The afternoon was sunny and comfortably warm as Mike and I wandered around the market. It hadn't been easy to get out of the clinic, especially with our gargantuan hangovers and laughably few moments of sleep that (for no discernible reason) were punctuated by intermittent highly untame and highly inventive fantasies, for which I had to resort to my well-used manual override to get a little shut-eye. After some long haggling verging on harassment, the Tusken grudgingly agreed to bring us to town again right after noon.
The only thing we couldn't figure out was how to get around our treatments and the med-droids' annoying roll calls; but, our Tusken (named Jim, by the way, but somehow that didn't fit him) had rolled his eyes at our pathetic infatuated wimpering, and grouchily told us to shut our asses up, as he produced his work-assignment datapad from his dusty coveralls. Within a few quick taps, poof!: we were free to gallivant to our hearts' and groins' content!
It hadn't been the first time the Tusken had been asked for a way out, and, over the years, he'd found a backdoor on his datapad that could make patients effectively disappear by pre-ticking all our treatments, making it seem as if we'd already had them. We thanked him like lunatics and Mike even offered to service him right then and there, but the Tusken just grimaced, reminded us of his exorbitant daily tick-off rate, and mentioned something about it being enough that we were sending his daughter to college off-planet.
Either way, we were back in town! That was all that mattered! AND finding Leah and Haan, of course, which wasn't going to be the easiest thing given the size of the town market and the mob that was swarming in it. Since the town was so small, I'd expected the market to be a hokey little thing with a few gap-toothed yokels selling junk they'd scrounged up from their mudhuts. What we found instead was a full-sized completely legit market with at least a couple-hundred vendors all crammed and stuffed under constipated rows upon rows of tents and parasols.
I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised: despite it being infinitely more convenient to locate these markets in larger city centers, making the tourists and wealthy city-dwellers trek out to the boonies preserved the feeling that the market wasn't at all a tourist trap or a blatant money-grab, but a genuine, authentic market experience unique to the local quaintnesss of this planet's particular district – that was, by an extraordinary coincidence, nearly identical at every district on every planet.
“Genuine artisian blahblahblah!”
“Authentic organcial blehblah blehblehbleh!”
“Delicious wild hand-hunted blehblee blahblahblah!”
“Sweet open-landed, open-sourced bleebleeblah!”
Yep, everything you'd expect to find at a market was present and accounted for. There were the rinky-dinks hawking cutesy knickknacks guaranteed to illicit awwwwww reactions from the customer or unfortunate giftee. Next to them were the serious-looking crafty-folk with real smudges and stains on their clothes to illustrate that the useful product they were selling you came from their sweaty, dirty palms, which they dutifully flashed you numerous times. Not too far away, the sugar-dealers were pushing all kinds of brightly-colored candied this-or-that or steaming golden-brown pastry or pseudo-bread products – all, of course, in your choice of guilt or non-guilt-inducing variants.
Sprinkled in among all of them with smug unpredictability were the tight-shirted and short-panted ironicals selling over-priced generica that you could get anywhere for a fraction of the credits – but that they were selling with an added dash of wink-wink just so you know you were laughing together at the side-splitting joke. Never fear though, if you lacked the hipness to be in on the trendy joke, they'd be happy to sell you a substitute that could buy your way into their recherché group: a genuine ill-fitting, uselessly small-rimmed felt hat that, to get the full effect, you had angle on your head just so. It was all comfortingly familiar, much like walking into a mega-galacto-store.
Where were the farmers though? We assumed that was where we would find Leah and Haan's stall, but we'd been meandering for nearly a half-hour without any luck. Fending off all the sample-givers throwing food or miracle-creams in our faces was getting to be a bit much. It was all starting to blend together, as our senses were being fried with every vendor using some kind of schtick to get our attention, should it be their adorably cute wide-eyed child holding a plate of soggy cookies you couldn't say no to, or the knife-vendors' mesmerizing song-and-dance routine, or the stripper-bakers wearing only pies and jams in uncomfortable places. It was all good entertainment, which was really the point of the whole thing. Really, the market was the perfect place to get all you needed, especially if you were throwing a shmancy dinner party and you needed something to bring home to show off to your friends and spark a giggling and sophisticated conversation about how you found a lovely so-and-so and isn't it so nice to supporting local this-and-that.
Thankfully, however, in our increasingly desperate wanderings, we stopped at an Arconian's stall so I could buy a bottle of smoke-essence, and the seller was also helpful enough to tell us which direction to go to find the farmers' lane.
“Tim!”cried out a knee-melting mellifluous voice that I knew instantly to be Leah's.
Just a few stalls away, I could see Leah waving at me from underneath her tent, where I could also see Haan in his distinctive black-vest and facial grizzle combo flashing Mike a lop-sided grin and mock-salute. It's very possible Haan may have hollered out to Mike too, and Mike may have answered, but things became a little fuzzy at that moment, as I floated towards to Leah on a cloud of smitten-ness.
“It's great to see you. I'm so happy you came to visit!” Leah smiled, as she gave my arm a gentle and promising (as I chose to interpret it) squeeze.
“It's great to see you too,” I managed to blubber as I lost myself again in the beautiful limpid oceans of her eyes.
A baritone voice saved me from having to form any more coherent words, with Haan cutting in, “Hey, Leah, I'm going to head out and get a few things with Mike, is that okay with you?”
“Sure, no problem. Tim's here so I should be fine,” Leah said, causing multiple endorphin rushes to explode in my brain.
I tried not to grin too much like a goofy fool, as I nodded to Mike and watched him practically skip and hop away with Haan. I was back again with Leah – and alone! With great effort, I tore my eyes off of her to look o-so-casually-and-suavely at her tent's tables that were attractively stacked with an assortment of inviting, vibrant veggies. I tried to sound nonchalant, “So this what you've been up to, huh?”
“Yes! It's so great to be able to grow this food and then share it with people,” Leah replied, beaming contagious happiness. “You're a chef, right? What do you think?”
“About all this?” I said, not wanting to elaborate on the differences between a chef and a line cook. “As a chef, you know... it's really exciting to see all this beautiful fresh produce. But I'm not sure I recognize all that's here...”
Leah laughed her tinkling, entrancing laugh, and said, “I'll bet you don't! A lot of these are heirloom varietals that are pretty rare – and very tasty!”
“Yeah? What's that thing?” I asked, pointing at a pale-green pyramid-shaped clump with swirling fractal patterns. “Are you supposed to eat it?”
“Ah! The Romanesco caulies! Of course, you're supposed to eat it. They're the best caulies you can have.”
“What about these red and white globes? They look little moons.”
“Mmmm... Good choice! Those are radicchios. Very nice baked and then mixed with a little sweet sauce.”
“And these bundles of leaves? Are these lizard bumps on them normal? Is it a local desert plant or something?”
“No, no! Those are Lacinato leaves. They're a kind of kale. You know kale, right?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
“You can steam them? They're really good for you?”
“Uh, yeah...” I racked my brain for some distant reference to all this alien produce that had almost certainly never entere
d any kitchen I had worked in, except perhaps in a cubed, dried, frozen state.
“Ok, how about this, you should know what this is,” Leah said, seemingly delighted by puzzledness, as she handed me a small bag filled with what looked like an fluffy assortment greenery.
What the hell was the stuff? It looked like a whole bunch of different leaves, some pointy, some round, some frilly, and many hues of green and purple. Purple! What's with the purple and reds in there? Aren't all veggies supposed to be green? I squinted and frowned at the bag, “It kind of looks like salad...”
“You got it!” Leah clapped her hands and gave me a blissful hug. “That's right!”
“But what's with all these weird leaves? I've never seen any salad look like this before.”
“Hahaha... That's because it's our signature salad mix! It has fourteen different elements in them that all taste different and feel different. No one has anything like it.”
“Ah, I see. So is this what you guys do at...” I said, still glowing from the hug and tingling with butterflies in my stomach, and looked up to read the sign hanging from their tent. Oh, shit. What did I get myself into... “... The Tatootine Centre of the Powaah... You guys are Powaah Witnesses?”
“Yep. What's the matter? Are you afraid of Powaah Witnesses?” Leah answered casually, probing my crestfallen face, but still smiling irresistably.
“Nah, I'm not afraid of anything. It's just that...” Aw, man. What a waste of hottie. She was one of those Powaah nuts.
“That Powaah Witnesses are nuts? They're lunatics? They're out to destroy the Empire?” Leah teased, never letting go of my eyes. Damn her sexy, alluring eyes!
“No, nothing like that. I've never heard of anything like that,” I protested, scrambling for words. Officially, Powaah Witnesses were allowed and tolerated by the Empire as an eccentric group that practised a combination of technology-shunning and “alternative” living. That is, they were weirdos. For a long time, they were a barely-known fringe group, but then the Rebellion started, and, while they'd never been proven to have direct links with the Rebels, they'd been flagged as suspicious and the mainstream shunned them ever since.
“Oh, come on,” Leah said, slapping me lightly on the shoulder. “I know what people say about the Powaah and Powaah Witnesses. That we're freaks, that we're a cult.”
“No, no, no! Not me! I'm an open-minded person.” My rational mind was telling me I should go, while my groin was saying, Ah c'mon, when has a little freakiness stopped you?
“Liar. You're cute when you're flustered though.”
“No, I'm not. What? I am?”
Leah laughed, giving me another hug that fuddled my brain again, and then tugged my arm in the direction of the tables, “Here, help me out with moving this stuff out of the sun. There's a lull in the crowd, and it's a good time rearrange the tables.”
Brain 0, Groin 1.
We proceeded to change the location of virtually all the veggies on the tables. When I say “we”, I actually mean Leah bustling around the tables, as I stood awkwardly making limp attempts to be useful, but which manifested itself by my occasionally holding a few bags of veg, and my taking the opportunity to check out her cute behind as she bent over to rummage in the bins tucked under the tables. To be fair, I wasn't as useless and lecherous as I made myself sound, and I did eventually catch on to what she was doing. The main focus of our efforts was getting the easily wiltable veggies out of the sun and exchanging them with ones that could tolerate the heat, but also replenishing the baskets with as much veggies as we could fit in them and maintaining the impression of having a plentiful table bursting with options.
Judging from all the little shifts, rearranging and reangling that Leah was doing to the produce, I was pretty sure I was making a mess of things with whatever vision she aiming for, but she nevertheless said (as she gave me a kiss on the cheek!),
“Hey, this is looking pretty good. You know, the funny thing is that it doesn't really matter how we arrange these tables: people seem to be attracted to us moving things around, like they're seeing some action going on and they want to be part of it.”
Sure enough, a gaggle of shoppers suddenly descended on the stall, and started poking and squeezing everything on the table, mobbing Leah with all kinds of questions about freshness, organicness, ethical-sourcedness, permawhateveredness and deliciousness of the food. Of course, I couldn't leave her then. And, yes, I was still looking to score, and, another unequivocal yes to the very obvious fact that I was very horny; that my rational thinking wasn't at its prime then; and that I'm a real sucker for kisses on the cheek and suggestive squeezes of the arm, regardless of any freaky cultishness about her that was fading from my thoughts. So, yes, I stuck around to help out.
While, at first, there was lots of frantic fumbling around and fruitless hunting for vegetables with gibberish names (You want a Chiogga what now? They're next to the “fingerlings”? And they're spotted? That's the way it's supposed look?), I had to admit that, once I'd managed to get a working knowledge of what was on the tables, and, more specifically, found my calling bagging and weighing things, the seller-side of the market was surprisingly enjoyable. Spending all those hours in starship messhalls serving grouchy and bitter crewmen, I'd come to expect a pervasive disinterestedness at the very least that was not infrequently accompanied by some degree of hostility.
At the market though, I was astonished to experience a stream of positivity and happiness from the people I handed their bags, often getting gushing praise and excitement about the produce. The amazing gratefulness and sheer pleasantness was regular enough that even my suspicious cynicism wore away to put me in a better mood that wasn't drug or coitus related that I could remember being in for a while. Pretty soon, I was smiling without having to force myself, and was even initiating and continuing conversations with random people.
Only the setting sun and cooling air made me realize that a few hours had passed rather than what had felt like a few breezy moments. The crowd had thinned drastically, with most people, their bags bulging with the day's treasures, finding their way back to their transports. The vendors too were starting to close up shop and beginning the process of taking down their tents and packing up. Looking down at the tables, I noted with some pride that all that was left were a few bags of salad and some haggard-looking bunches of kale.
“We're done!” Leah said happily, pulling me into a tight embrace that I had to admit was arousing – though to be honest about it, most things Leah did led to a slight tenting in my pants. “Thank you so much for helping!”
“No problem. I really enjoyed it,” I replied honestly, as I tentatively left my hand lingering at the base of her back – and was pleased when she did nothing to move away.
“It looks like you'll have to hang out with me longer though,” Leah said as she poked me sensuously (yes, a sensuous poke is possible) in the chest.
“Oh?” I said stupidly, without any hint of complaint, and with very much a certain warming in my nether regions.
“Haan doesn't look like he's coming back, so you're going to have to help me pack up and bring everything back to the Center,” she grinned mischievously.
“But of course!” I would have answered the same if she told me that she was going to flay the skin off my back and gouge my eyes out.
As we packed the remaining produce into bins, disassembled the tent and tables, and huffed it all over to a hauler parked a good distance away, you may not be too astonished to learn that I was having the time of my life, sweating, straining, and chatting away with Leah – even though I was doing grunt labor that would have been done by a droid in any other circumstance in the civilized galaxy. It was fantastic, wonderful, and all the starry-eyed euphemisms you could think of combined. As soon as everything was packed into the hauler, we were sputtering away across the dunes, still happily talking about anything and everything.
Some time had passed as we skimmed across barren sands, when a few s
tructures appeared on the horizon, defining a small compound outlined by a series of trees and buildings. It was the Center of Powaah Nuts. Shit. My doubts came back to me then, much to my annoyance, and put a damper on my mood that I hoped wasn't too noticeable. It was with some relief that, when we slowed to stop in front of a shed, Leah jumped out of the hauler and told me she'd be back after checking in with the Center's reception, leaving me alone to disentangle my thoughts.
What the hell was I doing here? These were Powaah wackos. But then Leah was the most amazing woman ever. Ever. Ever! When was the last time I was so happy? But this could be trouble. Damn it. I could play it safe and leave, but then who knows when I would see Leah next? I could leave and come back. Yeah, right. That would be real smooth. What the hell should I do? A part of me – beyond my penis, just to be clear – desperately wanted to stay with Leah, but another sensible part worried and worried. It was in this state that Leah returned to find me.
Clearly, she knew what was going on in my head, as she leaned shyly against the hauler I'd been fidgeting and pacing around, and said gently, “You know, Tim. Powaah Witnesses aren't crazies. We're regular people wanting a simple lifestyle.”
“What? I've never thought that...” I stammered, flustered, vainly struggling against my paranoid, conditioned mind that still doubted.
“You're so cute when you're flustered,” she smiled and kissed me on the cheek, confusing me even more and striking me dumb. Suddenly, her eyes flashed with excitement, and said, “Hey! Look! We still have an hour of light left! Let's go look for some desert flowers!”
And, before I knew it, we were off in the hills, skipping around rocks and going up and down crevasses, as we searched for the rare, but stunningly fragrant flowers that popped up from the sands to bloom in the cool, dusk air. Finding them was so unusual, that it was said that, if you were lucky enough to encounter one, it meant that soon all your desires would appear to you. Who could resist some mumbo-jumbo like that? At least, it didn't hurt for us to look. Sort of anyway. We were mainly talking, though not as animated as before, but instead in quieter and intimate tones.
Who was I to judge, really? And what should I be believing about all those so-called exposés about the Powaah Witnesses? Everyone knew the media was biased. Besides, all the Powaah Witnesses I knew (that is, the representative two I've met) seemed friendly and harmless. I should be keeping an open mind about these things. Whatever issue the Empire had with them, it wasn't any of my business, right?
These were the thoughts that went through my head, as we walked closer and closer together, bumping into each other clumsily – which stopped when continued walking holding hands... which lead to a bumping of an entirely different kind. (YES!!!)
Later, when we were in her hut and without any flowers to speak of, Leah pushed me away and interrupted our kissing with, “Wait, wait, wait.”
“What?” I said startled, grudgingly stopping my hands from coursing up and down her lovely figure, not a hundred percent processing what she was saying as most of my blood wasn't currently in my head.
“Are you ok with this?”
“Huh?”
“I'm a Powaah Nut, you know.”
“Hmmmm... You're right. I should go.”
“What!?”
“I'm kidding.”
“You better be.”
“I guess you guys are pretty normal.”
“Hahahaha... Thanks, so are you.”
“I wouldn't be so sure about that.”
“Really? You feel like someone who's normal.”
“Doesn't hurt to do a thorough examination.”
It was somewhere around that point – maybe specifically when Leah had pulled off her dress to reveal an insanely sexy, borderline fetishist bronze and leather bra and panties – when I decided that I had no issue at all with Powaah Witnesses, and, come to think of it, that it would do me well to stay a bit longer.
CHAPTER 6