PART II

“What exactly is a Richmond shift?” Damien asked, five minutes later.  The trio was sitting around the table where Dr. Wolfe’s apparatus was blinking and jittering at readings frequently off the scale.  Roma didn’t remember seeing an empty chair at their table.  
       Damien sipped fresh coffee brought over by one of the bombshell baristas.  She had showered attention on Anton Wolfe, of course.  The man attracted women like a field of clover attracted bees.  Roma squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.  Everything felt out of joint.
       Dr. Wolfe said:  “The universe as we know it consists of all the particles and radiation expanding outward since the big bang, creating the space-time continuum.  Trent Richmond’s paper suggested that the observed continuum was only one possibility; there were infinite others, and it was theoretically possible for the universe to jump from one to another.  We might notice such an event by a change in our perceived reality.”
       “Richmond’s paper was considered off-the-wall musing,” Roma interjected.  “Only a few eccentrics” – she gestured toward Dr. Wolfe with one graceful hand – “took him seriously.”
       “My colleague’s scepticism becomes her,” Dr. Wolfe replied, smiling.  He glanced across the table at Roma, momentarily inspecting her well-filled sweater.  
       “Richmond was right,” the newcomer said.  “I think.  My field is anthropology, not physics.  There has certainly been some change in the organization of the universe.  That’s because the fundamental forces have been rerouted through me.”
       “How?” Roma asked.  Damien too was inspecting her tits.  She got that a lot.  She liked that a lot.
       Damien sipped coffee.  “It happened three years ago,” he replied.  “In Ireland.  I was re-enacting an ancient fertility rite, trying to understand the prehistorical culture better.  It was work for my graduate thesis, but I was really just being pretentious.  I chose a propitious night for it.  There was a rare planetary alignment that summer, once in a thousand years.
       “Something happened.  I cannot begin to describe it.  Yet when the ritual ended, when I was lying naked on a rock in the middle of a stone dance, moonlight glinting off the blood on my face, I knew absolutely that I could change anything I wanted.  At that moment I became a god.”
He made this last statement matter-of-factly, as if he were presenting his credentials.
       Roma’s logical mind rebelled.  “A god?” she said, incredulous.  “Isn’t that a stretch?  Certainly there is something strange happening here, but surely you can’t simply change anything on a whim.”
       “I can,” Damien replied, unperturbed.  “Effortlessly.”
       He waved a hand.  Roma watched as a gaunt, bespectacled woman passing by blossomed into a dazzling blonde in a foreshortened white tube dress and matching, shoulder-length gloves.  Her white, thigh-high boots bore loops of decorative gold chains down the sides, matching her gold-framed glasses.  She radiated sexual heat like the tropical sun as she cat-walked away.
       Roma said nothing for a long moment.  Then:  “A god, or something.”
       “What does a god need with two very mortal scientists?”  Dr. Wolfe asked.  He seemed outwardly calm in the face of this surreal situation.  Roma’s shaking hand was making ripples in her coffee.
       Their interloper drew a heavy sigh.  “Godliness was not meant for mortal men, it seems.  Not for this one, anyway.  This power, this capacity, whatever you want to call it, it’s too strong.  Far too strong for one man.  It makes life too easy.  At first it’s life-changing, like winning the lottery; but then it’s more like” – he gestured wildly – “winning the lottery five times in one day.  And then receiving eight marriage proposals, becoming a rock star, and being knighted.  It’s too much to assimilate.”
       Abruptly he stopped speaking.  He looked off into space, perhaps remembering.  His troubled eyes lost focus.  “I looked for the limits of my power and couldn’t find any.” he said at last.  “I lived life without consequences.  It was intoxicating, a high that never ended.”  Another long pause.  “But I discovered too late that absolute power truly does corrupt absolutely.  I have done improper things.  Hurtful things.  Things I regret.”
       Roma said, “But you’re still doing all this outlandish nonsense.”  She waved a hand to indicate the coffee shop full of improbably proportioned women.  The two businessmen who had recently entered were chatting up the babes in leather and lycra.  The women appeared eagerly attentive.
       Damien shook his head.  “This is a side effect,” he said.  “It happens everywhere I go.  I can’t stop it.  Well, I can, for a while, but it requires constant attention that cannot be sustained.  You see, the power resides in my conscious mind and my unconsciousness, in my ego and my id.  I have sexual thoughts, like everyone.  But my passing fantasies become immediate reality.”  
       He waved a hand again.  One of the baristas had an orgasm.  Eyes rolling upward, she collapsed against the bar, groaning and pitching as her legs gave out beneath her.  She blurted “Oh-fuck-yes-yes-YES!” loud enough for the whole room to hear.  
       A (gorgeous) patron grabbed her arms to keep her from falling.  Instantly she began cumming herself.  The ecstatic couple stumbled backward, bumping into a third (equally gorgeous) woman sitting at a table, who immediately shared their screaming climax.  The trio collapsed on the floor in a writhing mass of ecstatic girl-flesh with perfect hair and enormous breasts.
       Roma tried to ignore the additional distraction.  “If this is automatic,” she said carefully, “then why is everyone wearing boots?  That seems more like a deliberate decision.  Maybe a sexual preference, even?”
       The self-proclaimed god only shrugged.  “Because it’s raining, I suppose,” he replied.  “I try to make accommodations like that.”
       That almost made sense, Roma conceded.  The rain was the reason, or at least the excuse, that she was wearing boots herself, her favourite black ones with the awesome gold heels.  They looked good with her leather short-shorts.  
       Roma was a serious person.  She liked to stick with basic black, rather than frivolous colours.  Except for that one pair of red stretch boots, she reflected, but those were to match a specific dress.  And perhaps the cyan ones, with the stitching; and the yellow ones; and . . . anyway, Dr. Wolfe was speaking.
       “Three years,” he reflected.  “A long time to live with absolute power.  What have you been doing?”  He swept back his lion’s mane of tawny hair with one hand.  The gesture alone could make women swoon.
       Damien thought about it.  “I went mad, I think.  There is much I don’t remember.  I travelled a great deal, saw the world, explored everywhere.  And of course I was having fun.  Fucking any woman I fancied.  Warping everyone I met.
       “I thought I was still in control; I thought the sex-madness that I created everywhere was my decision, my idea.  Making the world a happier place.  Giving people a break from their mundane lives.  But really I couldn’t stop it.  The power is too strong, it burns through me like lightning, scorching everything around.  Eventually I lost control entirely.  
       “It was in Fiji, of all places, where I came to myself.  My reckless behaviour, amplified by this freaky power, endangered the lives of thousands of innocent people.  I avoided catastrophe, barely, but the event made me realize what an awful person I had become.  I realized then that I needed to get away from everyone for a while, to be completely alone.  I sequestered myself, seeking out remote, empty places away from temptation and where I could do no damage.  A walk in the wilderness while I sorted myself out. 
       “Eventually I decided that the only remedy was to be constantly reminded that I was still a human being.  Maybe if I immersed myself in the human race, if I surrounded myself with crowds and people, I could keep a grip on my own humanity.  It worked, for a while.  Or maybe it didn’t.  Not sure.  I couldn’t stop doing things. 
       “And I don’t fully control my power.  Things happen now that I genuinely don’t intend.  Look, let me show you.”
       He turned toward the front windows.  Roma and Dr. Wolfe followed his gaze.
       The rain stopped.  In fact, it looked like it had stopped some while ago.  The street was barely wet.  The traffic and buildings were awash in sunshine.  Despite everything she had seen, Roma still gaped in disbelief.  “What” she managed.  “H-how?”
       “That is impressive,” Dr. Wolfe allowed.  The yellow lines on his detector oscillated wildly.  No one in the coffee shop was carrying an umbrella.
       “Wait for it,” said Damien.
       Commotion sounded on the street.  Traffic stopped.  A herd of large animals galloped down the avenue, darting this way and that among the cars.  Their hooves clattered on the pavements. People shouted after them, pointing.  Pedestrians scattered.
       “Were those . . . zebras?”  Roma asked, when the herd had passed.
       Damien said, “Something like that happens every time now.  Some kind of causality I don’t understand.  I’ll make it seem like they escaped from the zoo.” 
       Dr. Wolfe frowned.  “Do we have a zoo?” he wondered.
       Damien set his head in his hands.  He whispered, “You have to help me.”
       Roma said:  “I think your issues extend further than a few loose zebras.”
       Unreality continued to unfold in the coffee shop.  At one table, Leather and Lycra were now sprawled across the laps of the happy businessmen.  Both couples were making out like randy teenagers.  Jackets and ties were coming off.  
       The two office workers nearby had lost interest in the report they were editing.  The mouth-wateringly sexy girl was perched on the arm of her boss’s chair, legs thrown across his lap, giant chest inches from his face.  She was leaning down to kiss him warmly.  Her lips were puffy and red.  Her hair was golden blonde.
       The newly arrived centrefold in the straining tube dress was teasing a young man who was sitting at the bar with his girlfriend.  She was seated at a table behind the girfriend, who was (of course) also spectacular.  She crossed and uncrossed her knees, flashing her bedroomy boots, and more, every time.  She fixed the young man with looks hot enough to set his drink on fire.
       It was all ridiculous, over the top.  And, Roma reluctantly admitted, intensely arousing.  Sexual ardour floated through the room like the scent of a thousand roses.  
       She forced her mind back to the source of it all.  “Damien,” she said, “have you considered seeking, well, professional help for your, uhm, condition?”  She chose her words carefully.  Upsetting a demi-god with psychological issues did not seem wise.
       He nodded.  “Yes.  Yes, I did.  Early on, when I first realized how overpowering the temptation could be.  It . . . didn’t go well.”  He did not elaborate.
       “But you can use your ability deliberately when you want to,” Roma pressed on.  “You stopped the rain.  Never mind the zebras.  Wouldn’t doing deliberate, useful things help keep your focus and maybe reduce these one-off’s?”  She watched the honey reading the Purple Prose book slyly sneak a hand into her shorts. 
       Damien shook his head.  “I tried that.  I mean, I think I tried.  It’s so hard to tell.  I’ve done so much, I don’t know what’s good or bad any more.  Look, here’s Agnes.”  
       He gestured toward the stout, white-haired woman who had just come in.  “Agnes is fifty-five.  She was born in Bristol, works as a hospital records-keeper.  Her job is tedious and doesn’t pay well.  She has rheumatism in her right knee.  It hurts, but the medicine makes her dopey.  I can help her, I suppose.”
       Roma was expecting the instant transition.  Yet it still caught her by surprise.  Agnes looked about ten years younger, and infinitely more fit.  Her hair was dark brown and lustrous, her figure a parade of curves.  She was wearing a white tennis dress, surprisingly brief, that showcased still-shapely legs above hot-pink sport shoes.  She was all smiles as she greeted the nearest barista.  They must have known each other, because the girl greeted Agnes with a long kiss on the lips.
       “Agnes enjoys her job at the hospital now,” Damien explained.  “It’s easy, has flexible hours and pays handsomely.  She pinches prescription drugs for recreational use.  She skips work regularly for spas, shopping and tennis.  She gets away with all that, and more, because she is having a torrid affair with her supervisor.  She has also successfully seduced a half-dozen doctors, including the chief of surgery, and occasionally sucks off her daughter’s boyfriend.”  He paused.  “That’s better, right?  Without the rheumatism?”  His dark-roiling eyes shifted this way and that.
       Roma blinked at him.  “You are confused,” she decided.  
       Over at the bar, the barista kissing Agnes didn’t want to stop.  She was breathing hard when Agnes pushed her away, laughing. 
       The mother-daughter pair in the scant schoolgirl outfits bounced toward the door with mugs of tea in their hands.  Their tiny skirts swished this way and that, flashing their knickers.  Since it was no longer raining (no longer had been raining?) their plastic boots had given over to girlish tennies, yellow and red, with sparkles in the laces.  Their appearance on the street caused nearly as much stir as the zebras.
       For some reason, the schoolgirls set Roma to reminiscing about her own college days.  Blessed with a pretty face and a curvy figure, and unrestrained by moral inhibitions, she had slept her way through four years of advanced physics and astronomy courses.  The nice thing about being so smart was that she could spend the night bouncing on one of her many boyfriends and still ace the test the next morning.
       It wasn’t that she was licentious particularly.  It was just that she had so much trouble deciding.  The campus was alive with ripping young men.  They all wanted her, and she wanted all of them. What was a horny young cutie to do?
       “I don’t know how you do it,” her friend Inira said one day.  She and Roma were strolling out of Planetary Science class, graded assignments in hand.
       “How I do what?” Roma replied.  “Oh, hiiii Terrence!” she waggled her fingers at a young man passing by.
       Inira said, “I don’t understand how you do that.  You seem to know every cute guy on campus, you’re out on dates or parties like five nights a week, you never seem to study, yet your grades never slip.  I don’t even know when you had time to write that.”  She indicated the paper in Roma’s hand.   
       “Oh, well, this course is mostly, you know, basic stuff.  It’s not like astrophysics, with all that math.”
       “Basic stuff?  Are you kidding?  Orbital projections make my brain hurt.”  Inira was a pretty girl, a little shorter than Roma, who wore her blonde hair long and straight.  She was dressed demurely in a peasant blouse and a floor-length summer skirt over white tennis shoes.  Roma, as usual, was in more up-scale attire, a snug red jacket and blue leather miniskirt.  Her heels clicked as the pair sauntered to their next class.
       Roma said, “Do you want to know a secret?  I had a little help.”  She giggled.
       “Oh?  What kind of help?”
       “The best kind.  Help from someone who knows the subject.  And has a say in grades.”
       Inira stopped walking.  “Roma!  You didn’t!  With Professor Hardman?  Really?”
       “No!  Of course not.  He’s like totally married or something.  Though if he wasn’t . . . god, smart men like that really do something to me.”
       “Yeah.  I know.  Sometimes I just sit there in class and totally forget to take notes.”  She sighed.  “But wait a minute.  If you didn’t sweet-talk Hardman, who was it?”
       Another giggle.  “The tutorial leader.  Ben.”
       “Ben Stander?  The graduate student?  Ohmygod he’s like totally dreamy.  What happened?”
       “Wellll, I was sitting there in class one day, and I noticed he kept looking at me, at my legs and everywhere.  I was wearing the little red skirt, with the slit.  So I decided to be friendly, and smiled a lot, and fussed with my hair, and maaaaybe gave him a few peeks under my skirt.  I could tell he liked it because he kept looking at me while he talked, smiling and glancing downward.  Then I lifted my skirt to adjust my stocking and he totally lost his place in the middle of a sentence!”
       “Gawd.  What happened next?”
       “I teased him all class, keeping his eyes on me, always giving him something new to look at.  I could tell he was getting more and more flustered.  I undid a button on my jacket and he lost his place again.  When the class finally ended I waited until everyone else had gone – you know how the girls always swarm him after class – and when we were alone I walked up to him and told him that I was having trouble with my paper and maybe he could give me some advice?”  
       Inira said, “Roma you are shameless.  But keep going!”  
       “I could tell he was really turned on.  He said something about reviewing my paper over coffee, which was exactly what I wanted.  I agreed, of course, all smiles and giggles, but then I leaned over to give him a little peck on the cheek, just for encouragement you know, and . . . ”
       “And?”  She was breathless.
       “Well, I guess I got him more worked up than I realized.  Suddenly he was kissing me and I was kissing him and it was like we couldn’t stop, or didn’t want to, and he had a hand on my ass and I had a leg around him and I could feel him against me, and well, that just melts me every time.  I started undoing his trousers and he helped me and before I knew it I had his stiffie in my hand.  It was so beautiful and I was so turned on.  I grabbed a chair, sat down, pulled him between my legs and . . . well, I sucked him off right there in the classroom.  The door was open.  Anybody could have come in.  But it was marvellous.  We did go for coffee, eventually.  And lookie, lookie!” 
       She unrolled her assignment to display the front page.  The title read: Hot Balls and Iron Rods: Formation and Dynamics of Sub-Planetary Objects.  A large letter A was circled in one corner.
       Inira was vexed.  “Gawd, Roma, couldn’t you leave someone for the rest of us.  It’s not fair that you get to have Ben, when you know you didn’t really need help.  You get A’s in everything anyway.  And Ben is such a Baldwin!”
       The corridor was nearly empty now.  Roma flicked back a lock of Inira’s golden hair.  “Somebody’s getting excited.”
       “I am not!”
       “Honey, when you get turned on, you start wiggling your hips back and forth.”
       Her friend stopped twitching.  “Well what did you expect after a story like that!  It’s not fair.  You have bedroom adventures with every hot guy on campus and your friends have to make do with your cast-offs.  I mean, I would kill for a chance with Ben the Ten.”
       Roma’s smile was impish.  “Well you know,” she said, “I could introduce you.” 
       A pause.  Then:  “Really?”
       “Of course.  We meet sometimes at the coffee shop in the quad.  I’ll tell him I’m going to bring my cute friend.  He’ll remember you from tutorials.  I’ll leave you to get to know each other.”
       She bit her lip.  “That would be . . . nice.”
       “I think Ben really likes blondes.  Too bad for me.  Oh, and –” she leaned forward to whisper in her friend’s ear – “he has an amazing tongue.”
       “Oh gawd.”
       “You’re twitching again.”
       “Mmmmm, you’ve got me thinking about Ben the Ten.”   Her long skirt swayed back and forth.
       Roma slipped an arm around her shoulders.  She guided the clearly aroused cutie toward an empty room.  “We’re already late for class,” she husked.  “Why don’t we slip in here, and I’ll tell you all about how I got that A on my paper.”  She brushed her lips across Inira’s cheek.  
       “Oh gawd,” Inira groaned.  She kissed her friend full on the lips.  They hurried into the room, closed the door, but didn’t turn on the lights.
       Ben wasn’t the only one with an artful tongue.  Inira’s first climax arrived in less than ten minutes.
       Roma sat in the coffee shop, breathing deeply, warmed by the memory.  Then she shook her head, alarmed.  Wait a minute!  None of that was true!  Where had those purple imaginings come from?  She had been fantasizing, and vividly.  She had never in her life had sex with another woman.  Yet for long moments the memories seemed wholly real.
       In reality she had been a diligent, standoff-ish student with an intense work ethic that left little time for socializing.  The Science Library had been her second home, the laboratory her first.  She didn’t have time for dates.  She had been modestly athletic though, and a trained dancer. 
       One day Inira suggested she try out for the cheerleading team, of all things.  “It’s not what you think,” the blonde girl had explained. “Cheerleading is basically synchronized dancing.  It takes co-ordination and teamwork and it’s a great workout.”
       Roma guffawed.  “Can you be serious?  Cheerleading?  Inie, I’m a science major, solidly geeksville, not a hood ornament for the sports teams.”
       “Stop being coy.  You’re a good dancer and you know it.”
       “Yes.  The product of childhood lessons forced on me by my misguided but well-meaning mother.”
       “Well then, you’ll be great.  Look, I’m going to try out, and if I can, you can.”  She frowned.  “It wouldn’t hurt you to get out of the library, meet people.”  
       To her surprise, Roma made the squad.  Cheerleading (or sport dancing, as the coach insisted on calling it) had been pretty much her sole social outlet.  It was a good way to relax after a day of laboratory work.  
       Even more to her surprise, Roma was good at it.  Her endless curves looked fine indeed in a tight sweater and little pleated skirt.  When Roma was cavorting on the sidelines, the fans tended to forget about the game.
       Roma had been promoted to head cheerleader when her predecessor, an athletic brunette named Nola, showed up at an important game falling down drunk.  “Hiiiiii e’erybody!” Nola shouted, as she staggered into the room.  “ ‘M all ready *hic* to cheeeeeer!”  She was leaning heavily on Roma, who was working to hold her up.  
       “Great Scot, what’s wrong with her?” the coach demanded.
       Roma gently lowered the other woman onto a bench.  “She’s had a bit to drink, I think,” she offered.
       “A bit!  She’s in no fit state to be cheering.  She can barely stand up!”
       “Been takin’ th’ edge off!” Nola crowed, swaying wildly.  “Oh-kay girls, time a’ suit up!”  She began to pull off her sweater, immediately becoming entangled in the sleeves.  The other girls in the room could only stare.
       It had actually been Roma who suggested to the senior, when Nola confessed to being nervous before games, that a little nip might take the edge off.  Roma made sure the nips kept coming.  Eventually she had a few shots herself, which she immediately transferred to her swaying companion through long, tender kisses.
       “Uh-oh,” Nola slurred, still tangled in her clothing, “thing iz time t’ sleep.”  She slumped over sideways and passed out.
       The coach glared at her.  “Well, looks like we need a new head cheerleader,” she decided.
       “Roma!” somebody blurted.  There were cries of agreement all round.  
       “All right, Roma, you’re up,” said the coach.  “Work your magic.”  She looked over at Nola, who was sleeping half on the bench, half on the floor.  “Somebody give her a blanket,” she snapped.
       Roma had blossomed as head cheerleader.  The other girls quickly fell in behind her, especially once they realized how Roma helped them all look hot.  She helped design skimpy new uniforms, then redesigned them to make them even skimpier.  Under her guidance, the team adopted a suite of provocative routines, more sensuous and erotic than athletic.  The increasingly besotted coach readily agreed to each innovation.
       Attendance at games tripled.  Nobody cared who won.  Even the players were distracted.  Girls who had doubts about the direction the squad was taking were quickly convinced by private nip-n-kiss sessions.
       No, wait, wait!  Roma shouted at herself, in the coffee shop.  None of that ever happened!  She squeezed her eyes shut.  Nothing like that ribald cheerleader fantasy ever could happen.  Where did these daydreams keep coming from?
       She had never been a cheerleader.  The idea was beyond ridiculous.  Her school didn’t even have cheerleaders.  She had briefly been a second-string mid-fielder for the woman’s football team, in her third year.  That, of course, had mostly been an excuse to get near the men’s team. Conveniently, they rode the same bus to away games.  The driver chose to ignore the action in the seats behind him.
       No!  That wasn’t true either!  Roma felt like someone had hijacked her memory and replaced it with a pornographic version of reality.  The sense of non-quiddity she had been experiencing grew ever more intense.  She looked around.  There was only one possible source of this confusion.  It had to be – 
       “A question of integral field balance!” Anton Wolfe said, out of the blue.
       “What?”  said the others, at the same time.
       “If you consider your talent as a controlled warping of space-time, field constancy requires a reciprocal alteration in response to any deviation of the relational fabric.”
       Damien looked bewildered.  But Roma saw where Wolfe was going.  
       “Look,” she said to the semi-mad demi-god beside her, “one way to think about general relativity is to say that gravity bends light.  Another way is to say that the speed and linearity of light are absolute and the rest of the universe has to bend to make that work.  Maybe your talent is like that.  When you make a change, shifting the cosmic order ever so slightly in a new direction, the universe has to compensate by bending reality a different way.”  
       “But . . . why zebras?”
       “Because the space-time compensations are expressed through you too,” Roma said.  “And naturally you reshape the distortions into something familiar.  A blob of dark matter or a micro-wormhole wouldn’t mean anything to you.  So, when you make the rain stop . . . we get zebras instead.”
       “Exactly,” Dr. Wolfe agreed.  He blessed Roma with a smile that made her heart skip.  The man was magnetic.
       “It’s giraffes sometimes,” Damien said.  “I hate when it’s giraffes.  Giraffes are embarrassing.”  He was staring into space.
       “Damien!  Focus!”  Dr. Wolfe’s voice was stern.  Sterner in fact, than Roma thought was wise, considering Damien’s instability.
       “Right, of course,” Damien said, coming to himself.  “Sorry.  What now?  Do you think you can help me?”