xp_logs | Dani & Manuel - I feel pretty!

Danielle heads to Manuel's room to work on homework, which ends up leading to empathic not-sex. He also helps her understand business math.

Manuel leaned back in his chair and looked at Dani critically. "Tell me, does it feel better now? Has the pressure receeded?" he asked her, keeping an empathic eye on the mirror-wall he'd erected around the walls, floor, and ceiling of his room. He could feel the difference, but he wanted to be sure _she_ could.

"It's like day and night," Dani replied from where she was sitting on his bed, marvelling at the shield. "I mean...the only stress is mine...Thanks. This beats the box anyday. Tell me if you can't hold it anymore though, okay?"

Manuel nodded, with only a slight furrow between his eyes to show the strain he was under. "Should hold for a while, anyway. So what did you bring to work on?"

Rooting through her bookbag, she pulled out a text book and a notebook, balancing them on her stomach gingerly while she rooted for her calculator and a pencil. "Business math," she made a face at it. "I just don't get it. Debit, credit...makes no sense."

Manuel grinned and showed her the textbook he was studying out of. "Finance 303." he said with a grin. "Your course is a prereq for the stuff I'm studying now. I should be able to help you, assuming I can split my attentions well." he explained. "So, start at the beginning. What are you struggling with first and foremost?"

"Everything," she muttered, opening her book and pulling out her review sheets. "You add to debit some accounts and subtract to debit others...it's just random. Ain't right."

"It is, Danielle my dear, far from random. OK, let's start from the top. Debits on the left, credits on the right. Let's take a look at one of your examples here, and I'll see if I can help you understand. Finance is a grand game, but it can be intimidating to the uninitiated." he said with a grin, moving over to sit on his bed next to her.

Despite being in the class all semester, she still thought it was greek and that Manuel understood it was nothing short of amazing, "You got money, remember? I ain't got nothing. But we got computer programs for the kitchen, so why bother with this?"

"Depends. How much do you like being ripped off?" he asked her casually, glancing at her review sheets. "OK, basic beginner stuff. Let's talk assets. Do you feel you understand what, precisely, an asset is?"

"Something you got that's worth something. Like a house or car."

"That's not a bad start at a definition. More precisely, an asset is the entries on a balance sheet showing all properties, both tangible and intangible, and claims against others that may be applied to cover the liabilities of a person or business. Assets can include cash, stock, inventories, property rights, and goodwill." he quoted from memory. "So not only is it stuff that you own, but it's markers you can call in. Things you are owed."

"But you got things you owe too...usually more than you have," Dani replied, speaking from experience. "So you have liabilities."

Manuel grinned. "In a manner of speaking. An obligation to pay an amount in money, goods, or services to another party is the formal definition. And what you have after you subtract your liabilities from your assets is your profit. Assets - liabilities - owner's equity - taxes = profit. Do you know what owner's equity is?"

Dani looked at him blankly. "This ain't making sense!"

"Sure it is. Think it through. You've got your assets. Say, these sheets of paper here. Now you've got liabilities. Oop, these go some of our sheets of paper. What do you call what's left over?" he said, trying to find a way to explain it so she'd understand.

"Paper?" she guessed, not quite understanding. "Less paper."

Manuel reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. "OK, let's see if _this_ gets it through. Say I've got ... fifty dollars here. Like so." he said, laying two twenties and a ten down on the bedspread. "Those are my assets, si? Now, let's say that I owe Danielle some money. I've got her listed as a liability, because she'd like to be paid back for the coffee she bought." he elaborated, and handed her one of his twenties. "But here's Amanda over here, and she wants to be paid for the CDs she bought him last week." He took the other twenty and put it to the side. "What do you call the $10 that's left?"

"What's left of your money, so...owner's equity?" That did not fit with the definition in her notebook. "It says here that it's the owner's money. So you're the owner?"

"It was my $50 originally, and this is my balance sheet, so that makes me the owner." he said, pleased that she was starting to get it. "In Real Life, it gets a little more complicated than that - there's taxes and all sorts of other stuff here. But this is just the basics."

"We always got our tax money back," Dani pointed out. "Ain't ever had to pay."

"Someday that won't be the case." he said firmly. "You won't be in the no-tax income bracket forever."

"I will be for a while though. Until I get a real job," she pointed out, "At least now I'm off government money. That's a step up. Government cheese is ain't good."

Manuel wrinkled his nose. "Remind me to send flowers to Emma Frost and pay for Marie-Ange and Doug to go someplace nice for a meal. Govermnet cheese is not good. Not is ain't. Now, back to the accounting. We've got the balance sheet down. What's next?"

"What's wrong with 'ain't'!" she demanded, mildly annoyed. There wasn't anything wrong with how she spoke!

"Take it up with the natives, I just know what they crammed into my head." he said with a shrug. "But ain't isn't a word. It makes you sound uneducated, rough, coarse. Is that what you want? To be coarse, uneducated, rough?"

"It's what I am!" Dani pointed out, miffed. She'd noticed that no one else spoke like she did, not even Jay, but it was how everyone had spoken on the rez, "Not everyone grew up with cavier and dancing girls!"

"Caviar is, I've always felt, overrated. Pate de fois gras, on the other hand, is simply divine." he said with a grin.

Dani made a face, they'd had pate at the wedding and she'd tried a little. It tasted like sandpapery grossness, not something she wanted. "Give me a hamburger any day. Or frybread..." Damn, now she was hungry again. It was a perpetual thing it seemed.

"I am actually not terribly fond of hamburgers. At least the ones I've had. I know not this frybread you speak of. One of your traditional dishes, is it?" he asked her.

That wasn't right, "I make frybread every damn day and you've never had it!? It's....the best thing ever. Better than...sex." That was an exaggeration, but Dani thought she had the best frybread this side of the Missisippi so she wasn't too concerned with the overstatement.

"Better than sex? You've never had sex empathic-style, have you?" he said with an amused look. "Trust me - once you've gone in deep and shared everything, regular old sex is, well, just nice."

Empathic sex? That was a new idea, "My powers were mostly ignorable until I got pregnant...and I ain't had sex since before December. So no. Unless you're offering?" Dani teased, knowing he'd say no. Truth be told, even if he was willing she wouldn't have.

Manuel stopped to think about it for a second. "Not right now. Pregnant women? Not really my thing." he said with a smile to take any hurt away. A thought came to him, a wickedly wrong thought, and he had to fight to push it aside. But it refused to leave, damn it. And Amanda wouldn't be back until at least tomorrow. If not later.

"I'm as big as a whale. It ain't happening," she said, seeing that he had actually thought about it. She hadn't expected him to do that, "I don't even know if I can now."

"You won't be as big as a whale forever." The thought called to him, tempting him into something he probably shouldn't do. And he was never much of one for resisting temptation. "You look stressed. Your emotions are a mess, you're all spiky. For very good reasons, mind you. I want to make you feel better - for your own sake, and for mine. Up for it?" he asked teasingly.

Raising an eyebrow, she considered it. "Let me pee first," she decided, moving her books and working her way off the bed. "Then you can try."

"Be my guest. Mi casa et su casa." he said with a laugh. As she went about her business, he checked his concentration levels. He should be able to do this and hold the shield at the same time. It would be a good workout for him.

"Where you want me?" she asked, coming back in the room. The idea of relaxing even a little was too appealing to pass up at the moment. Especially with finals so soon after the wedding. For once she'd gotten good sleep, but even good sleep wasn't that great anymore.

"On the bed will be fine. Get comfortable." he said, arranging himself on his desk chair. "This shouldn't take too long. But I should tell you - it will be personal. My word is my bond, I will speak _nothing_ of anything that happens."

It was a good thing Manuel had a lot of pillows on his bed, Dani thought as she lay down on her side. Pillows were good. Closing her eyes, she waited, hoping whatever he was going to do worked, although she was both reassured and worried about him giving his word not to repeat anything. "I trust you."

"Good." he said, and then concentrated. Hard. His eyes screamed red as they always did when he pushed his power. He could feel Danielle, feel everything that she felt. And to that, he added pure pleasure. Raw, unbridled pleasure. He added it slowly, never coming anywhere near her limit to assimilate what she was feeling at his prompting. He wanted her to feel good - to feel like a woman should, to feel the joy she hadn't felt in a long time.

This was different. Warm almost, but not quite and in all the right places. Everything was better...and more than that, everything seemed like it would always be better than what it was. As the emotions ran over her, her muscles relaxed, causing her to feel better than she had in months. Perhaps more importantly, she felt pretty.

Manuel smiled as he felt her relax. That was better, but she wasn't quite there yet. It was really the least he could do. He kept the pleasure going, this time shifting it into something more carnal, less all-over feel-good happyvibes. The poor girl, having been deprived for so long! She deserved it. And while he couldn't, _wouldn't_ do anything physically, this was different. Harmless. No one got hurt.

The feelings faded and Danielle opened on eye carefully. She felt good. More than good. Words did not describe how good really. "Nóoo. That was...what did you do?" she asked, trying to figure out what had happened even as her brain refused to think. It was stuck in the happy place and did not want to leave. Wonderous frabjous joy.

*wow*

Manuel grinned. "I have some small experience in, shall we say, making people feel good? And I can do it with just my brain, as you just saw. Feeling better now?" he asked her with a grin. "Ready to work some more on the business math?"

She somehow managed to look at him in disbelief despite still laying down, "You want me to think about math after that?"

Manuel grinned. "What, you want a cigarette and a shower first?" he quipped. "Take some time, recover, get your feel underneath you." he said. "And you know - there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to learn how to do that for other people. It's a function of empathy."

Shooting Manuel a dirty look Dani righted herself, pulling her hair out of her face. "I don't broadcast like that though," she pointed out grinning, "I make images, remember? Make your fantasies come to life." Now would be the perfect time to do that too, if she could control it.

"Well then." he said with a laugh. "Perhaps something to be explored another day, hrm?" he grinned. Teasing Danielle was wrong, but it made him feel good, so he did it.

"Heavohe Devil," she laughed, gathering her books. Normally his teasing was all in fun and she didn't mind it, but now she just didn't care. "Back to my review sheet then."

*Spanish Devil*