The Adjusters #59, Part 1

Wow, okay, so this installment is kicking my ass. Had to scrap a scene for it because upon reread once it had rested a while, the scene didn't belong at all. So I pushed it to a future installment where I think it'll fit better—assuming I keep it when we reach that point—but that means I had a hole I needed to fill. Which I'm filling now.

But that doesn't mean I can't give you the installment in piece, as they come. So without further ado, but without the final editing pass that I make only when the full installment is finished up, here's the first scene of the installment. The next two scenes coming over the next several days.

I'll push it the whole installment up to ASSTR at the end, after I've done my final revision. For those that enjoy that sort of thing, you'll get to see what happens on the final editing pass :)

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The Adjusters #59
Intermezzo: The Medicine Man

“Iced white chocolate soy milk mocha with one espresso vanilla syrup shot, please.”

Colin Blackstone nodded and stepped to the coffee machine beside the register, his hands automatically picking up the syrup bottle and the appropriate instruments required to make the desired concoction.

He had long passed the stage where preparing overcomplicated drinks with precise specifications bothered him. Not that it ever bothered him that much in the first place—making people happy was happy in and of itself. The only time when it was a bummer was when the customer was rude, or not even tried to treat him like a human being.

But this customer was nice—they had chatted about how fantastic the Los Angeles weather was for this time of the year—and perhaps more relevantly was exceedingly attractive, with a beautiful smile and a fitting tank top that made no attempt to hide her chest.

Colin fought hard to avoid staring, and concentrated on making her coffee.

“Name’s Rosie,” the customer said, tilting her head to look at him.

He nodded to her, smiled. He had to look at the machine, and thus could avoid turning his head and see the way her nipples poked through the thin material. “Colin.”

“You been working here long?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Since the place first opened.”

“Wow. I have no idea when this place opened.” She laughed.

“Well, it was a long time ago.” Eight years, to be exact. He had spent eight years here. It was hard to believe, but sometimes you could not get away from the truth.

He finished preparing her coffee, and she commented on the tribal tattoo that wandered up his forearm to disappear beneath a sleeve. It was a common conversation starter.

He chatted with her, remaining casual. She paid with a credit card, giving him a flirty smile, and he was polite and respectful and tried very hard not to stare at her chest.

She winked at him when she left, and he watched her go, willing his eyes not to dip down to the round ass in those running shorts. She had a pair of orange trainer on her feet. The rest of her body matched what he had seen of her. He could not help trying to picture what she might look like writhing underneath him, begging him to take her harder, as hard as he could, surprised in the middle of a run, or in the midst of a workout.

He closed his eyes, willing his breathing to return to normal.

This was turning out more difficult than he thought it would be.

He was just glad he had managed not to touch her, which was a small victory. Given the state he was in, it might now have turned out so well.

Radhika would be proud.

The Roadside Buddy Coffee was half full, the way it often was on weekday mornings once the commuting crowd had gone through and before the lunch crowd invaded. Mostly what remained where students from the nearby University of Southern California, working on laptops and sipping on coffees with way too much sugar in them

The manager had tried to institute a policy of only letting patrons hold on to a table for thirty minutes, going so far as locking off all the power outlets to force customers to use up their laptop or tablet batteries. It had caused some grumbling, but as near as Colin Blackstone could tell, surveying the crowd, it did little to eliminate the crowd. Progress in modern battery technology, he guessed.

That the shop was lined with shelves of used books for sale that customers felt free to pick up and read while they were in the shop did convey the slightly mixed message that it was perfectly fine for them to be there for as long as they wanted, and as far as Colin was concerned, there was little difference between reading for an hour and working on a laptop for an hour. Either way, one took a chair or a table and did not move.

Not that he cared.

Colin leaned against the counter and surveyed the crowd. It was a good bunch, students, working, dressed less scantily than usual, but this was still Los Angeles, and the weather was still pleasant. The end of the semester was approaching, he could tell—there was just a bit more tension in the air as usual, people were paying a little less attention to their clothes and their appearance, and everyone had taken on that frantic quality of people having too much to do in too little time.

Colin shook his head. Not for him the hustle and bustle. Not for him the pressure of exams and papers and whatnot. It wasn’t that he hated school. It was just not where his interests lay.

Or at least, when he was their age, ten years ago, school was not a priority. Not at all.

Nowadays, he wavered. Maybe he had missed something. Maybe there was more to life than writing failed screenplays and pursuing pussy. At least, that was what he thought now. Funny how life went.

Was it too late, though?

He sighed, and started to clean the industrial espresso machine that saw way too much use. He was getting hungry. He wondered whether he’d go out to eat at the sandwich shop three doors down, the one with the pretty little waitress with the long legs, or whether he’d just grab a snack from the fridge in the back. Either way, he’d go up on the roof, eat, get a cold lemonade, and have a joint. It was that kind of day.

He looked up casually when the door of the shop opened—silently, because he had wrapped a cloth around the bell that the manager had installed. It was one of the most annoying sound, which as far as the manager was concerned was a plus, as it prevented students from lingering too long. As far as Colin was concerned, it just made them more angry and frustrated, which was bad for everyone, himself first. So he smothered it whenever he could, whenever he was working alone or with someone that shared his perspective on the little tingling shit.

A girl and a guy walked in together, deep in conversation, the girl thin and athletic, with a tight flaring dress showing long tanned legs and her long dirty blonde mane falling over her shoulders. The guy with her was her age, and wore a tee shirt with the logo of the Roadside Buddy Coffee on it, the same Colin was wearing.

The girl flashed a broad smile at Colin, one that made even some of the people in the coffee shop do a double take.

“Hey sweetie,” she beamed at him as she neared the counter. Colin gulped and straightened up, pulling his hands to himself. His was not the best state in which to meet Madeleine, his long-time girlfriend. He was too aroused from the previous girl’s presence, and he could not control himself well when he was aroused.

“Hey Maddie.” He tried to remain casual, grabbing a cloth to wipe the counter which was already spotlessly clean. “Dimitri,” he nodded to the young man that had walked her in and who slipped behind the counter with him.

“Ran into her on the way in,” Dimitri said, before signing into the computer at the end of the counter to record his hours. “And let me add that I still don’t understand how a slacker such as you landed a wonderful girl such as her.” He shook his head in fake disgust.

Madeleine laughed with her crystal laughter that made hearts melt, always a sucker for compliments. She winked at Colin, who gave a small smile in return.

He had to agree with Dimitri, of course. Madeleine was not only beautiful, but smart—or at least she used to be, when she was a physics student, before she embarked on a modeling career that had her showing off her body in bikinis and lingerie and lately in softcore glamour shots that were slowly spreading over the Internet.

All of which was Colin’s fault, of course.

His only consolation was that Madeleine seemed happy. Granted, she had no real choice.

He had not told Radhika any of that just yet, at least not the details.

“I’m off to a lingerie gig this afternoon, down the road, and figured I’d drop by and say hi,” Madeleine said, still smiling, and bending on the counter on her elbows, giving Colin a plunging view down her dress and deep into her skimpy bra.

“Oh,” Dimitri said while pulling an apron over his head and sliding up beside Colin. “And what are you modeling today?” He was was shamelessly staring down her dress, and Colin could not fault him for looking. After all, if she had such an exhibitionist streak, it was also his fault. And the view was fantastic, there was no denying.

“Agent Provocateur has their new Spring lingerie line that they need to shoot for. You know, corsets, stockings, the works. Sexy stuff.”

Colin could hear Dimitri swallow next to him, probably imagining Madeleine scantily clad in lingerie designed to tease and produce exactly the kind of thoughts that were going through his head. And fuck, Colin thought, in about three months he’d be able to see exactly those images live in front of him if he did a quiet browse over to the company’s web site.

“Well, I hope you have fun,” Colin said, still wiping the counter.

“I will, don’t worry. Kiss before I go? For good luck?” She leaned forward, and Colin saw from the corner of his eye a man sitting at the nearest table focus his eyes on Madeleine’s ass, lifted high in her position, her dress probably having ridden up, and since she was undoubtedly wearing one of those wispy thongs that he loved so much and that did so little to cover anything, the man had probably a view of her ass that rivaled what the photographer would see this afternoon.

Colin knew first-hand how great Madeleine’s ass was.

“Say, you up for doing something later tonight?” he asked his girlfriend, avoiding the whole kissing issue.

“Sure. Like what?”

“I was thinking of going to see a movie, or a play, or something?”

“See, I was more thinking along the lines of you coming over to my place and fucking my brains out,” she said, breathlessly, her eyes shiny. Colin heard Dimitri mutter a for fuck’s sake under his breath at the end of the counter. “It’s been at least twelve hours I haven’t felt you ripping me open,” she continued. She was insatiable. Loved sex above and beyond anything else. Was open to everything, with no boundary and no limit.

All his fault, of course.

“Yeah, well, huh, we sort of stayed in every day this week, and I thought it’d be nice to go out and, you know, do something…”

“Even if I give you a private little show, with the lingerie that they’ll let me keep from this afternoon? We can play dirty photographer and naive model—you really like that…”

He did, partly because it was a fantasy he had had once and that Madeleine had picked up on and had incorporated into her personality. But he wanted something different tonight, wanted to do something that had nothing to do with sex with her, all part of the exercises Radhika had recommended he did.

“Maybe afterward?” Colin responded, and he knew that Dimitri, who was not missing a single word of this conversation, could probably not believe that Colin would pass up such an offer. Let him wonder, Colin thought. What do I care anyway? “I’d just really like to be out with you. Spend some time as a loving couple, you know.”

He saw her eyes glitter at his mention of the word love, and he suspected he would have gotten his way had he not been distracted by the door opening again. He reflexively looked, and when he saw who came in, he stared.

Bryan Seeker. The last person he wanted to see right now. The man—handsome, sporty, wearing a light blazer, sunglasses, looking relaxed and pleasant—met Colin’s eyes, and smiled.

Colin did not smile back.

Bryan nodded towards a table in the corner, and walked over casually, his eyes temporarily lingering on the body of Madeleine, who paid not a bit of attention.

Instead, she put a hand on Colin’s, who was not paying attention himself.

He felt the spark of energy leap from his hand at her touch, as if he had been a live wire waiting to be grounded, and he pulled his hand back but even as he did so he knew it was too late. Madeleine had taken on that far away look she always had when his Gift affected her, and a little sigh escaped her lips.

Too late.

When her eyes focused again, they were cloudy, and Colin wondered what he had done this time.

Madeleine licked her lips, and leaned on the counter, telling him to get nearer with a crooked finger. Behind her, the eyes of the man who had been staring at her the whole time bugged out at the display of flesh he was privy to. Other people had noticed and were staring as well.

Cursing his stupidity and inattention, Colin leaned over.

“Tell you what,” she said, with a grin that promised so much that he could not help himself and get hard. “I’m going to ditch the modeling shoot and go back home and change.” She winked at him, not at all subtly, and her breathing was hot and her whole face and her whole demeanor just spelled sex.

“I’m gonna change into this little jogging outfit that I have, the kind that you can’t really wear outside because it’s so tight it’s indecent, because my ass just hangs out there for anyone to pinch and slap and with this little tanktop that makes my boobs stand out, and I’ll do a little workout right there in the living room, and you can be the pervy voyeur who watches me through the window and then cannot resist his dark impulses and breaks into my place and overpowers me and ties me up and fucks my tight little cunt over and over again?”

She leaned even closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “And when you got me tied up and helpless, well, I won’t be able to keep you from doing anything you want to me, will I? You can bite my nipples, pour hot wax all over me, spank me, even fuck my tight little ass—you might have to gag me with my own panties to keep me from screaming.”

She kissed him then, a long scorching kiss that made Colin’s head spin, and he sank into the kiss and wondered if what he was doing was so bad after all. He wanted her, right then, right there, and that need must have been conveyed through his contact because he felt through his lips the spark of his Gift flash and Madeleine moaned in response and her hands pulled his face closer to deepen the kiss.

When she let him go, Madeleine’s hands immediately went down to unbutton her blouse, completely oblivious to the people in the coffee shop, many of whom were now looking at her. She had clearly internalized his unspoken desire to have her right then and there.

He had done it again.

He had lost control.

And Madeleine was paying for it.

No wonder he needed Radhika.

Not only was she about to strip in public and face possible prosecution, but she might also lose her modeling job, and while it may not have been what she would have chosen to do two years ago, it was what she wanted to do now, and she would not take it well—or she would simply not understand, and feel sad and frustrated.

He could not do that to her.

Not for the first time, he felt like his life was an out-of-control rock careening down a sheer cliff,, and that he was merely a passenger hanging on for dear life.

He did not reach out and touch Madeleine. His own subconscious desires were not to be trusted—the picture she had drawn of herself, obviously placed there in the role that his dirty subconscious had put the girl from earlier, the one that at some level he must have wanted to ravish in some perverse way. If he touched her, it would only make things worse. Instead, he spoke to her in tones that he hoped conveyed both desire and excitement.

“Maddy,” he said, “how about you go to your shoot? You know I love to imagine you dressed up and getting photographed and ogled when I know I’m the only one getting to do you. It’ll get me nice and horny thinking about you all day, and it’ll make tonight even better. What do you say?”

Her eyes flashed with understanding. “And you’re going to fuck me hard tonight?”

“I’m going to ravish you, babe.” He winced internally at his own words, but it was the only thing that would work. He had to play by the rules of the game his own subconscious was dictating. Thanks a lot, Freud! And so much for a movie tonight, he sighed internally. There would be no date tonight, only sex.

She smiled, and reached over to kiss him one last time, but this time Colin was fast enough to pull back. “Go on,” he said, nodding toward the door. “Let me start the slow burn.”

“You’re so kinky,” Madeleine said with a giggle—she never used to giggle, Colin realized with an internal groan—before kissing the air. “I’ll keep my ass lubed for you tonight,” she said loud enough for Dimitri to hear and react by swallowing a bite of muffin the wrong way and choking on it.

Which was just the distraction Colin needed as he rushed to help his coworker. Madeleine waived to them before leaving.

“You okay?” Colin asked the young man who was trying to catch his breath while coughing.

“Yeah… just… fuck… that hurt.” He made no mention of what he had heard.

“Listen,” Colin told him. “It’s quiet, and I’m going on break.”

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead.” Dimitri said before coughing a few more times.

Colin patted him on the back a few times before standing up. He went to the back, put his branded apron on a hook, and headed out into the main room of the shop. Everyone had gone back to whatever they had been doing, paying him no more attention than usual.

Everyone except Bryan Seeker, who sat a table eyeing Colin with an amused look, twirling his phone in his hand.

Colin sat down next to him, his face drawn.

Bryan smiled, never taking off his sunglasses. “I see you’re still with the cutie pie,” he said. “Can’t say I blame you. She still modeling? You think she might be interested in doing some movie work?”

“She’s not that kind of girl, Bryan.”

Bryan raised his hands in mock surrender. “That’s not what I mean, man. Legit work, indy films, the likes. I’m sure the camera loves her. Fact is, I know for sure the camera loves her.”

Colin closed his eyes, tried not to imagine what it would do to Madeleine were he to touch her with the vision of her doing the kind of movies that he knew full well Bryan did once in a while for that disgusting producer friend of his, and pushed the image away as fast as it came so as it not coming up when he least expected it with Madeleine right there.

Bryan either missed or dismissed Colin’s internal struggle, for he took his sunglasses off and grinned. “Though of course if you ever tire of her and decide that maybe she would be good for those kinds of movies, I’m sure we can arrange something.”

“What do you want, Bryan?”

“What, a guy can’t just drop by to see his friend, out of the blue? I was out scoping a location, and then I thought ‘Hey, it’s been a while I haven’t seen my main man the Medicine Man.’ So here I am. Wanna get us drinks?”

Colin did not move. “It’s pretty offensive, you know?”

“What is?”

“That name. Medicine Man. Just sayin’.”

“What? Why? Didn’t you tell me that your mom was Cherokee or something?”

“Cheyenne, actually. And that’s pretty much why it’s offensive.”

Bryan shrugged. “I think it’s cool.”

“What do you want, Bryan?”

“I need a favor.”

Colin sighed. He had expected it. “I told you already. I told you on the phone when you called. I told you last time you dropped by scoping out a location. I’m not doing this anymore.”

“No, come on, listen. There’s this girl, and she’s perfect for this gig I got, and she’s getting cold feet, because she’s one of those that desperately want the spotlight but doubt that they’re good enough, I can tell, and she just needs a little nudge in the right direction, the kind of gentle nudge that only you can provide.”

“I told you—not doing that anymore.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I’m done.”

Bryan looked at Colin with a long studied glance, then shook his head. “Well, that’s a damn shame. A damn damn shame.”

Colin said nothing.

Bryan twirled his phone a few more times. “Well then, I guess that’s that. But I’d still like you to do this last one for me.”

Colin wanted to protest, but Bryan looked at him meaningfully. “You owe me, Blackstone.”

Colin shut his mouth, and stared out the window. Outside, the Los Angeles winter light was noticeably different from that of the summer, although the temperature was still perfect.

Bryan was right, of course. Colin did owe him, for pulling him out of a jam of his own making several years prior, before Colin had discovered his Gift. Of course, Bryan had not stopped reminding him of said debt ever since.

Colin closed his eyes, and sighed. “Fine. One last time. And then I’m done, okay? I’m serious. I don’t want to keep doing this. It’s… wrong.” He tried to put as much certainty in his tone as he could muster, and he stared at Bryan, who nodded.

“Sounds good to me.” He leaned closer to Colin, and showed him his phone. On it was the picture of a girl, young, medium-length light brown hair—dyed, Colin figured—and glasses. She looked cute, the kind of girl you could fall in love with, innocent and with an easy smile.

“Her name’s Cindy Barnes, and she takes classes at UCLA. She’s sweet, and friendly, with this petite body with the kind of curves that’ll make you groan, and she’s interested in the movies, but she’s not sure. I know I can convince her to do a few roles, but that’d take time, and I’ve got a project that she’d be perfect for. And that’s where you come in.”

Colin did not react, but could easily read between the lines of what Bryan was saying. He was no fool. He knew what Bryan did—he was a genuine filmmaker, doing short films here and there, the odd indy movie, but he also worked for Georgios Pangalos shooting both softcore and hardcore pornographic movies. Bryan had tapped Colin in the past to help convince a girl to shed her clothes on camera, or open her legs on camera, or basically do anything on camera. Bryan did not know the details of Colin’s Gift—Colin never talked about it—but he knew that Colin had a swift convincing hand with the ladies. And in the past Colin had always obliged, many times enjoying the favors of said girl with Bryan and others while they were at it.

But that was all in the past.

Colin had changed.

Well, he was changing.

He was not that man anymore.

He could not help think about what had happened to those girls, some of which merely having the desire to become actresses, bamboozled into become porn stars against their wills—or at least so he assumed, but in complete honesty he did not know how his Gift worked. Sometimes he fantasized that the Gift simply brought to the surface something within the girls themselves, sometimes that they wanted to do but were too afraid to try, or too close minded to pursue.

Sometimes he dearly hoped so. Because otherwise, he was scum. And he could not believe he was scum.

Was he?

Madeleine would not love a man who was scum.

“Blackstone?” Bryan asked.

“Sorry,” Colin replied, shaking his head. He looked at the girl again. “Does she know what you do?”

Bryan shrugged. “She knows I make movies. Anyway. She hangs out at this bar near UCLA. Usually by a table in the courtyard. You can’t miss her. I’ve got the address, and I got her phone number too, if it helps.”

“Just text me the photograph. And the name of the bar. What does she do, anyway? UCLA student?”

“Don’t know. She says she took some courses there. I think she’s an artist. Who cares? She’s a bit of an airhead. You know the type. Nice body, nothing much up there. Fancies herself a student. Good only for looking pretty on film.”

Colin stared at the photograph on Bryan’s phone. Cindy. She had nice eyes, and a wonderful smile.

“Just have her call me when you’ve charmed her panties off. If she could be ready to shoot this weekend that’d be perfect. We’ve got a nice location scoped out for Sunday. Weather’s supposed to be nice too.”

Colin gave Bryan a last look. “Fine.” He stood. He had to go back to work. He suddenly felt like cleaning the back of the counter, make everything spotless. “She’ll call you Friday. But it’s the last time.” He said it with finality.

Bryan flashed him a smile. “Of course, Medicine Man. Of course.”