Authors: Frank Lauria
Lady Sativa
Contents
Lady Sativa
Frank Lauria
Copyright © 1973 by Frank Lauria
Published by E-Reads. All rights reserved.
www.ereads.com
For M.P.L. and V.A.L.
the three bravest people I know
The plump woman was nervous.
She shifted her weight, trying to find a more comfortable position on the carpet. She tugged at her pink leotard, sat up, crossed her legs, and looked down through the almost transparent surface of the floor next to her. As she watched the darting rainbow flashes of the small fish swimming in the water underneath the glass panels, she took a deep breath. She imagined that she was with them, gliding lazily across the room toward the base of the large rock jutting up through the surface of the open pool. She took another breath and felt the muscles in her diaphragm relax. She closed her eyes.
Liquidy coolness caressed her skin. A sudden floating vertigo caused her to open her eyes. She was in the water, looking up through the milky substance of the glass at a round pastel smear above her. She swam up closer to the glass, moving with luxurious, weightless, ease. As the giddiness subsided her vision cleared and the pastel smear focused into a rippling image.
A woman with red frizzy hair that framed her wide, florid face.
The woman was wearing some pink, skin like material that folded and bulged with the curves of her body.
She realized, without surprise, that the woman was herself.
A looming shadow darkened the water nearby. She flicked away, reacting with instinctive swiftness to the intrusion. Then she saw the angular face and long, lean body of the man coming toward her and the anxiety was replaced by a sense of joy. The man lifted his arms and held something out to her: a statue of a cupid figure, with a clock in its belly. She swam closer to the cupid statue and saw that the hands were set at six-twenty. The focus blurred into blackness as a flush of dry warmth poured over her skin like sun-baked sand. “Perfect.”
She opened her eyes. She was inside her body. She saw the rock across the room, the floating green vegetation, the strip of transparent glass panels along the edge of the running pool of water. She looked across the carpet at the man sitting facing her. The man she’d just seen swimming underneath the glass.
“I think you’ve got it,” he said.
Sybelle uncrossed her legs and leaned back on her hands. “You were holding an absolutely
grotesque
clock. Why you chose that cupid I’ll never guess.” She smiled at him. “But it was a lovely swim.”
“Anything else?” he prompted. He hugged his bony knees against his chest and waited.
Sybelle let him wait. She suppressed the glow of satisfaction rising within her and pretended to be confused. He wasn’t going to get his answer without making a deal, she decided. She deserved it.
His green eyes watched her face and a slight smile lifted the corners of his wide mouth. “Well?” he said softly.
“Do I get a decent meal if I tell you?” she demanded. “I feel like
Oliver Twist
for heaven’s sakes!”
“Did you see anything else?” he repeated, ignoring her offer.
She shook her head slowly. “Owen Orient you are the most
stubborn
man. But not today. A full five-course meal.
With
wines. Or no time.”
When Orient grinned, the bony angles of his sculptured face softened with boyish delight. “So you
did
see the time on the clock,” he chuckled.
“I’m not
saying
another word.”
“Don’t worry about your food,” he told her, “this is an occasion. Sordi s getting everything ready now.”
“It was six-twenty,” Sybelle muttered, not convinced she wasn’t being tricked out of her dinner.
“Tell me something.” Orient leaned forward watching her intently: “Did you have any particular emotion when you saw the time?”
Sybelle furrowed her brow. “Not clear. Perhaps a kind of worry. As if I was late or something.”
Orient nodded. “Great. The
intent
of my mental image was to let you know we were running late.” He smiled. “Sordi doesn’t like to warm his meals over.”
“So that was all there was to it,” Sybelle mused. “After all that hard work and exercise it came down to just relaxing my mind.”
As Orient stood up, Sybelle saw his long, corded muscles, flexing in sharp relief against the stretch fabric of his gym tights, and wondered if she wanted that five-course dinner after all. Since she’d started training with Owen, her own weight had dropped twenty pounds. Her body still retained its lusty curves, but now they were firm and her skin glowed with vitality, almost as pink as her tights.
“All that physical exercise helped establish a vital harmony between your mind and your senses,” Orient was saying. “A balance. To keep perfect balance it’s important to continue the exercises. But now that you’ve located the fulcrum point of that balance, you’ll be able to use it whenever you wish.”
“You mean that’s really it?” Sybelle whispered as the full significance of his statement spread through her understanding. “Do we have full communication?
“You’re a full-fledged telepath Sybelle,” Orient said. “Welcome pilgrim.”
She took his extended hand and pulled herself easily to her feet, reveling in the new smoothness of her movements. “Well then,” she said, “what’s for dinner?”
Orient’s face was blank. “Fish, I think,” he murmured.
Sybelle thought of the graceful, languid moments her mind had just passed beneath the surface of the water and decided she wasn’t hungry after all.
To Sybelle’s relief, she found that Orient had been sending her up. There was no seafood. Instead Sordi served tomatoes stuffed with wild rice and herbs, a flaming Grand Marnier omelet garnished with orange slices and resting on delicate crepe’s, green salad with lemon dressing, candied yams, various cheeses and dark, fresh-baked bread. For dessert he had made a buckwheat cake layered with sour cream and juicy strawberries. And all through the meal, Sordi kept her long-stemmed glass full of chilled champagne.
“Just divine,” Sybelle cooed, batting her violet-tinted lashes at Sordi. “How is it such a talented man decided to waste his time working with this awful vegetarian?” Distinguished, too, she added silently as she gazed at Sordi’s blue-gray eyes. They were sensitive and soft in contrast to his sharp features. His gray-streaked hair and elegant dress gave him the air of a visiting diplomat. She wondered if he’d ever been married.
“Glad you like my cooking Sybelle,” Sordi murmured. He wanted to say much more, but he was seized by a rush of embarrassment.
“Sordi’s help has made the big difference in my being able to continue research,” Orient said. He shook his head. “But we may have to cut off operations for a few months.”
“There must be a way to keep going,” Sordi blurted. To his surprise the intensity of his feelings seared through his momentary shyness. “It’s too important; you can’t stop now.”
Orient shrugged. “No choice. The upkeep on this place is too heavy. If I don’t sell the house, I’ve got to sell the equipment. It makes sense to stop now and look for another place to setup shop.”
“It does seem a pity to let this place go Owen, darling,” Sybelle scolded. She sipped her champagne and looked around at the large room that served as Orient’s library, studio, equipment area, media lab, and living quarters. Situated on the second floor, it spanned the entire length of the three-story townhouse, and the high stretch of crossed-beam ceiling was unbroken by walls or partitions. Instead the huge space was divided by functions. The rolltop desk stood next to the bookshelves in one corner; the stereo audio equipment extended past the study area into the center of the room, becoming part of the video and film complex. The lights, cameras, and wires stopped short of a pillow-lined conversation pit in the near corner. Tools, furniture, and occasional objects of art all merged to form a flowing environment of possibility, where form and function could stimulate creativity. Paintings, graphs, bulletins, diagrams of projects, posters, and ribbons of exposed film coexisted on the walls, their shapes and colors pulling the disparate elements of the room into scattered harmony.
“It’s perfect for your work,” Sybelle reflected. “A little
busy
for my taste, but I think Sordi’s right.”
Orient started to say something, but she wasn’t listening. She was thinking about the rest of the house; the meditation room upstairs, the biochemical lab next to the “garage, and especially the oversized kitchen on the first floor.
“No,” she said firmly, interrupting him, “it just won’t do to sell this place. Not when you’re on the
verge
of a significant discovery. Besides, there isn’t a kitchen like yours in the entire city. No darling, it’s out of the question.”
“Exactly what I’ve been telling him.” Sordi glared at Orient. “I’m glad somebody appreciates that fact. Not to even mention the herb garden.
“The meditation room Owen,” Sybelle persisted, “the lab. There must be some way to keep the house. Let me help you. I’ve got some loose cash tucked away. I’ll lend it to you.”
Sordi sighed. “He won’t take any money Sybelle. I tried too. He’s too stubborn.”
Orient looked at them and smiled. “No use ganging up on me. I like this house myself. Money’s just a temporary solution. When that runs out, I’ll be left with the same problem.”
“What problem?” Sybelle asked.
“No way to Continue research until I find a way for it to support itself financially. Not only current expenses, but a way to cover the costs of another eight months. That would give me time to develop the telepathic technique further. Since the overhead here is too high it’s simple logic to sell the house and use the proceeds to set up another lab. Perhaps somewhere in New Jersey.”
“New
Jersey?”
she lifted an artfully plucked eyebrow. “Darling you can’t be serious. That’s like going to
Pittsburgh.
Just listen to me for a moment.”
Orient folded his arms and listened. He knew it was useless to argue with Sybelle when she was enraptured with a cause. And he had the distinct impression that she’d just taken up the colors of a righteous crusade: saving his house.
“Today in your meditation room you did something absolutely historic. You taught me how to communicate telepathically. And you told me yourself that my telepathic potential wasn’t even
evident
before you snowed me the technique.”
“Only partially true,” Orient reminded her. “You were already a professional medium. The barriers to developing your natural telepathic faculty were already partially open.”
Sybelle paused. “True,” she said finally, flashing a smile at Sordi, “I am exceptionally gifted.”
The smile faded when she looked at Orient. “But
you
forget that being able to communicate mentally is still quite an achievement. For
any
human being. Surely there must be scientific foundations or grant foundations that would sponsor your work.”
“Sordi and I spent two solid months looking up research grants. The only program interested was a Pentagon unit that wanted to investigate telepathy for possibly military application.” He shook his head and grinned. “Even if I agreed to get involved with that absurd choice. I wouldn’t even be able to make basic muster. Any security check on me would bounce.”
Sybelle waited for him to say more, but he just shrugged and reached for his glass. She was very tempted to pursue his last remark. Even though she’d become very close to Owen Orient she knew very little about his life—past or present. But something in his wide green eyes stopped her. They glinted with amusement over the rim of his glass, but the jade centers of his pupils were dark and very private. “Are you sure you’ve tried everywhere?” she asked instead. “Perhaps
darling
there’s a few things
you
don’t know about,” she added, frustrated by her inability to feed her taste for savory gossip.