I shouldn’t have swiped right on the sexy warlock.
There was no excuse for it. All the signs were there from the beginning. The guy’s main profile picture was of him in some kind of wizard Halloween costume, clutching a cat.
The background was one of those giant cotton throws with a Mandala printed on it. Psychedelic tie-dye is always a red flag. My only excuse was that I was bored.
Too many dates with Brads & Chads that might as well have been all the same guy left me jaded. This skinny guy with his waist-length ginger hair and soulful brown eyes was at least different from the average dating site guy. Plus, he had a cat. An animal lover couldn’t be all bad, could he?
So off I went to the coffee shop attached to the metaphysical café, not realizing what a long, strange trip I was about to embark upon.
The place smelled of patchouli and musty books mixed with a hint of old sweat socks. In one corner, two gray heads met over a worn chessboard. The teenage barista had spiky pink hair, too many earrings to count, and…
“Yeah. My mom let me get the surgery for my eighteenth birthday.” The barista stroked the tip of one pointed ear and grinned at me. “You’re new here?”
“My coffee date asked me to meet him here.” I had to admit, her elf ear surgery was top-notch. Very realistic.
“Ah. Feel free to use the cozy corner.”
She handed me my coffee and gestured with holographic talons toward a setup in the back. A worn Victorian couch was partially hidden from view by a few dangling tapestries. One was the same Mandala throw my date had in his profile picture. $19.99 plus tax.
I was a few minutes early. My date appeared right at the peculiar time specified. At 6:06 pm, he strolled up to the table and bowed.
“Art?” I couldn’t help gawking as I stood up to offer him my hand. He was wearing black pleather pants, a black tee shirt with some kind of sigil on it, and a red and black lumberjack shirt as an outer layer.
“Arthuriel Malodruga, at your service, my Lady.” He kissed my hand instead of shaking it.
A fleeting and gentle kiss grazed my knuckles. It was a nicer gesture than one might expect. Still, it was odd and unexpected, along with the name. I tried sounding it out in my head to ask about it and failed.
“I’m sorry. I was meeting an Art McIntosh?”
It had to be the same guy. How many men with waist-length ginger hair could there be in this city? He winked and sat next to me while the barista scurried over to hand him his cup.
“There you go, Lord Arthuriel!”
“My most sincere thanks, Becca.” He turned his attention back to me. “I ordered on the app.”
“This place has an app?” The coffee was good, some of the best I’d had, but the place looked too small and dodgy to have an app.
Art’s or Arthuriel’s, or whatever his name was, expression grew sly. “Well, not for everybody. Only for certain…regular members.”
“So you’re Art McIntosh?” Creepy insinuations about secret coffee clubs aside, I did want to make sure I had the right guy.
“Yes, dear lady. Sorry for the confusion. Art McIntosh is my mundane name.”
“Mundane name?”
“Yes. The name I must go by in the common world. I’m trusting you with my true name because of how pure your aura is. I could sense your power and grace the moment I stepped in the door.”
Auras. Oh boy. “So can I call you Art, or do you prefer being called Lord Arth…” my tongue stumbled.
“Arthuriel,” he prompted with a soft smile. “You can call me Art if it makes you more comfortable. I’m used to it. You know, you are nothing like I expected. So many of these coffee dates are a total wash. Plain Beckys and Suzies, prattling on about Animal Crossing or some such.” His brown eyes grew warmer as he examined my face. “You have real depth.”
I laughed, hoping to dispel the sudden turn into seriousness. I was struggling to understand. “I won’t admit to my dark past of Farmville addiction, then.”
He pounced, seizing both of my hands in his and squeezing, firm but not too hard. “My Lady! I meant no offense. And to be sure we all have to have ways to distract our minds from trying times. It is only that I can tell that there is so much more to you than that. My sincere apologies.”
“I need a refill on my coffee. No, don’t get up. I want to make sure that it has the cream the way I like it.”
I slid off the couch and approached the barista, who gave me a big, anxious grin.
“I didn’t know your date was with Lord Arthuriel,” she whispered. Her eyes were alight with excitement. “He is so hot, even for an old guy. What I wouldn’t do to get my hands on that hair. He works out at the gym six days a week! I know because I make his morning protein shakes for him. He’s going to keep being hot even when he’s like fifty, at this rate.”
His profile on the dating site said he was thirty-one, a couple of years older than I was. I mused that a not-quite-twenty-something might think thirty-one was indeed an old guy. I wasn’t sure whether the fact that the elf-ear girl held him in such esteem was a plus or minus on his character.
I decided it was a plus. He was a regular, well-known and well-liked. I didn’t think the baristas at my usual coffee shop even knew my name.
“So, your profile says you’re a data analyst,” I said as I sat down again.
“Yes. I work on data in my mundane career and also in my true career. Though in a different way. Alas, my true career doesn’t yet earn enough for me to skip the day job.” He paused. “And you’re a veterinarian?”
“Indeed.” I braced myself for the inevitable deluge of pet care-related questions.
“That’s good to know. You won’t be squeamish about my cat, Silvana.” He slid his arm onto the sofa behind me. “Should we progress to the point of meeting each other’s familiars, that is.”
“I’m fostering some kittens, but I don’t have a full-time familiar. I mean, pet.” His weird talk was getting to me. “I’m always fostering strays.”
“What a kind and giving heart you have.”
Almost against my will, I was starting to like this guy. Sure, he talked a little weirdly. He had a real name and a pretend name. He might spend a little too much time at the gym.
That meant he would be unlikely to complain when I was extra busy at the vet clinic. On the plus side, he hadn’t mentioned sports teams or politics. His eyes met mine. Suddenly, he smiled, revealing perfect white teeth.
“Becca!” he called as he sprang to his feet. “Make me a second round, please. And where’s the board?”
“Sure thing. Second shelf, top right,” Becca replied.
He hurried over to the far wall. The bookcases held random board games and a few tattered second-hand paperbacks. He extracted a beautiful leather case with heavy embossing from a top shelf. When he returned, he set it on the low table and opened it with reverent care. Inside was an Ouija board.
“Would you do me the honor?” He gestured toward the planchette.
Why not? In for a penny, in for a pound, as my grandma used to say. I touched my fingers to the planchette and waited for him to join me.
“You’re strong enough to do it on your own. Ask any questions about me that you would like. Let’s see what the spirits say!” Art leaned back into the sofa.
“Is Art who he says he is?”
The planchette trembled under my fingertips, and I suppressed the urge to scream. With lightning swiftness, it zipped over to the Yes.
“Ask it to spell my name for you,” Art prompted. “Read it aloud for me as it goes, and I’ll tell you if it’s correct. A-R-T. The planchette paused. Well of course it would.
If this thing worked off of my subconscious as I suspected it did, that’s all I knew how to spell. The planchette jerked, almost escaping my hands. “H-U-R” it continued. Yeah. Everybody knew how to spell Arthur. The planchette kept sliding. “I-E-L”.
I wanted to let go, but now my fingers felt glued to the little slider. “M-A-L-O-D-R-U-G-A.” I tried to lift my hand free again, but the game wasn’t done with me yet. “Lord Arthuriel Malodruga, wizard at large,” the board spelled out so fast that I could barely keep up. The planchette stilled.
I pushed away from it into a far corner of the Victorian sofa. Art handed me my coffee and leaned in to kiss my cheek.
“Perfect. You’re so strong and beautiful. And wise. You knew what to ask. A man like me has many enemies. I could have been a mimic or an imposter. But I assure you, my dear, that I am myself and myself alone tonight.”
Art slid from the couch and sat on the floor next to the table. “My turn.” His long, beautiful fingers caressed the planchette for a moment, and then he set it in place.
“Have Mikala and I known each other in a past life?”
YES.
“What was her name in that most recent past life?”
I leaned forward despite my returning cynicism.
“M-I-K-A-L-A.” His eyes widened. “Do you know how rare it is for someone to have such strength of will that they reincarnate as the same personality in multiple lifetimes?”
The planchette started zipping around again, so fast that I couldn’t keep up. “Mikala Malodruga, sorceress extraordinaire.”
Art closed the board but didn’t rise from the floor, instead wrapping an arm around my nearest leg.
“Becca!”
The barista hurried over. Art grabbed her hand, pulling her halfway into my lap.
“Lady Mikala was a mistress of magic in her past life. A very strong one. We knew each other then.” Art let go of the girl’s hand and put his cheek on my knee. “I don’t remember all the details yet, but I sense a tragedy.”
I couldn’t resist combing my fingers through his lovely hair as it tumbled into my lap. For a moment, it felt like I knew him for much longer than the hour we’d spent in the coffee shop.
Becca stood up with a smirk. “Well, even at my level of training, I know the best way to clear that up is to go home and bang.”
Art disentangled himself from my leg and sat up. “Becca! Lady Mikala is a well-bred woman.”
“Sorry, Lady Mikala.” Becca winked and returned to the counter to greet a pair of newcomers. “What’ll you have? Fifteen minutes to closing time, folks,” she said as she approached them.
“Well, this was an unexpected evening.” I gathered up my purse and sweater.
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know.” I gave a weak laugh. “Dinner and a movie?”
“Of course, I can’t do a movie. Too much chance of malevolent energies leaking through one’s personal shields when one goes to a movie theater and lets oneself become distracted. In my position, I have to be more responsible than that.” Art’s tone carried a hint of reproach as if I should know better.
I nodded and his expression lightened again.
“But dinner. That I can arrange. How do you feel about vegan Algerian food? We’ve had much too much coffee and all of Becca’s delicious little cookies were already gone when we got here. Don’t know why. I divined 6:06 as a very auspicious time. Not that I’m complaining. It has been most auspicious. At least for me. I dare to hope for you as well. Let me buy you dinner to make up for the lack of cookies!”
I blinked. “Vegan Algerian food sounds like quite the adventure. I accept.”
“Good, we must hurry to catch the next bus. Unless you brought a vehicle?”
“I came by Uber.”
“Sorry, but I can’t support that company’s exploitative practices. At least the bus drivers in this city are unionized.” He stood and held out his hand to help me out of the soft trap of the old Victorian sofa. “Shall we?”
On the bus, he greeted the bus driver by name, and she reciprocated. Carla the bus driver was a large African-American woman with steel gray curls. “Artie, babe! You check out that dating site like I told you to?”
“I did, Miss Carla, and it was every bit as fortunate as you thought it would be. This is Mikala. Is she not the most perfect woman you’ve ever seen?”
Carla beamed at me. “A little skinny, but so are you, Artie. A good match. I told you. I could feel it in the air!” She waved us to our seats and the bus lumbered off.
Artie whipped out his phone the instant we sat and punched in a number from memory. A few moments later, he was talking in rapid French. When he turned back to me, his smile was even broader.
“Great. They’ll have a table waiting for us. I ordered ahead. Hope you don’t mind. But I can tell you’re not usually a vegan, so I picked some dishes that you might enjoy.”
“How can you tell I’m not a vegan?” The coffee shop had only oat milk creamer, so that hadn’t been the giveaway.
“Your complexion. Carnivores have a different undertone than vegans.” Art patted my hand. “No worries. I do eat meat, but only at seasonal holidays.”
During the Algerian dinner, served by waiters who all seemed to know Art quite well. Everyone seemed to know Art quite well, everywhere. It was a little disconcerting how well-liked the guy was.
Our conversation veered toward the normal. We traded work anecdotes and workout schedules, the little mundane chit-chat that made the world seem better-centered.
We even shared a favorite band, Wardruna. When I mentioned that it was an unusual sort of music for someone like me to enjoy, he shrugged. Suddenly he was Lord Arthuriel again.
“Like draws like.” He gathered up my hands in his again. “Mikala. This has been the most amazing evening. I’d like.” He paused and swallowed, looking down at our joined hands.
What had I said earlier about pennies and pounds? I used the connection of our hands to pull him in for a kiss. “Your place or mine?”
It felt almost electric as our lips met. I didn’t ‘bang’, as Becca had put it, on first dates. Or even on second ones. But something about this peculiar evening with this even more peculiar man had weakened my inhibitions a bit. Or maybe a lot. He pulled away with a regretful sigh.
“I get up to go to the gym before work. It’s likely too far for me to bus in from your place, depending on which line goes by where you live. Plus, to be honest, I’d feel better under my own wards. So mine? If you could be comfortable in my home?”
“Sure. I can always oppress a gig worker to get to the vet clinic on time in the morning. I also have an early start to my days.”
Art stiffened. “No need for that. I have a car. I don’t often drive it, except for emergencies. I’d be honored to drive you home later.”
Art’s apartment was everything I’d come to expect and more. In a word: Weird. The living room had a big wall-mounted TV and a beat-up black leatherette sofa. That was paired with a black metal and glass coffee table that looked like a relic from the 1980s.
In the kitchen, he had a high-end coffee machine, a juicer, and a crockpot. No microwave. Probably microwaves sent out bad vibes or something. Cat food bowls stood along one wall.
Unlike the stark bare walls of the living room and kitchen, his bedroom was an explosion of color. Black sheets and a red duvet adorned a giant-sized king bed. Goddess art, tapestries, and various magical doodads filled every available inch of wall space.
A second bedroom housed his computer desk for when he worked from home. The fateful cotton Mandala tapestry of his dating profile adorned one wall. Silvana, a giant Norwegian forest cat, gave me a curious sniff of approval and then settled back down in her bed next to the computer desk.
So then we did bang. A lot. Art had glow-in-the-dark condoms, amazing stamina, and some playful, pretzel positions that left me feeling more lighthearted than sex usually did. As serious as he was about Lord and Lady this and past life that, in bed he was straight-up fun.
My mental jury was still out on whether he was crazy, but he was definitely a crazy good lover. When I complimented him, he blushed and said something about having studied with tantric sex magicians. I didn’t know what that meant, but the results of that study left me impressed.
At two am, by his alarm clock that projected the time and random constellations onto the bedroom ceiling, his phone rang. He put the call on speaker and gave me an apologetic pat on the rump.
“Lord Arthuriel! We have a problem. There’s been a breach at the gate!”
Click Here for the rest of Arthuriel and Mikala’s adventure!: Part Two of Don’t Swipe Right
