Lethal Rhythms

By Thom Whalen

Marie Lenoir is a New Orleans voodoo priestess and a serial murderer. But she errs when she kills the husband of a Canadian psychology professor, Dr. Jordan McIntyre. Marie may be too slick for the police but Dr. McIntyre is relentless in her determination to avenge her husband's murder. A life and death struggle between logic and magic rages across the continent as the victims of Marie's murder spree accumulate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thom Whalen
• Release date: Dec 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301252015

Thom Whalen

Thom Whalen studied experimental psychology at UCSD (B.A.), UBC (M.A.) and Dalhousie University (Ph.D.). After working for the Government of Canada conducting research on the human factors of computer networks for thirty years, he retired to begin a new career writing fiction.If you wish to send him email, contact information is available at http://thomwhalen.com/ He eagerly awaits comment on his stories.

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Lethal Rhythms

Thom Whalen

Copyright  2012 Thom Whalen

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, either in whole or in part, in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy.

Prologue: Ascension of a Priestess

Smoke and dust swirled through the air, muting the candlelight to a diffuse orange glow. The pulse of a drum filled the room with a slow beat like a powerful heart. Four pairs of bare feet stamped in cadence, flexing the rough-hewn floorboards.

The old man with smoke-white hair and charcoal-dark skin was possessed by an ancient spirit. He bobbed and weaved, chanting in a long lost language. His thin, ethereal keen reverberated against the walls.

The four dancing women wailed an undulating, wordless continuo in harmony with the priest.

Slowly, the beat of the drum accelerated, driving the women to dance faster and faster.

The ceremony reached its crescendo at exactly midnight.

Laying his drum down but never breaking the now-frantic rhythm of his chant, the priest weaved towards a wicker cage that had been shoved against a wall and pulled a rooster from it. He held the bird high by the base of its neck, his arm lying along its back so that its wings flapped frantically and its feet clawed the air impotently.

The women howled in kinship with the cock, their eyes gleaming ember-red in the candlelight.

The fowl struggled furiously, trying desperately to strike with its wings and rake the man’s arm with its spurs. Tried in vain because it couldn’t reach the man’s flesh.

Rolling his eyes to the ceiling, the man drew a curved dagger from his belt and struck the cock’s head free with a single slice of its neck. He dropped the feathered corpse to the floor where it twitched and jerked in a macabre parody of the priest’s dance.

Blood sprayed from fowl’s severed arteries.

The women screamed in awe and delight.

The sacrifice was complete. Prayers would be answered. Tomorrow would be a good day.

The ceremony quickly wound to an end. When the priest fell silent, the four women left him alone to recover from his exhaustion.

As was his habit, he drank deep from an earthenware ewer by the door. Exhausted, he swallowed quickly, barely tasting the water that flowed down his throat. When he had three times emptied the dipper, he sank to the floor, still panting for breath, letting the sweat flow down his body, mixing with the blood of the sacrifice, dampening the dust that was settling over him to a parchment-thin crust of mud. Before he had regained his energy, his eye caught a movement from the corner of the room. A young woman stepped silently from the shadows. She had perfect features, skin as pale as paper and long hair black as ink.

The priest raised his gaze to meet hers. Marie. Why are you here?

I’ve come to see you, Non-ame she said.

I thought that you’d be out telling fortunes to tourists. Entertaining them with your hoodoo tricks. Though he had not yet caught his breath and his words were labored, she could hear the sneer in his tone.

You know I don’t perform for tourists, she replied calmly. And I don’t do hoodoo. I commune with the loa, just like you.

I been hearing about you ever since you left. He shook his head sadly. And I hear that you’re nothing like me. You practice the dark art, casting hoodoo curses and blighting people’s lives. People are afraid of you. You bring evil into the world. That’s not the religion that I taught you.

You taught me what you know, I grant that, but you don’t know enough. There’s a whole other plane beyond your sight. There’s power there that you can’t understand.

I know about the dark world. I understand it. I choose not to deal in evil and I chose not to teach you about it. But I know what’s on that plane. Pain and death. Nothing but pain and death.

You delude yourself in your ignorance, old man. You see only the tip of the dark world. The least part of it. You can’t know it by being told about it; you have to know it by living in it. That dark plane extends farther and deeper than you could ever guess. I’ve been there and I’ve learned more than you imagine in your worst nightmares.

So why are you coming to me now if you know so much? What do you want from me?

You’ve betrayed me. You’re working against me, poisoning people with false stories about what I am and what I do. New Orleans is too small to share. My time is beginning and your time is over. I’ve come to send you to join the spirits.

You come to kill me? You? A hoodoo witch from the bayou? How? You going to shoot me? Do you put your faith in a gun now? If you know anything about the dark plane at all, you know that the power of the spirit world will drain out of you if you murder me like that.

Do you see a gun? I don’t need a gun. The spirits give me more than enough power to drive you out of this earthly plane.

He barked a laugh. You can no more kill me with your power than that rooster could. He nodded at the headless corpse on the floor. That strutting cockerel wanted to kill me, too. Look at it now.

The young woman didn’t answer. She began to chant slowly, clapping her hands in a steady rhythm.

The old man pulled himself erect and began his own chant, inviting the loa to possess him and protect him from harm. He picked his drum from the floor and began to beat his natural rhythm upon the taut goatskin head.

Marie began to sway to her own rhythm and, without breaking her beat, pulled a small frame drum from somewhere in her voluminous skirt.

The old man began stomping his feet to reinforce his own pattern.

Marie replied with her own dance.

The two voices chanted against each other, rhythms clashing in painful disharmony, each fighting to keep from being drawn into the other.

As they struggled, the old man felt himself weakening. He was still exhausted from the earlier ritual. He found himself gasping for breath, his heart racing faster than the rhythm of his drum. Never before had he had so much difficulty finding his balance, maintaining his focus.

He lost his tempo and his drumming began to falter, falling into the cadence of the younger woman’s beat despite his effort to maintain his own rhythm.

His head felt light; he could feel his spirit drifting from his body. The room began to fade from his sight.

He fell to his knees, swayed, and then toppled forward on his face. His drum rolled across the floor. His voice found silence at last.

He was dead to the world, but his heart was still beating when the woman drew a knife from under her skirt and cut his head from his body. His severed carotid artery pumped scarlet, adding his blood to the pool of the cock’s on the floor.

The woman pulled a plastic shopping bag from a hidden pocket in her skirt, slipped his head inside, and carried it away into the night.

One by one, the candles guttered out until the darkness was complete.

Chapter 1: Voodoo Physics

Lorne McIntyre had never before been to a New Orleans jazz club – in fact, this was the first time that he had been south of the Mason-Dixon Line – but he had definite ideas about what a New Orleans jazz club should be. This was not it. As far as he was concerned, The Dented Trumpet was a tourist trap better suited for the New Orleans Square in Disneyland than the historic French Quarter.

He might be a tourist, but he wanted the authentic experience. If he had wanted Disney, he would have gone to the Boson Society Conference in Orlando instead of coming to the Particle Models Meeting here. Not that he had much choice in the matter. The Particle Models Program Committee had invited him to deliver the keynote address on the second morning of their conference; the Boson Society had not even accepted his paper. He would not soon forgive that slap in the face.

Tonight had confirmed that his decision to come to New Orleans had been the right on. Paul Hartford, the chair of the Particle Models Working Group, had been listening to his theory and encouraging him more as the evening wore on. The rest of the group had followed Dr. Hartford’s lead.

Someone had even joked that they should print a tee shirt with the slogan, Free the Particles in acknowledgement of Lorne’s theory.

After his fourth bottle of Blackened Voodoo Lager, the tee shirt was beginning to sound like a good idea. Obviously, Lorne had drunk enough.

Hey, guys, I’m going to call it a night.

It’s not even twelve, Lorne. The night’s still young, Sergei protested.

I know, but I’ve got my keynote at nine and I’d like to go over my slides one more time. He rose and waved at the group. Catch you in the morning.

His excuse was a lie; his talk was already perfect. Or, if not perfect, as good as it was going to get. Lorne had a hard and fast rule: never change a presentation at the last minute.

He was going to ditch his dull colleagues in this plastic imitation jazz club and wander around the French Quarter for a while, looking for the real New Orleans.

On the street, he looked in both directions, saw nothing particularly enticing, and began walking west – or was it north? He’d lost his internal compass in that last bottle of beer – away from Canal Street and his hotel. Though it was almost twelve and drizzling warm rain, the streets were still packed with tourists wearing short pants and printed cotton shirts.

The sight of people drinking beer on the street struck him as strange. In Toronto, you would be arrested for drinking in public.

Lorne turned left on Toulouse Street to get away from the bulk of the tourist crowd. For the next few minutes, he continued to wander down one street after another, always choosing the road less crowded, which always happened to be the road less well lit, searching for the real New Orleans. By midnight, he was on the edge of the French Quarter. Or maybe he had passed out it. He didn’t know.

The drizzle had stopped. The air was heavy with humidity but the streets were almost dry here.

This street was empty of people. There were no picturesque wrought iron railings on the balconies, no jazz riffs floating on the air, no neon glow shining through the warm, wet air, just a dark street lined with narrow buildings that were pushed hard one against the next.

A sultry voice caressed his ear from a dark doorway. What’s a shiny white boy like you doing in a soot black place like this?

Startled, he turned, expecting to see a middle-aged black woman. She was in deep shadow. He could see only that she was a young woman with skin as pale as moonlight.

I’m looking for the real New Orleans, miss, he replied, his words slightly slurred from the beer that was still sloshing in his gut.

Well, boy, this is as real as New Orleans is gonna get.

He looked around. I expected that the real New Orleans would be a little less mundane. More magical.

She laughed lightly. If you looking for magic, you come to the right place. I can give you all the magic that any boy could want.

He was irritated to be addressed as boy by a woman who was a good ten years younger than him. She was obviously a hooker and, if forced to ply her trade this far from the action on Bourbon Street, must rest at the bottom of that low pecking order. Undoubtedly, she lurked in the shadows to hide her homeliness. You can call me Doctor McIntyre, miss. Or Lorne if you get to know me better.

I’ll call you Doc and you can call me Marie. But I don’t have to get to know you better. I already know you well enough.

You don’t know me at all.

I know you better than you know yourself.

I doubt that. Lorne said scornfully. The woman’s presumption irritated him even more.

You only doubt because you’re ignorant. If you had the sight, you’d see me as clear as I see you and you’d be speaking to me in a different tone of voice, Doc. A much more respectful tone.

He grinned without humor. So what do you see in me?

When she stepped forward into the light, he was startled. She was preternaturally beautiful. His heart began to pound and he had to suck more air. The woman’s skin was flawless, her fine features mirror-image symmetrical, her eyes large and clear, all framed by billows of raven black hair. Her face was too perfect for cosmetics. She moved with fluid grace that made him feel clumsy just standing still. Vermillion gossamer floated about her legs and hugged her full breasts in luscious curves, cut low to reveal generous milky cleavage.

When she drew close enough she raised her hands, palms out, and drew them around his head, close but not touching his skin. You’re a fish out of water here. I see cold. You live in a place that is colder than here. White. You live in a white place. A cold, white place. She stared deep into his eyes, her face inches from him. Though she had not touched him, he was acutely conscious of her hands hovering beside his temples.

Yes. Much colder, he agreed.

Hush. Let me work. Snow. You live in a land of snow. Ice. Ice on the outside but a warm heart. No one sees how warm your heart is. No one but me. Even the woman closest to you does not know how your heart burns. She does not pierce your icy shell. She does not make the effort. If she acted warmer to you, hotter, she would thaw your icy shell and find a different man.

His eyes grew wide and he nodded. She was hitting close to home. He often wanted Jordan to act more warmly toward him. Her lack of affection was his greatest complaint in their marriage.

Yes, the woman replied. Yes, that’s right. You’ve thought about leaving her but she never noticed that. She does not see you clearly enough. If she knew the thoughts that you hold in your heart, she would appreciate you more. She would show her appreciation in the ways that matter to you. She thinks that she can make you happy by doing the things that she wants instead of doing the things that you want.

Lorne was barely conscious that he was nodding in agreement with every statement. This woman was reading his mind. This stranger could see things that his own wife had never guessed.

You know that the world is a bigger place than other people realize. A more mysterious place. You’ve thought about things more deeply than people around you. You see everything in a different way.

Yes, he said reflexively. Yes. I’m a physicist. I–

Hush, boy. Hush. Let me tell you. Her dark eyes were shining in the light that slipped through gaps between the curtains across the street. Energy. There’s energy in the world. You see the energy. The dark, mysterious energy. Everything is just a mirage. You see through the curtain that hides the energy boiling underneath.

Yes, he said again. That was exactly what his theory said. Exactly. In his subatomic model, there is no physical matter; everything is composed of quanta of energy. Exactly, he said aloud.

But you don’t know that some people, people with the sight, can use the hidden energy.

No. It was like a revelation. He began twisting his theory around in his foggy mind. If perception of matter was merely an epiphenomenon at the macro level, then maybe a person could learn to focus his own subatomic energy quanta to interact with other energy quanta at the subatomic level. Anything might be possible to such a person. His mind was reeling at the notion.

I see green.

Green? She was confusing him now.

Pale green. A particular shade of green, a most delicate shade of green is important in your life.

I don’t think so.

You don’t remember. A long time ago. You were young and you saw a shade of green that changed your life.

Lorne struggled to remember. My mother might have had a green dress, he offered, not knowing what she was talking about.

She did have a green dress. A pale green dress. She wore it one morning when she was cooking breakfast. Bacon and eggs. She didn’t cook bacon and eggs often. Mostly she gave you cereal, but one morning she wore the green dress and cooked bacon and eggs for you.

Yes, Lorne admitted. He struggled and began to remember what the woman was describing. He had been young. Very young. But he could remember the taste of the bacon. The smell of it.

You don’t realize how important that day was. What happened on that day? Don’t tell me. Just say it to yourself. It was a day when something happened. Something that changed your life. Just a small change at first, but it bent your life into a new direction. That was why she cooked the special breakfast. That was why she wore the special green dress. You will remember that day if you try. And when you do, you will understand more about yourself than you ever did before. It is important that I not tell you what happened on that day. That would do you no good. You have to remember it for yourself. There’s a reason that you stopped remembering it. You built a wall around that memory. But you can break through if you want. If you do, for the first time in your life, you will understand why you became the man that you are today. Try to remember.

I’m trying, he said. And it was true, he was trying. Why had his mother worn the green dress? It was important that he remember why. Did someone come to visit? Was that why she wore the dress? he asked, begging for a hint.

See. You are remembering. Keep trying. She moaned softly. I’m getting something else. The number five is important to you. Why is the number five important?

I don’t know.

You will know. The number five has energy in it. It will be a force in your life in the years to come.

God, yes! Lorne shouted spontaneously. Yes. That’s it. My particle-free model needs a fifth fundamental force. The four fundamental forces were insufficient. I had to add a fifth fundamental force to break away from the Standard Model.

That’s what I see. A fifth fundamental force in your life. I see that and so much more.

What else? What more? Lorne’s voice had a whine in it, as though he were starving and begging for scraps.

I dare not tell you any more. Not right now. It would be too much for you to handle. You can only acquire knowledge when you are ready for it. Until your mind is prepared, you could be damaged by too much knowledge. You must prepare your mind before you can receive anything more from me, Doc. Prepare your mind.

How do I do that?

I don’t think that you are strong enough to do any more tonight. She lowered her hands from beside his head and took his hand in hers. She brought it close to her lips, almost close enough to kiss, and then opened his fingers and turned his palm toward her face. You think you are a strong man. You think you have a strong mind, but I tell you, boy, you are a child in a hurricane. The forces swirling around you will toss you like a leaf and tear you apart. And you don’t even see these forces. This hand that you think is so big and strong is a tender and delicate flower that can be crushed in an instant if the Loa Erzulie wills it.

He could feel her warm breath flowing across his palm when she spoke. What is that? That Zuli thing?

The Loa Erzulie is a spirit in the ancient Vodou religion. Like a Christian angel in some ways but far more powerful. Erzulie was striding across Africa before Moses was born. Black men were falling at her feet in adoration before Mary carried Jesus in her womb. Men died, wars were lost, and nations fell because they failed to give her the respect that she deserved. I am a servant of the Loa Erzulie and she gives me the power to honor her.

Lorne was bemused by her talk about voodoo gods but he couldn’t deny that the woman had been looking into his soul. How do you honor her?

Marie released his hand and brushed her fingers across his crotch. The Loa Erzulie takes her power from the union of a man and a woman. She pushed her face close to Lorne’s and he could feel her breath against his cheek as she whispered into his ear, Sexual congress is the sacred ritual that honors Erzulie.

Lorne’s heart was pounding so hard that he feared it would explode. Was this beautiful young woman saying what he thought she was saying? Could she say it any more explicitly?

She did. Come to my room and help Erzulie enter me so that we can honor her together.

Suddenly, Lorne was desperate to honor the Loa Erzulie. Okay. Yes.

The ceremony will open your mind so that you can understand what has been revealed tonight. Are you sure that you want this?

I want this more than you can imagine.

Yes, she answered with a smile. I’m sure you do. You will need a new twenty-dollar bill.

Huh?

The ritual requires a potion. It must be purchased with new money: money that you have never owned before.

He was taken aback. He was not surprised that he would have to pay for the woman’s services, and but he expected that he would have to pay more than twenty dollars. The two hundred dollars in his wallet was closer to what he expected to spend. Where can I get new money at this time of night?

She smiled condescendingly. Traditionally, a man would earn it or steal it, but these days, most men find it easier to visit an ATM.

He looked around. Where would I find an ATM around here?

You have to buy the potion from Madam Dubois. I’ll take you there. There’s an ATM on the way.

Could I just give you the money? I’ll give you a hundred dollars.

Marie rocked back from him as if he had struck her physically. Her face flushed in anger. I don’t take money from men. What do you think I am? You’d better leave.

Wait. I’m sorry. I’m trying to understand. I don’t mean that I’m paying you for anything. I just meant that if I give you some money then it would be new money to you and you could buy the potion with it. You have to forgive me if I didn’t make myself clear.

That doesn’t sound like what you said. What you said sounded like you were trying to pay me. Her eyes flashed with anger but her brow remained as smooth as ivory.

Lorne felt a chill.

Even angry, she was so beautiful – more beautiful than any woman he had ever had, maybe than any he had ever seen – and he wanted her so badly and his chance to have her was vanishing before his eyes. He desperately tried to think what he should say to fix it. I just wanted to give you the money. That’s all. Just give it to you to buy the potion.

You cannot give me a cent. It must be your money, not mine. Besides, the Loa Erzulie knows the difference between men and women. The man buys the potion with new money. That’s exactly what I told you and that’s exactly what I meant. I never misspeak. When one speaks of magic, one never dares use words casually.

Okay. I understand now. I didn’t mean it like it sounded. I’ll do it the right way. Okay? I’ll do whatever you want. Any way you want. Anything. Okay?

She looked only slightly mollified as she said, You better mean that. You’re consorting with elemental powers, now. You have to mean exactly what you say.

I mean it. I really do.

She looked deep into his eyes, searching for some subtle quality of his character in the depths.

He looked back, not knowing what she was looking for, not knowing if she found it.

Then, without another word, she turned and began walking down the street, her gossamer scarlet dress flowing around her swaying hips and her fine coal-black hair floating on the breeze.

Lorne scurried to catch up with her.

* * *

When Lorne overtook Marie, she was transformed. She no longer acted like the aloof priestess. She acted like a girlfriend. She never left Lorne’s side; her fluid curves brushed against him as they walked; her warm body pressed against his when he withdrew twenty dollars from the ATM.

He liked the new Marie better.

The priestess was still there, below the surface. As soon as he had the bill in his hand, she whispered in his ear that he should put it in a pocket where he never kept his other money.

He tucked it into his right inside jacket pocket. A few minutes later, she led him through a narrow, nondescript door into a small dingy room that smelled of herbs and spices and, underneath, something more animal than vegetable. More decayed than fresh.

The room was empty but for him and Marie.

Where’s the owner? he asked softly. A hushed voice seemed appropriate for the setting.

She was transformed again. Madam Dubois don’t have to be here to do business wit’ us, she replied, slipping into ungrammatical, Creole-accented speech that different from the street slang that she had used when she first spoke to him and from the more precise speech of the priestess. You pick dat bottle wit’ da green liquid off dat shelf and put your twenny dollar in it place.

What is it? he asked, staring at the few ounces of fluid contained within.

It be extract from da root of a water plant dat you can fine in the bayou if you don’t mind swimmin’ wit’ de gators, she smiled, but you can tink of it as an udder bit a pale green dat will change your life as surely as your mudder’s green dress all dose years ago.

Lorne was suddenly uncomfortable with her reference to his age. He might be a decade or so older than her, but he was still a young man. She shouldn’t be talking about his childhood like it was a historical event, almost lost in antiquity. He changed the subject. I’ve heard that there’s a lot of crime in New Orleans. What stops someone from coming in here and stealing the money that I’m leaving behind?

Fear. Magic is fearsome strong in dis place. She gave no more explanation but looked hard into his eyes.

He understood. Two hours ago, he would have laughed. Not now. His mind had been read and mysteries from his past revealed. The powers that walked through these dark streets demanded respect. The quote from Hamlet, There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, had never before struck him as more true than it did tonight.

Marie’s uncanny knowledge might come from her manipulation of subatomic physics by mental powers or it may be some other phenomenon that was beyond even her comprehension but he didn’t doubt that it was real. Physicists understood that common sense was wrong. The real world worked in ways that boggled the mind. Time could speed up, slow down or even flow backward; space could bend; particles could exist in two places at the same time, or pop in and out of existence spontaneously.

In his mind, he began re-writing the introduction to the keynote address that he would be delivering in a few hours. Even a skeptical man had to believe what he saw with his own eyes and, here in New Orleans, he had seen magic happen on a dark street at midnight. True magic.

He expected that Marie would take him and the potion back to the building where they had first met so he was surprised when she unlocked the door next to Madam Dubois’ shop and said, My room is upstairs. He noticed that she was losing her Creole diction.

Still clutching the green potion, he followed her into a dim, narrow hallway, and then up an even narrower flight of stairs, here so dark that he could barely see where he was placing his feet. The naked bulb that hung from the ceiling by twisted wires must burn only a fraction of a watt. He wished for a brighter bulb, mostly so that he could better watch Marie’s lovely behind pulsing and swaying beneath the delicate fabric of her vermillion dress as she mounted the steps.

A lovely behind that he would soon have in his hands. The thought excited him with reckless energy.

The night was delivering one surprise after another. As Marie walked around her room, lighting candle after candle, he saw that she lived in a spacious single-room apartment carpeted in thick pile and furnished with a king-sized four-poster bed, two couches upholstered in silk brocade, a round mahogany table with matching chairs, and a roll-top writing desk. The room was so large that it looked mostly empty. It must extend above Madam Dubois’ little shop next door. He wondered who really owned that business.

Built-in shelves on the far wall were packed with books: ancient-looking tomes with cracked leather bindings adorned with gold leaf. An ivory-colored skull was wedged between two of the volumes. It looked exactly appropriate. Lorne suspected that it was a real skull. This wasn’t Disneyland.

As an academic, he was drawn toward books like a lodestone toward a mountain of iron. But before he was close enough to read the titles, a drum began throbbing, quietly at first, then swelling to fill the room.

He looked back and saw that Marie had wedged beneath her arm, a crooked wooden cylinder covered on one end with taut rawhide. She was beating it steadily with her bare hands and swaying in time to the rhythm. He watched her as she introduced a variation into the steady thump, then a few bars later, another variation. She built the simple cadence into a more and more complex beat that increased in tempo, making Lorne’s pulse race to keep time.

Soon, his head was bobbing involuntarily and unconsciously to the beat. His hands twitched as though the drum rested under his fingers.

As the rhythm developed, Marie began moaning and shuffling her feet, dancing back and forth, slowly working her way toward him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her chest as it heaved and bounced. When she drew close, she began to chant instructions to him. Two mugs. On the shelf. One black, one white. Take them down. Set them right. Two mugs. One black, one white. Take them down. Set them right.

She continued to moan and beat her rhythms while he looked around at the shelf. Sure enough, there were two mugs within reach. He took them down and set them on the table.

Put half the green in the one, half the green in the other. One for father. One for mother.

He carefully poured the liquid from the vial into the two mugs, dividing it as equally as he could.

Jug of water. Next to them. Fill the mugs. To the brim.

He saw a brown earthenware jug on the shelf next to where the mugs had been. It was already full and heavy. As instructed, he added the water to the green fluid in the two mugs.

By now her dancing was growing more frenzied; she was moaning and chanting in some foreign language while her dress floated high on her lovely white thighs and her breasts heaved almost free of their confinement.

Take off your clothing. Show me your form. Make yourself naked. As the day you were born.

What could he do but comply? He had come this far and getting naked was the next obvious step. He had nothing to be ashamed of, he kept himself in good shape for a man who was halfway through his fourth decade. Secretly, he was proud of his physique despite a slight thickening in his abdominal area. Most of his colleagues his age already had a full-fledged beer belly.

As soon as his last article of clothing had been piled on the nearest couch, Marie danced over to him and simplified the rhythm of her drumming, removing one complexity after another until she was beating only a single cadence again. Beat with me, she chanted.

He looked at her, not quite certain what she was asking.

Beat the drum slowly, she clarified. Beat with me.

He tentatively reached out and tapped the drumhead at the edge as she was doing.

Keep a beat, she instructed.

He began tapping her simple beat and she increased the complexity of her drumming to syncopate with his steady rhythm.

Yes. Yes. Yes. She encouraged him, nodding her head to his rhythm.

As she and he each beat the drum with one hand, she used her other hand to slip the strap that was supporting the weight of the drum from her shoulder to his. Then she stepped back, leaving him beating his rhythm alone.

He began working the drum with both of his hands. His rhythm was crude, simple compared to hers, but steady. As he beat his cadence, she danced to it, slowly stripping off her own clothes, first her shoes, then her dress, then her lace delicates. She had been wearing no bra.

Once nude, she returned to him and added her rhythm back to his with her left hand while her right hand slipped the drum strap back from his shoulder to hers. Once she had possession of the drum again, she moved out of his reach and began adding complexity back to her rhythm, dancing barefoot across the thick carpet.

Lorne had never before felt such a surge of lust. He wanted to spend the rest of his life in this room, dancing and drumming with Marie.

Her moaning evolved back into chanting again.

He was so intent on watching her that he missed her instructions and she had to repeat herself four times before her words penetrated his fog. Choose a mug.

He picked up the black mug.

Give it to me.

He walked the brimming mug to her, not dancing himself, but unable to keep from bobbing his head to her beat. He was careful not to spill a drop.

She held the mug in her right hand, maintaining a complex syncopated beat with her left hand alone. Her dancing was so smooth, so fluid