PART III
            
       Dr. Wolfe scowled in silence for a long time.  Roma took the opportunity to survey the room.  Damien’s talent was still running rampant.  Ordinary women of all ages and kinds walked into the café for a cup of coffee and tottered out again as walking sex fantasies in skin-tight micro-dresses and sky-high heels.  Boobs expanded; waists contracted; hair re-styled; flaws and blemishes disappeared.  Any black clothing became hot pink, sapphire blue, or candy-apple red.  The café had become an assembly line for living Barbie dolls.
       Roma watched a middle-aged couple enter the coffee-shop.  He was portly and glum-faced, she was angular and frizzy-blonde.  They were bickering.  “Fine, have it your way,” the man snapped, “there was a herd of zebras running down the high street.  Sure.  Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?”
       “You could for once set the sarcasm aside and trust me,” the woman shot back.  “I know what I saw.  And don’t you ever call me stupid.”
       Roma sighed.  She recognized the signs: the scornful reproaches, the insults, the cold body language.  Those two were sliding down the slippery slope to divorce.  The scene reminded her too much of her own divorce, years earlier.  Jake, her once-devoted husband had grown increasingly distant as their careers took different directions, until one day they both realized that the marriage was over.  
       Although there were other factors.
       “Hey, Handsome, I brought you another drink,” Roma cooed.  The room was big, well appointed, and softly lit.  Gentle background music mingled with the sound of conversations all around.  Neighbourhood parties were a monthly ritual in the upscale condo where she and Jake lived.  
       “No, not ‘nother one,” said the young man, Hadley, in front of her.  He was compact, muscular, and one half of a couple that occupied another flat in the building.  “I’ve ha’ toomucha drink already.”  Nevertheless he found himself accepting the full glass Roma proffered.  His eyes devoured her half-bare tits.  The ecru party dress she was wearing, and the underwire bra beneath it, displayed her impressive rack to maximum effect.
       Roma knew the dress was perfect because every man in the room had been staring at her.  Their partners glared in disapproval, but with an undercurrent of envy.  Jake said the tight dress showed too much skin.  She had to mollify him with an impromptu blowjob before he would let her wear it outside the flat.
       “I admire a man who can hold his liquor,” Roma said, sidling in close.  She ran her fingers down his arm.  “Almost as much as I admire a man with muscles.”  She had been bringing him drinks steadily since he walked in the door. 
       He blushed, confused by the attention of this dark-haired beauty.  “Oh, well, uhm, I work out,” he said.  “Maybe I should, uhm, get back ‘a Mon’ca.”  He looked around for his girlfriend.
       “She’s busy,” Roma said.  She used two fingers on his chin to guide his eyes back to hers.  The woman in question was chatting with a circle of other women, oblivious to Roma’s wiles.  Roma urged his glass toward his lips.  “Here, drink up honey,” she whispered.  “And then I’ll tell you a little secret.”
       He drank more strong booze.  Roma kept his arm up until he had swallowed several times.  “Wha – whasa secret?” he asked, when she let him breathe.  His eyes were glassy.
       Roma’s tiny dress glittered as her hips swayed, a few inches back and forth.  She leaned in close to whisper in his ear.  “I think you’re very sexy.”
       “I – you – I don’ think –” Hadley stammered.  Roma licked his ear.  One hand feathered over his crotch.  It was a light touch, almost accidental.  He twitched.
       She snuggled up to the hammered hunk swaying in front of her.  Her abundant breasts pressed against his chest.  “I’ll tell you what, handsome,” she whispered, “let’s step into the cloak room for a minute.  Then you can show me all your muscles.”  With both arms around him she led her compliant conquest out of the room.
       The affair had ended there.  Or it would have done except that Hadley came by their flat the next day to apologize.  “Last night was my fault,” he said, sitting on the sofa with the glass of orange juice Roma had brought him.  “I had too much to drink, and you’re a right hottie, you must know that.  I let physical desire get the better of me.  That wasn’t fair to you, or to our partners.”  
       Roma thought he was so cute.  Jake was in the shower.  She sat down beside her remorseful neighbour, still in her filmy night clothes.  Her dressing gown fell open.  “I understand,” she said, leaning close.  “And I admire your honesty.  Let me give you a little something to show there’s no hard feelings.”  Her fingers landed on the lump in his trousers.
       Jake jumped as if bitten.  “Oh, my mistake,” Roma cooed, as his zipper slid down, “something here does feel hard.”  Then she lowered her head over his crotch and fully accepted his apology.  Hadley spilled his juice.
       Hadley came back the next day to tell her it was over.  “We have been indiscreet,” he explained, “but I’m not going to let it happen again.”  He was so stern that it took a good long tittie-fuck to change his mind.
       Hadley returned regularly thereafter, mostly to tell her to stop trying to seduce him, or to stop sending ribald selfies to his mobile five or six times a day, or to stop sunbathing topless on her balcony when she knew his girlfriend was at work.  But then one day Jake called her from the office while she was bouncing on her boy-toy on the sofa and she couldn’t bring herself to stop long enough to make coherent conversation.  No wonder Jake had left.
       No, wait!  That never happened!  Roma came to herself in the coffee shop, still watching the quarrelling couple.  The husband became a staring grinagog as he approached one of the busty baristas.  She said something coquettish, ignoring the scowling woman behind him.  She stroked his chin with two fingers.  The flirt only incensed his wife further.
       Roma shook her head, flouncing her long hair.  She hadn’t cheated on Jake; with a well-hung neighbour or anybody else.  It was almost a pity that she hadn’t because the false memory was making her steamy.  She felt moisture in her imported silk undies.
       The reality of her separation had been much more mundane.  Just two people who grew tired of living together.  No infidelities on either side.  Roma didn’t really count the fling with Jake’s good-looking friend, and best man, because that was before she and Jake were married.  Barely before, if one included the good-bye fuck in the chapel.
       “Don’t stain my dress,” she told him as she spread her legs on the marble-top table.
       “God you look awesome in white stockings,” he panted, unbuckling his trousers.
       She left him alone after the wedding.  Mostly, anyway.  Instead she worked her way through the other groomsmen, whom she felt deserved an equal share.  They evidently felt that way too.
       No, no, no!  That never happened!  Roma wiped perspiration off her brow.  What was going on here?  The images popping into her mind couldn’t possibly be true, she knew that.  Yet it was getting harder and harder to separate reality from fantasy.  Or to disguise her increasing arousal as she tried.
       She was distracted by the tap of high heels.  The quarrelling couple was leaving with their tea.  The man looked more or less as before, except that his chubbiness had transformed into trim muscularity.  His arm-candy wife was trotting along behind him, carefully negotiating the six-inch heels on her cherry-red, platform sandals.  She was wearing a burgundy jumpsuit with a V-neckline that extended almost to the shiny red belt at her waist.  Her bare, bouncing boobs were revealed to the edge of the nipples.  Her blonde hair was long and luxurious.
       “Wait for me honey,” the transformed wife cooed, “I’m sorry for being so silly.  Of course there weren’t any zebras.”  She was carrying a cup of tea in each hand.
       Roma groaned out loud.  It was all too much.  She was horny enough already.  She didn’t need distractions like the jiggle in the jumpsuit to notch her bi-sexual thermometer even higher.  
       Wait, what was that?  She wasn’t –
       Anton Wolfe’s voice saved her from more confusion.  “Maybe we can help,” he said to Damien.  “Maybe.  I am ready to have a go, anyway.  But you will have to help us.  I have no clear idea what we are working with here.  It will take time to even formulate a working theory.”
       “Thank you,” Damien replied.  “I deeply appreciate your willingness to try.  I suppose we should – ”
       “More coffee for anyone?  Treats?”  One of the bodacious baristas was standing beside their table, coffee urn in one hand, a tray of snacks in the other.  Her arrival did nothing to calm Roma’s arousal.  
       The server’s uniform had changed again.  Above the shellac-thin green tights and shiny black boots she was now wearing a strapless brown bustier that lifted and shaped her astounding boobs while barely covered the bottom half.  The café wasn’t called The Overflowing Cups for nothing.
       “I’ll leave these here for you,” the girl said.  She set the tray on the table, but she was no longer looking at it.  She had discovered Anton Wolfe.  “Oh.  Hello!  Would you like some more coffee, Sir?”  She was already bending over to pour, displaying her half-exposed boobs for his benefit.  Her eyes were adoring.  She spilled coffee.
       “Thank you.  I am fine,” Dr. Wolfe replied.
       “Ohmygod are you ever!” the girl blurted.  “I’m sorry.  I’m just . . . ohmygod.”  She slipped onto the arm of his chair.  “I get off in an hour, Sir.  Would like to go somewhere and . . . not drink coffee?”  She stroked his arm with her free hand.
       Dr. Wolfe was looking distinctly uncomfortable.  He kept averting his gaze from the server’s half-exposed tits, which were huge, discomfittingly close, and right at eye level.  “Uhm, thank you,” he replied.  “Perhaps some other time.”
       “Oh, I’ll take that as a promise!” the girl cried.  “Give me a call, please, Sir?  I’m Emerald.  Here’s my number.”  She ran her free hand down one lycra-wrapped leg, drawing three pairs of eyes along with it.  She pulled a small card out of her left boot.  She handed it to Dr. Wolfe.  “Call me any time.  Really.  Day or night.  I always have my mobile on.”  She ran her hand through his glossy mane.  “I know we just met but ohmygod, I think I’m in – I mean, I would love to serve you so much more than coffee.”
       “Perhaps you have other customers, Emerald?” Roma asked.
       “Of course.”  Emerald didn’t even look her way.  “Everything here is free for you, Sir,” she said to Anton Wolfe.  “Everything.”  She got to her high-heeled feet.  “Please, please, please call me.  Any time.  But real soon, all right?  I’ll be sleeping with my mobile.  Waiting for you.  Sir.”  
       She strutted away, with barely a glance at Damien or Roma.  She turned her head for one more look at Dr. Wolfe.  She ran her tongue around her lips.
       Dr. Wolfe watched her go.  Roma was hardly surprised.  The girl’s perfect derriere rolled with each step.  But while he was admiring, Dr. Wolfe was deep in his frown of concentration.  Was she missing something?
       She looked around the room.  Public decorum was collapsing.  Sexual hijinks were becoming more and more flagrant.  The leather and lycra duo were half on top of their shirtless partners, kissing and fondling.  One man had a hand inside his partner’s leather dress, while the other was sliding pink tights down a perfect ass.
       Nearby, the girl with the distracted boyfriend was leaning over the bar, deep in conversation with the other super-chesty coffee server.  The barista’s goal was apparently to keep the girl’s attention, so she wouldn’t notice that her boyfriend was getting a white-gloved handjob from the babe in the tall white boots, not three feet behind her.  She was clearly doing a good job.  The two girls began kissing across the bar.
       The blonde office ornament and her young boss were outright screwing.  She was half-sitting in his lap, facing away from him, holding the table edge while she rocked up and down.  Her bounteous breasts bounced and bobbled on the table.  She made happy gasping noises.  Though the arm of his chair prevented Roma from seeing everything, she could make out the man’s suit trousers bunched up around his ankles.
       On the television screen behind the bar, a beautiful news presenter in a very short dress and spike-heeled sandals was practically making love to the camera as she described the weather map behind her.  She kept bending over to point out high pressure cells.  The filmy dress stretched thin across her bubble ass.
       At a table nearby, the three gorgeous college students had abandoned their joint project in favour of joints of a different kind.  A plume of potent pot smoke hung over their table.  The girls were laughing and falling over on one another.
       Agnes the hospital worker passed by, looking younger than ever, to offer the girls some free pills.  They had to grab them off her tongue, using only their lips.  The girls waiting their turn practised on each other.  At another table, the woman in the tall suede boots was panting and mewling as she read her Purple Prose book.  Her tight shorts were unbuttoned to give her pleasuring fingers more room.
       The whole shop was soaked in sex, seemingly seconds away from collapsing into orgy.  The only place unaffected was the table where Damien was sitting, the mad mock-god who started it all.  He was deep in conversation with Dr. Wolfe.  They were having a mundane discussion about how Damien had found the café.
       “You can sense my detector,” Dr. Wolfe said.
       Damien nodded.  “I can’t explain how, but yes.  I was passing through on the way to Berlin.  There was a problem with . . . some tigers, and uhm, baboons, escaping from the zoo.”  He looked guilty.  “Rather a lot of baboons.  Never mind.  I felt something different, something I hadn’t experienced before.  I came back today to find it.  I traced it to this coffee shop.”
       Dr. Wolfe nodded.  “The detector creates a local wave distortion field.  I designed it to find a Richmond shift by the way it would interfere with the detector’s field.  Gratifying to see it works.”
       Roma perked up at that.  The wave distortion field set up by Dr. Wolfe’s detector was a kind of isolated bubble of unreality.  And it was interfering with Damien’s power, like two magnetic fields intersecting.  What would that interference look like?  No one else in the room appeared to notice that their entire world had changed.  Yet Roma kept remembering impossible events, moments that she was certain never happened but which seemed utterly valid at the same time.  Mad barbarians were banging at the gates of her mind.
       She studied Anton Wolfe.  His movie-star face was lined just enough to give him an air of dignity and avuncular charm.  The golden-brown hair sweeping over his crown was edged with silver, as if touched by frost.  The man’s eyes behind his round glasses were of the deepest, purest blue.  The serving girl’s admiration was understandable.  
       And yet . . . the sense of mental vertigo struck her again.  Did Wolfe always look this way?  Hadn’t he been different a little while ago?  She teetered in her chair.     
       “Ms Fine!” cried Dr. Wolfe.  “Are you unwell?  What is the matter?”
       Roma’s head was spinning.  “I – I don’t know what’s happening!” she cried.  She heard the alarm in her own voice.  She turned to the madman beside her.  “Damien!  All this outrage.  You haven’t changed us, have you?”
       He didn’t answer for a moment.  He exchanged a glance with Anton Wolfe.  “If I had done you would probably know it,” he replied, after some seconds.  “For some reason people always notice changes if I am interacting with them directly.  I don’t quite understand that either.  Look at yourself.  Do you seem different?”
       Roma did as he suggested.  At first, she breathed a sigh of relief.  She was wearing the same outfit she had been in before all this strangeness began:  a simple red dress and comfortable suede boots.
       But again, something was different.  Her dress was a carmine sheen of microfibre stretched over her curves to the top of her thighs.  Her legs were still mostly covered though, because her stretch-fit boots ended about three inches below the hem of her truncated dress.  The soft, micro-suede boots were jasmine yellow, with tall black heels.
       Roma was certain that she had never owned, would never own, a pair of boots like these.  Yet she distinctly remembered buying the attention-grabbing boots a few weeks earlier, after reading a sex story about yellow boots.  More confusing still, her outfit clung to a figure of voluptuous maturity, softer and rounder than the gymnastically fit women dazzling the café, and the more attractive for it.  Atop it all, a waterfall of coal-black hair cascaded down her back.
       Roma felt close to panic.  The sexbomb her eyes revealed was not her.  She couldn’t possibly look like that!  Or maybe she did?  Hadn’t she been turning heads on the street since she was twelve?  Didn’t she work out every day to keep herself looking this way?  She was no longer sure.  Or rather, she was sure that she did and equally sure that she didn’t, at the same time.  
       “No!  It’s all impossible!” she cried.  Nearly hysterical, she dove into her designer purse (red and yellow, to match today’s outfit) and retrieved her make-up kit.  She studied her face in the mirror.
       It was her face.  Yet it wasn’t her face.  It was her face as it would look after magical surgery that enlarged her eyes, plumped her lips and smoothed her skin.  The reflection gazing back at her radiated deep sensuality and aching arousal.  
       The unreality of it all became more than she could stand.  She bolted to her feet.  She felt momentary surprise at how far the boot heels thrust her up on her toes.  The feeling became normal a half-second later. 
       “You!” she screamed at the devil-god beside her.  “You DID change me!  All the time we were talking you were working your infernal magic on me, you criminal scum.  You made me into – into this!”  She indicated her fabulous figure with a sweep of one hand.  “We were trying to help you!  How could you do this to me!  You wicked, traitorous, soulless, madman!”  
       She was trembling with rage.  She clenched her fists at her side, right at the hem of her dress.  She could feel her chest heaving beneath the straining fabric.  
       Damien looked shocked.  He pushed back into his chair, seemingly unsure how to react to the enraged sexpot he had created.  “I – I – I didn’t mean –” he stuttered.  “I mean, I – it’s not like that – I just tried to – you were so uptight, I, I thought I could – but it gets away from me, I didn’t really mean to –”
       “Shut up!” Roma screamed.  “Just shut up and never speak again!  I’m a physicist!  I have a freaking Master’s degree forgodsake.  I’m not another plastic bimbo-doll for you to dress up and play with!  You change me back, do you hear!  You can’t DO this!”
       Anton Wolfe bounded out of his chair.  He jumped over the table, where his detector was going berserk, and gathered his companion in his arms.  “Roma, Roma, please, it’s all right,” he assured her.  “We’ll work this out.  Please, calm down.”
       “No!” Roma rebelled.  “No, Anton, don’t!”  She struggled against him.  His arms were surprisingly strong.  “Please, ohmygod no.”  Her voice carried an edge of pleading.  He was holding her gently, meeting her fury with abiding patience.
       “It’s the detector,” he explained.  “Interfering with Damien’s talent.  You’re experiencing two versions of reality at the same time.  No wonder you’re stressed.”
       She turned toward him.  She could feel the heat of his body against hers, the confident masculinity of his presence.  She found herself getting lost in his eyes.  “Oh god, Anton,” she murmured.  
       Then she was kissing him.  If it surprised him, he didn’t show it.  The kiss was slow and tender and infinitely long.  It lingered like a sunset over a tropical lagoon, warm and reddening, growing gradually more intense from moment to moment.  She slipped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer.  She worked her red-glossed lips against his.  She could feel the bulge of his manhood pressing against her belly.
       Abruptly everything snapped into place.  The oscillations of reality faded and disappeared.  In that precious, time-frozen moment, Roma realized that giving herself to Anton Wolfe in every way possible was all she ever wanted to do.
       They were both breathing hard when she finally let him go.  “Anton,” she husked, “please, I need you.  Take me.  Take me now!”  Before he could respond she kissed him again, while tearing at his clothes.  Though she adored sex and had been bedding men for fun since she seduced her freshman year physics professor (she was quite certain of this now), Roma had never felt such pure and delicious lust as at that moment.  She yanked off his glasses and tossed them aside, then began pulling his jacket down his arms.
       “Roma, wait, wait!” he cried.  There was no stopping her.  She was already working on his shirt.  He turned to their bizarre guest, who was watching the proceedings more with concern than prurience.  “Damien – what is this?”
       He flipped both hands.  “I, uhm, felt some sort of recompense was in order.  For your assistance.  Money seemed somehow inadequate given the uniqueness of the circumstances.  Perhaps something more . . . human, would be better.”
       “For god’s sake man, how do you know I am even capable, at my age!”  His shirt landed on the floor.  His belt buckle was yielding.
       “Oh, you’re capable,” Damien replied.  “I made sure of that.”
       Roma was hardly paying attention to the conversation.  She showered her lover with kisses as her hands moved closer to her goal.  Anton’s hard-on was tenting his trousers like a pike-staff.  Off in the distance Roma heard someone shout, “Ohmygod ohmygod yes, like that!” followed by the sound of an elephant trumpeting, out on the street. 
       “Damn!”  Damien muttered.
       The noise reminded Roma where they were.  She turned to Damien.  “Please,” she whispered, “a little privacy?”  Damien nodded.  Tasteful wooden screening appeared around their table.  Roma remembered that it had been there when they came in.  A series of delicate wood-carvings were inlaid into the lattice-work.  To Roma’s surprise, the carvings depicted not bawdy erotica but scenes from Le Morte D’Arthur.
       The distraction was momentary.  Anton Wolfe’s trousers were around his ankles.  A few deft flicks of Roma’s hand dispatched his underthings and brought his maleness into full view.  Roma whimpered.  Anton Wolfe said something in his native language that invoked the deity to express amazement.
       “Please, darling, lie down here,” Roma said.  She guided him to the floor, which was now somehow carpeted, and straddled his hips in her garish yellow boots.  The red lace knickers beneath her too-short dress were easily circumvented.  She was very wet.  “Come on Anton,” she breathed, as she lowered herself onto him, “fuck my silly brains out.”
       In fact it was Roma who did most of the active fucking.  She rode him energetically, hips pistoning, boobs bouncing, long hair flying about.  She cried out in pleasure with every downward thrust:  “Oh yes oh yes oh yes oh yes!”
       “Ah, my word!” said the florid-faced man below her.  “It has been so long.  So long!  I had forgotten how – ahh!”  Roma flexed her hips and his eyes rolled back.  
       “Yes!” Roma agreed.  “You’re so long, Anton.  So long!  So long and hard and big and ohmygod you feel good!”  She grabbed the bottom of her dress and impatiently yanked it up and off.  “Put your hands on me!” she demanded.  She took one of his hands in each of hers and guided them to her tits.  Her lace bra was not designed to conceal.  Wolfe began to knead and fondle, occasionally flicking her stiff nipples with one finger.
       Roma felt sexual pleasure rippling through her like electricity.  She bounced up and down on her new lover’s staff.  From the shouts and noises she could hear through the screens, she could tell that other couples were fucking happily throughout the café.  The whole room was caught up in a communion of physical delight.
       Abruptly it was too much.  Anton Wolfe grunted as he pushed deeper into her.  Roma leaned back and grabbed her suede boots at the ankles.  She closed her eyes, trembling.  She heard Wolfe say something very rude, then stiffen and pitch as he ejaculated deep in her pussy.  
       The added touch was all she needed to push her over the edge.  She screamed, “Yessssss Antonnnn!” as the climax took her.  The commotion she could hear from beyond the screens told her that many other couples were finding their peaks as well.
       When the world came back into focus, she rested on top of him for a long time, sliding down from her orgasmic high.  She felt the press of her breasts against his chest with each inhalation of breath.  She and Anton Wolfe made an oddly attractive couple there on the floor, the yellow-booted beauty and the red-haired scientist.  Eventually, reluctantly, she let him go.  They climbed to their feet and redressed.
       “Well, that was altogether splendid,” Anton Wolfe allowed, as he replaced his lost glasses.  “I hope we can do that again sometime.”
       Roma struggled into her tight dress.  She sidled up to him, confidently sexy in her tall heels.  “Do it again sometime?  Anton, honey, don’t you get it?  You can do whatever you want with me; anywhere, any time, any way you like.”  She kissed him on the cheek.  “Now I understand why women adore you so.  You’re the most captivating man I’ve ever met.  And I’m captivated.  You own me.  You’ve transformed me into your horny, helpless, arm-candy love-slave fuck-doll with that giant, magical, cunt-filling cock of yours and if I don’t stop talking I’m going to start tearing your clothes off again!”
       “Oh.  Uhm, I see.  Well, I could use an assistant in my laboratory.  There will be much to do now that we know a Richmond shift is truly possible.”
       “I’ll tell Dr. Harmon I quit tomorrow morning,” Roma said quickly.  “No, I’ll send him a text right now.  There.  Now I’m your lab tech.  Though I hope you don’t mind” – she leaned in close to whisper in his ear – “if I sometimes wear nothing but high heels beneath my lab coat.”
       He grinned for the first time.  “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I am rather fond of heels.”  He pushed her away, gently, like he was setting down a friendly kitten, and began to pack up his detector.  The yellow lines on the monitors were nearly flat.  Roma used the delay to check her make-up.  She had to look her best at all times for Anton.
       “That was an interesting afternoon,” Dr. Wolfe said, as he pulled back the wooden screen.  Throughout the café, men and women were lazily composing themselves from what appeared to have been intensely satisfying sex.  One of the baristas was pulling on her pullover; the other was carefully re-applying lipstick.  The fellow who had been distracted behind his girlfriend’s back was walking out with the babe in white boots on one arm, his transformed girlfriend on the other. 
       Someone came in off the street to order coffee.  He gaped at the stacked serving girl as she adjusted her clothing.  She smiled back at him. 
       Roma looked around.  “Where’s Damien?”
       “He must have slipped away while we were – otherwise occupied,” Dr. Wolfe replied.  “But look here.”  A brightly coloured parrot was sitting on the arm of Damien’s chair.  It carried a small card in its beak.  Dr. Wolfe gently removed it.  “Thanks for listening.  I’ll be in touch – Damien,” he read.
       He chuckled.  “He has a flair for the dramatic.”  He picked up the yellow case holding his detector.  “Shall we go?”
       Roma stepped forward and wrapped herself around his other arm.  “Let’s go, darling,” she agreed.  “And the minute we get back to the laboratory I expect you to bend me over your desk and screw me till I’m cross-eyed.  So I’ll know what to expect from now on.”
       The happy couple exited the coffee-house, into the traffic and the sunshine.  Roma held the door open so the parrot could fly away.