Dinner with Diana (Part 2)

I heard that right, didn’t I? She said I was like… someone. Did that mean…? “Y-You know someone else who…?”

“Supposedly,” Diana said. “I know someone who claims to have… magic powers. Excuse me for not giving you a name.”

“It’s… fine.” I was more than a little stunned. Diana truly didn’t seem that shocked by all this, but at the same time, it was almost like she didn’t believe it. “Supposedly?”

“It’s hard to believe a claim like that, don’t you think? Maria is very into tarot readings, astrology, karma and that stuff, but just because she believes it doesn’t mean they are real.”

“I… suppose.”

Diana sighed. “However, this person… He makes a far more convincing case. He did read my mind. Twice, actually. And there are other things that make me more inclined to believe it.”

“Like…?”

Diana stopped for a moment to think. I guessed she was considering whether revealing more would hint at the identity of this person or not. “He also has multiple partners, but no one seems to bat an eye at it. It goes beyond mere acceptance. No one questions it. I didn’t, either, until we talked and he revealed to me that it was thanks to magic.”

Obviously, the image of a person popped in my mind immediately. Mr. Luke Allen was a man with three girlfriends, and until I brought it up, Mila and Thomas thought it was normal. It didn’t prove it was the same person Diana was talking about, but I had no one else to think of. I considered speaking his name and watching her reaction to it, but she didn’t want to reveal this person’s identity, and I would respect that.

“So you believe it?” I asked her.

“It’s hard not to, but… Since then, I’ve ignored it. For what it's worth, he revealed it to me as a sign of trust, or so he said.”

Our food was getting cold, but neither of us touched it. It felt… inappropriate to eat with such a topic hanging over us.

“I’m sorry,” Diana said with a small, regretful smile. “I ruined our meal, didn’t I?”

I chuckled. “I suppose it could’ve waited until we had eaten.”

Her smile grew a bit more.

I sighed. “I admit, I want to ask you more about this person, but you clearly don’t want to reveal much more.”

Diana nodded. “If he did tell me this as a sign of trust, then I won’t say more about it. I only brought it up because it’s relevant now.”

“So… What do we do?” I asked.

“...I don’t know. It’s not like I really understand much about ‘magic’, if anything at all.” Diana crossed her arms below her chest and looked out the window with a faint grimace.

I understood how this complicated things. She was worried about the power dynamic between us, with her being older and I much younger. But if I had… unknown, supernatural abilities, how did that change things? Was she the one who had to be wary of me? We were strangers to each other. That she was still willing to talk said she trusted me to some extent, but how much further could she go? At the same time, that she knew someone who claimed to have magical abilities could also be troublesome for me.

I sighed, picked up my hamburger and took a bite. Thankfully, it was still warm enough to taste good. Diana looked at me with a surprised but amused smile. She picked up her fork and began to eat as well.

“Would you mind if I just spill out everything that comes to mind? Whatever you think about afterwards is completely up to you. How does that sound?” I asked her after wiping my mouth with a napkin.

She swallowed her food and nodded wordlessly.

“I don’t know anything about magic, either. I’m aware of some things, but I basically woke up one day with supernatural abilities that are… mostly…” I coughed once to clear my throat, “sexual in nature.”

Diana’s eyes went wide, and her cheeks turned pink, then red. That she was surprised told me that the person she knew probably had powers of a different nature.

“I don’t control what I do, mostly. It either happens randomly or it’s some sort of persistent, passive effect”, I continued in between bites of my hamburger. “The one thing I’ve consciously done was probably something similar to what your friend did to normalize his relationship with multiple women, and even then it came from the source of my abilities rather than anything I myself did. I am trying to learn a bit more, though. If I really do have these powers, I’d like to use them to make my relationship with my girlfriends work, to make it the best it can be. It’s… a stupid wish of mine that I never thought I’d actually try to make come true, but they keep encouraging it.” Despite myself, a smile still crossed my lips at the thought of those five girls.

“Still, my biggest fear is hurting people, be they my close friends or complete strangers.” I looked Diana in the eyes as I said that. “We don’t know each other at all, do we? We’re total strangers with an eight year gap between us, and yet when I saw you for the first time, I felt something… strong that I couldn’t ignore.”

I felt my cheeks heat up and looked away from her, out the window.

“You can write it off as an idiot kid falling for a ridiculously attractive woman, but that wasn’t it. It was a powerful feeling that… told me maybe things could work out between us despite the age difference. Since that day, I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind. I admit, it bordered on obsession. I was looking everywhere, hoping I’d randomly meet you again.”

I swallowed hard. “That feeling persists even now, but I do understand that these are just words. Hell, my actions can’t exactly prove my intentions, either, at least not immediately. For all you know, this is all just an act. Still, I’ll say it anyway. The last thing I want is to hurt you or take advantage of you, and I think the feeling is mutual.”

I took a deep breath. Speaking like this, saying whatever came to mind and to hell with the shame, was making me light headed. My vision blurred every other minute, too, and my face and ears felt on fire.

“I know I’m getting ahead of myself, I do, but I really want to give this a shot, because I can’t go back to missing out on everything just because I was too scared of worst-case scenarios. It’s why I’m here now. It was my chance to see you again, to get to know you and see if my gut feeling was right. But despite all this, I refuse to be the type to disregard what the other person thinks. If you’re worried about my abilities, if you think I’m insane for believing I have them, or if you still have your own misgivings and think that, no, things couldn’t work out, then that’s that.”

Diana set her fork down, wiped her mouth with a napkin and spoke. “You’re right. You ARE getting ahead of yourself.” I flinched, but when I looked at her again, I saw her giving me a gentle, beautiful smile. “You’re not the only one who feels that way.”

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