Chapter Eight #2
“Very close to that, yeah. You know different emotions feel different inside, right? We feel physically different when we’re happy, sad, angry, excited, and all the rest. We feel different because each emotion uses energy differently.
And anything we feel habitually becomes set in our aura.
If we’re habitually angry, that energy shows as dominant.
If a habitually angry person is having an unusually happy day, that burst of new feeling will change their aura in a way that shows they’re usually not loving life, but today they are.
Nothing mystical about it—just unconventional.
And we both know that everybody doing a thing a certain way don’t mean nohow that it’s the best, the only good, or even the right way to do it. ”
Mel glanced at the Hoyle deck of tarot cards on the island. Abigail had set the deck there as she’d seen Brittany out. She had many decks and let the client choose which they’d use. Brittany liked the standard set.
“What about those cards? How’re they not mystical? They’re like mind-reading, right? Or seeing the future?”
“No—or that’s not how I use them, at least.” Abigail picked up the deck and slid the cards from their box into her hand.
She pulled the major arcana from top of the deck and, after a quick shuffle, set them on the island.
“Cut the cards, hon—and as you do, focus on a question or a problem you’ve been working on. You don’t need to tell me what it is.”
She didn’t know if his smirk was dismissive or ironic, but he cut the cards.
After laying out a quick three-card spread, face-down, she tapped the first card. “This card represents the situation of your question or problem. When I flip it over, I’ll tell you about it, and you think about how it suits the context of your question.”
She flipped the card. “This is the Fool. If he were oriented toward you, he would be upright, and he would suggest new beginnings, spontaneity, innocence. But he’s oriented toward me, so he’s reversed. This suggests recklessness or risk-taking.”
Mel’s eyes flashed up to meet hers. Thinking of their mutual situation, she let one corner of her mouth lift slightly. Though this was Mel’s reading, the cards could show her something, too, and her question was the obvious one. Was his the same?
“The middle card is the obstacle . Again, think of each card through the lens of your question.” She flipped it over—and couldn’t hold back a gasp, though she managed to make it little more than a quick breath. “The Hermit, upright. This suggests independence, self-reliance and introspection.”
A dry chuckle slipped from Mel’s lips, but he said nothing.
“The third and last card is your advice .” She flipped it—and her heart did a little somersault. Working to keep her voice steady, she told him, “The Empress, upright. The Empress is femininity, beauty, nurturing, and bounty.”
He met her eyes again. “She’s you.”
Abigail felt her cheeks catch fire, but she only smiled.
With those two words, he’d stolen all the rest of hers.
Those two words weren’t merely lovely and sweet and romantic.
They also strongly suggested that yes, he’d been thinking of her when he’d formed his question.
The cards had told them both the same thing.
If, that is, he interpreted them as she had.
As if he’d heard her thought, Mel set his own thick, rough index finger on the first card. “This is the situation?” When she nodded, he continued, “Taking a risk. And this one”—he tapped the middle card—“is the obstacle, and my obstacle is independence?”
Though his voice had lifted at the end and made the statement a question, Abigail didn’t answer it. The cards’ answers should be left to the client. The dealer could engage in some Socratic questioning to guide clients along their own path, but should never tell them where to go.
When she only gazed back at him, he got the message and returned his attention to the third and final card. “The advice. The Empress. You.”
Suddenly he sat back and laced his fingers across his belly like a man who’d just finished a big, delicious meal. “Well, that settles it, then.”
“What do you mean?” Abigail asked, trying not to let her guesses run ahead of his truth.
“First off, I think I get it. The cards aren’t about you reading my mind, or some paper rectangles deciding what’s real. They’re about sorting out your own thoughts and figuring your own shit out. It’s like psychology—like therapy.”
“Well, there’s a lot of ways to read tarot, many different practices, but in the way I practice, that’s a good way of looking at it, yes.”
His grin spread across his full face. “You know what my question was?”
“That’s not my business. My business is to help you understand what the cards suggest, in general, so you can find the specific.”
“Is it against the rules for me to tell you my question?”
“Not at all.” And oh, how she wanted to know.
“My question was about us. So, what I’m thinking is the ‘situation’ is us worried about doing something risky, getting ... you know ... feelings involved—though I gotta be straight here, Abs, and say, far as I’m concerned, feelings are already involved.”
“Me too,” she whispered, her eyes dropping to the cards on the table.
He leaned in and hooked his hand over the back of her neck. Speaking barely above a whisper, he said, “That second card is the obstacle, right?”
She nodded, and her eyes rolled up under fluttering lids as her movement against his hand became a caress.
“And the Hermit means independence” After she nodded again, he went on, “Both of us settled in lives on our own. And the advice is the Empress—beautiful feminine bounty. You. You know what I think? I think these cards are telling me to stop worrying about what might happen, stop thinking life all alone is the best way to live, and see how much better it might be with this gorgeous, amazing woman right here in front of me.”
Thinking she might truly faint if this emotional intensity continued much longer, Abigail turned her head in Mel’s hold and found his eyes with her own.
His smile was warm and sweet and familiar—yet also somehow different. There seemed to be a claiming in it. “You’re even more amazing than I thought—and I already thought you were just about the best person I’ve ever known.”
“You want to be with me?”
“Yeah, Abs. I been thinking about you like that for a while, but I didn’t think you felt the same. Guess I was wrong about that?”
Abigail’s heart twirled and leapt in her chest. Parts of her body that had gone quiet ages ago stretched and yawned, waking from their long slumber. She forced herself to keep her head in charge, though her heart was grabbing at the wheel.
“You were wrong. But, even after these cards, I wonder if we’re too old to throw ourselves at each other and see what happens next.”
He grinned. “I don’t know, I’m a fan of throwing ourselves at each other.” To demonstrate, he leaned in and put his lips to her cheek. “I think about you a lot,” he murmured at her ear.
Ignoring the way her heart wanted to drag her toward him, she leaned back and smiled into his eyes.
“That’s lovely to know. But, hon, what’s it look like?
I ... it’s been a long time for me, and I’m .
.. I don’t want anything but what’s real and true and lasting.
I never had any days of being ... carefree about these things, but if I ever did, they’d be well behind me. ”
A new thought pushed into her head—or really, a very old and unwelcome one, which she’d dug out long ago.
This intruder suggested that no one like Mel could truly be attracted to someone like her.
In addition to being ruggedly, conventionally handsome, Mel was Horde.
That club had a ‘horde’ of beautiful women who made themselves available for sex.
He probably had a different woman every day of the week, whereas she’d had sex exactly twice in her life, more than twenty years ago.
Even when she’d wanted romance, few men had ever shown the slightest interest. And that had been decades ago, when she was young.
She was too old, too plump, too inexperienced, too ... dowdy to be attractive to a man like Mel, the intruder in her head insisted.
Wait just one minute.
Abigail had exiled that self-defeating way of thinking long ago. She knew her worth. She also knew that there were many ways to be beautiful—and that, moreover, physical beauty had nothing whatsoever to do with one’s worth as a person.
It had been many years since she’d worried about her looks or considered herself less-than because she didn’t look like a Hollywood superstar. Why on earth, at her age, with all her experiences, with the wisdom for which people sought her help, would she allow such negativity into her head now?
Mel had told her he found her beautiful. Either she believed him, or she thought he was a liar.
He was not a liar.
So she ended her spoken thought with, “If we want to be together, I’d mean it seriously. Right from the start. That’s a lot, I know, but ... I just can’t imagine straddling this fence.”
He grinned broadly like he’d had a funny thought, and shook that off before he replied, “It’s been a long time since I was serious with a girl, but I can’t imagine being anything less with you.
I don’t want to make too many promises before anything happens, I don’t know the future, but yeah, Abs.
I wouldn’t make this move just to fuck you.
I want more than that, too. When I’m not around you, I want to be.
When I am around you, I never want to be anywhere else. ”
Fuck was such a harsh, ugly word. Abigail disliked it deeply—but his use of it brought another important point home.
“I’d want to move slow, Mel, with the physical part.
It’s been ... a really, really long time.
” What would he think to know how long ago, and how few, her experiences had been?
What would he think to know that kind of intimacy scared her?
She’d tell him, but not quite yet. This conversation was already so full it threatened to burst.
His hand was still on her neck; he leaned in again and set his forehead to hers.
It was the most intimate, romantic touch Abigail had ever in her life experienced, somehow even more intimate and romantic than their two kisses—not to mention anything any other man had done.
That chaste, gentle touch conveyed his care and patience perfectly.
With him, she was safe, and she was cared for.
“As long as you need, Abs. You’re worth the wait.”