Evanescence 4.

Part 4

Shaun looks over at me and then up my body then down my body in a definitely checking me out way. Then an !?!? look comes acrossed his face. “Raine?”

“Hiya Shaun.”

“Oh, oh, oh, holy shit dude, I like heard you were like nuts or something trying to kill yourself and thinking you were a chick and stuff but…dude!”

“Shaun.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop calling me dude.”

“Oh, shit sorry!”

“Shaun.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t call us chicks either.”

“Uhm…sorry..Raine?”

“That’s better.”

“Raine?”

“Yes Shaun?”

“If I can’t say like Dude then what do I say?”

“Hmm, I don’t know…Babe.”

I look at him; he looks at me we do it some more before cracking up laughing until we’re both in tears and hanging off of each other. I look at him after we catch our breath. “Where have you guys been?”

“Uhm, I was yanked off out east to Atlanta after your attempt to stay with my grandparents for the summer. I wrote but all my letters got sent back by the post office.”

“I thought you guys left me.”

“Mike, mike freaked out a bit about it and you trying to kill yourself and had all that shit going on at home so he split and took off and joined the freaking army.”

“Mike? In the army?”

“Hey they need geeks in there too.”

“Yeah and if he’s lucky they’ll pay for his education.”

“He’s still pissed about you not telling us that you felt that way.”

“I didn’t know at first. You know how I never fit-fit into anywhere really.”

“Yeah, even with us there was just a little something not clicking with you. But you know us out of outcast corner, just let it go and let a person just be.’

I nod as we say the cardinal rule of the schools merry band of geeks. “If it’s our business they’ll tell us.” We laugh a bit and I give Shaun a hug…he tenses…

“Shaun?”

“Sorry, I’m just not used to that yet. It’s not like you used to go around hugging people you know.”

“I’m a girl, we’re allowed to hug.”

“Okay…here.” He opens his arms. I hug him. He squeezes my ass.

“You’re such a dick.”

“Yeah…is that penis envy I hear in your voice?”

“No, I’ve still got it.” I grind against his leg, squeeze his butt.

…oh

…I feel my nipples harden girl like for the very first time.

“Raine, I hope…are you gay?”

“Nope, I like boys.”

WTF!!!

I didn’t know that until I spoke it.

“As a girl?”

“Yeah…”

“So you don’t want my body?”

“Nope.”

“Oh so you’re joke humping me then?”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Okay then.”

Shaun goes promptly back through digging through the fantasy and sci-fi books in the bin. Okay I might have just lied to him a little? I’m not sure. Shaun’s changed being away’s been good for him. He’s about an inch or two taller and put on some muscle and he’s got a tan. Is it getting warmer? Wow I guess my hormones and instincts are kicking in. I reach over and run my had over his upper arm.

….yum.

“Uhm wow, you’ve been working out?”

“Naw, got stuck doing loads of farm work and Grandma and grandpa still burn wood so lots of time with an axe chopping wood.”

“Paid off.”

“Raine?”

He’s looking at me, then my hand then me again. Then he leans in and kisses me. It’s clumsy on both our sides but sooo good at the same time. I feel more than girly as all sorts of sexual memories. The hurt from my black slave self, the virgin Spaniard noble girl who loved men and was a massive flirt, the Goth addict prostitute in loved and hated sex, men and ached myself at the same time. Then my current nature hit me with cruelty. I break the kiss and back away. “I’m sorry…God I’m sorry Shaun…I’m not…” He grabs my wrist and doesn’t let go. “Raine, Raine….Raine chill out. I know who the hell you are. I don’t care about details. You’re my best friend….I…I’m glad you were my first kiss.”

I stop but there’s tears sliding down my cheeks.

“Your first kiss?”

“Yeah.” He blushes a bit.

“Mine too…I’m sorry…It should’ve been with a real girl.”

“Raine?”

“Yeah, fucking stop it. You’re a real girl, hell you’re a real person. My best friend, real chick or not you’re gorgeous and my best friend. I’ve dated just like you and you know that looks and stuff don’t mean anything if you end up not liking the person you’re with. I already like you, hell tons, now you’re even better, and sweeter and very, very pretty.”

“You..you think I’m pretty?”

He rolls his eyes. Then looks at me. “Yes.”

“And you say it doesn’t matter, I mean about?”

“Raine when were we ever that shallow? I’m not one of the sheeple.”

“So…”

He pulls me in and kisses me again. I kiss back and see HER smiling at me. She mouth’s to me (enjoy it, he’s a rare one.)

I slip into the kissing very, very PDA. My inner Spaniard is a very accomplished kisser that’s mixed with my first time excitement and the other two’s need to be kissed by a good man. I know Shaun he’s a really great guy and There’s parts of me right now really needing and aching someone good.

My whole body is aching and tingling.

We must have made out for an hour.

I can feel how I’ve made him feel, even though he knows and he goes to second base tentatively over the shirt. That hurts so good I’m nearly whimpering, nearly…

We stop kissing and look at each other smiling, we walk around eye-shopping the stuff in the stands for awhile until his cell-phone rings. He excuses himself to talk on it a few seconds and comes back. “I’ve got to go but are you busy tonight?”

“Uhn not until really late why?”

“You want to come over to the house? Jamey’s starting up a new game of Shadow-run you feel like getting back into gaming?”

“Uhm, yeah! Unless you think the guy’s will freak out about the new me?”

“Yeah they’ll freak because it’ll be the first real live girl in the group.”

I blush.

“C’mon over early Raine I’m cooking supper tonight you can eat with us.”

“You cook?”

“Yeah Grandma taught me some stuff and she’s got arthritis really bad sometimes so there were things she loved but just couldn’t do anymore. Besides the way to a girls heart is through her stomach right?”

“I like food, but …I like shoes too.”

“Gawd Raine your such a girl.” He rolls his eyes.

“Whaddawehaving?”

“Gumbo.”

“I’ve never had Gumbo, I heard it’s spicy.”

“It’s awesome, it’s my own recipe and grandma’s too.”

“You thinks your folks will mind?”

“No, it might be a bit awkward at first but they’re pretty accepting really. I mean look at our gaming group and us taking over the basement for our games room.”

“Yeah okay I’ll be there.”

I give him a light kiss before driving my bike back home and put my stuff away and hit my books studying from some that Astrid gave me and write myself my own notes in my grimoire.

The grimoire is a spell book, yeah I know that sounds like wizards and mages and stuff. What a true grimoire is I guess the best way to describe it is a milestone, it’s making your majiks concrete in the world. First you have to know mana is a living force, like all of nature it must be respected. You if you’re like me must follow our rules, doing no harm deliberately to another. No vellum, no leather can be put into your book. You must craft it all, all of it. There are some things you can buy like the paper and stuff. But go as organic as possible. Mine is thin wood covers I got from a guy who makes cedar shingles but I wanted the wood really thin and sanded. Then it’s clothbound in several layers of cotton died and glued with ones I made from scratch. I even made the ink from Gall from a Rowan ash. The paper I bought from a Rastafarian holy man Astrid gave me the name of. Cleansed and blessed raw hemp paper dyed with Turmeric.

Why, it’s because you put power into everything. You put essence into it that makes it different than doing magic. Hmm, okay casting with mana is like exercise it burns up energy. Casting with essence is like giving blood, you recover from both but there’s a huge difference.

You put power Essence into every bit and piece and word of each spell. This takes time, because you’re replacing first the physical energy from when the parts were alive but you make your spells even stronger because you use essence. It grounds your spells in the book. The spell in this book are alive with magic and makes this little bit of a difference because reality then knows this magic exists already, it kind of makes the magic more of a fact rather than a fantasy.

Complicated, time consuming and tiring yes.

I did that for about three hours and SHE is there watching me. Making me the occasional cup of tea, correcting me on saying some of the elder words. I cast my first dynamic spell today. It’s a ball of light. I put my mana out there until I can feel the available light and stick my power to the energy particles of the light. I gather them together and hold them together. Light is the opposite of darkness and it is easier to feel. Dynamic spells use power to take one form of energy and use it as another or differently. Dynamic-Dynamo…I think you get the idea. One four inch ball of light about 40 watts left my feeling like I ran two blocks.

It’s one thing to do potions and charms and stuff you can’t “See”. This, this was very different. I made light!

I feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway. “I!, I have made fire!” I kinda lose my Wicca innate coolness in completely geeking out. I do a few really geeky kinda stripper girl dance moves because I rock. SHE dances with me. Yeah, SHE’s definitely better, professional dancer, Arabian Madonna, and stripper rolled into one. It’s hypnotic and energizing as she teaches me, moves me, the motions become…so female, so womanly they are part of my soul…souls?

Dance…dance is prayer.

My phone rings shaking me out of my trance and I answer it. “Hello?”

I hear Shaun. “Hey, are you coming over?”

“Oh crap am I late?”

“No but I though I’d call you. I wanted to know if you liked corn bread.”

“I don’t kn…” My slave self memories flood me about cornbread and I salivate. “Ah, luv good cornbread cher, Kin ah bring quel-que-chose?” I slip into Cajun sultry by accident my speech patterns my slave self’s in my voice.

“Uhm…I…Just yourself, I’ll…Nice accent by the way.”

“Th..thanks just something I’ve been working on.”

“I’ll see you when you get here.”

“Uhm, yeah..”

I hang up and SHE asks me there again. “So, What are you going to wear?”