In part 1, our hero has a chance encounter with a strikingly beautiful woman, Eleni.
Unknown to Mark at the time, Eleni is over 2000 years old, the product of a union between her mother and a god of Mount Olympus. As things get heated between Mark and Eleni, his own otherworldly talents begin to present themselves.
Now, as we rejoin Mark, he is eager to explore his new gifts and begin his work, as Eleni has suggested, bringing unbounded pleasure to the women of the world.
*
Mark wanted to stay with Eleni forever and it was a struggle to bring himself to leave her apartment. She encouraged him by assuring him that the connection they had formed was permanent. They would effectively always be together and he could call on her, no matter where either of them were physically, at any time he needed. But she encouraged him to go out and explore his new gifts, she felt he had no time to lose.
A day had passed. He had been in her apartment nearly 24 hours. He hadn't brought his phone with him when he'd left his own apartment and he guessed that Pete would be worried about him so that was his first destination.
As he anticipated, Pete had some strong words for him - why did you leave without saying anything, I was worried sick, that kind of thing. Mark felt a warm gratitude and benevolence as he put his hand on his friend's shoulder and apologized, reassuring him that everything was OK.
He thought it would have taken longer to bring Pete around, but very quickly his room mate calmed down and was entirely accepting of Mark's apology and reassurance.
Mark hadn't really said anything to Phil about Eleni or what had happened. He had decided that he definitely needed to learn more about his new gifts before he was ready to share knowledge about them with anyone. In keeping with this, he found he agreed profoundly with Eleni's point of view, and felt the strong urge to test out his new found abilities so he grabbed his phone and headed out.
He'd never felt as excited about anything in his life. After the dejection and self-loathing of only 24 hours previous, he was actually chuckling to himself as he walked out the door. He had a plan.
On the corner of their block was a small bar, a generally quiet joint with a mostly hipsterish clientele, the total opposite of the club he had been in with Pete the day before. Mark liked the place and often spent time in there with a book having a quiet drink by himself.
Perhaps the main reason he liked it though was Candy.
Though not the owner, Candy worked there most days and often locked up at night. Though Mark wasn't exactly friendly with her, they knew each other's names and he always felt a little rush of happiness when she greeted him personally whenever he entered.
He felt the same rush now as the door jingled when he pushed it open. It was a long, narrow bar, the bar itself on one side, with tables on the wall opposite and a sort of alley in between before the place opened up a little further back, with tables or booths on either side. Candy was walking down the alley from the back, towards the bar and gave Mark a little nod and a smile.
"Hey Mark," she said casually and he nodded and smiled back as he took her in. As usual, the most striking thing about her visually was her hair, haphazardly styled around her head in a shade somewhere between purple and blue. As for the rest of her, Mark always felt the best way to describe her was effortless. She wore a short, loose fitting patterned skirt that came to somewhere about halfway to her knees and a pair of canvas shoes. The tight fitting plain white tank top she wore was, as usual, low cut and gave Mark a stirring view of her ample breasts.
"Bit later than usual for you isn't it?" she asked amiably as she went behind the bar. There were maybe six or seven other customers dotted around. Mark stood at the bar.
"Yeah," he said, affecting an easy going attitude that he didn't really feel, "just felt like a quiet drink or two tonight," he went on, smiling warmly at her.
"Sure - the usual?" she asked, smiling back.
"Thanks," he said and nodded to the seat just opposite the end of the bar where he usually sat.
"You got it," she said chirpily and went to pull his beer. As her attention moved away from him, Mark decided it was time for him to start experimenting.
Eleni hadn't really given him any pointers as to how to make best use of what they were calling his gifts, but had simply told him that he would need to practice and learn how best to use them on his own.
Without looking directly at Candy, Mark reached out towards her with his mind. He wouldn't have been able to explain to someone else how exactly he did that or even how he knew that was what he was meant to do. It was just instinctive. When he thought about trying to use his gifts, this was what happened. An out of body experience might come close to explaining, but it wasn't quite right. He was still perfectly aware of and in control of his own body and his own feelings and senses, it was just that he was also now starting to become aware of Candy's. A little bit like he was inside her mind, although this too was a little bit strong to describe what he was experiencing.
He didn't know if it was because he wasn't interested in those things or because his powers didn't extend that far, but Mark found he had little access to things like motor functions, he wasn't able to control her voice or her actions. He did find that he was able to read her though, and not just understand her feelings, as Eleni had alluded to. There was more to it than that. He couldn't read her thoughts exactly, couldn't hear her internal monologue, but he found he was nevertheless aware of what she was thinking, and he was able to focus in on particular pieces of information, the thoughts he was interested in.
For instance, he didn't care about the thoughts he found in relation to her concerns about the health of her mother's cat or about the need to change the filter in her air conditioner at home and he could simply move these to one side. He didn't need to wade through everything to get to what he wanted, he could just go straight there.
He moved to his seat, maintaining his connection to her and a couple of minutes later she dropped off his beer with a smile and went back about her business.
As he began to understand his gifts, Mark started to look at particular areas of her thoughts. He couldn't help but first go to what she thought about him. As he found these thoughts, he smiled to himself. She definitely liked him. She didn't have any strong feelings or anything like that, but it was easy to see that she thought he was attractive and 'nice', pleasant to speak to. She assumed he was intelligent and kind and she'd definitely had occasional sexual thoughts about him too.