"The Mind's Aye" - chapter excerpt

Chapter Numbering Systems are for the Readers, not Writers

“What are you doing here?”

I wanted to step in off the bricked side entrance but she held the door, hesitant in her actions, her eyes telling she wanted me to enter. “You called, didn’t you?”

“I did?” Semina smiled. She stepped back and motioned me inside. “Tell me what I said.”

Instead of words, I let my bear hug speak my mind. Semina let go of the door and hugged me back. She sighed in my ear. “Mmmm,” was all I could muster in return.

I pushed the door behind me with one hand while holding her lower back with my other hand.

“What did you say? Well…I seem to remember a sad voice…lonely…not quite desperate…”

“Mm-hmm,” Semina purred in my ear. She leaned her head back and warmed my insides with her radiant smirk. “I might have sounded something like that. In no way was I inviting you over here.”

I laughed. “At least not on purpose. Not in any way that someone eavesdropping on the phone would hear.”

Semina tapped me on the nose. “You’re a mind reader. Of course I knew that.”

“So, where’s your daughter?”

“Oh, she was bored and went out for a drink. Why? Wait, I know why.” Semina let go of me and put her hands on her hips. “You wanted to see her instead of me, didn’t you?”

“I…uh…”

“And here I thought I had you to myself for once.” Semina turned and looked at me over her shoulder with a scolding look on her face.

I slapped myself mentally for responding too slowly. “No, seriously, I just didn’t know what to say. Your daughter is such a reflection of you that I can’t say I wouldn’t be glad to see her but I didn’t drive half the day in hopes of seeing her. However, I figured that with the both of you on the road taking a tour of antebellum homes that I had a high percentage chance of spending part of the evening with both of you.”

Semina flipped a hand at me. “You’re just saying that.”

“Well, of course I am…”

Semina gave me a mock shocked look.

I reached out and pulled her to me. “But we’re wasting time standing here talking.”

Semina pressed her nose against mine. “And what do you propose we do instead of talking? Hmm?”

I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I had read all the signs. I knew I was right about our feelings for each other. But feelings had gotten me into trouble before. And now?

“To be honest, I could imagine us sitting down and having a nice, long, thoroughly enjoyable, absolutely exhilarating, totally exhausting, wonderfully new…” I paused.

“What, for goodness sake?!”

“Conversation.”

“So could I.” Semina grabbed my hand and led me into the kitchen. “What do you think of this place?”

“Not bad. I must say, I like your idea of getting this luxury apartment instead of a hotel room. It seems so much more intimate.”

Semina squeezed my hand. “You said ‘intimate.’”

“So I did.”

“As in conversation, of course.”

“What else?”

Semina let go of my hand and opened a cabinet. “You want a cup of tea?”

“Sure.”

While Semina poured hot water from the tea kettle, I sat on a barstool and admired her body. Although Semina had just recently turned 62, she kept her body in the shape of a 40-year old. She had pulled her cherry-brown hair up with a clip. She wore a green wraparound blouse highlighted with chartreuse lace around the neckline which made the freckles on the top of her back seem to sparkle. A pair of light-brown pants complimented her hourglass figure. She stood 5”1” in her bare feet, her toenails painted bright pink.

Semina handed me the steaming cup. “I hope you like rosehip tea. I hate drinking caffeinated tea this late at night and had already started brewing the rosehip tea before you got here. In fact, I was just sitting down to read one of your stories before I heard the doorbell ring.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You send me so much stuff to read that you’ve written that I don’t have time to read it all. I don’t know how you live a life, working all day and spending time with your wife at night, and then still have time to write.”

“I write in spurts.”

“I see. So are you planning to turn this evening into a story?”

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“If it gets interesting.”

“I see.” Semina picked up her cup of tea and walked into the living room. Watching her walk past me, I realized that she walked as if she had a book on top of her head. She didn’t sway her hips or bend her spine. She walked a straight line, a line that I stood up and followed to the sofa.

Semina patted the cushion next to her. “Have a seat. I want to see if I can make this interesting. Or do I? If it gets too interesting, maybe I don’t want to see it in print.”

I sat down next to Semina and put my arm on the back of the sofa behind her.

Her brown eyes focused on mine. “What if I asked you not to write any of this down?”

“Well…you could.”

“But you would anyway, wouldn’t you?”

I shrugged.

“Just as I thought. So what’s going on here?”

I lifted my arm and rubbed the back of Semina’s neck. “I don’t know. I came here because I was worried about you. You did such a good job of scaring me on the phone. After our last talk at your step-mother’s house, I thought that you might do something you’d regret.”

“Regret? Not me. Regret’s not in either one of our dictionaries. I just had some things to say to you that I had to put in words that didn’t come out right. Too many prying ears.”

I nodded and continued to rub Semina’s neck. She closed her eyes and rolled her head around. I slid my hand from her neck over to her left shoulder and started rubbing the top of her shoulder blade. Semina’s muscles melted under my fingertips, the tension slipping away. She dropped her shoulder to let her blouse slide down her arm a little. I took the hint and massaged the top of her arm. Finally, Semina completely relaxed and fell against me. I looked down at the top of her head as I wrapped my arm across her stomach.

“This, Bruce, is what I think of as interesting. How about you?”

“Maybe.”

Semina slapped my arm. “’Maybe.’ Well, I’d hate to think what you call interesting then.”

I sipped the tea and placed my chin on her head. I wondered which story of mine she had planned to read. I looked around the room. On a table across the way I could just make out the title. It looked like one of my unfinished, semi-true stories, “Who Loves A Good Mystery?”