Chapter Eleven
Ryder
The reception area is empty when I walk through the spa’s entrance, holding the gift certificate I found taped to my door last night.
Senán’s salon room itself is devoid of life as well, but candles have been lit and the treatment table is draped in fresh sheets.
I close the door behind me and look around for any other indications of what to do next.
I’ve had massages in the past, but I don’t think that reiki treatments typically happen in the nude.
Then again, this probably isn’t going to be a typical reiki treatment, is it?
I think about it for a moment, then remove my shirt, tossing it into a corner while keeping my lounge pants on, positioning myself face down on the table. A few moments pass until I feel my skin tingle as the door opens and closes quietly.
“You know,” says Senán, “reiki treatments are typically performed fully clothed.”
“I could put my shirt back on,” I suggest.
“Let’s not be hasty, love.” Body heat radiates off of her as she stands next to the table. I can’t see her, and I’m not touching her, but I can definitely feel her.
A hand rests on my lower back—no, not a hand. It’s a warm, soothing pressure, not unlike the touch of a palm, but definitely not the same, either. It has more depth, more complexity, as though it’s more emotion than sensation. Whatever it is, it feels incredible.
“How’s that?” Senán asks softly.
“It’s nice,” I say, already more relaxed than I’ve been in most of the massages I’ve had in my life.
Senán hums thoughtfully. “I think we can do a bit better than ‘nice.’”
If it’s possible to turn the volume up on a feeling, that’s exactly what Senán does.
The deep warmth intensifies, pulses through me like vibrations, sending waves of pleasure radiating from the nebulous source.
I don’t have time to stop the moan that escapes me, and I’m not sure I would have tried to anyway.
“How about now?” she asks.
“ Fuck,” is about all I can manage.
Senán leans in close to my ear. “This is a three,” she whispers. “I could take you as high as a ten, if you like.”
“I’m not sure I’d survive,” I murmur. She laughs breathily, and I let my eyes roll back as the warm vibrations spread from my lower back, creeping up my spine and through my belly. My hips grind involuntarily against the surface of the treatment table beneath me.
“Why don’t you turn over, Ryder. I’d love to work some of my Magick on your other side.”
Of course I do as I’m instructed. I look up at her as I settle on my back—she’s still in the same workwear from the day before, the same sensible ponytail. Green eyes rove over me and she raises an eyebrow as her gaze falls onto what I know must be very obvious between my legs by now.
“Love, I’m flattered,” she says. “Maybe even a little impressed.”
I grin and close my eyes, relaxing against the table. “You’re not the first person to tell me— hnnnnnggg.”
My thoughts are abruptly cut short as the intense sensations that she created on my back are moved into my front, focusing exactly where I want them to, surrounding my dick with warm, pulsating energy.
“Sorry, were you saying something?” she asks.
I can only groan in response. My thoughts aren’t particularly coherent, but I’m sure she’s smiling diabolically as the sensation switches from a pulsing into a pulling, now a dense heat that tugs, sucks against my cock, still fully clothed inside my lounge pants.
I buck my hips up into it and groan again.
I feel her proximity burning against my right arm, and it grows suddenly stronger as she steps in close, the rough fabric of her polo shirt brushing against my wrist. Without thinking, I swing my arm out and grab her by the waist. My eyes snap open—I’m touching her, is that allowed?
This is all a game, it has rules, but fuck me if I can remember a single one of them right now.
I look up and see her smiling down at me like a cat smiles at a mouse writhing in its grip.
She brushes her fingers along my forearm. “Eyes closed, love.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and give in to the physical sensations overtaking me.
The pulsing energy that pulls and envelopes my cock like warm hands.
The sizzling feeling of the Witch standing so close at my side.
The warmth of Senán’s skin under her coarse work uniform.
I run my palm over her lower back and as her shirt rides up, my fingers dip underneath, and I moan at the feeling of velvet-soft skin against my hand.
Senán grips my wrist and pushes my hand further under her shirt. “Do you feel good, Ryder?”
“Uh-huh,” I moan, writhing on the table as the pulsing, enveloping heat around my cock intensifies even further.
“Hmm, sounds like you’re nearly there. But I don’t just want you to feel good, Ryder…” She guides my hand across her waist and belly, and it all happens so fast and I’m so distracted by my impending orgasm that I don’t notice where she’s taking it.
She slides my hand down the front of her pants, inside her underwear as she whispers, “I want you to feel everything.”
When two of my fingers slide into her wet warmth, I cum so hard and so suddenly that I nearly shout from the force of it, bucking up into the nonexistent hand working me over as I ride it out.
I’m still coming down, dazed, panting, heart hammering in my chest when Senán leans in close, lips brushing against my ear as she whispers, “ Now you can put your shirt back on.”
By the time I open my eyes, she’s gone and I’m alone again. On the table next to me is a box of tissues and a bottle of water. I laugh, still slightly delirious and really glad I decided to overlook a little bit of criminal activity.
It isn’t until I’ve left the spa that I think to check my phone.
Missed Call:
Paige
“It’s not about the promotion, I promise!” is the first thing she says when I call her back.
“But is it about work?” I say as I open the door to my room. “I’m still on vacation, Paige.”
“I know, I’m sorry, this won’t take two seconds!”
“I’m in a good mood, so I’ll give you thirty.”
“For sure! I just wanted to see if you’ve heard about any Magick activity in the Pacific Northwest?”
I freeze. Did I tell her I switched my resort reservation? I wouldn’t have thought twice about telling her a week ago, but I don’t think it ever came up. I should just tell her now. Should I? I should.
“Our data’s showing a lot of activity in Oregon,” she continues, “and we don’t have any Witches licensed there. I’m just checking around to see if there’s something I missed?”
Puneta . Senán’s energy work. This is a problem. See, I’d trust Paige with my life, just not with secrets. She’s fucking terrible with secrets.
April 2008
Saint Edmund’s Secondary School, Bethesda, MD
Two sullen teenagers sat outside their principal’s office one Spring afternoon. They were sharing a bench from opposite ends—four feet apart, but the distance between them felt much wider.
“You’re not going to get in trouble,” said Paige. She’d already said it so many times.
“Yes, I am,” said Ryder. He was angry. He didn’t want to be angry. Being angry would only make things harder for him. “I told you not to tell anyone.”
“What was I supposed to do? Just let you get in a fight?”
“Yes! It would have been fine!”
“What if it wasn’t?”
It made no difference what either of them said at that point. Ryder knew she acted out of love, out of worry. But her good intentions wouldn’t change the inevitable, predictable result.
“You didn’t start it,” said Paige. “He was the one who started it, I’ll tell them—”
“It doesn’t matter! They won’t care who started it, everyone involved is gonna get punished for it.”
“They won’t punish me!”
“You’re right, they won’t!”
Silence. Paige was angry, too. But Paige was allowed to be angry at times when Ryder wasn’t.
Paige and Ryder were judged differently by teachers, principals, police officers.
His Dominican father had warned him about this from a young age, and he’d known it himself from all the time he spent in neighborhoods and schools where so few other boys looked like him.
From seeing how the few boys who did look like him were treated.
But Paige never seemed to understand. The fact that she thought she did only made it worse.
“I had to do something,” she said at last. “You can’t keep getting into fights over me, Ryder, I can take care of myself!”
“Obviously you can’t, or we wouldn’t be here.” Ryder regretted it as soon as it left his mouth.
“You have no idea what it’s like to have the whole world treat you like some helpless doormat all the time!” she snapped. Her voice was breaking.
Ryder said nothing, because there was nothing he could say that would make her understand.
He just resigned himself to carrying it with him, like so many other things that made him feel this way, that made him feel like even the people who knew him best would always leave him with a sliver of isolation.
They didn’t speak again until the next day, and they never talked about the things they’d said. They never apologized. They were family, and family meant never having to say you’re sorry.
“No, I haven’t heard anything,” I say, and it’s not exactly a lie, is it? Hearing something isn’t the same as knowing something. “Probably just a misreading. Those magnetic field scanners pick up all kinds of useless garbage.”
“Oh! Right, well, it’s actually biochemical, not magnetic.”
Wait. Biochemical?
That’s not energy work.
“But you’re probably right about the error,” Paige continues. “I’ll run it again in a couple days.”
We say our quick goodbyes, and I end the call, staring at my phone screen in thought for a few seconds after.
The scanners we use are pretty new, as technology goes—the information they give is broad and vague, and wires sometimes get crossed.
I once went out to investigate a huge blip that turned out to be some kids broadcasting a ham radio station.
But, according to the engineers that built them, biochemical readings aren’t energy- based Magick.
Biochemical readings are potions-based. And there would have to be a fuckload of potions being brewed here to show up on scanners thousands of miles away.
I toss my phone on the bed and head into the bathroom for a shower, trying to put it out of my mind. Like I told Paige, it’s probably just a glitch.