Magnetism

Twelfth Annual Conference of Numerical Astrophysics, 2014, presentations: Wednesday morning

Magnetism.

That was the sensation. I'd felt it once or twice before, a feeling completely unlike the usual sense of desire. Something needle sharp, inevitable, specific.

It set in as she talked, her voice, the knowledge that this person should be part of my life, part of my story. She spoke with clarity. Calm, efficient thoughts, laid out with confidence. Communication, and a knowing smirk, the knowledge that this is what she was wanted, that this was her destiny.

Something written in the stars.

So I sat, in the back of a dimly lit lecturer theater, awake and aware, having dozed through the previous three sessions. She told a tale spread over eons: A chance collection of particles drifting. There's collision, momentum, contradictory forces. A building pressure. Gravity, Magnetism, and then... fusion. A star is born, the dawn of a brand new day.

Her research was a single fiber of this greater tapestry: examining the interaction of magnetism with the native Coriolis effects of the accretion disk. The algebra was intricate and delicate, and she glazed over it with the confidence of a magician, uninterested in her own tricks.

The simulations were time consuming, monolithic, ugly in a way that only years of programming could teach you to appreciate, run over several months on a local cluster of super computers.

And her results?

Fragmented. Piecemeal. The project incomplete.

Completed the project would provide a means of determining the age of every star in the sky, as easily as one might count the rings on a tree, or date the carbon in a fossil.

A new way of mapping the universe.

But there were difficulties, complexities in the algebra and the algorithms. Infinities cropping up where they weren't wanted, and the results were provable only in a small number of cases under certain very limiting assumptions. She made no pretense of it, she stated where she was stuck, the dozen or so different roadblocks, each cutting off a potential avenue of solution.

But even so, we could all see it, the potential.

Throughout the question sessions she smiled and joked, relaxed, confident in the knowledge that this riddle was hers to solve.

And I watched her, confident in my understanding of a very different type of magnetism.

She left at the start of the 3pm coffee break.

I didn't see her go, and she didn't return to the conference the next day.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

RASC Summer Grad student Workshop, 2015, poster session, Thursday afternoon

It was a regular poster session at a regular conference on a regular day. Dozens of self conscious graduate students standing around their posters, hoping their research was up to the standard of their peers, and doubtless assuming that it wasn't.

The carpet was worn, the poster boards rickety. The posters themselves were big and square, some an overwhelming spider scrawl of interlocking equations, others a meticulous lay out of scatter plots and heat maps, one leading on to the next. The presenters were various also: many mousy and nervous, some enthusiastic, others bored. The judges circulated, interrogating the plaintives in their own varied manners, and I drifted about too- examining other peoples research in the hour before my own judgment would come. I drifted past a great bear of a man, arguing cheerfully with a wizened researcher, grinning and scratching at his beard the whole time, and then a pair of blinking Chinese students- presumably in their first years of grad work, new to all this, overwhelmed. I rounded a corner amongst the displays, and there she was.

I didn't recognize her at first, had completely forgotten that bright eyed scientist from a year earlier.

In that moment, she was nothing more an ethusiastic PhD student, speaking with her hands, a research topic tangentially related to mine, poster location "12B", just across the aisle. Her eyes were dark and deep, her hair a waterfall of dark curls, wolfish somehow, skin somewhere between middle eastern and eastern European. A little cluster of my fellow grad students crowded around her, drawn in by her fire.

I wandered past, returning a couple times throughout the session, hoping to catch the start of one of her presentations, but always there is a little crowd, and so it wasn't till the end of the hour when the crowds are retreating back to their own posters and I am standing before mine when I manage to catch her eye:

"You... look like someone who loves her research."

A fierce smile, and as she speaks the memory hits me:

The age of every star.

Clarity.

Magnetism.

I miss what she says.

"You were at Numerical Astrophyics weren't you?"

She smiles "I was. And so were you. I remember your talk."

She remembers.

And I remember her...

By now her eyes have already skated past me, examining the poster over my shoulder. "Who's your research supervisor?" she says.

"Erica Plymouth,"

"Collaborating with the Menson group?"

"Yeah,"

Her eyes lock back on mine.

"We should talk research some time."

And that's how it started.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We didn't catch each other at the Workshop. Both of us had friends visiting town, and colleagues to talk to, and even though we planned to meet one another at the main Dinner, and then during the lunch break, and then afterwards at the close of the workshop sessions, we repeatedly managed to miss one another, and I ended up going home, confused and frustrated at the end of the final day.

There was a sense of connection, based on next to nothing, and I felt stupid. Foolish. As if I expected chance or destiny to just line up in my favour, as if somehow the universe had gone off script, robbed me of some part of the story.

I didn't even think she was that pretty- I mean, like... she was, but there were plenty of beautiful women, and I ignored every single one of them, and this-

But I had her name: Ezra Karagoz, department of Physics, Toronto University. I was studying at York, just up the road.

I looked her up, sent an email, and then sat back, twiddled my thumbs, and tried to forget about the whole thing and get on with my life as best as possible.

Three days later I got the reply:

"Tuesday, 3pm, Aramo Espresso Bar. Don't be late."

I punched out a reply and sat back, heart pounding, wondering just what the hell I had got myself into.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Aramo Espresso bar, 2:22pm, Tuesday.

Aramo was sharp and modern, and despite arriving thirty eight minute early, I was still greeted by Ezra, waving at me from the table in the corner, smiling smugly.

"You just won me a weeks worth of free coffee."

"What?"

She pointed at a scowling barrister and smiled.

"Natalia bet me there was no way any man would show up more than half an hour early. I bet you would."

"What would have happened if you'd lost?"

"I'd have owed her free tutoring for her Calculus course."

"Tough break for her,"

Ezra waved her hand dismissively. "She'll still get her tutoring. Just not for free this week."

I could already feel the pit in my stomach before I sat. The fear of her. Exhilaration. Falling.

This woman already has me wrapped around her finger, without even trying, and I-

Natalia arrived with a cup of steaming black coffee, and I sat quickly in order to get out of her way.

Ezra regarded me expectantly from behind her cup of bitter black liquid.

"I was wondering what you could tell me about your labs recent word into partial phase electrofluids."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Aramo Espresso bar, 7:38pm, Tuesday.

We had talked for four hours, pausing briefly to order food as Ezra quizzed and interrogated me on my labs most recent work.

At some point earlier in the afternoon she had pulled out some equations and asked me to look over them, inquiring into my thoughts, what avenues I might take given the various degeneracies involved.

The algebra was a slog. The notion was unfamiliar and difficult, but Ezra was a good teacher, confident, happy to clarify any detail I happened to misunderstand, good at coming up with examples. I asked her about one of the formulations on page five of the paper she had me checking over, and she paused, and sketched out a little phase diagram, and then the entire page made sense. I felt foolish, but she nodded, "This is good, this is the sort of feedback I need. An unfamiliar eye that still knows enough to follow."

I nod, return my focus to the paper.

Its not till hours later, when its dark outside, that I remember that I'm supposed to be overwhelmed by her, self conscious.

But I'm not.

I feel relaxed. Sure of my self. Familiar.

I can tell this woman is brilliant, but also that I might be of some use to her.

I can tell that she is confident, but that arrogance is well earned.

I can't tell what she expects of me, but I don't imagine that she'll startle either.

Normally I'd feel like an asshole for turning something professional into something...else.

But it doesn't feel like that, does it?

"Hey Ezra,"

"Hmmm?" Her eyes do not leave the document she is reading.

"I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner some time."

"You already did," her left hand drags a fork around the empty plate lying in front of her, flecks of pastry catching at the tines.

"That's not what I meant, I meant-"

"I know what you meant," she doesn't look up, but I can tell by the movement of her eyes that she isn't reading any more. "You think I'd have taken that bet with Natalia if I didn't know?"

I pause, feeling stupid.

"I can tell that your interested in me. Could tell from the beginning. Guys like you are so stupid some times... just assuming the rest of us don't notice what's going on."

Should I apologize? Should I ask her for a straight answer? Am I meant to be embarrassed?

This has happened before, hasn't it?

"You can walk me home."

And then she goes back to reading.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

She didn't read for much longer after that, and then we packed, and left Natalia to shut up the shop.

The streets were busy with cars, and we didn't talk as we walk together. Ezra seemed busy with thoughts, and I...

I had my own concerns.

Mainly cursing myself to be honest.

Here was this charming, intelligent woman, trying to make her way in the male dominated field of physics, and instead of research collaboration she got some stupid guy mooning over her and-

and I wanted her.

It was that simple. There was no denying it. No pretending otherwise or brushing the fact aside.

I could feel her presence, drifting at my side. Feel the urge to reach out and touch her- take hold of her hand. We walked past houses. Houses and shops, and at some point a park. And always the magnetism, that fatal attraction towards her, and it felt so right, like a path laid out before me. Except... also it felt toxic. An undercurrent pulling us towards a reef.

We arrived at her house, and I pulled my disjoint thoughts together, promised myself I'd do the right thing, and looked her in the eye on her doorstep.

"I could drop it," I say "Just say the word and I'll drop the whole thing- just focus on the research, I won't chase after you, or ask you out or-"

"Could you?" Her voice is cool, calm, like the Autumn air, and the silence hangs between us.

I can feel it.

That dangerous familiarity.

The magnetism.

That dream like knowledge that I am meant to be standing here.

Overhead the street lamp hums uncomfortably, illuminating Ezra, and her silky white top, the fabric in layers, overflowing over her, puffy sleeves. A Mobius strip of gentle fabric.

"I can feel it too you know," she gestures, the movement vague, resigned. "That's what's pissing me off, you keep assuming I don't know things. But I do. This isn't the first time this has happened."

I'm an ass.

...

She can feel it too.

I look up from the ground, meet her eyes, and for the first time I realize just how tired she is. No longer running on the endorphin high of investigation, she seems washed out, exhausted.

"Come inside Leath," She gestures with her head towards the door. "Nothings going to happen tonight, so you can keep your pants on... but you're meant to be here... and I do like you."

"Meant"?

"you sure?"

She turns and shakes her head.

"Stop doubting me, I know what I want. Don't make me change my mind."

I follow her through a brick archway, up a flight of stairs with shabby red carpet, and finally... through the door to her apartment.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ezra's Apartmentr, 7:04am, Wednesday.

I wake up on her couch. Painful.

Ezra isn't up yet, and I get up, stumble around the lounge of her apartment, half awake. I'm still wearing yesterdays clothes, and the room presumably smells like me, even if I can't smell it myself, so self consciously I open a window.

Light and chill autumn air stream in. We're on the fourth floor, looking out across the grey roads and other brick buildings, and off in the corner if your get the angle right it a ribbon of trees following the line of an old railway.

I let the air stream over me, the ashy smell of the city complimented by musty undertones of rotting leaves and damp earth.

Soon the snow will come, locking all those natural smells away, leaving only the car exhaust smell of the city.

I turn back and examine the room. Its a grad student apartment. Narrow. Tatty. Tidy in the sense that no one wants to make so much mess that the other house mates are annoyed.

There's noise in the kitchen, and I shamble over, expecting to see Ezra.

Instead its some other woman, some other girl. Red haired, round faced, curved body, wearing what I guess might be called a silk shift.

I never really learned all the different names for women's clothes, so its hard to tell.

She looks me up and down. While I stare at her, wondering if she perhaps knows where Ezra keeps the coffee.

"You must be Leath,"

I nod, remember my manners, open my mouth. "Yeah," I manage.

She steps forward, her body moving around her, sticking her hand out towards me. "Cassie" she says.

I take the hand and shake, still trying to figure out what is going on, and then she returns to the stove top.

A minute or so latter coffee and scrambled eggs are shoved into my hands, and I am shooed away to the lounge.

I was half way through my meal by the time Cassie showed up and sat down on the couch next to me with her own bowl and mug. She sat, legs crossed, skin flushed and pink, attractive in a way far safer and easier to understand than my deranged attachment to Ezra.

She was hot. Skin was showing. She was pudgy in a way, her flesh pushing out against the straps that held up her shift, pushing out as if desperately trying to contain the share amount of woman that they had been made responsible for. Her legs were thick like tree trunks, and given the way she was sitting cross legged, completely out on display. I examined her tats, images of machinery and Fae creatures, locked in combat or embrace.

It was easy to imagine fucking her, being fucked by her, her body pressing down against me, enveloping me. With Ezra it was difficult, impossible, yet even so, I knew that given the choice between the two, I would take Ezra every time.

Fucking hell.

"Ezra says you'll be around for a while,"

"She does?"

Cassie meets my gaze calmly and nods.

"She says you're meant to be here, and won't cause any trouble, and I said that's fine, but there's a few rules to go over."

I down my coffee, shake my head in hopes of clearing it, and nod.

"No more sleeping on the couch," she says firmly. "Its shared space, not Zee's personal spare bedroom."

"Okay..."

"If she wants you staying overnight, it has to be in her room. Either in her bed or on the floor, frankly I don't fucking care, but not out here. This couch is evil, and will do spinal injuries to your back, amongst other things."

I nod, trying to process this ruling and wondering how it will mesh with Ezra's expectations of appropriate distance.

"Also: While you're here, Zee's wellbeing is your responsibility. It's your job to wash her, feed her, make sure she gets outside every once in a while, and keep an eye on her calender. She doesn't have any important meetings at the university till Monday, so you're lucky on that score,"

"I-"

"She's a scientist. jackass. And I know you are too, and if you are anything like her, I'm going to get back from the weekend, and the two of you are going to be sitting around the lounge in a pile of take-out boxes stinking like a bunch of homeless kids and wearing the same clothes you are now."

She looks at her watch.

"Now, its 8am, so you've got at least two hours until Zee wakes up. I recommend that you use it to go home, pack some spare clothes, and get back here with your laptop and some snacks. I recommend fruit, that way the pair of your will get some nutrition over the next few days."

"Ummm..."

"I'm heading off for field work in a few hours, so I won't be here when you get back. The pots and pans in the kitchen are now your responsibility. She has her coffee ultra dark, so if you can swallow it, it's probably too dilute, here's a spare key to let yourself back in, any questions?"

I take the key, finally feeling awake, feeling on a precipice, looking down, everything laid out clearly before me, except too small to truly comprehend. My mind if ticking, boiling, churning away, and I try to catch threads of it, relevant questions, any information I can make use of.

"Has this happened before?"

"Zee going into insane research mode? Yes. Having a boy over at the same time? No."

"Why are you so sure I'll hang around?"

"Zee seems pretty sure. Zee trusts you."

"Why?"

"You'll have to ask her that."

"Thank you for breakfast."

"No problem."

"When will you be back?"

"Monday evening, not sure what time."

"I'll have dinner for you."

She blinks. "Thanks..."

We stare at each other a moment longer, and then she stands, stretching, her entire bulk moving, and I am given some idea of the power in her arms.

I watch as she walks away: a powerful pale skinned beast who could pin me down and do whatever she wants with me.

The image is electric, by even so, I know that once she's gone, I'll forget about her.

With Ezra things would never be that simple.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ezra got up at eleven thirty, and apparently had only bothered to emerge on the grounds that she had finished coding and her computer was calculating numeric solutions to some of the equations we had been working on the previous day.

Upon finding out I also had a computer, she commandeered it, copying programs onto it from her github account, and setting it to work, and only once all available computational resources were in use did she finally allow herself to relax and eat the food that I offered her.

"Those two are going to take a while," I told her "Would you like to go for a walk?"

She looked at the two machines and nodded.

Three minutes later we were both outside.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ezra grew up in Karasu, Turkey, and chattered away about it as we walked. She lived with her parents and two bothers in a five story high apartment building, identical to two dozen other five story high apartment buildings, with a view out over the Black Sea.