Chapter 9
He was reaching the point of muscle fatigue on the SkyTrack at L9. As he passed other runners, he could see their heads whip toward him. He knew they were wondering, is that really Jesse Winslow who just ran by? His hope was that the thought that immediately followed that was, damn, he’s in good shape. The month in the Caribbean had really made its mark on his physique.
Hoping physical exhaustion would slow down his mind, Jesse could not only rid himself of the crystal-clear images of a world of two-thousand years ago, but also of the overwhelming feelings of love and loss. He physically felt the depth of both and the hurt was staggering.
After seven miles, he moved off the track to a water station and grabbed a bottle, rolling the cold, sweating plastic across his forehead before finally opening it and taking a swig. Leaning on the SkyTrack’s railing, he watched the members below in the club’s main rotunda and wondered what the building, with its great circular center, originally had been. A place of worship? Entertainment? There was something about the structure, with its frescoed ceiling of mythical creatures that always reminded him of the circuses of ancient Rome and now, for the first, time he understood why he had always felt so at home in this club.
He had seen the great structures of Rome before they were ruins, felt the energy of the Circus Maximus as chariots kicked up great clouds of yellow dirt. He had learned the glory and the price of loving amongst the hills and olive groves of Rome. Holy Shit, Jesse shook his head and wondered if a few more miles on the SkyTrack might do him good.
Looking down from the ceiling-high vantage point of the track, it was the lights glinting off the natural incandescence of her hair that caught his eye, bringing an immediate smile to his face and the first feeling of solace since the regression. Watching her below work with her trainer as he put her through a brutal set of Face Melters, Jesse couldn’t help but notice the change in her body from the last time he’d seen her, over a month before. A feeling of pride swelled as he watched her keep up the grueling pace. When it was over, she stood, a look of victory on her sweaty, flushed face.
Her trainer, who Jesse recognized as the L9 owner’s son, enveloped her in a bear hug, clearly pleased with her performance. When they separated, they high-fived. Standing at the railing, watching them below, Jesse felt very voyeuristic, but couldn’t get enough of watching her. It occurred to him, now that he’d met Julia, how deeply attracted to redheads he was. Kylie’s hair, while a deeper, more auburn shade than Julia’s, made him feel a connection to both his past and to her. And now, standing in the shadows, nearly two stories above, the rocker was finally beginning to develop an understanding of his feelings, courtesy of another redhead.
Giving her a final squeeze on the shoulder, her trainer turned away, and headed toward an area that housed the free weights and was filled with serious lifters.
Walking over to the smoothie bar, Kylie took a seat on a high metal stool and ordered something. Sitting back with a tall glass, she observed the room, her eyes scanning as if she were looking for someone. As she looked up, scanning the SkyTrack, she feels me, was the thought that fleeted through Jesse’s mind, but he realized that from the angle she was looking, she would not be able to see him.
A built, dark-haired guy came and leaned on the bar next to her, he appeared to order and then turned to Kylie and began to chat. It looked as if she was giving him a polite look and Jesse laughed to himself that he could already decipher her faces. The girl was smart as a whip and Jesse wondered if she was inwardly rolling her eyes at this steroidhead. The guy leaned in toward her, his stance becoming more aggressive and Jesse could see the distinct change in Kylie’s body language in response. Leaning back, there was nowhere for her to retreat, as a wall was to her back.
Quickly jogging over to the elevator located across the SkyTrack, he stabbed the call button with a few hard staccato finger punches. Jesse shifted from leg to leg as he waited for the lift to arrive. He wanted that goon away from her now. Reaching the main floor of the rotunda, Jesse could see the back of her head, her lustrous hair shimmering in the club’s intricate lighting. Walking toward her, he could feel his heart beating wildly. It had been too long since he had seen his friend. It felt like it was in another lifetime.
As if hearing the distant call of drumming against his breastbone, she suddenly turned around, possibly sensing his presence approach. With an immediate smile that created a dimple in her right cheek that he hadn’t noticed until that very moment, he willed her, come to me. And she did, nearly knocking over her barstool.
His arms opened for her as she neared, approaching him quickly. “Toots,” he whispered into her hair, burying his face as the thought, back in my arms again, permeated his brain. Yet, he couldn’t remember holding her before that moment and thought, maybe not in my arms, but certainly in my thoughts.
“You look amazing.” She continued to hold him. “I’ve missed hanging out with you.”
“Me, too.” He caressed the luxurious strands of her at the back of her head. “You are looking amazing, too.” He did nothing to hide his eyes appreciatively taking her all in.
Separating from their embrace, he kept an arm casually slung over her shoulder, as they walked toward the smoothie bar. He was fully aware that he was sending the meathead on the next stool a loud and clear message. As Kylie slipped back onto the chair, the guy behind the counter handed Jesse a laminated menu of smoothies.
Laughing, “I’ll try the Zac Attack.” Turning back to Kylie, “I have so much to tell you, Toots.”
“Me, too,” she was nodding. Things that she had wanted to share with him for weeks, all the way back to the day of her Geneviève regression, when they got swarmed by fans before she could share it with him. “I’m so glad you’re home.” Kylie could feel her face redden with the admission she had not planned on making.
Reaching for a lock of her hair, he let it slide through his fingers, appearing deep in thought for a moment. “Do you have dinner plans?”
Dipping her head and looking up at him through her lashes, more than a glimpse of bodacious pageant girl was staring Jesse Winslow in the face. “Are you asking me out on a proper date, Mr. Winslow?”
Laughing mid-way through a sip of his very green smoothie, he began to choke. “Yeah, I guess I am.” His voice was a rasp as she patted him on the back.
“So, should we send selfies to Claire?” There was a mischievous glint in Kylie’s eyes. “I might even flash her my boobs.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re a lot to handle?” He was getting lost in her eyes and the depth and brightness of the green.
“Moi?”
Laughing, “I think I’ve finally met my match.”
“Mon moitié,” she whispered, without thinking.
Tipping his head, as he looked at her, questioningly. He knew he wanted to say something to that, to whatever it was she just said, but he didn’t know what. It was out there, just past the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t quite grasp it.
“Where should we meet?” Kylie filled in the dead air, taking control, as she was not yet ready for him to invade her home turf.
Jesse thought for a moment, his lopsided grin taking on a most amused glint. “Freud. Let’s meet at Freud on LaGuardia Place in The Village.”
With a sip of her smoothie nearly coming out of her nose, Kylie choked a little before she was able to get out the words. “That is inspired. Truly inspired.”
Together they laughed at their little inside joke.
••••••
I’m at a table in the back-right corner, he texted.
In a cab a few blocks away. See you in 5.
Kylie was running a few minutes late, not rudely late, just fashionably late. She had pulled nearly everything she owned out of her closet, trying to find something that was flattering, yet rock-star cool and ‘Yeah, I know his ex- is a top model’. ‘So What’ chic was the look she was trying to pull off. It wasn’t easy. With the recent weight loss, she was between sizes. Her big girl clothes, as she was now referring to them, looked like misshapen potato sacks on her and her pageant days’ wardrobe were nowhere near an option yet, and might not ever be.
She made the decision. It’s New York, seriously, just pick something black. And so black it was. Black legging jeans, black high boots, a thin, black, cashmere V-neck sweater, all topped with a black leather jacket. Twisting her hair, she clipped it up, then pulled a few strands out to frame her face and a few at the base of her neckline. It was messy and sexy.
Standing in front of the mirror, she wondered for whom she was dressing. Jesse? Well, yeah, you don’t want to be seen with a rock star looking like a beast on parade. The paparazzi? Same logic applied as for Jesse. The skinny model ex-girlfriend? Well, not really for her, but for everyone who would make a comparison. For herself? C’mon, he’s Jesse Fucking Winslow. Get real.
As she made her way to the back of the darkened restaurant, Kylie could feel her spine straighten, shoulders fall back, chin up. The only thing missing was the sash as she gracefully floated past tables, the male occupants covertly attempting to sneak an appreciative look without alerting their female companions.
I’ve still got it.
And her confidence soared as she sat down in the chair next to one of the sexiest, most recognizable men on the planet, and he had watched every man in the restaurant check her out.
“You look gorgeous, Toots.”
“Thank you.” It was still surreal that she was sitting here with her new buddy.
“I’m going to have to fight half the guys in the restaurant off you.”
Laughing, “I doubt that.” Kylie rolled her eyes.
Smiling at her, he reached out, allowing the lone curl cascading down her right cheek to slip through his thumb and forefinger. “It’s true.” Tilting his head, “You’re not comfortable with it, are you?”
She shook her head. “I know that’s odd, considering I spent years on a stage or a runway, but people treat you different when you’re heavier. You kinda become invisible. They’re like ‘pretty face,’ but they’re not all over you. Fewer people want something from you. And there’s a part of me that kinda likes being invisible.”
“I can understand that. It’s a bit different, but I can understand it. So, let me ask you something really personal. Is weight a layer of protection?” Instinctually, he felt like he knew so much about this girl. That he understood her on a level that most people never get to with another human being. And yet they were only first becoming friends, with a special bond through their healing work.
Looking down at his hand on her hair, while he absentmindedly ran his finger up and down the lock, Kylie realized that she now found the gesture oddly comforting, that she yearned for it in his presence, as if it was their connector.
Nodding, “I think it is, and since I started having success with my regressions, I’m beginning to think it’s based on past experience.”
“Unleashing our demons?” he recalled their first conversation.
Kylie nodded.
“So, I had a really successful regression,” Jesse began without preamble, unable to hold it in any longer. “And there was this redhead.”
“Oh no, you can’t get away from us, can you?” Laughing, Kylie was most amused.
Smiling, “Who would ever want to?” He paused, “Her hair was a lighter copper than yours.”
“Where and when was this?” She was excited to hear the details, in that moment feeling so connected to this man, who was experiencing his own parallel journey into the inexplicable.
“Rome. 1st century B.C.”
“Wow. That is so cool. Did you remember a lot?”
“Oh, yeah. A crazy amount of detail, Toots. So much so, that I’m feeling trapped between realities and I don’t know how to sort that out yet. That’s why I went running after Dr. S’s today. I was hoping it would somehow help me straighten out my head.” His eyes were wide with confusion.
Nodding, “I know. I totally get that. I feel the exact same way. I don’t know what to do with myself after these regressions. I don’t know where I belong. Which world? I don’t even know which world I want to be in.”
“Right.” He looked astounded. “I’m so glad you get this because I feel like I’m a multiple personality or something.” Picking up his large glass of iced green tea, a holdover from his time in the Caribbean rehab, he took a sip and was silent for a moment before he went on. “I was a soldier, born into a well-to-do family. This woman, Julia, was her name; we kind of had this Romeo and Juliet thing happening. Bad blood between the families. Her father marrying her off to others as a pawn for political favor.”
“What happened to her?” Kylie leaned closer, elbows on the table.
“In the end, I couldn’t protect her. I tried. I spent my life trying. Her stepmother had a maid spying on us and she’d overheard plans we had and they ended up trying us for treason. I was forced to commit suicide, in front of her.”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, Kylie was fighting back the tears, crossing her arms over her chest to protect her heart and stop the cold chill wracking her body. Oh, God. No!
With eyes tightly shut, his handsome face contorted in pain, he continued after missing just a beat, “And she was forced to marry her sadistic, son-of-a-bitch stepbrother who was sending her off into exile where I’m sure she starved to death. People rarely made it back.” He was shaking his head. Disturbed.
Had he not been deep inside the detailed vision in his own head, Jesse would have noticed Kylie’s body stiffening at his final words, as the tiny hairs along her hairline quivered. She hadn’t yet had the opportunity to tell him all the details of Geneviève and her fate, and now he was telling her about a woman he knew, and loved, who had also starved. And she knew. She knew exactly what that felt like.
“Poor Julia,” she whispered, her face a portrait in pain. “So, she lost you and then was condemned?”
“Yes. Basically, to a volcanic rock sticking out of the ocean.
Another shiver wracked her body, her shoulders visibly twitching as the cellphone photo of the island Jesse had sent from Antigua flashed across her eyes. Lone and desolate. A volcanic rock sticking out of the ocean. Kylie could just imagine her, this woman dealing, with her grief and isolation. And starving. The pain and weakness as it all begins to slip away.
Noting her physical reaction. “You’re cold,” he took her hands in his and began rubbing them to warm her up.
Leaving her cradled in his warmth, where they made her heart feel good, she said, “I never got to tell you all the details about my Paris regression.”
“Right, that was that the day we were discovered and then at L9 you just told me about how you died and that you’d lived with your brother.”
Nodding, Kylie enjoyed that she and Jesse had clearly begun to make their own set of memories. Then, she began. “I was a little girl, a twelve-year-old, named Geneviève, and I can feel for Julia having starved to death, too. Knowing that pain.”
The empathy in Jesse’s eyes affirmed his own heartbreak, as he squeezed her hands tighter.
“It’s so horrible and I lived it. Or, at least I feel like I lived it.” She continued, “So, my heart hurt for Julia when you were telling me that, and all that she went through. And, on top of that, after having to endure watching your death, someone she loved so deeply. I totally get that. I had to live through my whole family’s deaths, but my brother’s death in that life was like ripping my heart in two,” her voice trailed off.
“Getting out of my relationship with Claudine, where I was at the point where I felt nothing, I was really questioning my capacity to feel. And now, post this regression, I know this is going to sound strange, but the depth of my love and devotion to this woman, I feel like I know I can love. It was that real, Toots.”
“I know. Jessie, I have missed him, my brother, so intensely since that regression. A person from over two hundred and fifty years ago, who I don’t even know. And I haven’t felt whole since that day.”
“Yes, yes, that’s it, Toots.” He threaded his fingers through hers. “That is exactly it. And what I want, I want what I felt. I want that and now that I’ve experienced it, I know that I can’t settle for anything less.”
Nodding, “Mon moitié,” she mumbled.
Without understanding why, Jesse brought Kylie’s hands, still wrapped in his own, to his chest. Placing them over his heart, giving them a final squeeze before letting them go. “I guess we should take a look at this menu.” He gave her a lopsided grin.
Nodding, she looked down at the menu’s typeface swimming before her eyes, suddenly not hungry.
After dinner they walked, block after block, the conversation still focused on the details they shared from these other worlds they had visited.
As they turned from Park Avenue onto E. 37th Street, nearing Kylie’s apartment, Jesse dropped a bombshell. “You know, Toots, I’ve been thinking about this.”
“What?” She looked up at him.
With a grin, he nonchalantly slung an arm around Kylie’s shoulder, and just as effortlessly and naturally, her arm encircled his waist.
“Us,” his voice was gruff and low.
“Us?” Kylie stopped dead in her tracks, facing him in the quiet of the night-shadowed sidewalk.
“Yeah, how we met. How easy it’s been.” He reached out for a lock of her hair, letting it slowly slide through his fingers before speaking again. “Do you ever think that my walking into the waiting room that morning was supposed to happen? That we were supposed to meet and to be able to experience all of this together and to share everything we do.”
“Share what?” Her spine lengthened an inch as it straightened and stiffened.
“Our stories.” Looking down, Jesse began kicking at something on the sidewalk only visible to him. “Maybe more.”
“What are you saying, Jesse?”
“I’m saying there’s this thing between us, Toots. I know you feel it, too. It’s been there since the moment we met. It was undeniable then. And now, it’s like almost out of control.”
Dropping the strands of her hair, he pulled her into his arms, rocking slowly from side to side, until he felt her relaxing body melt into his. As she filled the empty nuances he’d just recently discovered, he went out on a limb, speaking from his heart and not overthinking the words he spoke. “You’re a gift, Kylie. Like an angel who came into my life. I’d be a fool not to see that. And I’m not sure I deserve you, but I’ll be damned if I let go.”
Burying her face into the now familiar, and comforting, scent of his worn leather jacket, Kylie said nothing. He felt so right. They felt so right. But this was Jesse Fucking Winslow. And the price was steep. Somewhere deep in her psyche, Kylie knew there was no way the final chapter of this one wasn’t already written.
Looking up to meet his eyes, Jesse’s guard was down; he wasn’t hiding behind sunglasses or a drug-induced veil, or a well-crafted rock-star persona. Holding her was a man fighting like a warrior to slay his demons and reach a potential he knew was just out of grasp–he was ready to realize his ability personally and as a musician.
With a heart beating so fast, as her own realizations could no longer be repressed, Kylie leaned in, softly grazing Jesse’s full lips with her own, in what he would remember as the sweetest kiss of his lifetime.
And then she was gone, entering her building, with a quick turnaround and a secret smile to the man standing under the streetlamp wearing his very own secret smile.
••••••
Her routine was the same every night. Slip into silky lingerie and take a seat on her antique boudoir vanity chair where she would gaze into the mirror. Pulling her hair from her forehead and cheeks with a wide headband, she would wash the day’s grime and her patients’ angst from her face, gently patting dry with a soft, microfiber towel. Next, she’d begin applying layer after layer of expensive product, allowing time for her skin to absorb each lotion before applying the next layer.
When she was done, she’d stay seated for a few minutes in the beautiful, wrought-iron chair, just staring at her image, fixated on the gradient of blue in her eyes. This process of getting lost in her own eyes had become a relaxation technique that she had been using for years. By the time she got under the covers for an enjoyable read of either fiction or a magazine on decorating, Claire Stoddard had fully let go of the stresses of the day and rid herself of any lingering energy of her clients, clearing the cache of her consciousness before sleep, which generally came within moments.
As much as I hate to admit it, she’s really quite beautiful. Regal. Sitting and waiting for an audience with her father, servants stopping in to lovingly greet her. She responds in kind with such warmth.
Entering the chamber, we exchange greetings as I sit down next to her.
“Your father is currently engaged with members of the Senate. Is there something with which I can help you?”
She eyes me cautiously, “No. This is a matter between us.”
“Oh, really.” I smooth out the fine silk of my stola.
“All matters of the state and family are of interest to me. Everything about your life, Julia, is of interest to me.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you are your father’s blood, dear.”
Julia regards me with open contempt. “Because that is a bloodline you would like to see severed so that you may insert your own.” Her eyes have narrowed into slits. “He will never betray me for you, no matter how you poison him.”
“Poison him? Interesting choice of words. Isn’t that exactly your plan? To poison your father before you are betrothed to my son and control comes to me.”
“You’re crazy. I love my father.”
I am enjoying Julia’s agitation as I lean in close and whisper, “Marry my son, without incident, and I will let your handsome lover live, so that he can be mine when you kill your father, Kylie.”
“Kylie?” Julia’s eyes are wide, her pupils dilated. “So, it is Jesse you want. Oh, what a drama this is turning out to be.”
Gasping as she reached for her nightstand light, Claire sat for a moment with her head in her hands taking deep breaths, before opening a drawer and removing her journal and a pen. Wanting to record every detail of her dream, before it was lost, she knew that this very vivid reverie was one that she needed to share with Marshall.
It’s just that Jesse’s regression was on my mind, she told herself. But the chamber in which she had sat, with its crimson walls and gold leaf paint, the feel of the silk of her stola, Julia’s saffron-colored curls, the details were all so crisp, too crisp for it to feel dream-like.
Taking a sip of water, Claire sat back against her cream-colored, padded headboard and wondered how Kylie Martin had worked her way into that dream, a dream stimulated by Jesse’s regression. Finally, she surmised it must have been the red hair, although her patient’s hair was a deeper, more auburn shade of red than the beautiful girl she had just seen in her dream.
••••••
Claire hadn’t yet had the opportunity to relate her dream to Marshall as they’d spent the better part of their hour talking about Jesse’s regression to 1st century Rome. Checking her notes again, she wanted to make sure that she hadn’t left out any important details.
“You do know who they were planning to kill, don’t you?”
“Her father.” Claire’s response came quick.
Pushing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, “They were planning to kill, Augustus, Claire.”
“Augustus Caesar?” Claire’s voice rose an octave.
“Yes, the Emperor Augustus.”
Picking up a glass of water to quench her suddenly dry mouth, “Are you sure, Marshall? I researched Gaius Alexander Antonius and found nothing.”
Scrolling through his computer screen, Marshall began to spew facts. “Augustus had only one natural heir to his bloodline, his daughter, Julia the Elder. Married three times, second husband, much older, named Agrippa.” Claire could feel the blood drain from her face as she listened to the historical facts Marshall was sharing. “Her third husband was her stepbrother, Tiberius, who treated her poorly. Her father was influenced heavily by his wife, Tiberius’s mother, Livia.”
“But there was no Gaius Alexander Antonius,” she repeated. “He didn’t exist. I can’t corroborate this, Marshall.”
“Wikipedia is the answer to all the lessons we’ve forgotten,” the older psychiatrist laughed. “Well, it appears Julia did have an affair with a member of the Antonius family, Mark Antony’s son, Iullus. That would corroborate relationships between the children of the two families.”
Claire shook her head, “He clearly identified himself as Gaius Alexander Antonius.”
“Iullus was forced to commit suicide because of his affair with Julia and as a member of the Antony family, they would have known each other their entire lives.”
Continuing to shake her head as she ran her fingers along the shiny leaf of a potted plant, Claire’s head snapped up and she reached for her purse, extracting a small journal. “I had a dream I need to tell you about,” and she recounted the very vivid and disturbing dream.
Marshall wrote feverishly, making low “hmm” sounds. “That’s very interesting,” he said when she ended. “You dreamed of yourself in the Livia role. Willing to sacrifice your husband for power and for Gaius/Jesse.”
Marshall sat back in his chair, tapping his lips with his forefinger as he stared at the ceiling. “We’ve talked about your predilection for this patient. Could it be possible the root of that is because this lifetime is not the first time you’ve met?”
Claire’s heart jumped at Marshall’s verbalization.
He went on. “Perhaps it is no coincidence that he ended up as your patient, Claire.” He paused and nodded his head. “Or that Kylie did.”
The two remained silent, until Claire finally spoke. “It was not anything I’d ever considered before.”
“Hmm.” Remaining silent for a few minutes, he looked at Claire pointedly. “Maybe we should think about scheduling a regression for you.”