Damien was still there when Ava arose the following morning.  He had hardly moved.  She stayed in rather than going to work.  Around mid-morning she was playing the piano when she finally heard her flat-mate stir.
       It was pleasant to be playing piano again, Ava reflected.  The splendid grand piano in her ridiculously opulent (and acoustically flawless) livingroom was a far superior instrument to the old upright in her father’s den.  Better though, the memories of childhood lessons and recitals didn’t conflict with another version.  Therefore she knew they were real, and not one of Damien’s augmentations.
       She lifted her fingers from the keys.  “Welcome back,” she said.  “Rough night?  How do you feel?”
       “I feel awful,” he replied.  “But probably better than I look.  You play very well.”
       Ava got to her feet.  “I’ll get you some breakfast.”
       He took a shower while she scrambled some eggs.  He returned wearing clean clothes.  Ava watched him devour the eggs.  He looked different.  “You shaved your goatee!” she exclaimed.
       He set down his fork.  “I felt it was time for a change.  What do you think?”  He stroked his chin where the beard used to be.
       “I think it’s about time.  It was dreadful.”
       “Oh.”
       She put her hand over her mouth.  “Oh!  I’m sorry, that was so rude.  But it really was tacky.  You look much better without it.”
       He shrugged.  “You have always been honest.  Thanks for breakfast.”
       She changed the subject.  “So, last night.  Another experiment?”
       “Yes.  A successful one, this time.”
       “Successful?  We were really worried.  You looked like you had been run over by a truck.”
       He stretched, wincing.  “That’s what I feel like.  I am sore all over.”
       “Come finish your orange juice by the window.  We need to talk.”
       A giant sectional sofa was arranged at one end of the room to look out over the street.  “Something on your mind?” Damien asked, settling in across from her.  He winced.
       She scowled at him.  “Damien why haven’t I got a boyfriend?”
       “Excuse me?”
       Ava laid out her deduction.  “Something doesn’t add up.  You said you hadn’t changed me.  Aside from the physical improvements, I mean.  Still not sure what to make of those.”  Her red sweater strained thin over her ballooning chest.  She was wearing snug-fitting jeans and trendy white trainers.
       “Yes, as far as I was able.”
       “Right.  So you say.  But look, here’s where I am.  Living in this gigantic house.  Out in public at the restaurants five nights a week.  I was pretty enough, even before your nonsense, and I think I’m a pleasant person.  I flirt and make out with men at work all the time.  I can seduce a man whenever I want.  Yet somehow I haven’t had a date since I left school.  What’s going on?”
       He looked puzzled.  “How would I know?”
       “Could it be that you haven’t been honest with me?  Could it be that you have used your diabolical ability to make sure I don’t get romantic attention from anyone else?  To keep me out of circulation.  Like, maybe you were saving me for yourself?”
       It was a bold accusation to level at a man with unlimited power and uncertain sanity.  He looked at her blankly for a long moment.  Then he began to laugh.
       “Oh Ava, please, get over yourself!”
       “What?”  That wasn’t the answer she expected.
       “Look, you’re a wonderful young woman and sure, you’re a looker, but you’re what, maybe nineteen years old?”
       “I’m twenty-one!”
       “Fine.  Whatever.  Look, I’ve been all over the world, screwing like a deranged ferret.  Why would I be grooming the first young cutie that took me in off the street?”  He considered for a few seconds.  “I wonder if the real problem isn’t that someone has daddy issues.”
       “What are you talking about?”
       He shrugged.  “I’m not a psychologist.  Maybe you don’t have a boyfriend because deep inside you don’t feel you have permission.  You rebelled against your father’s plans for your life.  You insisted on making your own way instead.  Good for you, but your relationship with your father is unresolved, isn’t it.   Maybe you don’t feel you can link up with a new man while the old one is still pending.”
       “That’s ridiculous.”
       “Is it?  As I said, I’m not a shrink.  Let’s try something.”  He held out his hands, palms up, as if meditating.  He closed his eyes for a good ten seconds.  Then he said, “That phone is a direct line to your father’s mobile.”  He gestured toward an ornate ivory telephone sitting on the piano.  When you’re ready, pick it up.”

But Ava was noticing something else.  “You had to think about it, to make the telephone.”
       “Yes.  And that is about all I can do, for a while.  My power is gone.  Mostly gone.  No more zebras for me.”
       “Seriously?  What happened?”
       “Not sure.  We were doing an experiment, over at the university.  Roma suggested we try re-enacting the ritual that started everything.  We were in the midst of that when – something happened.  A door closed somewhere.  The overloaded circuit flowing through me burned out completely.  The universe reverted to its natural state.  It hurt.  A lot.  But I feel much more . . . human this morning.”
       Ava thought about it.  “This would have been, when, around 1:30 in the morning?”
       “Yes, I think so.  How did you know?”
       “We felt it.  Nadine and I.”  She didn’t elaborate.
       Yet he must have understood.  “Roma and Anton also . . . felt it.  Rather powerfully.  I wonder who else did?  Ironically, all I got was convulsions.  A touch of cosmic justice there, I suppose.”  
       Ava was still working things out.  After all she had experienced, Damien’s latest revelation was a bit much to take.  She said, “Your power is completely gone?”
       He smiled.  “Not quite.  A bit of spark left.  It will take a while for it to fade out completely.”  He did the zen pose again.  Then he handed Ava a single yellow rose.  “Finish your juice,” he said.  “Then call your dad.”
       “Why would he want to talk to me?  I’ve shattered all his dreams.  I’m his great disappointment.  He wanted a legal dynasty and he got a drop-out.  I never even got to law school.”
       Damien shook his head.  “You underestimate yourself.  Greatly.  You are the manager and co-owner of not one but two of the best restaurants in the city.  Not to mention a partner in a highly successful fashion mega-store.  All this before your twenty-second birthday.”
       “That was all you.”
       He shook his head again.  “No.  I lubricated the path to your success.  But the core ideas were yours.  Tavish’s Too is entirely your idea.  Intimacy was simply brilliant; you saw my nuisance sexing up as a resource you could use, and help me at the same time.  You have a fine entrepreneurial spirit, Ava.  I think your father would be proud of you.  I would be.”
       Ava set down her drink.  She rose and crossed the room toward the piano.  She turned back after a moment.  She looked down at her tight-fitting jeans.  “I’m not wearing those old shorts,” she remarked.  “First time in weeks.”
       Damien smiled back.  “Wear what you want.  No leg-loving demi-gods to mess up your wardrobe.”
       Ava approached the telephone.  It was tall and gold trimmed, like the ones people used in black and white movies.  She took a deep breath.  She picked up the receiver.  It began to ring at the other end immediately.
       “Uhm, hello.  Hi.  It’s me, Ava.”  A pause.  “Yes, I know.  I miss you too.”  
       Over by the window, Damien toasted her with his glass of orange juice.  Then he discreetly left the room.
       The following day was warm and sunny.  Ava spent the day working with design ideas for Tavish’s Too.  She came home a little after six.  She was in a fine mood.
       As she opened the door to her palace-ballroom foyer, it occurred to her that the outside of the row house where she lived looked exactly as it always had.  Nothing about it suggested the vast and stunning opulence inside.  An article in a local booster magazine had called Ava’s digs “the city’s best kept secret.”  Ava danced her way across the room.  Her little pleated skirt flew up.
       A blue envelope was lying on a marble-topped table at the base of the staircase.  That was odd.  Ava looked it over.  The envelope had Damien’s full name on the front, hand-lettered.  No address; no stamp.  
       Who had delivered it?  And how did they get in?  No matter.  Ava pulled off her heels and skipped up the stairs to her rooms.
       “Something for you,” she sang, waltzing through the door.  Damien was sitting at the piano, trying to pick out a tune.  Ava was grateful when he stopped.  He opened the letter and read it gravely.
       Ava tossed her shoes in the general direction of her bedroom.  Picking up after her gave Nadine something devotional to do.  She skipped over to the kitchen to get a drink of water.
       “So what’s the letter?” she asked, returning.
       “A job offer,” Damien said.  “Director, essentially, of an international association of . . . mind controllers.”
       Ava was taken aback.  “Other people like you?”
       “No.  There is no one like me.  But there are people, clever people or lucky, who can manipulate others around them by various means.  They want me to head their new organization.”
       “You’re not talking about some nefarious cabal that secretly runs the world, I hope.”
       He shook his head.  “Exactly the opposite.  These people live in the shadows.  They prosper by not drawing attention to themselves.  Occasionally someone oversteps, gets full of himself or grows reckless.  The organization maintains discipline.  They would have checked me, I think, had I not been so powerful.  Now they want me to help them keep everyone else in line.”
       “But your power doesn’t work any more.”
       “True.  Mostly true.  But they don’t know that, do they?  The job is largely administrative anyway.  As long as I can bend a spoon now and again, I don’t think anyone should care about my new limitation.”
       “Does this mean you’ll be moving out?”  She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.  Damien had become a good friend.
       “I’m afraid so.  The job is based in Geneva.”  He tossed the letter aside.  “We can deal with that later.  What would you like for dinner?”
       Ava’s grin had returned.  “You’ll have to fend for yourself,” she crowed.  “I have a date!”
       She danced off to her bedroom to get ready.