's panel on digital cable sales the next day. He hadn't slept well. He kept seeing her face, smelling her incense scent, and hearing her pretty voice. He almost called her, twice, but he wasn't keen on being caught hiring a private masseuse while his company was paying for the trip.
After the sales panel, he lost his exhibitor floor badge, dropped a fully loaded hot dog on his pants, stubbed his toe on a table leg, got lost on his way to a buffet luncheon, spent four dollars on a burned mocha, and then discovered the buffet luncheon was cleaned out by the time he found it.
His head felt like someone was carving him open with a jigsaw. He half-walked, half-stumbled back to his hotel room, having missed the shuttle bus. He had an hour to kill before the next sales presentation, and he couldn't remember ever needing a nap more than he did at that moment.
He dropped his briefcase once inside his room. His jacket, tie, and shirt followed, all landing in a heap as they slid off the back of the desk chair. He pitched forward onto the bed, not bothering to remove his shoes.
Sleep rushed into him, but he was yanked back out by the piercing sound of hammering on the door. It was housekeeping. He'd come back before they'd cleaned his room. He told the woman it was fine and gave her five dollars to come back tomorrow afternoon. He whacked his hand on a hallway table as he headed back to the bed. Pain shot through him and sent him into a cursing fit. He was about to throw his valise across the room when he saw the napkin Devi had given him.
She answered on the first ring.
"It's Walter. The guy from the hotel bar last night," he said. "I've had the worst day you can imagine, and I'm wondering if you were right all along and that I'm somehow causing all this."
"I can be there in ten minutes," she said.
"I have to be back at the convention in less than an hour."
"Do you?" The question was asked in her sweet voice, but it still felt like a glass of ice water thrown into his face. "Do you really?"
His shoulders relaxed. He sighed. "No. They'll never miss me, and I won't miss them. I'm in room 220."
"Take a shower. Drink some water. I'll be there soon."
She was knocking on the door by the time he was rubbing a towel over his wet head. He pulled on a bathrobe, unlocked the deadbolt and removed the door chain, and opened the door.
She was dressed in a blue bikini top, yoga pants, sandals, her crystal hemp rope necklace, and a ring on each thumb. She carried a small hand-knit purse over one shoulder. She smiled. He smiled.
"Did you drink the water?" She asked as she walked into the room.
He relocked the deadbolt and reset the door chain. "Two glasses' worth."
She sat on the end of the bed and then cupped her hands on her lap, like she held a softball in them. She inhaled a long breath through her nose, tucked her chin to her chest, and was then silent and motionless for a minute before raising her head to blow her breath out between her teeth.