Chapter 4

Doctor Colleen Handle was in her office when I arrived and a male secretary, looking fairly impish made me wait. The ‘imp’ was more human than true imp, but sometimes, if you looked at him through your periphery vision, there was this impression that he was a Gremlin that had eaten after midnight, with glowing red eyes, which instantly brought my eyes back to him. He sat at his desk, hands folded in his lap, and stared back. There was nothing on his desk suggesting he had things to do. He just sat there, looking at me. Stoically. I got the impression he could be in the Blue Brother’s car, flying through a mall, things breaking, people running, police car sirens roaring, and he would be just as calm and cool as Jake Elwood, just staring, maybe making an occasional comment: ‘you just ran over a baby. Cool.’

“Mr. Harister,” he said, jarring me back out of my fantasy. His sunken cheeks and thin lips were spooky. His tuft of hair fell went up and spilled over like a waterfall. In truth, he was a Muppet that went very wrong. “She will see you now.”

A door to the right of the Imp’s desk slid open. It was hard to see in, as the light inside the room seemed to pool in the door frame. I got up, walked over, and pushed through thin sheet of light that conformed to my body like pushing into a balloon. I broke into Colleen’s presence with a ‘pop.’ She sat in an egg chair, a hovering egg chair, in an alcove which was all windows, like a bubble blister on a ship. No, better, it was the Emperor’s window on the second Death Star, only instead of space and stars and a battle, it was blue skies and clouds. I was curious enough to want to get a closer look out the window, but I had to do my ‘compulsory’ ogling of Doctor Handle. The rest of the office was empty. No books. No artifacts. No possessions, or nick-knacks, not even a layer of dust, as if this was a clean room, but not like a clean room Dexter might want to make clean up easier.

Doctor handle was a thirty something professional, lawyer type. She was not big breasted, and an outline of a bra was discernable under her white blouse. Her tan skirt hit mid ankle, but was up a little due to her sitting legs crossed in her chair. Her legs and feet were bare. Her hair was down, and pooled over her left shoulder. Over all, the she had the look of someone who runs on a daily basis, perhaps even competes in marathons.

“You may come have a closer look, if you like,” Colleen said.

“What?” I asked.

“Come closer to me,” Colleen said more than asked.

“Oh,” I said, and approached the alcove where her egg chair hovered. Now that I was closer, I had to look out the window.

Colleen’s chair turned with me as I stepped up and approached the window. The window over looked the campus. The whole of the campus was visible, like looking at an elaborate gaming map with toy artifacts, or like from a helicopter looking down, as opposed to being in the top of the building looking down. I had a moment of vertigo and touched her chair to steady myself. The chair started to drift away increasing my unsteadiness but then pushed back to hold its position.

“Yes, that is Safe Haven,” Colleen said. “Technically, the whole planet is Safe Haven, but below is the main campus. You can see Harister Hall’s tower over there. It’s actually kind of nice, like a monument, but I would have preferred it next to the shore, and would have made your tower a lighthouse, but then again, given how much your place is changing, and how quickly, it’s probably good you set up next to the Penetrable Forest. But you didn’t come to discuss landscapes and architecture or property rights, did you?”

I brought up my summons. “I got this,” I began.

She held up a hand, blocking.

“You have not paid me for the last representation,” Colleen said.

I blinked, lowered my arm. “That wasn’t like complimentary University service?”

“Oh, you’re such a freshman,” Colleen said. “Haven’t you learn there is always an exchange rate when it comes to magic? I defended you, I get paid. That’s how it works.”

“I ended up being pushed into an early internship and punished for something I didn’t really feel like I should have even been called out on,” I pointed out.

“Oh, we’ve already gone over all that, and had I not been there, your outcomes might have been more severe, so, suck it up, let’s move on, but you still have to compensate me for my time,” Colleen said.

“Fine,” I said, putting away the letter. I prepared to pay in full by first unbuckling my pants.

Colleen’s ‘stop’ hand went back up. I hesitated, belt undone, hands on the button to my trousers. “What are you doing?”

“Preparing to pay you,” I said. “Standard fair?”

“Oh, I don’t want your dick, sir,” Colleen said.

I swallowed, a little embarrassed that I had made such an assumption. Then again, so far at Safe Haven, all payment had come at a sensual price. “You want money?”

Colleen laughed. “What good is money to a sorcerous?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You might buy a purse?”

“Such a sexist remark,” Colleen said, dismay evident on her face. “Do I look like the kind of woman who has a lot of props to carry around in order to express my femininity?”

“No, Mam,” I said, apologetically.

“Oh, Jon, don’t do that, either,” Colleen said. “So, you put me in a box. People do that. We make assumptions. The fact that you expressed it at least allows me to correct your vision so you can see me correctly. It’s not like you’ve spent a lot of time with me and should know better.”

I stood corrected. Her statement was fair. I suppose, if she wanted, she could blast me out of the water with legal rants and definitions to support arguments about how incredibly lame I was, but her tone and mannerisms made our conversation feel more casual, over the table at brunch sort of feel. That, too, was actually a courtesy. Unless the old adage that a lawyer being nice to you has an agenda. No, that wasn’t it. She wasn’t being nice, but she wasn’t being a lawyer. She was just being herself. I fastened my belt back.

“How would you like to be compensated?” I asked.

Colleen extended her feet out towards me. I blinked. Her calves were definitely runner calves, toned. Her feet were perfect, smooth skin, gentle contours, so, if she were a runner, she also took care of her feet, the toes perfectly proportioned, with purple nail polish, and a star on the big toe nails. I met her eyes, and noticed she seemed to be patiently expecting service.

“You want me to massage your feet?” I asked.

“That would be a good start,” Colleen said.

“You want me to fuck your feet?” I asked.

“Sir, I said I don’t want your dick,” Colleen said. “And I don’t want you to worship the ground I walk on, but I do want you to worship my feet. I want you to massage them. I want you to suck my toes. I want you to lick my soles, nibble on my ankles, while massaging my calves, and pay equal attention to both feet, for a minimum of one hour, or till I cum.”

I blinked.

“You have a problem with that?” Colleen asked.

“No,” I said. But I was curious. “You can orgasm from feet licking?”

“Depends on your level of attention, but yes, it is possible,” Colleen said. “Again, you’re just a freshman and I don’t expect you to understand these things, but your dick isn’t the primary sexual organ. Your brain is. Every periphery extension to the brain can be used for sex. It is only because you have assigned the focus of your sexuality to the penis that you have limited yourself. Hell, I know a paraplegic who can have a full body orgasm by having his thumbed suck. And, maybe, if parents didn’t tell their kids to stop sucking their thumbs, we’d all have access to that path to bliss. Anyway, here, start with this.”

Colleen produced a vial out of thin air and handed it to me. It was a massage oil that was also eatable. To make things more comfortable for me, she lowered her chair so that I could sit in the alcove, blue skies behind me, and extended a leg rest from her chair. The focus of the light coming into the window made Colleen seem brighter. And it was then I realized, the whole room was an alcove with windows, with no trace of a door. It was like she was in her own bubble above the world.

I know a thing or two about massage. I have studied and passed exams, and I am qualified to get a license as a masseuse, but chose not to follow it. A good masseuse can stop the chatter of his or her brain, and focus on a person. Most the time, I can do that. Like, before I began the foot massage, I brought my hands up into “Namaste” prayer hands, closed my eyes, and said a prayer. I was able to raise the temperature of my hands. It was a skill I learned initially to reduce migraines, but later, in massage school, turned out to be a pretty neat trick everyone wanted to experience as we massaged each other. I am not a good masseuse. You can argue, I am an ethical one, which explains why I didn’t get my license and start my own business. It was also another example of failure with my family, “You can’t even get your license,” though they assumed I couldn’t pass the test as opposed to I just didn’t apply for the license. Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t shared my interest with family. Now, I am really good at massage, and you may ask, how can you be good at massage, but not a good masseuse? I was unable to keep pure thoughts. There are legal clauses that say if a massage therapist gets aroused for any reason, they have to end the session, and not see that person. Now granted, most therapist probably just ignore their feelings and push through the massage and no one ever knows, cause, in truth, most the time, people don’t know what the therapist is actually thinking. I consider that an okay therapist. Trust me, I imagine all kind of therapist hating while touching me, just because of my own self-loathing, and it took some genuine people in massage school to convince me that touching me wasn’t a chore, but even with that it took work on my part to excise those mental tapes.