Chapter Fourteen
Thesmophoria claimed direct knowledge of the torch bearers, those who carried the Mysteries over time. She explained that the name alchemy derived from the Arabic al-kimia or the Egyptian chem or khem, meaning the stars. According to her, alchemy was the art of preparing the philosopher´s stone to obtain gold, or in mystical and spiritual terms, the elixir of life. She questioned Clarity for more than an hour, asking her about her experience in the Bahamas. According to her, mystic, magician and shaman all shared understanding of the supernatural, and the practices at times gave birth to an ecstatic experience, sometimes sexual ecstasy, which Clarity had experienced in the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas.
Thesmophoria knew about the Book of Decadence used by the Church of the Holy Flower. It was given that name to warn those using it not to engage in sexual misconduct, revering instead in the notion of initiation. The word Rosebud, that Clarity had learned from the Book of Decadence was a word with several meanings, and one of them was rebirth, the spiritual rebirth of the adept. The word also stood for secrecy and silence, one of the vows of the initiate or the person wanting to leave the process. In addition, many hotels in the Caribbean displayed a rose on their billboard to provide confidentiality for the love liaisons of their guests.
"These terms are so generic though, are they real?"
"There is a physical correspondence to all these terms, but it takes years to master them." The old lady inquired about Optesia, wanting to know that she was doing well. The Shawab and his men were bothering her on a regular basis and she knew that the BVI criminal was responsible for Optesia´s disappearance and apparent nonsense about controlling each and every flaw in her. She asked Clarity to bring her to her refuge and Clarity called Cobbler, insisting that it was important that Optesia see the old lady. After several minutes of hesitation, Cobbler agreed and two hours later, brought his girlfriend in the presence of Themesphoria. The lady prepared cold tea and spoke to Optesia, who wasn´t accepting her name was Fay.
"Do you remember me Fay?"
"I do." Optesia looked at Cobbler, Clarity, Tiffany and Flower. Why don´t we gather in a perfect circle?" Themesphoria turned to Cobbler.
"Did you have an argument before she disappeared?" Cobbler avowed that at one point in his relationship with Optesia, he assumed or considered or even told Optesia, that she didn´t keep things in order, that she was disorganized, and that her clothes were a mess.
"I think you offended her and she began thinking that you were right," she said. She turned to Optesia.
"You don´t have to be perfect dear, you already are perfect simply by being who you are, and you don´t have to be anyone else."
"What about flaw?"
"Flaw is all right, we´re human after all, there´s nothing perfect in us, and only at certain times, does nature allow us to feel perfect. No one owns flaw, just as no one owns water or the mountains or the green grass or the flowers."
Optesia sighed with relief. She held the hand of Cobbler, who apologized to her for demanding so much of her, instead of realizing he had the perfect woman in front of him all along, a woman.
"Good, that´s better, I thought that I had to hold flaw in order to be perfect, that was getting kind of tiring. I think that´s why I adopted the name Optesia, because I thought Optesia would be perfect in every way." Thesmophoria held a mirror in front of Fay Osmond. The mirror stood for knowing oneself, a maxim attributed to the Egyptian pharaoh Sesostris, before it was used by Socrates. The mirror reflected one´s past and sought motives of hope and virtue for the future. It also inverted somebody's silhouette and features, and was an item that could become dangerous, for reflections such as the one provided by a mirror were not real, the real person was on the other side of the mirror.
"Your name is Fay, and there is no flaw in that, no flaw in you." Optesia kept looking at the mirror and walked closer, until the notion of Optesia faded, leaving way to her initial self, Fay Osmond.
"Optesia is your mystic name, you´ll be able to use it when it feels good, not when any notion of flaw appears before you."
Cobbler received a call.
"It´s the coast guards, they want to know where the 'Lady Moura' is."
Cobbler used the tracker left by Clarity to indicate the exact location of the 'Lady Moura' off the coast of the island of Anegada.
Near the island of Prickly Pear, the pilot of the speed boat, Hank, saw the coast guards approach Cobbler´s boats, and immediately alerted Bartleby. After a few hours, the coast guards found Bartleby´s boat and got onboard. Chubby Caddy, waking up from a night of drinking and getting his feet wet in the jacuzzi, took three of the pussy liners, Sandy, Belina, and Virgy, with him and fled the boat from the stern in a frenzy, reaching the north side of Anegada and then the supertanker, which was empty of liquor and filled with some oil, heading back for Panama. The speed boats were dismantled into rectangular parts. When the coast guards boarde the tanker, they found nothing, leaving Chubby Caddy with spare time to shoot the opening scene of 'Heavenly positions in a supertanker' with Belina.
The coast guards paid more attention to Bartleby, noticing the bottles of liquor in his bar shelf. Bartleby scratched his eyes, red with lack of sleep. The few hours spent with Sandy and Belina had been heaven, and he was still picturing the breasts of Sandy looking for those of Belina, while he admired their bums aligned. One of the coast guards tapped him on the shoulder, which he found annoying.
"Do you have a licence sir to sell alcohol on your boat?"
"No," he said, "I don´t sell alcohol, I just consume it." One of the coast guards, a man called Jeremy, replied instantly, leading Bartleby to his cabin.
"We´ve got some testimony from several resorts and bar owners in the islands nearby. They´ve told us that they received some unsolicited cases of liquor as recently as yesterday."
"Unsolicited?"
"It´s all traced to this boat, we have the wireless conversation and logbook of the transaction."
Inside Bartleby´s cabin, Jeremy found the logbook with all the details of Oleanne. He placed the handcuffs on Bartleby arresting the executive for having failed to pay value added tax on the liquor onboard and on the one distributed to major Caribbean islands of the British Virgin Islands. His life as Sugar Daddy was over. From then on, he would listen more closely to his uncle Clive, and pay more attention to the notion of marriage.