Hi there. I still feel like hot garbage. Don't you love that phrase? I do. Anyway, here's another chapter. Thanks for reading and I hope you like it!!
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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
8
Getting Ready
I got to Paul's apartment a little before six and waited. I didn't want to let myself in after I'd told him the apartment was his personal space. I decided that I needed to demonstrate that he could have privacy when he needed it. I waited until my phone told me it was one minute after six, pressed the doorbell, and said my name to open the entry door to the apartment. I stuck my head inside the first floor of the apartment and heard the gentle tune of the wake-up call playing from the second floor. I raised my voice into the house with enough volume for Paul to hear me over it.
"Paul...it's Church."
Paul's big voice called back. "Church...help!"
I worried something was wrong and charged through the living room and kitchen, up the stairs, and into the darkened bedroom. I found Paul standing next to his bed. He was dressed in white boxer shorts and a crew neck undershirt, and he was squinting at his new cell phone. The wake-up tune played on and on like an organ grinder on a nineteenth century street corner. "Sven," I said to the apartment, "stop the alarm."
The music stopped and Paul heaved a sigh of relief. "Sven," he said, "I couldn't remember the name you told me, and I couldn't find the `snooze' button on this phone."
"Sorry, Paul," I apologized and hoped I hadn't frazzled the old man, "we can change the name to anything you want. I used `Sven' because it wasn't a name or a word you'd be likely to say any other time. These voice-activated things can try your patience if you assign them a common name."
"I can see how they could." Paul agreed and wiped a large hand over his expression from his forehead down to his chin. "Don't worry about the name. It's a fine name. I just have to remember it. I'm glad you were here to remember it for me."
"Me too. How did you sleep?"
"Very well. The bed is extremely comfortable. It was like sleeping on a cloud. What brings you back?" He asked, still groggy from his long nap.
"I know all this is new to you and I thought I'd be here in case you needed help. We've got an hour before dinner. You've got time to shower, if you want to. If you don't, that's fine too. I want you to be comfortable." I realized I was still clutching the copy of Fidum's Bible and waved it at Paul as an afterthought. "I also brought you this." I said and explained what it was.
Paul wanted to investigate the book right away, but I knew if I let him, that would make us late for dinner. I persuaded him to leave it for another time. "I'll put it on your nightstand." I offered and Paul agreed.
"Remind me, young man, why you couldn't send that to me via email?"
"No one knows I have it except Shawn." I explained to Paul. "When I brought that history book back and Ars got a hold of it, it disappeared. Fidum gave this book to me." I held it up to Paul again and moved to set it on his nightstand. "He entrusted it to me. It's mine. I didn't want to risk Ars finding out that I have it and maybe trying to take it from me."
Paul still didn't understand and said as much. I realized I'd forgotten to premise my point. "The only reason we could communicate all those years was because Ars gave me access to an interdimensional email account. I figured that he would at least spot-check our communication. That's why I never attempted to scan the book to you. Maybe I was being paranoid, but my experience with Ars has taught be that a little paranoia around him is a good thing."
Paul accepted the explanation and looked around the room like he was still trying to figure out where he was. "Tell me," he said with a cautious voice, "when the walls are clear inside, are they still black outside?"
I said that they were.
"Sven!" Paul called sharply like he was commanding a misbehaving child. "Make the walls and roof clear."
The lavender walls became fully transparent and late afternoon sunshine blazed into the room. The yellow carpet of the plains became the only thing we could see to the south and the mountain the only thing we could see to the north. Paul blinked his eyes several times until they adjusted to the light, and he stared through the walls into the cloudless sky above. He pointed south. "The Pravus Plains, right?"
I nodded in the affirmative.
"And we're on your world, Solum, right?"
I nodded again.
"And I'm awake and alive and here with you and all of this is actually happening, right?"
I raised my right hand with my palm toward Paul and said, "I promise it's all real."
"OH! I am SO pleased." Paul clapped his hands once as he half-shouted in pleasure. "So very pleased. I hoped this wasn't a dream. I hoped for years to be able to see this wonderful place that you call home. Thank you for bringing me, my dear friend." Paul grabbed my hand and gave me a double handed handshake and a sideways chuck on the shoulder.
"I missed you to, Paul." I responded to his outburst of gratitude. "Do you want to clean up, or just dress?" I asked to get things moving.
Paul's answer was almost out of his mouth when he glanced my way and his attention froze. He stopped, pressed his lips together, cocked his head, and raked me with his eyes. "What ARE you wearing, young man?" He asked incredulously.
I instinctively smoothed my Parrotfish outfit against my torso and realized that Paul had never seen me dressed in my Solum clothes. I turned for him so he could see all the sides of my outfit. "They like color here. Everyone dresses like this. This outfit is from Andy. He designed it and had it made to my measurements."
"And the...uhm...shoes?" Paul asked.
I lifted my right leg to get my wedge heel closer to Paul's gaze. "They're really flats. Everyone wears heels here. I would look odd wearing flats, but because I'm so tall, they make these dished heels for me. They look like heels, but they're really flats."
"And everyone wears heels because?" Paul prompted.
"Heels make your butt look better." I explained before I realized I'd given too much information away.
Paul stared at me like he was waiting for the punchline to the joke. I hated to tell him there wasn't one. I held my hand up to him and shook my head. "It's one of those things that's better left unexplained."
Paul nodded a shallow nod that told me he wanted an answer but wasn't going to push for one. "I gather then, that the clothes laid out for me are not a joke or part of some good-natured hazing?"
"Nope. They are actually the pinnacle of Solum fashion. Andy selected photos of you from the church newsletter and had them analyzed for your sizes. He had those clothes and an entire wardrobe made for you."
Paul's eyes tracked passed me to where the clothes waited for him. "And here I thought the outfit dear Papa Cass had on was just a part of his eccentricity." Paul refocused his eyes on me and seemed to shift his attention with an almost physical effort. He went back to answering the question I'd asked before my appearance diverted him. "I think a shower would be wonderful."
I got a towel and big robe from Paul's bureau and brought the man into the bathroom to show him around a second time. It was a typical Solum bathroom with an oversized, clear, octagonal shower stall in the center of a square room, with two mirrored walls and two flat black ones, a light panel ceiling, and a separate room with just a toilet and sink.
Paul was quick to understand the shower controls and everything else, except why the room was the way it was. "Why?" He asked and gestured around the room.
The answer that I wasn't going to give him was that the bathroom style was an oversight on my part. I had every intention of styling the bathroom like a typical Earth bathroom with a tub and a regular shower stall, but this detail got lost in the sea of details that I dealt with while we were preparing for Paul's visit. I'd told the contractor to install a regular bathroom,' and he did. What he meant by regular' and what I meant by `regular' were very different things.
I realized I was rubbing my neck while Paul waited for an explanation. "Sex." I blurted. "You'll find this is a very sexual culture here and many private spaces are more or less stages for sex. This bathroom, the bed the size of a dancefloor, it's built for sex."
Paul's face drew down into a frown of grave concern. He waved his hand in the air. "I hope you don't think I needed this for that."
"NO!" I shouted a little too loudly. "AHEM...No. No, Paul. This is just how they build things here. Almost any master bath in any apartment, hotel, or house, from the richest to the poorest, would be built just like this. If it makes you uncomfortable, I'll have it changed."
Paul swiveled his head around to take in the room again and shrugged a deep shrug. "No need. It's a nice room."
He leaned into the shower stall to get the water running and fiddled around until he had a small flow coming from a single, center shower head. I got his attention before he went any further. "We make our own water here. There's no water on these plains and it doesn't rain very much, so we have a refrigeration unit that condenses water from the moisture in the air. It's very efficient and has an almost unlimited capacity. The electricity it consumes is all solar. This world uses no fossil fuels. That means you can take as long of a shower as you like, and use as much water as you like, with no environmental impact at all and next to no expense."
Paul reached back into the stall and turned on two more heads blasting with steaming hot water. I gave him a thumbs up for encouragement and left him to it. "I'll wait in your room." I said as I pulled the door shut behind me.
A full thirty minutes later, Paul exited the bathroom in a cloud of steam with his robe on and his towel draped around his neck. His skin was lobster red from hot water, and he wore a broad, contented smile on his face. He slapped his big hands on his deep chest. "Invigorating, invigorating and guilt free. I feel wonderful."
"I'm glad." I brought Paul to his bureau and showed him his new underwear and socks, furnished as part of the clothing Andy had sent. "Briefs are more or less universal here," I explained, "but if you're set on boxers, we'll let Andy know and he'll have some made."
"I will try them." Paul selected a pair of briefs and a pair of socks from the drawers along with an undershirt, then we went back to where his clothes waited. He picked up the orangy-yellow long sleeve buttoned-down shirt with luminescent green buttons, collar, and cuffs, and the greyish-blue straight leg slacks with a similar narrow stripe up the outside of each of the legs. His eyes lingered over the garments, then fell to the floor and stared at the luminescent green heels. "I don't think..."
I anticipated Paul's objection to the heels and cut him off. "They're dished like mine. I promise, they walk just like sneakers. Once you have them on, you'll forget all about them."
"Perhaps." Paul said like he wasn't convinced.
"I'll wait downstairs." I checked the time on my phone before I went down. We still had just under twenty minutes before dinner, plenty of time to get there without rushing.
I leaned against the counter in Paul's kitchen to wait. I reflected that I seemed to spend a lot of time in kitchens, leaning on counters. Kitchens were informal and comfortable for me. I liked them. I liked living rooms to, and sitting, but when I needed to wait, I tended to lean, and kitchen counters were the right height to lean against. I leaned against the counter in Paul's kitchen to wait.
Paul came down a few minutes later, looking very much the Solum native in his Andy Philips clothes. When his feet touched down on the kitchen floor, he paused to look down at himself. "Are you certain about these colors?" He asked.
I almost laughed at him, but I held it in, though I felt my face smirk. "I know how you feel. It took me a long time to adjust to the way people dress here. Wait until we get you to Oppidum or Epistylium and you're surrounded by people dressed like that. It's like waking up in a child's coloring book."
"Just as you say." Paul shrugged and held something out to me in his left hand. "I found this in the pants pocket."
It was a card, printed in color, and a little larger than a business card. On one side was the picture of a fish and on the back was some text. I held the card up to Paul. "This is the description of the outfit. It's part of Andy's `Coral Reef Collection.' My outfit is based on the Parrotfish and yours is the Lagoon Triggerfish."
Paul took the card back and examined both sides of it. He tried to match the photo of the tropical fish with the colors of his outfit.
I tried to explain with more detail. "Andy says that nature already knows what matches and likes to base his color combinations on natural things. Each season, he picks a theme and takes all his colors from that theme. Last winter his theme was `Falling Leaves,' and all his colors were yellows, reds, browns, and greens.
"One of his earliest collections, several years ago in the spring, was `The Flowers of the Palace Garden.' The last palace King Pravus occupied is a historic landmark and the gardens are preserved as a park in the capital city. Andy spent a week there photographing flowers to plan his spring collection for that year. It was a huge success. People loved it and the Palace Garden received more visitors than it had in decades."
Paul eyed the sleeves of his shirt and stared at the shimmering cuffs. "It's an interesting concept, but you must understand that for a man who has spent many years in black, these colors are rather jarring."
I patted my friend's shoulder in a gesture of comfort. "You'll feel less out of place when you're around more people. If you wore black in public on this world, you'd stick out a mile. You ready to go? It's early yet, but it might be less overwhelming if we get there first and let the crowd filter in, instead of walking into a room full of people."
I felt Paul stiffen under my hand when I mentioned the others. He seemed to be nervous, but I didn't understand why. "What's wrong?"
"I hope I don't disappoint them. I hope I can live up to their expectations. I hope they're not expecting a pious priest in full vestments."
I gripped Paul's shoulder and had an idea. I went to the culinarian and pressed some buttons. I heard the chime and reached through the open door to withdraw two rocks glasses. I handed Paul a neat, double shot of amber and kept a single for myself. I clinked my glass against his and waited for him to drink before I swallowed my shot.
Paul put his double down in a lump and sighed a deep, contented sigh. "Oh, that is much better. Thank you, Church."
"Don't worry about the others. The ones that know you are eager to see their friend and the ones that don't will be glad to meet you...all except for my brother, that is. He'll want the Father Miller version of you, but don't let that worry you." The tension seemed to leave the old man as the warmth of the amber spread through his body. I waited a moment until he seemed relaxed and asked if he was ready to go.
"By all means." He said and let me escort him out.