Chapter 6 Meetings of a Human Kind of the Female Persuasion

They amble on for a while.

Suddenly Delirium appears to sniff the air, though she is probably using a super natural sense all her own.

She immediately darts off to just beyond her head and squats there, hovering, apparently fascinated by what is taking place within her head.

Pah moves just a pace to the side and stands by her feet, her posture rigid, and her expression unreadable.

Nuala almost stumbles upon her.

She is a pretty and beautiful young woman, hovering on the edge between the freshness of youth and the maturity of adultness. She is dressed for a night out on a fancy place.

She is lying on the floor, broken and ravaged, battered and slashed and pierced, with assorted bludgeon bruises and knife slashes and gunshot wounds.

She is also bleeding profusely between her legs.

She is making odd whimpering noises and her eyes flutter and dart this way and that. She is shuddering, obviously feverish, delirious in her fever.

Her breathing starts becoming shallower and shallower.

At one point Delirium asks off someone only she can see:

"Sister, will you take this one from my realm into your domain?"

At this Nuala shivers and finally reacts.

She darts to somewhere along her chest and squats. Then she takes from between her breasts an Ankh pendant with the loop portion in red and the cross portion in white, pulls at the base of the cross, thus revealing a tiny black blade. With it she proceeds to slashing from her wrist along her arm lengthwise. From this gash she drops three drops of blood into the rape victim's lips.

The rape victim's tongue licks Nuala's blood drops from her lips, and then her throat makes a convulsive swallowing motion.

Her breathing immediately becomes more regular.

Delirium looks at the someone only she can see and says neutrally:

"I guess not…"

Then she looses all interest in the rape victim.

She creates a translucid fish balloon covered in iridescent scales and glowing from within, which starts drifting away; at this she seems to hesitate, compelled to follow its drifting, needing the others to follow.

Pah looks at Nuala as if meaning to hug her, with tears streaming down her eyes.

Nuala is just standing there, her eyes pointed at the rape victim, whom she starts to think of as Deirdre, at her chest which is now moving regularly, but not focused on her.

She makes an abortive gesture, meaning to start walking, briefly glances at Pah, and indicates with her hand Delirium.

"Shall we…?"

Pah grimaces in frustration.

Then she stomps on in the direction the fish was drifting to, thus liberating Delirium to follow it. As she walks off she engages in a vicious monologue with herself, marking pace with her stomping feet; only it is not addressed at herself, it apparently is meant as a dialogue with a second party on whom the words would surely be wasted.

Nuala stands for a while watching this, dumbfounded, watching both of them moving further away.

Then she shrugs and hurries to catch up with them.

They come upon a plaza in the middle of the park, the Confluence. In the middle of the plaza is a park bench, behind it a lamp, casting the park bench in a pool of light.

Upon the park bench sits a woman.

She is very pretty. She seems she should still be in the full bloom of youth, but already her features show the ravages of life. She is dressed very provocatively. She is obviously a hooker.

Delirium lays on the edge of the plaza in a most provocative though unconsciously so way, and starts creating glowing frogs in all the shimmering colors of the rainbow. Pah sits down, with her knees upturned, her arms wrapped around her knees, her chin cupped against her knees.

Nuala continues on in the direction of the park bench, as if drawn by a magnet, as if she had been alone all along, as if the park bench had been all along her destination.

She sits on the edge opposite from the one the hooker is sitting on.

Then all her resolve evaporates, and she just sits there awkwardly, unsure what to do next, what to say.

The hooker at first seems taken aback by her awkwardness, but eventually presses on:

"You lookin' for a date, hon'?"

Nuala flushes and stutters.

"I… guh… guess…"

This seems to mellow out the hooker.

"Oh hon, no need to be so shy!"

Nuala blushes an even more furious scarlet.

The hooker presses on:

"Say what, hon': I don't usually do women, but for one as pretty as you I am willing to open an exception. How's that sound?"

"Tha… tha… that sounds… fine, I guess…"

The hooker giggles.

Nuala starts thinking of her as Grania.

Then Grania becomes a bit matter of fact:

"We might need a bit of privacy though. And… tell you what: with you I will make another exception: you will only pay me afterwards, and I will let you set the price on account of how satisfied you are."

At this Nuala grabs her left hand with her own left hand, and stares hard into Grania's eyes:

"You are as pretty as a bird of paradise at night with a flock of fireflies around it against a backdrop of an water fall in a pool of moonlight."

At this Grania is stunned, as if hypnotized.

"We won't go anywhere for bigger privacy because in here we have all the privacy I require."

Grania nods once.

"And I will give you ecstatic pleasure, more pleasure than you could ever conceive you could experience, and such pleasure will be my payment to you for your services."

Grania nods vigorously.

When she ceases to, Nuala feeds from her.

Meanwhile Delirium gets distracted for a moment from her frogs, and watches the interaction, specially the transaction part of it, with a moderate interest, but as soon as Nuala starts feeding she looses interest again and resumes her play with her frogs.

Pah looks as if she has taken personal offense from what has just taken place, but then she shrugs and sighs.

When Nuala has had her fill they all move on until they meet at the other end of the plaza, outside the pool of light, as per previous arrangement.

They then amble on.

Eventually they reach the edge of the park. They come upon a taxi stop.

On it stands a young woman. Physically she is the opposite of Deirdre, if this time only beautiful, but she is dressed to match her. She stands insecurely, looking intently to the path they have been following, and then occasionally casting furtive glances all around her.

Several cabs stop at the taxi stop, and then move on when she fails to embark on them.

Once again Pah and Delirium hang back, Delirium becoming immediately distracted with hummingbirds of her creation, Pah watching attentively the unfolding action.

Nuala somehow knows that this beautiful youth is a lesbian, that she and Deirdre are lovers, which they arranged to meet here so they could get a taxi to go to their final destination, which this lesbian is waiting for Deirdre, which for obvious reasons will not make it.

Once again Nuala is pulled as if by a magnet.

Nuala moves intently until she stands in the personal space of the lesbian, which had stood startled by Nuala's approach, but before the lesbian can move back and away Nuala takes the lesbian's left wrist in her left hand and stares hard into her eyes.

Apparently anticipating what is to come, Delirium dissolves herself into a cloud of iridescent hummingbirds, each in one of the different colors of the rainbow, and the cloud drifts until it hovers around and above both their heads.

"You are as beautiful as the angel of beauty if there were such thing, bathed in the silvery radiance of the silver city. You are as beautiful as lovely loveable luscious Aphrodite, glowing from within in a divine radiance. You are as beautiful as Boticceli's Venus, with as much allure, softly bathed in the lacquered radiance of the mother-of-pearl shell."

Nuala starts thinking of the lesbian as Etain.

Etain stares transfixed at Nuala, with eyes that oscillate between the mesmerizing incomprehension of a rabbit caught in the headlights, the fascination a moth would express for a candle flame, and the adoration a person would devote if she came face to face with her personal deity.

"You are waiting for someone."

A nod.

"Well it is my sad duty to inform you that she will not be able to meet you presently."

A shake of the head in denial, eyes shining with an hint of worst fears confirmed.

"But I can tell you that if you hang around with me you might come to meet her again."

The eyes of a drowning person reaching out to a stretched hand.

"Will you hang out with me?"

Vehement agreement.

"Where were you going now?"

Whispered words.

Turning her head sideways to listen Nuala notices someone approaching.

"Listen. You will go on ahead. There you will wait for me. I promise you I will meet you there."

A hint of doubt, desperate hope.

Nuala glances again at the approaching person.

"Now I have to deal with an unexpected visitor."

Nuala stares once again into Etain's eyes.

"But I promise you I will meet you there. I promise."

Vigorous nods.

As per arrangement a taxi stops and opens its door.

Etain steps in.

The taxi drives off.

Nuala watches the cab until it vanishes around a corner.

Then she turns to face the incoming visitor, which by now has drawn close to her. Pah is approaching too. The expression on Pah's face is enigmatic.

Delirium has somehow just coalesced from the cloud of hummingbirds, though there are still some left, and she promptly goes on playing with them.