The Sex Whisperer: Book 1 in the Whisperer Trilogy (16 page)

“We meet again,” the Shark God said. “The stars have seen it fit to send me a companion. Your wife is bearing a daughter. You must bring her to me one month after she is born.”

T
he man remembered his promise, and he was angry at himself and at the Shark God. “You tricked me!” he cried out. “You saved my life, but now you want to eat my daughter.”

“What I do with her does not matter,” the Shark God said, “but I can tell you I will not eat her. Bring me your daughter, or I will take vengeance on you, your wife and all four of your sons.”

The man felt as helpless and scared as he had that night many years ago when he was lost and alone on the seas. He didn’t tell his wife. He simply took their daughter to the sea one month after she was born and called out for the Shark God.

“You have honored your promise,” the Shark God said, “I release you of your debt.” With that, he took the infant girl onto his back and swam away.

When the man returned to his wife, he told her the truth.

“How could you?” his wife asked, and she left her husband to go sit in silence by the sea.

After a time, she walked into the water with an obsidian knife. Tears streamed down her face, just as they had fallen from her husband’s so many years ago. The Shark God tasted them and appeared before the woman. He lifted his great head from the sea and asked why she was crying.

“I am the mother of the girl you’ve taken,” she said, “and there’s nothing more I want in the world except to get her back. I will kill you if I must.”

The Shark God laughed. “You’d need a much bigger knife than that,” he said. “Like the passage of time, the things the sea takes cannot be returned. Even gods cannot alter the bargains we’ve struck.”

“I will end my life early, then,” the woman said, moving the knife close to her throat. “Then, I can be with my daughter in the afterlife.”

A sad look passed over the face of the shark. It was a very strange sight to see.

“I will let you see her once,” the shark said, “after that, do what you must.”

With a great swirl of water, the Shark God swam away. Soon, there came the soft sounds of a new fish surfacing beside the woman. This creature looked startlingly like the woman herself, and she knew that it was her daughter.

“How can this be?” the woman asked. “You’re only one month old.”

“Time does not matter to the gods,” her daughter said, smiling. “The Shark God has taken me as his wife.”

The girl was so beautiful, she took her mother’s breath away. Her mother soon realized something was wrong, though. Her daughter wasn’t standing on the seafloor. She was swaying gently back and forth. In fact, she was swimming. Even in the moonlight, the woman could see that her daughter’s lower body had been transformed into a fish’s tail. She gasped, but the girl just laughed, dove down into the water and shot up, doing a somersault
in the air.

“There’s nothing to be sad about, mother,” the girl said. “I am free, just as you will be one day.”

“But how can I go through life knowing you are just beyond my reach?” the woman asked.

“I will come to you in other forms,” the girl said. “You will find me everywhere. I will give you the gift of life, just as you did the same for me.”

The woman moved closer to the girl, closed her eyes and hugged her tight.

“How will I know it’s you?” the woman asked. But it was too late. Her daughter had disappeared. The mother looked down at her hands. Where she had touched her daughter, she now saw wet sea grass. This was the gift her daughter gave her. Food straight from the seas: seaweed. It became a source of food for all the islands and, more importantly, it became a sign for sailors lost at sea that they should not give up hope, for when they see it floating in the water, they know that land is close, and the Shark God’s wife is near — guiding them home, wherever that may be.

              Everyone clapped quietly at the end of the story, and the Hawaiian cowboy joined them in sitting on the sand. From a small pouch, he produced strands of dried seaweed. He passed these to the people seated closest to him. They took a bite and passed it to the others beside them until everyone had eaten. Above them, the stars burned like lava coals against the sky. Men and women chewed in silence, thinking private thoughts.

What if there is no home to return to?
Olivia wondered.
What happens then?

∞

There was little to be said on the flight home. Olivia sat by the window, staring out at the dark blue sea. Great banks of clouds came in and out of view casting shadows on the sea below.

Olivia thought of the flight home after her honeymoon. Mike’s ankles started swelling
after they jumped off the pier, and they couldn’t get them to stop. They grew big as cantaloupes, and a doctor at the local hospital forced Mike to use a wheelchair. That made the flight home awkward. They boarded before everyone else, but the stewardesses sat Mike beside the aisle, and everyone who walked past seemed to find a way to kick him accidentally.

Olivia could tell
Mike was fighting to keep his composure. Looking back now, she realized it wasn’t just the pain that was bothering him. It was indignity of the wheelchair; it was their crappy coach seats and the way the stewardesses treated him like an invalid.

Mike would never fly coach now
.
Hell, if he were in a wheelchair for any reason, he’d probably charter a private flight so he didn’t have to deal with the commoners on commercial flights.

Her husband
was all about streamlining his life so that it was as convenient and easy as possible. Every second that could be saved was saved no matter what the cost. Limos showed up five minutes early to shuttle them off to events. If they did drive themselves somewhere, Mike’s assistant gave them valet instructions or at least made sure they had premium parking passes. They had DSL
and
cable internet connections at home so that if one went down, they had a backup.

Saving money wasn’t a consideration. Time was the only consideration. That’s the luxury money buys you:
days, hours, minutes, seconds. You get to eliminate the everyday hurdles the lower classes face. Time becomes your most valuable asset and the cost of buying something or paying a fee to save you time isn’t worth considering.
Of course you’ll pay more to save yourself time! And you’ll do it over and over again.

Olivia
looked around her at the other passengers in First Class. She marveled at how quickly she’d gotten used to living that lifestyle. Now, she wondered how difficult it’d be to go back to her old life: pinching pennies, doing laundry and cooking food. She tried not to think about it, but Kenneth’s words haunted her.
What if Mike plans to fight me in court? What if I don’t get alimony?
She shut her eyes tightly, tried to clear her mind and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, she looked out at the sea again spread below them like an endless painting.
There’s nothing I can do about it while I’m sitting on a goddamn plane,
she thought.

Olivia stood behind Dun Fletcher
while he rolled up the flimsy garage door. Everything she owned fit in a 5-by-10-foot storage locker. Cardboard boxes were stacked from floor to ceiling. A musty scent hung the air.

“Your key,” Dun said, handing it to her.
He also gave her a debit card and a simple plastic folder. “Save the receipts for anything you buy that’s not on the debit card, and we’ll reimburse you. You can mail them to us or drop them off.”

Olivia nodded. Her mind was already on the boxes, though. She wondered what Mike had decided to keep and what he’d deemed hers. Dun slunk off to leave Olivia alone while she pawed through the remnants of her life. Most of the boxes
were stuffed with clothes, shoes, camera equipment and jewelry. Toward the back, though, Olivia found a box of photo albums. These weren’t the photo albums she’d accumulated with Mike; they were the albums she’d put together before they were married.

She sat on a cinder block and flipped through one. The first was from her days in college. Her hair was longer then; her smile whiter. Staring at the girl in the images, she tried to remember the thoughts that ran through her head.

In many ways, Olivia realized, she needed to become that girl again: someone independent. Someone who could take care of herself. She’d done it before, she could do it again.
So why does being alone scare the hell out of me?

She flipped the b
ook shut, tossed it on the pile and started filling her car with boxes of clothes.
I’m going to have a hell of a time matching my outfits,
she thought.
I know Mike didn’t pack my clothes by color.
The fact that she was worried about matching while all of her belongings were stuffed in cardboard boxes made her smile.
If I’m going down in a blaze of glory, I’m going to look good doing it.

∞

The next morning, Olivia stared up at a strange wooden ceiling trying to remember where she was. Her head felt leaden and wooly, and it took her several minutes to realize she was in Charlotte and Kenneth’s guest room. The house was silent around her. The only sound came from outside where the rain tapped softly against the window. She pulled the curtain back and saw that the sky was a formless sheet of gray. It was difficult to tell where the clouds ended and the rain began.

What a great day to go apartment hunting,
she thought, getting ready.

Charlotte had volunteered to take her, and a few hours later, Olivia rifled through a stack of papers in the passenger seat. She’d printed out more than two dozen addresses for houses or apartments up for rent.

“I really think you should go for a house,” Charlotte said.

“So do I,” Olivia said, “but I have no idea how much money I’ll get once the … after everything’s settled with Mike.”

“Yeah, but how much money will you save living in an apartment?” Charlotte asked.

Olivia thumbed through the stack of papers on her lap.
Not a lot, she had to admit. Maybe $200 a month.

“If I got a seedy apartment, I could save $400 a month,” she said.

“Darling, I think you can come up with an extra $400 a month,” Charlotte said. “If I have to, I’ll steal some money out of Kenneth’s wallet every month.”

“If only it were that easy,” Olivia said. A house was alluring, though. She was going to be single after five years of marriage. Did she really want to go back to living in a row apartment where she could hear her neighbors having sex?
My life is bad enough right now. At least I should have a house to go home to at night.

“You’re right,” Olivia said. “I guess it’s not that much of a difference. We’ll look at houses first.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Charlotte said. “Where to?”

Olivia
rifled through her papers again and set the stack of houses on top. Then, she typed addresses into the GPS. The closest prospect was also the smallest and cheapest at $750 a month.

When they pulled into the driveway, Olivia and Charlotte got out, huddling together under a giant black umbrella. It was a simple brick ranch house built in the ‘60s.

“It’s cute,” Charlotte said, “but I feel like it’s sitting beside the Indianapolis Speedway.”

Olivia turned and realized how close the house was to Dorothy Lane, a main thoroughfare. The speed limit was 35, but cars zipped by alarmingly fast, all of them throwing up sheets of gray
rainwater when they passed.

“You’re right,” Olivia
said. “Let’s cross this one off the list.” She crumpled up her printout, and they climbed back in the Beamer.

House No. 2 was on a cul-de-sac. Almost every house in the neighborhood had a playset in the backyard and a basketball hoop in the driveway. “Something tells me you’d be the only single woman in this neighborhood,” Charlotte said. “Expect to get hit on by some lonely husbands.”

“That’s exactly what I need,” Olivia said, “another screwed-up relationship.”

Charlotte pulled in the driveway
, and the women sat in the car for a moment.

“Speaking of screwed-up relationships, what’s up with the sex whisperer?” Charlotte asked.

“I haven’t messaged him since I got back, but I need to meet him soon,” Olivia said.

“Meet him? You really do move fast, Livy.”

Olivia punched her friend in the arm. “It’s not what you’re thinking. I’ve got that package I brought back from Hawaii. I need to get it to him somehow.”

“Still no idea what’s inside?” Charlotte said.

“None,” Olivia said.

“Maybe we could open it and reseal it,” Charlotte said. “He’d never have to know.”

“I’ve thought about it. But part of me doesn’t want to know what’s inside. What if it’s something bad? What if it’s a gift for me, and I’m supposed to act surprised when he gives it to me? You know I’m a terrible liar.”

“Indeed,” Charlotte said. “That’s one of the things I love about you. I can always count on you to tell me the truth, even when you’re lying
. I can see right through your fibs. What if I look at it, though? Then, I can just give you clues about what’s inside.”

“You’re terrible,” Olivia said.

“I have a friend who’s a dentist. We could probably get it x-rayed.”

Olivia groaned. “C’mon, let’s look at this house,” she said.

The women got out and ran up to the porch. They cupped their hands against the glass panes beside the door to look inside. It was new and freshly painted. The walls were white and the carpet beige.

“This won’t do at all,” Charlotte said.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not artsy enough,”
she said. “You’re an artist, Livy, and this house
screams
soccer mom. You do have an image to uphold — even if you won’t admit it to yourself.”

“Hmmm,” Olivia said.

“That’s right,” Charlotte said, “I have an entire image makeover planned for your art show in Cincinnati. It’s your coming out party. You’re not just shedding yourself of Mike, you’re shedding yourself of that whole life and becoming the artist you’ve kept trapped inside.”

“So you’re going to dye my hair bla
ck and smother me in eyeliner?”

“It’s a secret,”
Charlotte said smiling deviously. “Now, let’s get out of this neighborhood before you decide to join the PTA.”

As soon as they pulled in the driveway of House No. 3,
Charlotte knew it was the one. Olivia wasn’t convinced. The women stood under their umbrella again, huddling this time in front of a dilapidated Victorian. The top of the house was dominated by a rotting bell tower.

“If this doesn’t scream ‘artist,’ I don’t know what does,” Charlotte said.

“I’d say it screams ‘haunted’ or ‘witch,’” Olivia said.

“It’s perfect!” Charlotte squealed.

Her friend dashed up to the porch with the umbrella, leaving Olivia alone in the rain. She didn’t mind. She scanned the yard. It definitely had character. The front was hemmed in by prickly bushes and a wrought iron fence. Ivy climbed the metal. Pine trees lined the sides of the lot, and — beyond them — a tall wooden privacy fence stood despite numerous warps, gaping holes and broken boards.
A kick would crumble the whole fence,
Olivia thought.

She ran to join Charlotte on the porch. Water dripped from her bangs onto her face. They peered through
the glass, their breath steaming up the pane, and Olivia had to admit the house was magnificent in a shabby-chic sort of way. The front door opened into a foyer dominated by a wooden staircase. A chandelier hung from the second floor to the first, and 12-foot-tall doors opened to rooms on the right and the left. Fist-sized chunks of paint had flaked off the walls.

“We may as well stop looking now,” Charlotte said.

“Ummm, I think that’s lead paint,” Olivia said.

“And since you don’t eat paint
, and you don’t have any babies, that doesn’t matter,” Charlotte said.

“Isn’t this the sort of house cat ladies love?” Olivia asked.

“Of course,” Charlotte said. “That’s why it’s perfect.”

Olivia couldn’t help but smile.