Rachel looked at the store’s selection of fantasy novels with hopeless wistfulness. She didn’t want much. All she wanted was a book that let her believe, while she was reading it, that magic actually existed in the same universe that she did.
There used to be a few of them, half a lifetime ago, back when she was young and naive and oh, so very innocent. She still loved those books, but their magic just didn’t hold up to her ever-growing cynicism, in spite of the fact that her hunger for magic had grown every bit as fast.
Rachel’s perusal reached its usual conclusion, and she sighed. A baritone voice off her left shoulder said, “No luck?”
Rachel glanced at the source of the voice, made a snap decision that the speaker was relatively harmless in a public place, and looked back at the display. “No,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that the book I’m looking for hasn’t been written yet.”
“In that case,” the man said, “Can I interest you in an earful of cider?”
THAT got Rachel’s attention. Her head snapped around to face him, dragging her confused body behind it. She clenched her teeth to block stupid comments, and took a moment to actually SEE the man. Her main impression was of a gorgeous black leather sportcoat. The man himself was innocuously handsome, but he was tasteful wallpaper next to that coat. Rachel wasted a tiny fraction of a second wishing she were the sort of person who could sleep with a man in order to steal his coat, and then said,”Did you just offer me and earful of cider?”
“Yes, I did. There’s this musical called…”
“Guys and Dolls.”
Sportcoat was smiling now. The smile made him almost worthy of the coat. “And there’s a character in it…”
“Sky Masterson. Are you about to offer me an absurd wager?”
Sportcoat’s smile was huge now. OK, maybe he did deserve the coat. “Almost certainly.”
“But it’s a hustle, and I can’t possibly win.”
He was fighting the edge of laughter. “Exactly.” All right, he could keep the coat. Damn.
“You do understand how wagers are supposed to work, right?”
“I want you to accept the wager, knowing that you will lose, for the privilege of watching the scam unfold.”
Rachel stared at him. Her memory flashed back to a college weekend that she had never quite gotten around to regretting. She gave a quick nod and said, “You have my attention. Make your pitch.”
His face settled into an emotionless mask. He reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a clip that held a folded stack of hundred dollar bills. “I will wager… Ten thousand dollars, against your chastity, that you and I will have sex before noon tomorrow.”
Rachel laughed explosively. “That’s definitely an absurd bet.”
He shrugged. “The rules forbid the use drugs or any form of violence against anyone. And you can hold the stakes until the wager is settled.” He held the money toward her.
Rachel just stared. “I can put the money in my pocket and go home, but if, and only if, I have sex with you, I have to give the money back.”
“Exactly.”
“We are well past absurd and into insane.”
He shrugged again. “And losing includes dinner at a nearby restaurant, a pleasant sexual interlude, and breakfast from room service in the morning.”
“And passing on the bet means wondering, for the rest of my life, what was going on here.”
His smile suddenly seemed ever so slightly predatory. “As you say.”
Rachel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The memory of that college weekend flashed again, brighter. “Regrets are for cowards. You’re on.”
/////
Fifteen minutes later Rachel was sitting in a four-top booth in the mall’s best restaurant, staring at a menu with unfocused eyes, and drowning in surreality. Sportcoat, who had introduced himself, eventually, as Martin Stone, sat across from her. He seemed profoundly amused by Rachel’s situation.
Rachel had accepted the bet, and Martin had handed her the money clip, and then said something incomprehensible. Rachel had felt… SOMETHING shrink into place around her mind, and before she had quite realized she should be terrified, Martin had told her to not be afraid, and she wasn’t. Just like that. Then he had told her to hold her questions until they had ordered dinner, and to follow him, and she had obeyed. Just like that. She was absolutely aware that the situation was terrifying, but she didn’t feel it. She couldn’t.
The server arrived, a meal was ordered, and then Martin said, “I assume you have questions. Feel free to ask. Politely.”
“What have you done to me?”
“Do you know what a geas is? You’re under one.”
“Gesh?”
“G, E, A, S. It’s a kind of compulsion spell.”
“It rhymes with ‘mesh’? I’ve always heard it with two syllables.” Something in the back of Rachel’s mind screamed at her for worrying about the language.
“I’ve read the manual.”
“Right. But you’re talking about magic? Real, honest to Brisbane magic? How?”
“I’m a magician.”
“Which tells me nothing.”
“It tells you that magic exists. You don’t have the vocabulary for a more detailed answer.”
That triggered several responses; Rachel chose, “How do I get out of it?”
“Pay off the bet.”
“Other than that.”
Martin frowned. “You’re backing out? I thought better of you than that.”
“I’m not talking about… Honestly, I was looking forward to… breakfast. I had made that decision before I accepted the bet. But I want this thing out of my head NOW.”
“Ignore it.”
“Oh. That’s cheating.”
Martin shrugged. “Part of the con, I think.”
“Fine. But saying, ‘It’s magic’ isn’t honoring your side of the bargain. You were going to let me see the con, right? And you aren’t.”
“But… You really don’t want to spend the time it takes to actually understand. You just DON’T.”
“Don’t I? I have been chasing the idea of magic– hopelessly, but still chasing– my entire life. So tell me how much time you need, and I will FIND it.”
Martin stared at her for a long moment, then said, “Let’s table that for now. Any OTHER questions?”
“Why the con? And why ME?”
“You, because I was looking for company, and you fit the profile REALLY well. And the con… Do you know the difference between a one night stand and a shipboard romance?”
“I know a rhetorical question when I hear one.”
Martin grinned. “A one night stand is a short relationship with someone you could see again, but probably don’t want to, and a shipboard romance is a short relationship with someone you would like to see again, but probably can’t. I’m stuck here for a few days, and I’m the only person in town who knows it’s a ship.”
“I don’t think that answered the question.”
“Consider the alternative. I decide that I want your company for a while, throw a geas on you, take you off to a hotel, send you home in the morning with instructions to have difficulty remembering details about the whole thing except that you had a good time. When you thought about it– which wouldn’t be often– you’d wonder how you got involved in that particular one night stand, but you wouldn’t really regret it… and you’d never even begin to suspect that you’d been raped.” He paused to let that sink in. “But I’d know. And I’m not a rapist, and I have no interest in becoming one.”
“But you still threw the geas on me.”
“With your consent, yes. Think about it. When was the last time you let a complete stranger take you out to dinner?”
“Once in college. Dinner lasted for three days, and then the ship hit the iceberg. It was messy. But it was fun while it lasted.”
Martin stared at her blankly for several seconds, then shook his head and smiled broadly. “You don’t just fit the profile, you ARE the profile. Can we assume that if I had just walked up and introduced myself I wouldn’t have accomplished very much?”
“Probably. Unless I decided to try to steal your coat.” She blinked at her own words. “Gods. This fearless stuff is dangerous.”
Martin was laughing now. “So… By invoking your curiosity I got your permission to attempt to seduce you, right?”
“Pretty much succeeded, actually, or would have, without the magic.”
“I thought I told you to ignore that.”
Rachel thought about that for several seconds. “I’m ignoring the sensation. I can’t ignore the fact; it’s just too obvious.”
Martin scowled, and said, “Interesting. Let’s try something.” He picked up a salt shaker and set it in front of Rachel. “Okay. I expressly forbid you to touch that salt shaker.” Rachel glared at him. “If you are able to touch the salt shaker, you will have broken the geas. So… Try to break the geas.”
It was Rachel’s turn to scowl. She reached for the salt shaker. Her hand stopped a few inches away. She pushed, and got slightly closer. There wasn’t any resistance, her hand just refused to move. Every other muscle in her body started to strain, and her breathing became ragged, but her hand just floated there, a finger’s width away from the salt shaker.
Martin said, “Stop.”
“I was almost there.”
“You were. There was a very good chance you would succeed. There was also a very good chance you would suffer a cerebral aneurysm first, and neither of us would have liked that.”
“No.”
“So… I revoke the geas; you are free within yourself again.”
“Which brings us back to the matter of seeing the world behind the curtain. Will you honor that?”
“Are you asking to become my apprentice?”
“Hell yes, if that’s an option.”
“I’m not looking for an apprentice.”
“So I can keep the money, then?”
“The… Damn. I meant to have you admit that you had lost the bet in principle.”
“Too late now.”
Martin sat back and stared at her. “Hmmm. You definitely have some talent. I suspect that you have adequate intelligence. You seem to have significant passion for the craft.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We can discuss it. And you’re going to admit that you lost the bet in principle, since our other plans seem to have gone out the window.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because it’s considered highly unethical to have sex with your apprentices.”
Rachel’s momentary scowl slid into a decidedly wicked grin. “I’d really rather lose the bet in fact. I’m perfectly willing to withdraw my application if you’ll promise to let me reapply after… breakfast. Though I still might steal your coat.”
Martin’s expression did its own scowl to grin transition. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I? Done.”
Rachel shrugged and said, “Regrets are for cowards.”
P.D. Haynie
July 2, 2023