Part 16

Bobby and I hadn’t slept together while we camped with Gator. I’d told Gator everything I could think of, concerning Bobby, except that part of his abilities. I wanted somebody to know that Bobby Wilson was not the terrorist (or whatever) that the government claimed he was. I had not wanted Gator to know that I had lain with Bobby as a lover ... and that I planned to continue lying with him in that capacity when Gator went back to work. If he knew that, my credibility with Gator might be affected.

We didn’t need to stay on [redacted]’s land, since I wasn’t planning on “sniping” at Bobby any longer. Gator did give me a pistol, a Sig Sauer P226, even though I told him I didn’t need it. I told him Bobby would protect me, and he asked me what I’d do if we got separated, or I was off shopping for toilet paper when some threat bloomed. I took the gun because I was willing to shoot Bobby with a pistol. The muzzle velocity of that was half of what the rifle did, and the bullet only weighed 124 grains. He could wear a vest and still practice erecting a shield to slow or stop the bullet.

Of more concern to me, though, was developing Bobby’s other abilities, in terms of identifying a threat before it happened. I wanted to work on Bobby’s “radar”.

To that end we got in the Subaru and drove west again. We hit another ATM in Arkansas, to stock up on cash. We got a motel room and waited until three A.M. to walk the three blocks to the machine in the dark. It was in a parking lot, which let us approach it from the off-camera side and cover the lens with duct tape, instead of disabling the camera like last time. And this time he manipulated the physical lock and opened it as if he had a key. I felt bad that whoever stocked the thing might get blamed for the missing cash, but we left it open, not wanting to hang around it any longer than we absolutely had to. The spoofed video would tell them when it had happened. The employee would (presumably) have a good alibi, or be able to pass a polygraph. Our car wouldn’t be on any CCTV cams at that time of night, and any roving patrols they had wouldn’t have seen us driving around, either. Other than the cash, all we took was the duct tape, which had my fingerprints on it.

When we got back to the room and counted it, there was $12,240.00 there. Come to think of it, I suppose I just confessed to something a bank in Arkansas will for sure remember. That’s probably the least of my criminal problems, though. I’ll be happy to pay them back, assuming the powers that be let me live.

I felt like Bonnie Parker when, naked, I rubbed up against Bobby, who would never be anything like Clyde Barrow. We didn’t have any condoms, but I made love with him anyway. I understand the high that people get from breaking the law. That high was only extended as, when Bobby gasped, and said he was going to shoot, I wrapped my legs around him and held him in me so I could feel the warm bloom of his love soaking my belly. That’s how I learned about the adrenalin rush that often makes criminals do something stupid.

But I loved that feeling. I had never felt it with another man. And I had never felt for another man the complicated emotional things I was feeling for my young lover.

The next day, when we left the motel, I was a brunette, and Bobby had a high and tight haircut I’d given him with a cheap set of clippers I bought at WalMart. While I drove, he lay down in the back of the car, which had seats that could be folded flat. That way any members of law enforcement would just see a single, young, dark-haired woman driving along, minding her own business. Bobby practiced reaching out of the car with his mind as cars passed us, trying to “see” the occupants of the cars. It didn’t work very well, so he practiced holding a shield around him that was thick enough I could feel it pressing on the back of the driver’s seat.

I drove north into Missouri, and then turned west on I-70. We stopped for the night in Kansas City, on the Kansas side, and went to a place called Don Chilitos Mexican Restaurant. It was a loud, boisterous place that served beer with the food. We got a table at the rear and sat where Bobby could see the rest of the customers.

It was the first chance we’d had for him to examine a lot of people in one place. I don’t think either of us had any ‘plan’ on what he should look for. I just wanted him to practice looking at people’s colors. The one thing I knew about Bobby Wilson was that whatever he practiced on, got stronger. I wanted Bobby as strong and capable as possible when he surfaced again.

Back in the motel I stripped down, in preparation for taking a shower. Bobby watched me, and I felt no shame or embarrassment as I felt his mind touch mine.

“Wanna take a shower with me?” I asked. I wasn’t good at being coquettish.

“I want to do something else with you,” he said, softly.

“Later,” I said. “I want to be squeaky clean for you.”

The tub seemed small, and we kept hitting the shower curtain with our elbows as we slid soapy hands all over each other. I knelt to suck his lovely, stiff penis, but I didn’t make him spurt. I wanted that for later.

When we left the bathroom I sat on the edge of the bed, ruffling my hair with the last dry towel.

“You can’t fuck me, tonight,” I said. “As much as I want to, we still don’t have any condoms.”

“I don’t like that word,” he said, frowning.

“Nobody likes condoms,” I said.

“No, I mean the other word. I don’t like ... fuck. It sounds degrading.”

“Force of habit,” I sighed. “I won’t use it again.”

“Thank you.” He kept frowning.

“What else is bothering you?” I asked.

“I feel bad for making you sin,” he said.

“I don’t think of what we do as sin,” I said.

“It’s fornication, and fornication is a sin,” he said.

I looked at this amazing man/child, the boy I’d fallen in love with. I knew that’s what it was, now. I had gone beyond just scratching an old itch. I loved him. I had always assumed the Army would be my groom, and that I’d never be in one place long enough to forge the kind of bond that leads to getting married and having children. And, after the Army, of course, I hadn’t thought there’d ever be another man in my life. Nuns don’t get to have men in their lives. Not in that way, anyhow.

I felt this odd twisting sensation in my gut as I stared at him. It was eerily similar to the feeling I always got just before the shooting started. It was the feel of danger, of the fight or flight syndrome kicking in.

“If we were married it wouldn’t be fornication,” I said.

He stared at me, consternation clear on his face. I’d ambushed him.

“Of course we’re not married,” I said. “And we can’t get married.” I paused. “I feel like what we have is that serious, though. I don’t think of it as fornication, Bobby. I think of it as making love with the man I ... love.”

There it was. I had dropped the L bomb. And it hadn’t been in the heat of passion, like last time. I couldn’t believe it. The fight or flight syndrome was yelling at me to run, this time, instead of hanging around.

“Say something,” I said.

“Can we make love in a dream tonight?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, feeling a relief that was so palpable it made me shake.

We didn’t just go to bed. I had plans for some physical lovemaking before we went to sleep. I still didn’t understand how Bobby could shield his dreams (and he couldn’t explain it, beyond the wall analogy). He said he felt awake while he was dreaming, and could make whatever he wanted to happen take place, including keeping them inside his mind.

My own dreams, on the other hand, came and went in a chaotic manner. I couldn’t intentionally have a dream. Nor could I control what happened in the dreams that wandered into my sleeping mind. So before we went to sleep, I got us into the 69 position and, before I got a mouthful of yummy Bobby, he gave me two delightful and relaxing orgasms with his mouth.

He dreamed, all right. And how. I had no idea how much stronger he’d gotten in the short time we’d been on hiatus from lovemaking, and had been practicing anti-sniper drills instead.

I knew I was in a dream. I don’t know how, but I did. And what Bobby did to me in that dream felt so real I couldn’t tell the difference. We fornicated in this dream for what felt like an hour, and yet I somehow knew that only seconds had passed. He could stretch time in his dream. Looking back on it, I think Bobby could have dreamed of a person and taken that person with him as, in merely an hour, he and the person grew old, living entire imagined lives, until both were aged and infirm, lying on their death beds. It would feel so real, the person he took with him might actually die of old age, while not having advanced, chronologically, more than that hour.

He pushed every button I’d taught him to push. He came, himself, more than once, but never went soft, apparently imagining himself only in his erect condition. If a VR video game could be made of having sex, Bobby could write the program. They wouldn’t be able to keep that game on the shelves, no matter how many they made.

Because I knew it was a dream, and that the repeated jets of semen he filled me with were harmless, I could lie back and simply enjoy it. I didn’t resist in any way.

It was incredible. And when dream Bobby stared deep into my eyes and said, “Now, sleep,” I didn’t want to.

I didn’t want the dream to end.

I woke with a sore body. While, in the dream, I had been relaxed, my sleeping body had used my muscles to move, twisting and thrusting as if it were engaged in the real thing. While Bobby’s mind can stretch time, my body wasn’t up to the same thing and I had over-used a bunch of muscles.

My groans woke my teenage lover up and, of course, he asked what was wrong.

“My theory is that my body thought last night was real,” I said.

“It felt real to me,” he said.

I walked like an old woman as I went to the bathroom. When I came out, he was still lying in bed, magnificently naked, with his hands behind his head. He was staring at the ceiling. His penis, for once, was flaccid and harmless. I wondered, briefly, why he didn’t have morning wood.

“I learned something last night,” he said.

“Let me guess. You learned you can do anything to me you want to.”

“No, I mean at the restaurant.”

“Oh?” I felt suddenly alert. His tone was casual, but the context we were in made his comment odd.

“While we were eating, I sort of looked at everybody at once. I mean instead of examining individuals, I looked at all of them.”

“I didn’t know you could do that,” I said.

“I didn’t either. It just happened. One second I was looking at my burrito, and when I looked up, it just happened. It took a couple of minutes, but pretty soon I could either look at a single brain, or all of them at once.”

“Okay,” I said. “Was it helpful?”

“You know how everybody has different fingerprints?”

“Yes.”

“It was like that. Each person was slightly different from all the others. It was like a fingerprint in the brain. I think I could learn who people are from their brain colors. You know, like you remember who somebody is because they have blond hair and a crooked nose.”

“I don’t see how that’s helpful,” I said.

He blinked.

“Right now Gator is over there,” he pointed, “and his colors tell me he’s bored.”

“You’re telling me if you learn somebody’s colors, you can find them? Like you found me when those cops were rousting me?”

“Yeah. I think I can. We need to get the atlas out. I want to try something.”

I had bought a Rand McNally atlas of the U.S. It was in the car. I got dressed and went out to get it. When I returned, Bobby was also dressed. There was no table in the motel room, but there was a counter where the coffee maker was. He told me to open the atlas to the state St. [redacted] is in and put his hand on it. Then, looking away, he let his fingers drift over the map. Eventually, his index finger stopped.

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