Chapter 2: Back to School Again

August 30th - September 30th, 1988

“What’s up, man?” Brad said cheerfully, leaning up against the wall outside the high school’s main entrance. “Nice to see you alive and in the flesh.”

“Thanks, Brad. Wow. What did you do while I was dead? Go all-natural or something? You look great!”

“Shit, man. Sandi talked me into doing aerobics with her. I just humored her at first, but now...” he said, bending backward until his hands touched the ground, then proceeded to smoothly transfer his entire weight onto his hands to do a handstand.

“WOW!” I exclaimed, having used my empathic senses to determine his expected reaction. “Doing aerobics let you do that?”

“Nah,” he said as he walked on his hands a few steps then jumped back onto his feet. “That’s just what started it. When I got to the point where Sandi couldn’t keep up with me, I started trying different things. I guess I just have the body for this shit. Sandi thinks I should be a gymnast, and sometimes I think she’s right. I think it’s really going to help when basketball starts up.”

“Hey, make a muscle,” I said, my empathic senses picking up his desire to show his body off a little more.

“I work out every day in the basement with some new weights I got from a neighbor down the street when they moved. Sandi gets a kick of watching me, especially when I do it in the nude.”

“Shit, Brad,” I said as I felt the hard muscle in his arm. “Between you and Joey, I’m looking more like a wimp. Wait. I just remembered something. Weren’t you mad at me before I died?”

“Yeah, well ... I’m sorry for being an asshole about that. After your, er, death, I finally figured out you were right about giving Sandi her freedom. Fuck, man. If you hadn’t, Sandi would have never got me into doing aerobics or start her slut club.”

“What?” I said, this time feeling the surprise I had earlier faked on Brad’s account.

“Yeah, man. She and Karen decided to start their own private club, and talked one of her other friends, Kris, into joining. Shit, man. Sometimes I think I’m the sex slave with Sandi being my master. Not that I’m complaining. I love letting them practice being sluts on me.”

“They fuck you?” I said, getting a woody in my shorts.

“Shit ya,” he said with a grin. “I miss being able to decide when and where, but when they want to fuck, I don’t care if I’m the one being told to strip bare.”

“I’m glad things worked out for you,” I said, getting a hold on my arousal. “I hope you take precautions.”

“Precautions? Shit, man. You sound like a sex ed commercial. They’re on birth control, and I use condoms. And they’ve already sworn to not fuck anyone else but me while they’re in the club. Of course, that might change soon.”

“Why? Are you getting tired of being the only stud?”

“Fuck no. I just think Sandi is starting to ... Holy shit! I have to go!”

“Starting to what?!” I called after him as he gracefully slipped through the crowd.

I noticed a lot of eyes lingering on me after having drawn attention to myself. Several of those eyes were people who I seemed to know, but my empathic senses were telling me they considered me someone to stay away from, everyone having heard about my faked death and all.

In fact, as I walked to the office to meet with Dr. Higgs, I recalled the distant feelings that people had felt when I had come back from my college venture last year. The desire to keep their distance was even stronger this time, but unlike the last time, this didn’t disturb me in the least.

“Good morning Tim,” Dr. Higgs said, walking up to me before I could reach the office door. “Where’s your notebook paper and pens?”

“I, uh...” I said, having completely forgotten all about school supplies. I had left them all at school before my death, and for some reason, expected them to still be in my locker. Of course, when I went to it, I found the combination had been changed and a different student’s stuff inside after a janitor opened it up with their passkey. I had gone out to my new car to check for anything I could use, but all I found was a bunch of sex toys in the glove compartment - which wasn’t all a bad thing I might add.

“You didn’t bring any?” Dr. Higgs asked, surprised.

“I didn’t really think I would need anything. But when I went to my locker, my stuff was gone.”

“We cleaned it out at the end of the year. I’m sure we have something in the supply room you can use for today,” he said, hiding his slight irritation from everything but my empathic senses.

I said, “I’m sorry I came unprepared. It won’t happen again.”

“Here we go,” he said as we walked into the supply room. “Looks like you’ll have to make do with this,” he said, handing me a yellow legal pad, “and these,” plopping a small box of a dozen pre-sharpened pencils on top.

“Thank you,” I simply said, not quite sure of how to interpret his emotions.

“Do you have your class schedule?”

“Yes, sir. I got it yesterday when Mr. Jonas and I worked it out in the counselor’s office.”

“Good. You better get going. The bell will be ringing soon.”

I took a couple of steps intending to leave, then stopped, turned around, and said, “Dr. Higgs? I’m confused. I thought you wanted me to go to school here.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise, then said, “Well, of course, I do.”

“Then why are you being so ... emotional?”

“Emo ... Oh, I see. I’m sorry, Tim. I didn’t mean to direct my frustration at you. The first week of a new school year is always kind of tense for me. No matter how well I prepare, no matter how much I look forward getting back into the groove of things, something always seems to spoil my mood.”

“Did I spoil it for you?”

“No, you had nothing to do with it,” he said with a sigh. “Yesterday after you left, a fight broke out in the cafeteria and one of the students got hurt. Nothing life-threatening, but he had to go to the hospital for a few stitches.”

“Anyone I knew?” I asked as I felt him relax a little while walking me out.

“Jay Wilkerson. He apparently decided to try his luck at being a senior and picked on the wrong freshman, that’s all. When this kid didn’t take his bullying, Jay shoved the kid into someone else’s table and spilled a few drinks.”

“So the kid was who got the stitches,” I stated.

“No, it was Jay. Scott, the kid who Jay was picking on, apparently has experience in self-defense. He got up into Jay’s face and dared him to it again, then knocked the wind out of Jay when he tried. That would have been the end of it if Jay hadn’t tried to rush him a few minutes later.

“When I saw Jay’s face all cut up, I was ready to suspend whoever had done it. But everyone who saw what happened claimed that all Scott did was divert Jay’s body slam in self-defense and didn’t have time to think much less attempt to aim Jay towards the window. I gave him a detention and had him pay for the window, but I personally think he handled it better than I would have.”

Patty, the secretary who was in charge of the senior class, smiled without comment at Higgs’ revelation as we passed. I echoed her smile without experiencing the emotion behind it, and then realized I had done it automatically and paused for a moment to consider whether or not to stop doing that.

It was at that instant I decided that I would allow my empathic senses and instincts to guide me in making myself appear normal just so I would fit in. I didn’t want people to feel uncomfortable around me because of my lack of emotional responses, so I immediately considered what I would have said from before my wipe and said it.

“Poor Jay. I remember when we were freshmen, he was picked on by a few seniors himself. Now the freshmen are even picking on him. He just can’t win.”

“Now remember, Tim,” Higgs said after allowing himself a little grin. “No skipping of classes, no copying from other people’s heads, and absolutely no experimenting on your classmates. Understand?”

“Si, senior,” I replied. “Mucho gracias.”

“Sounds like you won’t be learning much in your Spanish class,” he sighed as I walked away.

As I was left, I pondered on telling Dr. Higgs I had yet recalled how to copy knowledge from another, and even if I had, I didn’t dare to attempt to use it while my memories were still coming back to me. I decided not to bother as it might be best if he thought I had resisted the temptation on my own.

Even though I was quickly recovering most of my memories and underlying moral beliefs of my original personality, I was still very open to other’s influence in rebuilding my new personality. I was determined to follow Dr. Higgs rules to the letter that day, and even though I was tempted many times in the following months to break those rules, I managed to only bend a few of them. Or at least until someone else broke them for me and set me free.

All day long, I felt the eyes of the people around me staring, their emotions betraying their thoughts like a transmitter without an off button. Everyone except Joey, Suzi, and Brad seemed nervous around me, even the teachers I remembered from before becoming somewhat disturbed seeing my different color of hair, my deep tan, and the slight Spanish accent when I spoke.

Higgs apparently had informed the entire school of my situation in the closing announcements the day before, not wishing for anyone to be shocked when they saw me that day. The news concerning my faked death hadn’t been a surprise since it had been on the TV Friday night and the front page that Saturday, so he only gave a brief explanation as to what had happened, then described my current condition in two sentences and didn’t say anything more.

So it took a few days before people relaxed around me, but I helped that along by giving everyone I met a warm smile and a friendly hello.

Within a week, the smile and greeting had become so automatic, I found myself doing it all the time, even to the staff at home. While I never experienced the feelings I was emitting, I did find the response I got back to be well worth the trouble.

I had three classes with Brad, while only one with Joey and another with Suzi, so I saw more of Brad than anyone else at school. I even found Brad to be good company while we ate lunch, his perspective of himself and life in general having changed over the summer, and I enjoyed listening to him talk about his sister and her two sluts in training.

Brad still considered his sister as his responsibility, but only in the sense that he was the only one she would have sex with without his permission and approval. I found Brad’s offers to share her with me once in a while extremely tempting, especially since I had gone all week without fucking anyone. But I politely declined his offers, having sensed that deep down that would be bad idea for reasons I had yet recovered.

We were walking down the hall towards the stairs after third hour when Brad and I experienced the strongest feeling of dejà vu moments before hearing someone call my name behind us at the other end of the hall. Brad and I looked at each other before turning around, then caught a glimpse of a kid just before he was tripped by some asshole’s foot and fell to the floor.

Brad started humming the Twilight Zone theme as the asshole walked away laughing. I quickly sought revenge for this new stranger by causing him to trip over his own feet and arranging that he continued to do so for the rest of the day.

Because of the dejà vu, I unconsciously prepared myself for the bear hug Eric had given me nearly eight months earlier. But the vaguely familiar stranger broke the sequence of events by standing up on his own before I reached him, then gave the stumbling figure the universally understood middle finger salute.

The well-built freshman muttered “fagot” under his breath as he turned towards me. But when he noticed me standing three feet in front of him, he instantly smiled and exclaimed, “Hey. Long time no see. Got any drug dealers you need taken down?”

It all just kind of flashed in my head as to who he was and what had happened at the Junior high two years previous. I had to quickly decide on the appropriate response, and then grinned and said, “I don’t think they would dare. Not with Scott the Super Cop around.”

“Hey man,” Brad interrupted. “The bell is going to ring in a sec. Last time you forgot to clear me with the teach and I got a tardy. If you two are going to start hugging and shit, I’m just going to go to class.”

“Go on to class. I’ll be there in a sec.”

After excusing Brad just in case he would be tardy, I asked Scott, “So, how’s your sister?”

“She’s doing okay,” he said with a mischievous grin.

“I take it you got to know her a little better.”

“You could say that,” Scott replied. “I was kind of hoping ... Well, could you do me a little favor?”

The smile on my face vanished as I realized that Scott had come to me for something I could give him. I wondered how many others would be doing the same before the day was up.

But I was making the wrong conclusion with Scott.

“What?”

“Try hypnotizing me again like you did in my room,” he said with a wicked grin.

“Hypnotize you? Are you sure?” I asked, not expecting that.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

I asked, “How about after school today?”

“Well, I’m kind of ... busy after school today, but tomorrow is cool. Is that all right?”

“Sure. After school tomorrow. Meet me on the third floor, okay?”

He nodded his agreement as he walked away cheerfully and full of confidence. I wondered if the experience he had with me before had given him that confidence, or if it was just his nature to be that way. I figured I would find out after school the next day.

Scott met me at the top of the steps on the third floor that next afternoon, and for a moment I didn’t recognize him because he had really grown over the two years from when I met him.

I commented to him as he got up from sitting on the floor, “You sure have grown a lot.”

“I know,” he admitted. “But I’ve had a little help in that department.”

“Oh?” I prompted when he didn’t continue on his own.

“After things cooled off, people started to pick on me and shit. I guess you could say I liked the image I had for a while as being mister tough guy, so my dad helped toughen me up. Did you know he was a boxer before he got married?”

The image of the unshaven, beer-bellied man who had answered the door that day popped into my head, and for a moment I wondered if his mother had remarried or something.

I confessed, “No I didn’t.”

“Neither did I until one day I came home with a black eye from someone pissing me off and he took me downstairs and started showing me his stuff. I loved it, and he’s like my trainer now. He said he was a big kid when he was my age, and the only way he could let off steam without people getting hurt was through boxing. I guess I’m big for my age too like he was. I spend like an hour everyday punching the shit out of my dad’s punching bag.”

I could see what he meant too. Scott wasn’t a hulk or anything, but he wasn’t a wimp either. I could see the veins in his arms, and I even noticed the solidness of his somewhat hairy legs.

“I don’t take the bus,” he added when he saw my eyes leaving his legs. “I leave home every morning an hour before school and run the whole way, then take a shower when I get here.”

“Wow, Scott,” I said, pulling the key out I had officially borrowed from Higgs and opened the door to the room. “Sounds like everything has turned out okay for you.”

“Shit,” he said modestly before saying it again when he saw the painting of Joey, Suzi, myself, and the twins in their blue “virginity” dresses.

I was surprised to see it myself. I didn’t understand why they would have emptied my locker out but not touched my personal items in that room. I would learn later it was due to my programming of the facilities staff to never go in those rooms.

“Wow. Is this like your room or something?” Scott asked, obviously impressed.

“It used to be. I don’t know if it still is or not, but Higgs said we could use it this once.”

“Oh,” he said, flopping down on the couch and bouncing a couple of times.

“So why do you want me to hypnotize you?” I asked him, sitting down in my recliner.

He put on a mysterious grin, then as he was looking around the room again, he said, “Actually, I don’t think you will be able to. That’s what I want to find out.”

“You don’t want to be hypnotizable, is that it?”

“That’s the idea,” he said, leaning back and stretching his arms out across the couch’s back. “One of my teachers last year was really popular with the girls, and I found out that he could like change the way people think by looking in their eyes. He tried it with me one day when I got a little snoopy, and it didn’t work. He was my favorite teacher so I cut him some slack and told him what I knew and promised I wouldn’t squeal on him.

“Ever since then, though, I’ve felt like I had a weakness. I read up on hypnosis, and I’m pretty sure I know how to keep myself from going under. It’s nothing personal. I just don’t want anyone to be able to get to me like that, and if you can’t then I figure no one can.”

“I wouldn’t say no one could, but yeah, I...”

When I frowned, Scott asked, “What’s matter?”

I said rather distantly, “I’m having trouble remembering how.”

“What do you mean, you can’t remember ... Oh. I forgot.”

Giving up, I said, “I’m sorry, Scott. I just can’t remember how I did it to you, or anyone else for that matter. I didn’t even remember you until you first spoke to me, and then that was just in partial flashbacks.”

“Oh,” he said, a little disappointed.

“This teacher of yours. What exactly did he do to the girls?”

“Huh? Oh ... Uh,” he said while turning a little red. “He kind of ... I mean we sort of...”

“Blowjobs? Is that all?” I said, reading his mind.

Startled, Scott asked, “I thought you couldn’t read my mind?”

“I can read your current thoughts. I just can’t force your mind to recall what I want to know. Is that all you and he did was make them want to give you blowjobs?”

“Mostly, yeah,” he said, studying my face for my reaction as he recalled three different girls having insisted he go all the way with them and did so without his teacher finding out.

When I didn’t give him any reaction at all, he said, “Well?”

“What do you want me to say? You did what many would do in your shoes as far as I can see. And as far as your teacher friend, what others do with their abilities is none of my business unless it used against me or someone I care about.”

“You’re not mad or anything?”

“Right now, I don’t know how to get mad, and no, I doubt I would be upset with what you did anyway, especially since I’ve done much more than that myself.”

“You have?” he said. “I guess you would have, wouldn’t you ... In that case, could I ask you some questions about this kind of stuff?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Cool. Like, do you remember Tracy? My sister?”

“Yes, vaguely.”

“She likes for me to watch her when she plays with herself, and she’s even let me feel her up a couple of times. I was just wondering if you made her like that?”

I took a few moments to reflect on what I could remember about that time, but what little I could recall about Tracy only lead me to the incorrect conclusion, “I think that it was all her, Scott. I don’t remember doing anything to her.”

“Really? Cool. I hoped you would say that.”

“Why? What difference does it make?”

“The girls Mr. Underwood messed with? They weren’t interested in anyone except him at first, and then that only changed because he included me in whatever he did to them. Did you catch the part where Jenna and I had sex?”

“Yes, and I’m catching it again, too,” I said as he played out the scene again in his mind.

“I would really like to do it again with her,” he said with a distant sound to his voice while imagining what he would do differently if he had the chance. “But after the first time, she said it wasn’t what she thought it would be ... Anyway, she still likes to give me head, just like all the other girls, but none of them want to go any further because that wasn’t what Mr. Underwood made them want to do.

“I figured that if you had done something similar with Tracy, she wouldn’t ever let me have sex with her even though she’s let me do other things with her.”

“I take it you want to fuck her?”

He turned red again but nodded with a wide grin on his face.

“Well, good luck,” I said, not knowing what else to say in that situation.

“I have another question, but...”

When he hesitated, I asked, “You want me to just peek in your head?”

“No, that’s okay. I guess I’m just uncomfortable talking about this kind of stuff.”

“You don’t need to be with me. You want to know something about what Underwood did to the girls, right?”

“Sort of. I mean ... Shit. I guess I just might as well ask you since I don’t know who else could tell me,” he said with a sigh. “Just try and be cool about it, okay?”

I nodded, then waited patiently for him to continue.

“Do you think ... I mean, is there any way I could use what Mr. Underwood has already done to them to get them to do what I want them to do?”

“I can’t say without examining one of the girls first, but I doubt it.”

“Oh,” he said, trying to hide his disappointment, but then he brightened up and looked up at me with a new look of hope and asked, “But you could, right?”

“I’m not going to supply you with a harem, Scott, even if they are already motivated to pleasure you to some extent.”

“That’s not exactly what I was hoping you would do,” he said. “Mr. Underwood moved away because he kind of screwed up a little and didn’t want to get into trouble. I’m not really complaining about it, but he left all these girls to me as a sort of present. But there’s too many of them. I can’t get any peace without worrying about them needing me.”

“Sounds like a complaint to me,” I observed. “Do you want me to put them back to normal for you?”

“Yes, or at least most of them,” he said, this time not being the least bit shy about what he suggested.

“How many are there?”

“Thirty-seven.”

“I see what you mean...”

“So you’ll help me? Again?”

“Yes, but I’m not just helping you, you know.”

“Yeah, I know, but still...”

“Any other questions?”

“Well, since you asked ... Could you maybe ... you know ... convince Jenna to...”

“I’m sorry, Scott. Like I said. I’m not going to supply you with a harem, even if it’s only one girl. You’re just going to have to convince her yourself. But from the looks of you and what you’ve said so far, you probably won’t have much problem getting girls to hop in the sack with you. Maybe not Jenna, but there will be other girls.”

Scott sighed, realizing he would soon lose the thing that many guys could only dream about, but he wasn’t all that downhearted about it. He still had his sister in any case, and he even believed I was right about his chances with other girls.

Most of the girls went to our school for apparently Mr. Underwood preferred the eighth graders to that of the seventh graders and they were now freshmen. The next day, Scott gave me a list Mr. Underwood had given him that had all the girls’ phone numbers and addresses, and with Dr. Higgs’s help, I undid the simple programming in their heads.

I didn’t really see Scott around that much after that, for he was pretty busy with his boxing, and quite frankly, I forgot about him after a couple of days. And as Joey and Suzi spent more of their time together, I made every attempt to make sure I wasn’t with them, so I ended up spending a lot of my time with Brad.

The reason I kept my distance from my two ex-lovers was because I had finally identified the emotion I kept having twinges of whenever I was around them both. While I had no trouble with my brief moments of jealousy affecting my thinking or actions other than to avoid further instances, I had absolutely no warning about the return of another far worse emotion on the morning two weeks after my first day back.

“Hey,” Joey said as he and Suzi walked up with an arm behind the other’s back. “Did you hear about John?”

“John? You mean John Whitman? No. I didn’t even remember him until this moment. What happened to him?”

“He moved to Florida over the summer,” Suzi said. “His mom got offered a huge promotion, so his dad quit his job and they all moved to St. Petersburg so she could take it.”

“Wow. You know, I kept thinking something was missing. I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

“Yeah, me too,” Joey said. “The last time I saw him I cussed him out pretty bad. Shit, I cussed a lot of people out right before I left.”

“I think everyone forgives you,” Suzi said sweetly, looking lovingly in his eyes deeply.

“Do you forgive me?” he said, softly, mirroring her expression.

“Let me see,” she said as she stood up on her tiptoes to kiss.

I felt my jealousy return as I waited for her final answer, so I left them standing there deep in their kiss, suddenly finding myself thirsty and heading for the coke machine for a drink.

I waited patiently in line, ignoring my jealousy and the fact that they were still locked in their kiss. I was pleased to have the distraction of inserting the coins into the machine and pressing for my selection but then found my favorite drink was sold out.

“ ... why the Little FUCKER!” I roared as I slammed the button so hard that it cracked. And for some reason, the fact that it had cracked only made me even angrier, driving me to the point I was pounding the machine with all my might.

I think everyone was too stunned to react to my enraged attack on the machine, for no one stopped me as I mindlessly thrust my fist through its lit plastic front. Somehow I managed not to damage my fists as I continued to punch holes in the machine, and I think it was when I made the second fluorescent bulb explode that it snapped someone to their senses and they grabbed me from behind.

There was only one person in that hallway who could have done so without my instant command to release me working on them. Joey held on to me tightly after pulling me away from the defaced machine, just waiting silently with his arms around me, pinning my upper arms against me until I calmed down and stopped struggling to get free.

“What’s going on!” Dr. Higgs said, hurrying down the hall towards us like several teachers were.

Between heavy breaths, Joey asked, “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” I honestly said. “I think you can let me go through. I’m pretty much over ... whatever it was.”

As the teachers began breaking up the crowd, Dr. Higgs wordlessly pointed to us both, then thumbed over his shoulder towards his office.

“I’m coming with you,” Suzi announced in a firm voice, gently taking one of my hands to examine as we walked. She said to Dr. Higgs behind us, “I think the nurse should see these cuts first.”

Dr. Higgs must have nodded to her for he never said a word, but as soon as we were in the nurse’s office with the door closed, he exclaimed, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t send the two of you home, permanently!”

“Huh?!” Joey cried. “What did I do?”

Suzi sternly explained, “Joey only grabbed Tim to stop him.”

“Oh?” Dr. Higgs said as he reeled in his temper. “Well, Tim? If Joey didn’t cause it...”

“Suzi, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but could you leave?” I said, keeping my face neutral as I battled my increasing feelings of jealousy and bitterness.

As Suzi gaped at me in shock, Joey asked, “Leave? Why do you want her to leave?”

I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head of the emotions which were colliding with my thoughts. It helped me to get a better hold of myself, but I couldn’t get rid of the emotions which were plaguing me.

When I finally opened my eyes, Suzi and Joey were both gone. The sigh of relief I made confirmed Higgs’s suspicion that they were the reason for my troubles.

After the nurse finished treating the cuts on my fists and had left, Dr. Higgs asked, “So, what happened out there? What did they do that caused you to vandalize my soda machine.”

“I’ll pay for the damage. I’m sorry for losing control. It won’t happen again.”

“What won’t happen? What the hell triggered that kind of rage? You said...”

“I know what I said, and until the moment I noticed it didn’t have any grape soda, I hadn’t felt any trace of anger.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Higgs said. “What did Suzi or Joey do that caused this to happen? I know it was something to do with them, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked Suzi to leave.”

“I suppose I don’t have a choice but to tell you,” I analyzed. “A couple of weeks ago, Joey asked my permission to be Suzi’s boyfriend. He didn’t want to betray me seeing that Suzi had been my girlfriend first. Ever since I told him I didn’t have any problem with it, I’ve gotten flashes of jealousy when I saw them together. I never felt anger though, so I’m not sure why that happened.”