141:

"I am trying to be ready to move on, but it sometimes hits me hard." She explained honestly, trying to stare him down, not show her confusion. She had confusion, but not as badly as she expected. It came and went in flashes. And more and more the flashes were manageable.

"And there's a possibility that you might consider moving on with me?" One finger lifted her chin now to look steadily into her blue eyes. Yes, tons of attraction, heating flowing current attraction. Tracy backed up, but there really was nowhere to go, she moved jerkily to the side, turning her head, straining to put distance between them. As was his way, he easily let her go. Blaze never restrained her, simply watched her, fairly sure of his own attractiveness, but not pushing it on her... exactly.

Tracy took a deep breath, decided to ignore the whole infinitesimal episode. "So, let's lock up here. My place is.... Directly across the street. I have another wetsuit as well." Her voice did manage to sound nervous when she desperately didn't want to feel that way with anybody. This new-found striving to become her own independent person, this feeling of finding out who she was....she had to cope on her own....

Blaze pushed off the wall, and followed her, a little macho walk going on, he pinched his nose with two fingers as she grabbed some paperwork she was taking home to look at. She felt his hand at the small of her back as they left but that was all.

The night was a huge relief, and the waves outside, absent the sounds of cars and passersby was calming, peaceful. Tracy opened the garage, a blaring light came on, but they didn't notice. Blaze went straight to the surfboards, on their rack. Tracy admired him admiring them before slipping inside the kitchen door to put her stuff down, and asked if he wanted to get dressed right there, or out on the back porch?

The slight raise of an eyebrow.

"Right here." He replied easily, with that very knowing quality, but Tracy had already moved on. The next thing was surfing, and her whole heart was suddenly into it, a mood switch as mercurial as the waves themselves. Blaze had to marvel and determined not to say anything about it, but knowing, knowing, that she had just put her flinching reaction to his touch upstairs, and in fact, all the entire jam session, out of her mind. How did she do that? Weren't they all connected moments for her? Or did she have different compartments in her mind for each separate event? He began to strip down to his shorts to don the wet suit, his back to the last place he'd seen Tracy, when a movement caught his eye and he glanced back toward the garage door, afraid she'd be there watching him, and he wouldn't know how to react if she was, and half afraid it would be someone else.

He straightened up, zipping the front of his suit as he did, without so much as acknowledging it. She had her back to him, bent over, had doffed jeans and was pulling her suit up over panties unashamedly, the top came off as she pulled the tank type suit up over her bra. Long hair was pulled carefully away from the zipper. In one step he was to her, holding the hair out of the way helpfully, fingers itching to be the one to hold the zipper instead.

No skitter this time. She grinned in appreciation, and then indicated which board was hers, loosed it from its harness, fairly dancing to get out into the surf now. A breeze had come up, that early morning salt spray and crashing was their guide.

They hit the sand not talking, Blaze still amazed that this was happening. Not that he hadn't been with girls who liked to be outdoors, or doing some kind of sport. Several girls he'd dated were very outdoorsy. He wasn't sure if he was all that much, music being his number one love, and acting next to it, partying a close third, getting high and making love right up there. But more, he couldn't believe he was here at 4am or whatever with her, with Tracy McCaffrey, self-professed mother first and waiting for some guy on a mission. He'd thought she was attracted to him and she admitted that she was, she also admitted that she only wanted to be friends. Then why jam together all night, having the best jam session he'd ever had, not high at all. Why go surfing now? Building memories and experiences to share. Why?

Then he heard a repeat of Julian's voice that night on the phone when he'd warned him off. She doesn't distinguish between friends and family. She simply includes and loves. Winning her devotion would be much harder than winning her affection and love.

But those cute little hips were swinging right out into the waves without him if he didn't accept the situation and play it out the way she obviously wanted. We're going surfing.... Plain and simple. Do you like to surf? Yeah, well, then, let's go. Okay.

It was dark. He'd never been surfing when it was quite so dark. He could see her by the reflector lines on her wet suit, and the white caps breaking ahead of her. But there was no moon this night/early morning. He felt a moment's trepidation. But then Tracy had turned.

She held out a hand, standing in the low breaking surf, feeling the tug of the water. He came close to her, thinking she had something to say, but she simply waited for him to close the distance. "Just feel it, Blaze. You don't have to see out here, just let the waves and the current carry you."

"Profound." He answered, in slight-mocking disbelief.

"You're a musician. Use your skills to feel." She turned once again and threw her board down and flopped on top of it, and he could see her flashing arms begin to paddle through the oncoming breezy waves.

Blaze was adept at letting certain senses go. Inhibitions also had to be let go in order to be an actor, and become someone else. Many directors had asked him to let a specific sense go as well. Such as listen, don't see, or close off your hearing, don't hear the others, only me. Yeah, he was good at that part, but feel, don't see? Out here?

Tracy had paddled out through several breakers, and as he searched for her, his eyes became better adjusted, and she seemed to stand out against the black inky feeling water. He made it through to where she was, dodging a couple of breakers, and smashing right through one he hadn't anticipated.

"It's different than surfing in the day." Tracy acknowledged as he drew close to her. She sat on her board, legs dangling, fingers twitching in the water. Long silvery hair flowing out behind her. She'd gone through one as well, he could tell by the way her hair was plastered down her back and not floating as it usually did.

"Ya think?" he replied, phased, sitting less comfortably, he hadn't surfed in the day in a long time, let alone at night.

"Let the darkness and anonymity flow over you. Just feel the rhythm, the rocking, the lapping, the power of the ocean." Her voice was extremely melodic, had taken on a very surreal quality, and he shivered, tingling awareness of her, almost fear.

"A big one is coming." He announced quietly, again surprised at how good his hearing was becoming out here, he barely had to talk to be heard. His legs were cold, a feeling of damp inside the suit, not as cold as it would have been without it, but cool none the less. He felt thick and rubbery, not as free as he was used to, like he couldn't move as easily. He wondered if she felt that way. Her wetsuit seemed to fit her like a second glove.

Tracy turned and lay flat, paddling expertly toward the rushing water. In seconds she was crouching on her board, one finger balancing before standing. Blaze had no time to watch her, none at all, he let his board plummet through the center of the wave as it crested, unwilling to stand at this point, he still felt awkward and uncertain in the darkness, although he was beginning to sense its appeal to his companion.

She resurfaced nearby in moments, exhilarated. And now, he could see her, clearly, weirdly, glowing blue. He thought he would tell her so, and he did.

A cackling laugh met his astonished ears. "You can see aura's Blaze!" she was delighted.

That wasn't exactly what he expected to hear. "I've never seen one before, but I can even see your legs in the water." He said more solemnly, but she was still laughing. Her laughter, real, and melodic, was music to his ears. So free and suddenly uninhibited... hadn't he just been thinking about inhibitions? Yes and how he was an easy one to lose them? In acting, he thought grimly, and when partying, getting high.

"You are the most uninhibited person I know." He said finally as her laughter had died down and they'd crested another wave and lay once again calmly rocking to and fro.

She chuckled. "Everyone is uninhibited in some ways. But mine is only in my music. Everything else about me is inhibited. I'm not always who I seem. I am trying very hard to become myself, and therefore be uninhibited, but right now, there are still many times that I am not myself."

He pondered that one. "I am uninhibited the most when I'm high."

She became quiet, her voice and everything about her, including the eerie blue light emanating from her, and around her, became crystallized, and somewhat cold. "Do you party a lot?"

He nodded absently. "Doesn't everyone?"

"What do you think?"

He laughed. "Okay not you. How you escaped it is beyond me. How did you survive it?"

"I don't like being out of control-- at least of myself. Everything about me is out of my control, a lot of the time, so to make a conscious choice to be out of control and let drugs or alcohol be in control of me is.... Inhibiting."

"So, you made that decision on your own? Have you ever had anything?"

"I took caffeine pills once to stay awake during a concert in Budapest." He sighed as another wave launched its pull in their direction. This time Blaze paddled toward it, felt the deep pulling and waited for the right moment, then, like Tracy, crouched for balance and then, as the pull drove him forward, he stood, stretched out his arms and looked up. That was his mistake, a weird sensation of falling into blackness assailed him, no shore-line greeted his eyes, no white caps of other waves, no skyline, no lights from the highway. He was plummeting out of control into nothingness. He toppled ungracefully off, felt the automatic yank of the tether on his ankle and surfaced only to be crashed by another unseen monster. He got control again in the shallows and looked back out to the waves to see clearly, the bluish glow of Tracy silhouetted against the luminescent white caps of a towering wave above her as she rode it toward shore. Rather than falling off as he did, she sat back on her board and hauled forward so the front tip came up and she stopped when the wave had brought her closer in to him, and he knew she could see him.

He was standing there, waiting.

"Are we done?" she called.

"I'm not very confident out there in the dark."

She walked through the shallow surf. "It takes a lot of getting used to."

They joined up and then walked casually up the slightly raised hill that afforded a natural break. They flopped down and lay back companionably. Blaze was again astounded that he felt so companionable with this woman. Wasn't she beautiful? Wasn't she desirable? Didn't she turn him on like no other woman ever had? Wasn't she an enigma? Mysterious and yet innocent? Didn't that combination drive him crazy? Especially since she'd made it clear they were friends? Only friends? And what was it about laying here on the sand that made that statement bizarre?

"So you took caffeine pills once?" he hooted.

"To stay awake during a concert. I hadn't slept in a couple of days, I barely knew what I was doing. I was fourteen."

He shook his head. "I won't tell you what I was doing by fourteen." He said, remembering wild crazy parties, lots of drugs and booze.

"I suppose it's a good escape. That's what I've heard. I've helped several people get over their addictions." She stated matter-of-factly.

"They willingly went to rehab for you?"

"I was the rehab." She said easily without a trace of self importance. "They recognized the need for a change, and they liked the idea of being completely aware, and independent. There are pluses to not being on drugs, or even used to taking them for pleasure or escape. There are wonderful things out there to do with your time rather than lay around talking smack with people who don't care about you."

Again, profound, he thought. And appealing. The lure of her confidence in this area was magnetic.

"But I'm not addicted to anything."

"Nicotine." She replied easily, he hadn't realized she knew. He didn't smoke around her.

He laughed, inhibited.

"Anyway, so you weren't too sure about the surfing?" She changed the subject and he was grateful.

He shook his head, as a cooler breeze hit them, Tracy hugged her arms close and shivered. "It was too dark. I couldn't see."

Tracy's eyes rested on him from the vantage point of her turned head resting on her knees, long silver hair draped over her side. "That's not what bothered you. Being out of control bothered you. Blaze, this whole planet is full of things you have no control over. The ocean for instance. It is the master, powerful, constant, unpredictable. It rules. But it lets you partake of it, play with it, become part of it. I like that. I love it actually. See.... And the drugs, the booze..... they are there too, waiting to control you. And when you partake of them.... you think you're in control, but they trick you. They are powerful, constant, unpredictable, like the ocean, they rule, they let you partake of them, play with them but you never become part of them, they withhold ultimate oneness. Their goal is to win, just win, devour, is a better word, entrap, enslave, and then move on to the next victim." She ran a finger alongside his chin, as he moved to sit like her, closer for warmth. "It's not worth it. There's so much better out there. Things that are more powerful, and have more ability to let you become one with them. That's the message of the planet."

It was times like these that he couldn't breathe around her. Even knowing she meant to stay friends, he wanted to touch her.... Feel that live thing between them, and partake of it...."It's powerful, constant, unpredictable." He whispered in awe, staring into her eyes. "I want to play with it, become part of it." But he was talking about something else than she was.

"And then there's choice." She said, still feeling the closeness.

"You choose not to partake with me."

It took her a second to catch on to his meaning. "I limit my partaking."

"Who is in control then?"

"I am."

"Yes, you are." He answered, sensing her surprise at this disclosure. He realized she hadn't always felt in control of her relationships, but somewhat at the mercy of others whims.

"Come back to my place, I'll fix you breakfast. I can make omelet's." she said, breaking the intimate contact, slapping his knee and using it to boost herself up, but he grabbed her hand.

He pulled, feeling the tingling warmth, but not overpowering, just there, under the surface, alive. And with the touch came the remembrance of who she was. He was disappointed, he didn't want to remember. She was this hugely famous star, watched all the time, every aspect of her life documented all the time. And she was a hugely complex person because of it. And she had this hugely big obstacle in the way of their becoming any closer than they already were. Maybe two huge obstacles. He finally stood, noting that the sky was actually getting lighter and he could now make out the horizon, far off, in the gray. He could see the waves clearly, and finally, he could see that there were other surfers.

And hot on the heels of that observation was the realization that just to their right on the sand not twenty feet away was a photographer, setting up scopes to watch the ocean, or the sunrise, or.... Tracy.

"Well, then I need to have an omelet for breakfast." He said although he couldn't remember the last time he'd actually eaten an omelet, let alone breakfast. He stood up, standing in the line of sight of the photographer. It was an awkward move, Tracy noticed it immediately and her gaze traveled to where his had gone and she smiled grimly.

*****