The Price of Being with Sunita

By Michael Graeme

When Psychic Eddie takes to the stage he's so obviously a fake our hero, Derek, thinks it's painful. But when a pretty woman he's spied in the audience rings him up, he realises she's the real thing - after all, how else did she get his phone number? But what does she want with him? And how come after just being near her Derek can suddenly read minds too? And then there's the small question of the lottery ticket!

Sunita's possibly the best thing that can ever happen to a man. She's the most beautiful, intelligent, mysterious, and life changing woman he's ever likely to meet, but strange things happen when she's around, and the longer you're with her the stranger they'll get. And not always in a good way.

But that's the price of being,... with Sunita.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Graeme
• Release date: Feb 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310638480

Michael Graeme

Michael Graeme is from the North West of England. He writes literary, romantic, mystical and speculative fiction.

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The Price of Being

With Sunita

by

Michael Graeme

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

Published by:

Michael Graeme on Smashwords

Copyright © 2015 by Michael Graeme

This version fully revised March 2016

Copyright notice:

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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Chapter One

I'm here at one of those psychic-nights, at the Bay Horse pub, on Longlin Road in Preston. I've never been to one before and I'm guessing it's all fake, but I'm curious and looking to connect with something different, something more than the same old run of things. What I'm about to discover will change my life, but not in the way I expect. And I can tell you now I'm going to get more than I've bargained for.

The evening's psychic, for want of a better word, is this middle aged guy, casually dressed in jeans and an open necked shirt, displaying a huge gold-bling chain. He looks more like a tradesman on a lads’ night out - anyway there he is: Eddie, he calls himself, and his cold-reading skills are embarrassingly gauche. It's as if he graduated from the school of scoundrels with a D. Maybe if he'd done better he might have been on one of those seedy, glitsy digital channels by now, instead of grafting for coppers in a backstreet pub.

Anyone here from,... I'm getting a C,... no?... it might be a B,...

And then: Have we an Annie, in the audience tonight? Alice then? No? Maybe it's Amanda?...

By chance there's an Amanda; she blushes and puts her hand up. Eddie is visibly relieved. He switches script and asks Amanda if she's recently lost an older relative,... or a pet,... or a precious possession,... and when all these things draw a blank he's at a loss, and he tells her to think about it because he's sure she's lost something or someone recently. Amanda's keen to please and scours her memory, the best thing she can come up with being the wisdom tooth she had extracted last year.

It's dreadful; the audience is getting restless and the landlord's going to have to bring the band on soon or the heckling's going to turn nasty, and nasty in backstreet dives like this in downturn Britain means broken glass. I tune it out, buy a drink and slump down at my wobbly, beer-sticky table. I don't know what I expected - a miracle I suppose, but instead here I am paying extortionate prices to drink gut-rot ale, while wondering how my life could ever have grown so dull I should end up in a place like this.

That's when I notice Sunita.

She's sitting towards the back of the room, very still. Indeed her stillness renders her almost invisible, but once you realise she's there her beauty has such a magnificence and a depth about it, you wonder why everyone isn't staring at her with their mouths wide open. There's something else too, something I can only describe as quality: pressed trousers, ivory silk blouse and a suede jacket, expensive things, but not flashy. It marks her as a high income earner, yet she's down here amongst us economically inactive types, in our cheap, crumpled, far-eastern sweatshop threads.

I'm thinking she must be with someone, because this really isn't the kind of watering hole a woman like that comes to on her own. I can't see anyone, but it makes no difference to me, and don't get me wrong here, because I've no intentions of introducing myself. I'm looking for many things right now, and all of them a mystery to me, but company - especially female company - isn't one of them.

I've never been good with women. When I was younger it used to trouble me, but nowadays I can more easily accept I'll never get any closer to a woman like that than I am right now. She's most likely married anyway, or she's waiting for her boyfriend, or she's barking-mad, or a crack-head, or any one of an endless list of other relationship no-nos, and on top of them all she's just too damned beautiful to be true.

My eyes linger for a moment too long. She catches me looking and her stillness is momentarily broken by the flicker of her eyes as she picks me out. Then she returns her languid gaze to Eddie. I'm embarrassed, staring at her like that. What was I thinking? I hope I've not made her feel uncomfortable.

She slips her hand into her bag, pulls out her 'phone, dials a number, then presses it to her ear, all with the same slow, liquid movements. She's calling her husband, her boyfriend, the police maybe, to tell them there's this weird, scruffy-looking guy staring at her.

Just then my 'phone starts vibrating. This surprises me because, although I still carry the thing around, there's not been any credit on it for a year or more and it's ages since anyone actually called me; I wasn't even sure it worked and I'm relieved that it does. Anyway, I ignore it for a bit because I don't recognise the number and I'm guessing it's a cold-caller. So it goes quiet, but then it starts again, and now I'm wondering who wants me so desperately at this hour on a Saturday night, and I've long since fallen out of knowing anybody that well, but it makes me feel important so, finally, I answer it.

I hear a woman's voice, soft, breathy, warm: Hello, Derek. Are you enjoying the show?

I'm sorry,... who is this?

Across the room.

I look up to Sunita who's looking directly at me. The phone's still pressed to her ear, and to my astonishment she wiggles her fingers, then gives me friendly a smile: You flatter me, she says.

How did you get my number?

I found it.

What do mean, you found it? How can you? Have we met before? I'm sure we've not. Believe me I, I would remember,... I,....

Don't, she says, cutting me off. Don't try to cover your feelings with words. That spoils it. Words are always lies. It's only feelings you can trust.

Feelings?

Yes. Feeling you can never have me, feeling you don't want me, but wanting me all the same. Its just fear Derek. But you needn't be afraid of me.

This is impossible of course and I must be imagining things, except Sunita's lips are moving in perfect sync with the voice in my ear. She knows my name and my number. She even knows what I’m thinking. But we've never met before. At this point the whole bar could be kicking off and chairs flying but I wouldn't know. All there is in the whole world right now, is Sunita.

Okay, I tell her. You've got my attention. So, what now?

So stop talking for a moment, and look at me. That's better. Be still and just look,... that's right. There it is. I feel it again. I can only trust you if I can feel you, so you need to hold on to that stillness for a while. Have you the steadiness for it, do you think?

Steadiness? Sure, I know a thing or two about steadiness. You don't cut metal in the same factory for twenty years without a certain steadiness. But what am I feeling? Sometimes it's difficult to know because, like Sunita says, we tend to cover our feelings with a veil of meaningless words, and it takes a certain stillness to notice if we're actually feeling anything at all.

And I feel what? Attracted to her? Of course I do, but I'm old enough to know better than to run with that one. What is it then? It's an emptiness, I suppose, a bottomless pit of loneliness and longing for something I cannot define, and no longer believe exists. But looking at Sunita I'm momentarily reassured I'd be unwise to give up on it completely.

Oh, I don't believe for a minute a woman like this is interested in me, and I'm wise enough to know that all the beauty and magnificence I've seen in her are just fancies I've invented and attached to her like cheap labels. Even the most beautiful woman can start looking a bit jaded of a morning with her carefully painted face already wiped off on the pillow, and you've been waiting an hour for the bathroom so you can clean your teeth. The truth of Sunita? Beneath the beauty she presents,... well,... that's anyone's guess, right?

So? she says.

So what? I say.

What do you feel? I mean, if you can put your finger on it, then it's a start, isn't it?

Feel? I feel,... looking at you,... I feel,... should I be corny, flirtatious, or just plain filthy? Or should I be,... sincere? How do I feel? I feel,... better about myself, I think.

I don't know why I chose those exact words – what possessed me – but they're sincere at least. She looks at me across that rough, rowdy, beer-stinking pub, and then she says: That's interesting. Yes,... I think that'll do. I'll be outside if you want to talk some more. It's getting noisy in here.

Longlin road's not the sort of place to linger. Its heydey was a hundred years ago, and it's been slipping deeper into squalor ever since - Edwardian terraces, some of them boarded up, some of them cleared into vast bulldozed fields of rubble, and what bits are left standing are all graffiti-sprayed and dirty. If she's going to wait outside, I'm hoping she's brought some muscle with her - or maybe she's just naive to the risks a neighbourhood like this poses to a smartly dressed high income earner like her.

Anyway, the street's empty when I go outside, and then I'm thinking I've blown it, or that maybe she was only teasing me. But that makes me realise I've been lying to myself - that I'm drawn to her, helpless as any man with eyes would be, and for all of my smart-mouthed talk, I'm wanting a chance to be with her, with anyone really, because I'm lonely and lost, and looking to connect with the one thing that'll grant meaning to an otherwise empty life.

I look up and down the street, puzzled she could have disappeared so quickly, but then she comes up from behind, as if she's materialised from thin air.

Sorry, she says. Did I startle you?

She's even more beautiful up close - tall, and her dusky skin is flawless. She has a lovely black mane of hair, and astonishingly big eyes.

People are at their most sincere, when startled, she says. Don't you agree? No time to cover their feelings.

You talk a lot about feelings.

She gives a shrug as if it's obvious. Feelings are all we have, she says. The rest is delusion. Chatter. Nonsense. Words,...

You've still not told me how you know me.

I didn't know you, not really,... at least until a moment ago.

Then how?....

I've felt your presence for a while. I've,... been looking for you, Derek.

And that means?....

It means we can be friends,... I think,... if you want to.

Look,... you're a beautiful woman but,...

"I didn't mean friends like,... that. Wait!... hold that feeling for a moment. What was that? Yes,...there's cynicism inside of you,... bad relationships,.... mistakes - not all of them yours. There's a bitterness too - you've been let down. Who hasn't? But what you're looking for,... really looking for, I can show you this, I think."

Yea, right.

"There you go again! Cynical man! But the question you should be asking yourself is not: can this woman really show me what she says she can, but rather, would you even recognise it? And if you could recognise it, having been shown it, would you still want it?"

I don't understand where you're going with this.

You can be like me, she says. "Actually, you are like me - you just don't know it yet. Her eyes twinkle mischievously. Tell me my name."

How can I? I don't know it.

"Yes you do. Clear away the words, Derek. Feel. And tell me my name."

As ridiculous as this might sound, I'm getting the feeling I want to call her Sunita,... but there's more, and a part of me feels irrationally confident that it's true. Her eyes widen a fraction as if in anticipation: Go on, she says.

But I could say anything and you could tell me it's right.

Just tell me what you feel,...

You are Sunita Singh? Thirty five years old? Your father is a,... watchmaker? Your mother is,... no longer with us,... and,....

Go on, you're doing very well.

I'm feeling something else now, as these spurious bits of information come to me, as if with each fact gleaned I also invite a piece of her inside my head. They are pieces of feeling: wordless, indescribable, except to say they are infinitely powerful, elemental, astonishing, and I know I cannot linger on any of them without fear of being overwhelmed, of drowning in the tidal wave of her being. I draw back, shaking my head. I'm sorry,.. I'm beginning to sound like that fraudster in there.

You're babbling words again. All of what you've told me is true. Go back to the feeling now, and tell me what else you see in me.

But I can't. I won't. It's too outlandish, too strange,... too frightening. How about I try to guess your telephone number and call you up, I ask. This seems so ridiculous a thing as to be completely impossible and I say it frivolously, wanting to put her off, to distract her.

She smiles indulgently. But you already have it, remember? It's in your 'phone - since I called you.

Of course,... stupid of me.

She looks away, and I feel the intensity of whatever it is between us fade a little. It's like she's letting me off the hook, but I'm not sure I want her to. This is the most alive I've felt in years!

You're growing fearful, she says. That wasn't my intention. I'm sorry.

Just then a taxi cruises up to the kerb. This is for me, she says. Call me if you want to talk again, but I'm warning you: I have reasons of my own for seeking you out. And they are unlikely to be what you are thinking.

How can you tell what I'm thinking?

"Because my dear Derek, I literally know what you are thinking. I read your mind, like Eddie in there pretends to - like you just read mine - only for real. Okay? You are an open book to me."

I watch her disappear into the sodium orange night and I experience a sense of loss, a feeling I might never see her again - not that I don't have the means of contacting her, because I clearly do,... but rather that when it comes down to it, I won't have the courage to follow it up. There's something very dangerous in this: the evidence of my eyes and ears tells me Sunita possesses abilities I had, until then, always supposed were the glittery tricks of showmen. I don't know how she knows so much about me, but the fact she came over to this