Christopher Moore - Secondhand Souls

“He still has to offer his body as a vessel for your soul. He must do it willingly or the Chöd ritual won’t work. I’m not sure it will work, anyway, Charlie. I’ve never done it. I don’t know if anyone has ever done it.”

“Well, Lily’s going to ask him. If he says yes, we’re good to go.”

“Would you believe Lily if she told you that she needed your permission to move a new soul into your body, and in order to do that, you had to jump off a bridge at a certain time?”

“I would. Lily is very trustworthy. She worked for me for six years and never stole anything. Except the Great Big Book of Death. ” Charlie scratched under his long, lower jaw, wishing he had a beard, even a chin, to stroke thoughtfully. “Okay, that caused problems, but otherwise… Yes, good point. But he told her a ghost talked him into this and she believed him, so he kind of owes her.”

“Really?” She raised a questioning eyebrow.

“You’re right, we should go talk to him.”

“Charlie, you know I adore you, but I’m not sure that the finer essence of your being will shine through to a stranger, in a first meeting, and we are asking this guy to believe something that sounds, if not impossible, certainly preposterous.”

“I know. That’s the beauty of it. I’m like the preposterous poster child.”

“I’ll go see him.”

“Fine. Maybe just brush your hair to the side so it’s soft, nonintimidating,” Charlie suggested.

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing. So you studied robots in the monastery? Who would have thought.”

Because her discipline stressed living in the moment, and not obsessing on the past or the future, Audrey found herself more than somewhat off balance when Mike Sullivan answered his door.

“Hi, Audrey,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Mike.” Dark, short hair; light eyes, green, maybe hazel, kind.

He was younger than she expected, even though Lily had told her that he was in his early to midthirties, and he was better-looking than she’d expected, even though Lily had also mentioned that he was not unpleasant to look upon. What surprised her most was that he was so healthy and alive, because in the past, everyone she had prepared for bardo, the transition between life and death, had been sick and dying, and most often old. Mike Sullivan did not look like a man who was dying.

She shook his hand and let him lead her into his second-story apartment, which took up the middle floor of a Victorian in the Richmond District, adjacent to Golden Gate Park. She felt prickly and self-conscious as she sat on the couch and watched him move around the apartment, playing host, getting them tea, relaxed, barefoot, in old jeans and a T-shirt. Despite her training to stay focused on the moment, she glimpsed into the future, and she realized that if everything went as it was supposed to, in a few days she’d be shagging this guy. She blushed; she could feel the heat rise in her cheeks, and she realized he must see it.

“You’re not what I expected,” Mike Sullivan said. “The director of a Buddhist center—although I don’t know what I expected.”

“That’s okay,” said Audrey; she touched her hair, which she’d spun into a bun behind her head, so that wasn’t what he meant. “There aren’t many women in my sect, even in the East. I’m privileged to have my position.”

Mike sat down on the edge of a recliner across the coffee table from her and leaned forward. “From what Lily tells me, you’re one of a kind.”

Audrey felt herself blush again and suddenly, and for no reason she could think, thought of poor Lizzie from Pride and Prejudice , and then remembered how she also felt that Lizzie, nay, all of the Bennet women, in fact, all of the characters in P&P could have benefited from a good roundhouse kick to the head, and how, if she kept blushing, she should ask this guy to deliver one to her. (Despite what she had told Charlie, she did know a little kung fu, which she had learned in college, at San Francisco State, not in a monastery in Tibet. Namaste. )

“Mike, you should know, I’ve never done this before. I have transferred conciousnesses from people to, uh, other entities, many times, actually, but not anything like this. I don’t even know if Chöd works. I mean, I’ve read scrolls written about people in the mountains who gave their bodies up for an enlightened being, but I’ve never seen it.”

“I figured,” said Mike. He smiled.

“So if you’re going to do this, you should go into it prepared for your life to simply end, as all our lives will end. Part of you will endure either way, but you shouldn’t do this just to offer up your body.”

“I know,” said Mike. “I know all that. I’ve always known that. I’m not doing this for your friend.”

“You need to be sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“And you understand that if it works, someone else will be walking around in your body. If someone you know sees him on the street, they’ll think it’s you. Your friends, your family.”

“I don’t have any family, and no close friends.”

Audrey paused. She wasn’t sure how to react to that. Well, she wanted to ask why not, but that seemed a bit cruel, considering why she was here.

“Audrey, I’ll be honest, I have never really connected with anyone. I mean, I’ve had girlfriends, even serious ones, but they’ve always left, and I’ve always let them. I’m not sad, or heartbroken, I just go to work the next day and try to do my job. Another girl comes along, and then we’re off to the races until the race ends again. Same with friends. I get along with people, I like listening to them, I play in a softball league with some cool guys, but if they all went away tomorrow I’d be fine. My folks are dead, my brother and I have been out of touch for years, all the rest of my extended family is all over the country and we don’t see one another. Not bad blood, just blood. I guess I only realized after these people, these ghosts, came to me on the bridge, but I’ve been like a ghost for a long time. It sounds like this friend of yours can put better use to this body than I ever have. He’s welcome to it.”

Audrey was breathless. He was so calm about it, so sure. This was the place you tried to get people to in bardo, to accept their death as part of their life, as a door through which all must pass, will pass, and have passed. He was standing calmly in the doorway, unafraid. It was the sexiest thing she’d ever encountered, and if it weren’t for Charlie, she would have wrestled him to the couch and screwed his brains out right then. No. From desire comes suffering. And besides, she could jump him after he was dead. Her Buddhist practice had suffered somewhat, she realized, since coming back to the States.

“Mike, have you thought about something less violent? Carbon monoxide? Pills?” Was she actually planning a murder with the victim?

“No, it has to be the bridge. That’s where I’m going. I mean, that’s why I’m going. Concepción, did Lily tell you about her?”

“Yes, but I don’t know about any Ghost Thief. I’ve never even heard the term before.”

Mike nodded, looked into his teacup, which he held loosely by the edge between his knees. “I figured. But they need me.”

“For what?”

“Don’t know.” He shrugged, smiled. “If your Charlie said he needed you, would you ask him what for?”

Oh yes, she was going to do him until he begged her to stop. He’d be lucky if he could walk straight when she was done with him.

She cleared her throat, fidgeted. “I guess not,” she said demurely.

She really did need to get laid more than once every twelve years. This must be what it’s like for locusts. Long periods of dormancy followed by crazy tantric bug-fucks. Maybe not.