Old World Magic

Chapter 4 - Il Tradimento

"Keep em baby," Ebony said to me, handing me the white g-string as the three girls left. I knew that under their long coats they were absolutely drenched in sweat and cum, both Adam and mine, and also their own.

Adam shut the door behind them after giving each of them an extra $500 each. Then he turned to me and looked at the damp g-string that the black hooker had given me. He made a slightly distasteful face and then plucked them from my hand and tossed them in a trash bin.

"So Mike," he asked, "Are you tired anymore?"

I looked to the window where pre-dawn light was now filtering through the drapes. We'd just spent all night talking, then the last several hours fucking three working girls in almost every way I could think of. I hadn't slept in more than twenty four hours, yet, strangely I wasn't tired. It had to do with the fact that I was now a mage, I knew that. I shook my head no, "A little thirsty, but no, not tired. Maybe we should shower and go get breakfast?"

"Go shower, I'll order room service. Then we have somewhere that I need to take you before it gets too much later."

I nodded and head towards the bathroom to shower as I heard him begin dialing his cell phone. I tried not to shower for too long, eager to eat and find out what was next. But I made sure that every ounce of that stripper / hooker body spray that they used was washed out of my skin and hair. I was after all, married. I had told Renee that I'd be home tonight, and even though it was now obvious to me that our marriage was failing, I didn't want her to know that I'd cheated on her.

It was odd, I thought. I did still love her, but somehow we'd just drifted so far apart in the past few years. We still had sex a few times a month, and it was still pretty good, even at our age. But it almost felt more like living with a friend, a good room mate, and certainly that sense of driving love, passion, seemed to be gone between us.

It might be the fact that she'd never conceived. I'd known going into the relationship that she had difficulties with her fertility, and part of my mind thought that maybe some day drugs or some other form of conception would...

I shook my head clearing those thoughts. I had wanted children at some point, but after years of putting it off, it just became something we didn't think about or talk about any longer. Maybe that was why Renee and I had drifted? Or maybe somehow I always knew that there was more to life, that something would happen to me like had happened last night?

Breakfast was being wheeled in on a cart as I came out of the bathroom toweling off. I hadn't realized that I'd taken that long. I ate voraciously as Adam showered, and drank nearly a full carafe of orange juice by myself. Then went into the bedroom and found some clothing that fit my overweight body well enough. I sighed as I dressed in the obviously fine clothing, this set of clothing probably was worth more than my entire closet. The khaki colored slacks were super fine and despite feeling almost silken in nature, held a sharp crease. The shirt was brand new, but had been prepared for my immediate wear, having none of the usual pins or folds I would have associated with a new shirt. I didn't know if that was the way it came from the store or if it had been laundered. I appreciated that there were a variety of clean undershirts as well. An expensive looking brand of antiperspirant was in the packages as well, a brand I'd never heard of, along with a matching fragrance of cologne. I went easy on the latter and heavy on the former. The silk tie I chose was a basic dark blue tie with a lighter pattern on it. I finished the ensemble with a jacket that matched the khaki colored slacks and a black leather belt.

I was running fingers through my short hair, when I heard Adam calling from the other room. He was tucking a bagel into his mouth as he gestured towards the door of the hotel. Then stopping he gestured at my feet. "No, you're not wearing those old shoes you had on yesterday. There's new shoes for you under the bed. Hurry, our ride is waiting for us." I ducked back into the bedroom and found several shoe boxes of my size under the bed. Tossing open the first I found a pair of comfortable looking loafers and set my well worn Merells into the box. I slid on the loafers, apparently made by a company named "Crockett & Jones," and was delighted to find that they not only fit nearly perfectly, despite being new, but were very comfortable. I managed to ignore the fact that the name made me think of a popular TV show from the 80s.

Adam was waiting by the door as I came back out, and looked immaculate. I wasn't sure how he'd gotten ready quite so quickly, but followed him as he gestured. "I had to call in a favor to get us this ride, but time is of the essence here Mike. So lets hustle." I allowed him to drag me down the hall, curious why we were in such a rush, it was only just past sun up on a Sunday. Traffic in New York City couldn't be that bad, could it? So I was even more intrigued when we hit the elevator and instead of hitting the L for lobby, he hit a button at the top of the row, "R."

Moments later we were out on the rooftop patio of the hotel and climbing a set of stairs up to a helipad. I quirked one eyebrow at the helicopter on the pad, it's blades chopping the air quite loudly. I followed Adam as he ducked and ran to the helicopter's open door. A man there held the door open and handed Adam and I headsets as we entered the vehicle. He slammed the door and I settled into the bench seats as I set the headgear nervously in place. Moments later my stomach lurched as the helicopter lifted off. I hurried to buckle my safety belt, fumbling with it as the helicopter banked, causing me to slide around.

Thankfully the chopper turned away from the rising sun, heading westward. "Where are we going?" I said loudly, trying to be heard over the helicopter motor and blades.

Adam tapped the side of the headset he was wearing. I saw he was pointing at a little red switch. Then I heard his voice crackle over my own headphones as he said, "Turn them on first."

I reached up and felt for the switch, flipping it, "Where are we going that we have to make such haste?"

He smiled and answered, "I need to convince you to sever your ties to this life. There's one last thing I think that will convince you to do that."

Just then the helicopter pilot turned around from in front of us and looked back at us. It was a raven haired woman of Asian descent. I wouldn't have known with the formless jumpsuit she was wearing and the full helmet, but as she turned she slid up the goggles on the helmet and I saw her whole face. Her voice crackled over our headsets in a light chirpy voice, "This is your new apprentice, eh Saks?" Adam nodded and the woman looked me up and down pursing her lips, "He's a bit young isn't he?" Adam just shrugged.

I was taken aback by that. This woman looked like she could easily stride through a high school, or at least a university hallway and not look a bit out of place. If she was in her mid twenties, I would have been shocked. But she was calling me young? I would be thirty nine in a few weeks. I cleared my throat and said, "I'm almost twice your age young lady," I said using my best teacher voice. "And shouldn't you be watching where you're flying instead of looking at me?"

She rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh before turning forwards. I heard her mutter into the radio though, "More like half my age...." I realized then that odds were good I'd have to learn that not everything was what it seemed in this new magical world I'd been thrust into.

- - -

I'd guessed we were headed back to my home town after the chopper flew away from the heart of NYC. Once we'd cleared the greater metropolitan Manhattan area the chopper turned northwards and continued North West till we landed at the tiny little airport that my rural finger-lakes town had. The flight had taken under ninety minutes, which was amazing considering it would have taken at least twice that time, and easily four or five times a long if there was bad traffic.

Once we set down Adam hurried me out, saying we were running out of time. I wasn't wearing a watch, but checking my cell phone I saw it wasn't even eight am yet. What was he in such a hurry about? One of the crew for the small town local airport came over to us and started saying that we couldn't hold the helipad, it had to stay clear in case Mercy Flight needed it. Adam took one look into the man's eyes and held his gaze for a moment. Then he pulled a few bills from his wallet and said "John's your name right?" The man nodded, "John, I'm going to borrow your car for about an hour. Let me have the keys please and I'll let you have two hundred bucks for your time."

The man seemed slightly confused and Adam held out the bills, "Come on John, you're stuck here at work anyways, make an easy two hundred. Besides you trust me with your car."

John nodded fishing keys out of his pocket and said, "Sure, I trust you with my car after all."

Adam and I quickly walked to the parking lot, leaving the helicopter spinning on the pad behind us. Adam walked through the tiny parking lot, which held maybe two dozen cars total. He thumbed the pad on the key chain until a car beeped, an old Chevy Lumina that was more rust than car.

We drove in silence to my house, I was starting to get the idea that I was being swept along in the flow of events, and questioning wouldn't do much. So when we pulled up in front of my house, I reached to unbuckle my seat belt. But Adam held up a hand and just pointed at my house. "Have you begun 'hearing' thoughts yet?"

I shook my head. Other then the fact that I hadn't slept at all last night, but felt perfectly fine, I felt no different from yesterday. Adam nodded, "Then just watch, it's almost 8:30."

I was confused by what the time had to do with anything but I sat. We sat for a while watching my house in silence. Then at exactly 8:35 my front door opened. I glared as Mitch, a neighbor from down the block came out of my house. I knew what it meant, but it was reinforced by the fact that my wife, Renee came to the door in her robe and leaned out to kiss Mitch before he took off down the sidewalk towards his house.

Adam put the car in drive and started back towards the airport. I simply asked, "How did you know we'd have to be there at 8:30?"

Adam sighed. "Because he told his wife that he'd be out of town this weekend. He went to a buddies house just to get away from her. But when I told your wife, Renee, that you were coming with me to the city for the night, I knew she'd be calling Mitch to come spend the night. But Mitch's wife took the kids to church, which starts at 8:30 this morning. So I figured he'd wait till his house was empty, then he'd sneak into the house to shower so he could be there when his family came home."

My teeth ground together. There was more to be told, I could feel it. "She's been cheating on you for months," Adam said, and I knew he was telling the truth. "The thing with Mitch got more complicated when you lost your job, and she and he have been checking into hotels on nights when she tells you that she's going out to her friend's house."

We arrived back at the airport and numbly I followed Adam back to the waiting helicopter. I thought about everything in silence for most of the trip, and he let me. I knew that I should be angry. I should feel betrayed and furious over the fact that my wife had been cheating on me. But somehow I didn't. I simply felt numb and uncaring. I think it was the proof that my marriage was dead, and had been for quite some time.

We landed back at the hotel and I didn't speak until we re-entered the hotel room. "I should have known our marriage was over when Renee and I couldn't conceive." I said numbly.

Adam sat down and looked at me. The room stank of sex and stripper body spray still from the last night, a point that reminded me that I had likewise cheated on Renee last night. Adam shrugged his shoulders, "There's a reason why you couldn't you know." He must have seen the look on my face, and continued. "There's something about our blood... I guess we call it our DNA now... something about it that doesn't mesh well with the un-enlightened, with non mages. It's nearly impossible for us to conceive without using our magic to make it happen. Now, for latent mages, mages who have not yet reached enlightenment like you did last night, usually they can bear children. But of course, Renee has her own fertility issues also. Between those two factors, it's not surprising that you and she never conceived."

"So it was my fault that she never got pregnant? It wasn't just her?"

Adam shrugged, "Who's to say? It doesn't matter. If you decide at some point that you want to raise a family, then you can find a body morph mage to help make sure that you can."

I sat down and put my head in my hands. This was it. Less than 12 hours ago Adam had told me that I was a mage. He told me I was going to fake my death and become his apprentice. I thought at first that such a thing was insane, but now, after what I'd seen... what I knew to be true. After the events last night, that I was now a mage, I was now enlightened. I nodded my head, "Ok, faking my death. Tell me what the plan is."

- - -

I woke up from my nap on the hotel room bed and looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was two in the afternoon. I stood and straightened out my clothing which had gotten slightly rumpled during my nap. Adam beat me to the door and opened it, allowing the visitor to enter.

"Hello again," said the short and perky Asian-American looking woman. She came over to me and I saw that she had a short hair style with long dark brown locks that ended at her jawline. My first thought was how pretty she was, then my second was this was the second pretty woman with short hair I'd met in less than twelve hours. I always thought that women should have long hair, disliking any hair that didn't at least reach a woman's shoulders. My third thought just as she reached me and stuck her hand out to shake, was that she had Japanese heritage. I wasn't exactly sure how I knew that for a fact, she had an more oval face and wider eyes then I tended to associate with a Chinese or Korean person. But it was more than that. Somehow I just knew... knew for a fact, that she had been born in Japan.

I reached out to take her hand, "Michael Gray," I said with a smile.

She opened her mouth to introduce herself, but as our skin made contact, I had a sudden head rush. There is no easy way to describe what it is like to hear someone else's thoughts or read someone's mind. Most people might think it's as simple as listening to them talk, but only in their head. But that's not it at all.

When I was younger, my family had a larger TV, one of the older kind with the big tubes. It looked so good wherever you sat in the living room, as long as you were a few feet away from it. But if you got really close to the screen, the image vanished and all of a sudden you could see individual dots of red, blue, or green. That's what it was like feeling my mind touch this woman's. Her mind was active, and it was like a big TV while there was also a radio playing in the same room, kids were running around arguing about who's toy was whose, and there was someone using a blender in the next room. It was all chaos and completely incomprehensible. To try to focus in on one idea, one thought, one concept that this woman had would have meant trying to block every single thing out except for one little red blip on the TV and ignore everything else.

It was too much for me.

I fell back, my ears ringing almost as if I had actually been in that chaotic room full of noise. I'd missed what she'd said, but clutched at my head, trying to pull myself together. I knew several things about this woman, too many snippets of information, almost none of which were useable. She liked trying different Miso soup but never thought any compared to what her grandmother made for her as a child. She had a birthmark on the inside of her left thigh just above her knee that she always kept, no matter how many shapes she took. Her hair stylist, Marco, acted gay, but she really thought he was straight. She had just found a missing earring in her dresser yesterday that had been missing for weeks.

All these random things I knew now, but all just totally thrown at me. I tell you that I know these, but it's not the same as knowing a fact. It isn't like reading a fact in a book and then 'knowing' that fact. I knew, capital K, KNEW these things on an intimate level. I didn't just know that she'd found her earring for example... I knew the feel of the carpet as she stood there and opened the dresser drawer. I could feel the cool air of a ceiling fan as I looked into the drawer and the slight surprise of a glint of light on something in her stocking drawer. I remembered the feel of her arm, my arm, I can't tell, brushing past the silk to reach down and pick up the earring. I knew the cool metal in my palm as I bounced it, and I felt the small measure of elation. It was a tiny victory, a minor win, one of millions and millions of those types of victories that humans experience in their life time. I didn't just know that she'd found an earring, I had lived it when she and I touched.

I opened my eyes and the world came back to me, Adam and the woman were standing in front of me. Well, Adam was squatting down looking at me. "Block it out Mike," he said, "Imagine a door, take whatever you just got, and imagine a door closing in between you and that."

I nodded and closed my eyes. I did exactly what he said, imagined a door, the one to a class room. Nothing else, no walls just the door. I imagined how it looked when that door closed. As it shut, suddenly the rush of information stopped. I opened my eyes and all of a sudden everything was back to normal. "I'm sorry," I muttered, unsure of what was the appropriate thing to say. "I didn't catch your name, I got... distracted."

The woman smiled, she had absolutely perfect white teeth, "It's all right, Reina Satô, nice to meet you. I won't shake your hand again." She chuckled letting me know she understood what happened to me.

Adam peered into my eyes, "I wouldn't expect a sudden manifestation of your powers so quickly after your magical ability erupted. I would have warned you otherwise." Then turning to Reina he said, "He should be okay to touch now that he knows the trick of blocking out any stray thoughts." Then standing and looking at me again he nodded towards Reina, "Try it again, shake her hand, but keep that image of a closed door in your mind."

I slowly extended my hand towards the lovely woman and she took it. I felt a sense of her then, a slight pressure for lack of a better term. It was almost as if I could feel a desire to open the mental door I'd closed in my head and let her in... or maybe let myself into her mind. It was all very new to me. She pulled on my hand, pulling me up from the chair saying, "Well if you're feeling all right then, we need to go. We don't have much time."

I stood and followed her as we left the hotel room. I muttered to myself, "Seems like there's always a rush for some reason."

I could see that Reina had a very nice body now that she wasn't wearing a formless jumpsuit. The dark calf length skirt hugged her legs nicely and matched the suit coat she wore over cream silk blouse. She wasn't very curvy, holding to my personal stereotype of Asian women being thinner and shorter. She was easily a foot shorter than me, five feet I would have guessed, though the high heels she wore gave her a few inches extra. As she got into the elevator I looked at her butt, and noticed a little curve to it, just as her breasts had just a bit of weight, B cups at the most I guessed.