Chapter 21: Catastrophe

Jaime and Keira

«CAN I SPEND the night with you?» Keira cried as she and Jaime held each other.

«You know I want you, » Jaime said. «But we promised. No remorse. No regrets. And I don’t think it’s a good idea to make love to each other for the first time when we’re hurting from being rejected so callously. We’d always associate our first time with her rejection.»

«You’re right, of course. I just don’t want to be apart from you. We’re completely naked lying on the sofa together, loving each other, reveling in our feelings of being united. But neither one of us is turned on. You’re not hard. I’m drying up. Oh, hold me, Jaime! Show me how much you love me.»

«I love you to the height and width and depth of my soul, Keira. You are all the world to me. My soulmate.»

«We’ll make love, Jaime. Soon. We have each other and that whole is still greater than the sum. I love you. Hold me and just let me feel you as we touch.»

«I didn’t think your aunt would give her that kind of advice, » Jaime sighed internally.

«She didn’t see my aunt. My aunt is Dr. Edmonds. Who is Dr. Schwartz?»

«I don’t know, but I don’t like him. Maybe I’ll go see him myself and show him what an imaginary friend looks like in the flesh.»

«Honey, don’t be upset tonight. Not over that. We have enough to be upset about. Let’s just have each other.»

«That’s all we really need.»

Jaime and Keira stayed naked, lying on the sofa long after the movie had ended and another started. They dozed a little, sharing dreams of a life together. Eventually, their amorous thoughts returned and as they kissed, their bodies moved together and brought them once again to a climax.

A barely present sigh echoed in the back of their minds.

They managed to get dressed just before David got home at one.

Trayce

Trayce was sad. She wasn’t quite miserable. It was the kind of sadness that comes when there is no joy around. She’d gotten used to having joy in her life. That her joy came from imaginary friends disturbed her and made her sad.

She lay awake for a long time that night. Even implementing Dr. Schwartz’s key word triggers to block out voices in her head, she was still aware of them. They were sad, too. When they finally fell asleep, she did, too.

In the daylight the next morning, it didn’t seem so bad. Her characters weren’t living together, so even though she felt a stray thought or two, it wasn’t as if they were actually having sex. She half-remembered sighing with satisfaction in her sleep, but that could have been from anything. Right? She’d written down a couple of those scenes, but there was still no story to her story.

It had been that way since puberty. She’d always been creative and made up stories, but when she started reading fan fiction for some of her favorite books, she discovered the erotic side of her stories. It was fun to ‘ship’ two favorite characters, putting them in a romantic relationship. And that was when her characters started talking to her.

She could be almost anywhere and suddenly a character she did or didn’t recognize would randomly start talking. She would giggle a little, then rush home to write a story about the character, sometimes giving it a place in an existing fictional universe, and occasionally just setting the story in her school. She usually inserted herself as either the second party or even as a third.

But she’d never had characters as real or persistent as Jaime and Keira—characters who talked to her. And they were hot! And sexy! They did things she’d never imagined before and she could absolutely feel what they were doing. Who would have thought that she could not only feel what was going on with the girl, who had the same equipment she did, but with a boy! She could feel him getting hard—could feel where in his gut the flow started and the entire passageway his come followed into his girlfriend’s ... mouth! She’d never seriously considered oral sex as an option like that.

When they started insisting they were real, she knew she had a serious problem. She knew she needed help. She couldn’t talk to her mother about it. Even though her mother had gotten active in AA and had a new counselor, they were still light years apart, it seemed.

How long will it take until the yearning goes away? Trayce thought. That must be what her mother felt about alcohol.

Keira had told her to visit a psychiatrist named Edmonds, but she certainly wasn’t taking advice from her characters. The first counselor she found who could take her for an immediate appointment was Dr. Schwartz. She didn’t really want to go to a male doctor, but beggars can’t be choosers, her mother always said.

He was nice. He said it wasn’t uncommon for very creative women to imagine voices starting around puberty. It was just their intense creativity operating in their brains. He’d even explained what he called the bicameral brain and how one side could talk to the other. What she was hearing was actually her own internal voice.

Okay. So, I already know it’s all in my head! What do I do about it?

Dr. Schwartz was understanding, if a little patronizing. But his interest reached a new high when she told him about the two characters who talked back to her and insisted they were real. That seemed to open a different chapter and he wanted to know all about them. She declined to give him their names because she’d just made those up. He wanted to know all about when and where she heard them. It was embarrassing to admit it was usually during masturbation, but had occurred at other times.

He gave her exercises she could use to block the voices and encouraged her to stay away from them if she heard them. Engaging with them could deepen her dependency. He said to simply say goodbye to them and not let them bother her again.

So, Friday night, even though she’d determined not to participate, she found herself with her hand between her legs and the characters having sex in her head. And what sex they had! Without even penetration. But she never would have thought she’d imagine taking him in her mouth and letting him spurt his stuff there. It was just so intense!

She had to force herself to part from them and say goodbye. It was a resolution she was determined to keep.

Jaime

Keira and Jaime intended to go to the ballet Saturday evening. Jaime was going to drive the two of them for the first time since he’d gotten his driver’s license. That had been an ordeal, but he finally succeeded in using his father as an interpreter to explain the process as described in the manual for testing deaf drivers. The tester finally agreed when he understood that he could give Jaime oral instructions but Jaime couldn’t respond while he had both hands on the steering wheel where they belonged.

Before he could meet Keira, Jaime had to go grocery shopping with his father—usually, a favorite outing for the two. They stopped for lunch at a diner and then went on to the store. They usually stayed together while shopping because that was part of the fun. They had their list and the menus for the week.

“We’re out of salsa!” Jaime signed. “I’ll go back and get it.”

“Don’t forget chips,” his father laughed. Jaime took off for the aisle they’d passed just a minute before.

Stupid bitch! Thinks she can just ditch me? I’ll show her. Nobody tells me we’re breaking up. She changed the fucking locks! I’ll kill her. I know she’s here somewhere.

Whoever it was, the broadcast of his thoughts was loud and clear and nearby. It brought Jaime to a stop with a jar of their favorite salsa in hand. The narrative of what the guy would do to his bitch girlfriend continued and Jaime could see he had serious intent to kill or maim the woman. He ran across the ends of the aisles until he spotted the man halfway down between the toilet paper and tissues. He turned up the aisle, not knowing what he could do.

A woman pushing a grocery cart crossed the aisle at the end and the boyfriend raised a gun.

«No!» Jaime shouted with his mind. He sprinted toward the man with the jar of salsa raised in his hand.

“Bitch! Nobody breaks up with me!” the guy shouted.

Jaime hit the man in the head with the jar of salsa, shattering it all over. His momentum carried the man to the floor as a second shot rang out. Jaime’s jump carried him onto the man, but his grip on the guy’s shoulders and the broken salsa jar as he struggled to deflect the shot meant his own head was unprotected and he, too, hit the floor—and a shard of the broken glass.

Jaime and Kenton

That’s got to be him! He saw the guy in his head. Someone was watching as David ran to hold his son. Jaime was swimming in and out of consciousness.

Why didn’t he yell? That would have turned the man and protected the woman. Stupid!

Jamie recognized the head taste. He’d heard that inner voice before.

«I’m not stupid. I can’t out-loud talk!»

The man ignored him and continued to rant in his head about missed opportunities, but he’d know now where to find the kid. That was two parts of his needed gestalt. He just needed to get them together where he could control them.

“Jaime! Jaime, are you okay?” David screamed as he slid to the floor on the spattered salsa. He kicked the gun away from the shooter’s flexing fingers and knelt to cradle his son. A store employee ran up with a tape dispenser and wrapped the shooter’s hands together as the guy began spitting profanities.

I could have collected him today, but not while he’s injured and has attention all around him. Damn it! So close!

Jaime exerted all his effort to focus on the outside world and shut the bastard out of his mind.

“Jaime! You’re safe, just stay still.” David grabbed a roll of paper towels the store guy handed him and tore off a dozen sheets to press against Jaime’s head where he was bleeding. “An ambulance is on the way. Police are coming into the store now.”

Jaime tried to look toward the end of the aisle where the shooter’s target was lying. But she wasn’t dead. She was screaming in pain. The shooter had hit her in the leg, his shot thwarted by Jaime’s impact. She pushed herself to a seated position as other shoppers tried to help her. Having shut out all the thoughts of people surrounding them, Jaime was acutely aware of the rising volume of physical noise in the store.

“I heard the shot and looked up,” the stock boy with the tape was yelling at a policeman. “This guy hit him from behind and knocked him to the ground. He’s a hero!”

“Okay, okay. Take it easy. We’ll get an official statement.”

The officer snapped handcuffs on the shooter over the tape the stock boy had used. Another officer carefully chalked the outline of the gun and bagged it. The ambulance crew was rushing to take the woman out of the store as she was still screaming. An officer had chalked an outline where she had fallen.

It all seemed to happen at once, but it was actually several minutes before enough emergency responders had arrived to get the entire situation under control. Even fire trucks showed up.