Chapter 14

Wednesday, January 12th, 2022
Colorado Springs, Colorado

After getting off the phone with Jan I changed into Daniel and dressed to go out for dinner. On the way to the Mexican place I noticed a large, stand alone, upscale-looking, strip club that looked to be very popular judging by the number of cars in the huge parking lot on a Wednesday night. There must have been 100 cars filling the parking lot. The Marquee advertised some starlett who’s name I didn’t recognize.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Tacos de Carnitas that the waiter recommended to me. I went with his desert recommendation of Tres Leches Cake too and really appreciated it as well. Before I left, I asked him about the club scene and he actually recommended the strip club as it was the most popular place to go out in the local area. For a night at a dance club I would apparently be looking at driving back to Denver. The man earned the great tip I left him.

I was hoping to experiment more with causing arousal, and I thought a club might be a good place to find good opportunities, but if I couldn’t do that I still wanted to find a way to exercise. So, it’s going to be a strip club I guess.

I headed in after paying the not unreasonable cover charge. The place seemed to have three major sections. The first, called the watering hole, just looked like a regular college bar and took up the left quarter or so of the area. Another section, to the right, looked like a decent pool hall.

The larger middle section, which looked to be using about half the total square footage of the building, was the strip club’s focus and it held three active stages. The largest and center stage had two poles and seemed to be taking itself seriously. There were a surprising number of women, who didn’t look like they worked there, enjoying themselves in the crowd. I could see why it was a popular place.

I found a seat by the side of the center stage. A table near, but not on, the rail around the stage. A waitress stopped by and asked what I wanted to drink. There was a two drink minimum that had been mentioned at the door. I asked for two Rum and Cokes to get it over with, but didn’t really bother to drink them. I enjoyed the show and over the course of the night made the short trip to the rail from time to time to tip the ones I liked best. All of the girls were very seductive, but some were really exceptional. Surprisingly the marquee performer, while she was entertaining and put on an exciting show, wasn’t very appealing to me. She was a slightly older porn actress cashing in on the end of her career, and in my opinion she looked tired.

I decided to see if I could do anything about it. Carl and I consulted and he felt he could tone up her body and maybe do something with the crows feet starting to show around her eyes. I bellied up to the bar and put about $100 in twenties in a pile in front of me. They had a machine that broke large denomination bills for you, and I had spent some time at it earlier. When Miss headliner noticed the money she spent about 5 minutes putting on a targeted show right in front of me and I was probably the only person in the audience to notice the smooth slow changes Carl was making. I watched the end of her set and she undoubtedly looked better than the beginning. I stepped away from the rail after Carl was finished and let her get on with her show.

I made friendly conversation with the flock of strippers offering lap dances after that, but never took any of them up on it. I was just enjoying the shows and spending time watching people. The ladies hanging out with their friends or spouses were a riot. They seemed to really be having a good time.

Carl was keeping a scan going and would tap into the assorted aroused people around us. Yes, it was mostly men, but I honestly didn’t care. I get no sexual feelings from it, and power is power. Carl kept two taps going most of the night and while sometimes the flow ebbed as people left or the show slowed down. We spent almost the whole night exercising. We only stopped if the pool dropped below about a quarter of the tank. Getting the pool topped off again was not too difficult. We seldom dropped below half. While exercising, if someone had their hands on me, they might have been able to feel my muscles shifting, but nobody could see anything in the mostly dark club. I had started in the club at around 7 pm and stayed until 2 am, when they closed.

I got back to my hotel room for the night and Carl estimated the effective range to be around 15 feet now. My body was not all that tired, but mentally I was looking forward to sleeping. I made sure the curtains were well closed and called it a night.

Thursday, January 13th, 2022
Colorado Springs, Colorado

I woke up, showered, and dressed around 10 o’clock. I was still using Daniel’s body, and honestly I like it much better than Roman’s. Perhaps that’s not a surprise, who wouldn’t prefer to be youthful if given the choice. McDonalds was the best option for some quick food, but I just wasn’t very interested. There would no doubt be better options on the way. I got a to-go cup of coffee from a gas station where I filled the tank in the car, and just headed toward Jan’s place. It was the closest thing to ‘home’ that I had, but I couldn’t say I felt that way about it yet.

I stopped to eat lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant a few miles from Jan’s house. It was only 11 o’clock and I wanted to kill a little more time. I ordered some Pho and a side of Chả giò, which are meat filled deep fried spring rolls. I love to wrap them in lettuce and dip them in fish sauce.

After eating, I decided to visit a bookstore and pick up something interesting to read for my flight. It’s pretty easy for me to lose an hour or so in a good bookstore, and after picking up a couple books for the road I headed over to Jan’s.

I pulled up in front of Jan’s place and got my things from the trunk. The girls must have seen me pull up because they met me at the door. Jan smiled and said, “Wow, Daniel’s a good looking fella. Welcome home, Paul,” and gave me a kiss on the cheek and a nice hug.

Meghan gave me both too and they pulled me inside. I changed my face back to Paul’s as soon as we closed the door. Jan said, “There he is,” and gave me a kiss. I dropped my things by the couch as we all sat down. Jan was beside me and Meghan took the chair again as we had so many times before.

I said, “It’s good to be back, how have things been going here?”

Jan and Meghan exchanged looks and Jan said, “Really well I think. We’ve been very comfortable together and it’s been pretty great from my perspective. I really appreciated that you let us have this time alone together.”

I said, “I can’t imagine it’s been completely easy, and trying to picture incorporating a third person into the dynamic when it was so new seemed doomed to failure. Honestly, I feel I’m being kind of selfish in a way, as I want to give our relationship the best chance to be a healthy one in the long run. For that to happen, you two need to be in a solid relationship of your own. I know you already had one, but it was a very different one than it is becoming. Meghan and my relationship is already good enough for me, and if it never changes that would be fine for me. Don’t get me wrong, I do hope it develops into something more. In fact, I’m sure it will, in some ways, but so long as we can share you without hard feelings I’ll be happy with whatever actually develops, I’m sure.”

Meghan said, “I don’t know how that part of things will work out. I’ve dated men before, and still do on occasion, but I’m just not as attracted to them as I am to women, and that’s why they are usually so short term. Trust me, I’ve tried to be more attracted to them. Life would have been much easier if I could be.”

I said, “Yeah, I get that. I’ve often wondered why more people don’t see it. Objectively, when you stand back and look at the way people who live alternative lifestyles have been, and usually still are, treated by the public, don’t you have to wonder why someone would choose to be treated that way if they could choose differently?”

“Okay, maybe there are some people who are just contrary enough to make the choice just to be contrary. But come on, that’s not going to be a significant percentage of the whole demographic. Something else has to be going on there. All those people can’t be unaware of what they are facing. They must be facing it for a reason, like a lack of choice. Nothing else makes sense to me. If you ask me, the heart simply wants what the heart wants.”

Meghan smiled and said, “You do get it. As I said, I don’t know how things are going to be between us, but I do really like you, and I’m not opposed to finding out. I’m not feeling jealous at all about the idea of you two being together, in fact, I’m much more grateful that I’ve been allowed into your lives than anything else. If I haven’t said it enough yet, thank you so much.”

I said, “I appreciate that, but it’s hard for me to accept your gratitude when I’m getting exactly what I dreamed of here. I feel like a very lucky man. We’ll have plenty of time to figure out where we are comfortable with each other. I promise I will never intentionally pressure you for more than you are comfortable with. Please, let me know if you ever feel that I might be doing so. I assure you that I will stop once I realize it’s happening.”

She said, “I promise, if it happens, I’ll give you a chance before I hold it against you. So, to change the subject in a smooth and nearly undetectable manner, did you have a good trip to Denver?”

I smiled and replied, “Yes, nothing all that interesting happened there really, on the way back I had intended to hit a nightclub, but the closest I could get was a strip club. Totally different vibe than I was expecting for the night, but I found out something very interesting.”

Jan said, “What’s that?”

“Well, it might surprise you to know that there are a lot of horny people in strip clubs.”

Meghan put a shocked look on her face and said, “No way, really?”

“Uh huh, and did you know that being “horny” is just a socially acceptable euphemism for being aroused in public? Even if they aren’t sporting wood, most of the guys, and a surprising number of women, were more than aroused enough to help feed my power constantly all night.”

Jan said, “Holy shit, why didn’t we think of that before?”

I shook my head and said, “I have no idea, but I spent about 7 hours pretty much constantly exercising my powers. That reminds me, I need to measure my range, Carl thinks it’s about 15 feet now.”

Meghan said, “I’ll get it,” and headed for the bedroom. When she returned Jan suggested that we switch to measuring in a forward facing direction with the end of the tape set right between my eyebrows. She thought it would be more accurately repeatable that way and we all agreed it was a good idea.

Carl informed me it was 14’10” and I passed the info on to the girls. We talked about their needs with getting ready for classes and the syllabus for the new class they had added. They were both really excited about it. They had everything they needed for class material requirements, but clothes shopping was still scheduled for the weekend.

Around three in the afternoon Jan asked about dinner thoughts and I said, “Actually, I’m not all that hungry and if I get hungry later, and can’t find something suitable, I can just refresh myself and fix it. It’s weird, but I only eat and drink because I enjoy it these days. I don’t really need to anymore. Not as long as I can refill my powers.”

Jan said, “Well, we can always grab something on the way back from the airport. Is there anything you want to do before you go?”

I said, “I have been giving some thought to something Entity-3 said to me. When he was discussing what he called “mind powers” he warned that ... wait, Carl what were the exact words he used?”

Carl helped me with the wording, “He said, and I’m quoting here: “Now, the trick you saw me use with subjugating personalities; it’s going to take many years before you work it out I’d bet. I would recommend staying away from messing with people’s minds for the first few years anyway. Remember when you are experimenting that there is a decent chance they will know something is going on until you really figure out what you are doing and how to cover your tracks, so be careful.”

Meghan said, “Wow, that’s fascinating, really, but hold up for a second. Carl can remember his exact words, but you can’t? I thought you were pretty much the same person.”

I answered, “We think it’s a side effect of the splitting process. He has near-perfect recall as far as we can tell and he thinks in a more linear manner than I used to. I don’t remember anywhere near as well as he does, no better or worse than before, but we believe that I think even more creatively now than I used to, while he has trouble doing so. We lean on each other to get by and it’s working pretty well so far. Together we are decidedly more mentally capable than we were before.”

She replied, “That by itself is amazing.”

I agreed, “I said the same thing to Carl early on.”

Jan said, “Very cool, but back to what you were saying. I can see where this is going and I don’t know about Meghan, but I certainly trust you enough to let you use me as a guinea pig again. I signed up to help you explore your powers, and nothing has changed for me there. It’s obvious to me that we are the perfect ones to test on, as you take a risk in testing it on any others, and we can give you feedback that others wouldn’t. I’m game, just let me know when you are trying something so I can pay attention to the experience.”

Meghan said, “Same here, I just want to know when you’re trying to mess with my head. Don’t try to surprise me with it if you don’t want to piss me off.”

I said, “Oh I totally get that. I was a victim of this myself, I have no intention of forcing either of you to do anything at any time. I mean, we’re going to have to test exactly that at some point, as I need your feedback on it, but we’ll work out acceptable things to do and you will know it’s coming when I try. I promise. Can you guys think of something appropriate for me to try to get you to do as I start testing?”