Chapter 6

Run away and hide.

I felt like a big strong man.

But Vickie and Lynsey had come together like planes and trade centers. I had no training to be a first responder.

I had excuses.

Jesus Christ.

I kept looking at my phone. Expecting a Lynsey tirade of texts. It was quiet. No word. And what the fuck about Vickie? What would she do?

I didn’t know either of them as well as I thought I did.

I knew them well enough to get inside their brains to get inside their legs.

And the sex was awesome.

And I could fix it. I knew where they lived.

But I couldn’t fix it on campus.

I staggered away, deciding that I wasn’t making it to class. The flow of students through the corridors overwhelmed my mind. So many brains. Like there were more opposite directions than just clockwise and counterclockwise. A noneuclidean world of disconcertion and unbalance. This was what it must feel like to stare into the mind of some eldritch horror.

I needed practice. I had managed a bit of control when I was with Vickie and Ira. The fresh air was better. There weren’t clogged arteries of students out in the street. Partly because it was cold. I headed down Spring Garden, targeted for pizza corner. I pulled the hood of my hoodie and my winter coat up and over my toque.

Walls seemed to block out minds, and the hoods helped, but they weren’t impermeable like brick.

Or aluminum foil?

I’d look like an idiot if I covered my head with foil ... But if I could origami up some real looking hats, maybe a robin hood with a feather, a 1920s mobster fedora, a bigass sombrero, I’d just be another eclectic and weird guy on campus.

Not with the sombrero. I wouldn’t want to step on someone else’s culture. That would just get me yelled at and posted on dozens of TikToks.

Besides, I didn’t know if tin foil worked.

Or if a hat would cover enough of my head to be effective.

What I did know was that I wouldn’t be able to do the arts and crafts well enough to have something that was fun and not shitty.

I cut across the old library grounds. I was walking taller. The hoods were helping, I don’t know if they’d help enough to walk around school between classes. If I sat up front in class, I could probably handle my smaller classes.

I got in line for a slice of pizza. Four girls in front of me. None worth a brain twist. Besides, I wanted a break. Still I ran my power along their differently spinning brains. I think one clearly liked her friend and her friend clearly liked the tall brown guy slinging slices. And they spun in the same direction.

I could play matchmaker? Give quiet lesbian a shot at her friend and her friend the exotic sex she seemed to want. They weren’t hideous. Maybe the guy would give me a free slice?

Except, if I stuck my power in their brains, they’d know it was me. And I was always first choice for the screw and I really didn’t want to go down in quality from Vickie or Lynsey.

Most people were getting their slices to go. I took mine to the mostly empty tables. I sat down and took out my phone.

Still nothing.

My heart sank.

I brought up Lynsey’s number.

I typed out:

“Hi, I’m getting pizza. Do you wanna come by and”

And then I deleted everything.

I should get her somewhere where it’s just me and her brain. Why did she and Vickie have to be so counter to each other? Why did Paula have to push back against jumping in? Why couldn’t the girls like each other the way I liked them?

I brought up Fox’s number.

“Come to pizza corner. I’m buying.”

Food. I’m buying. Guaranteed to get a friend when you need him. It was a short wate, but I did by a second slice and another Pepsi.

He came in, I walked over, got him a meat lover and a sprite. We went back over to my table. With my back to the door, my hoods up, and Fox across from me. It felt good.

“Dude ... Man...” he shook his head and sighed. “Did you tank things with Lynsey?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Can we go to your place today? Let the fires burn themselves out some.”

“After classes?” Big-brained Fox was a physics major. His labs kept him at school for hours longer than me.

“Yeah, same as always. Meet you there?”

“Um, actually, I’d rather you wait for me and we could go over together,” he said.

“That’s new, why?”

“Because you’re with somebody now,” he shrugged.

“I don’t follow.”

“It’s not fair to Kitty.”

“What?”

“Dude, I’ve been trying to set the two of you up since she asked me to at her birthday,” he shrugged.

“She’s your sister! You’re like the only friend I have on campus! I wasn’t going to torpedo that by perving all over your little sister.”

“My older sister’s fine?”

“Obviously! Dove has clearly no interest in me,” I said, slumping.

“You flirt with her all of the time.”

“I try and flirt with her all of the time,” I said. “It was like practice. If I could get her to crack a smile, I was doing something right.”

“But with Kitty?”

“I suffered grievous bodily injury,” I said, shaking my head and smiling. I looked up and he looked smug. “What?”

“You clearly like her.”

“You know who I am. I’m a total skeezbag when it comes to hot chicks.”

“Dude, you kept a long distance thing going for months with Lynsey Killigan throwing herself at you on Halloween. In that fucking costume she was wearing.”

“Killigan’s her last name?”

“Or Killian? Something like that.”

“Would you be surprised to know, I wasn’t aware she was into me?”

“No, actually that explains things,” he laughed and tossed his crust onto his cardboard plate.

“So, why would you inflict me on your sister?” Honestly, I was thinking about the last few days. I was thinking about the text and picture I’d been sent of Lynsey and Vickie apparently clashing. I was mostly thinking of how I was being a coward and not diving into fixing things.

I needed more practice.

I needed to get better at this.

Then I’d fix everything.

“Every guy is an inveterate horndog,” Fox said. “I’m looking forward to doing unholy and immoral things all over Marie. Every guy’s gonna perv on Kitty. You were just the only guy I knew that she liked, went out of his way to treat her well, and was committed to a girlfriend. So when she asked that I give her a few hours with her before we went downstairs and played video games, it seemed like a good idea.”

“Well, shit,” I said. “You literally had to tell me it was OK.”

“This was last semester. You were still doing your long distance thing till Christmas,” Fox said. “I wasn’t going to be the one to torpedo that.”

“It’s been weeks since I got back from Christmas. Single. And I’ve had four opportunities alone with Kitty.”

“Right, and you pussied out.” He laughed at me. “I guess I’ve just been in the groove of the status quo. And, I’ve been busy with--”

His face lit up brightly. I could feel something change his brain. It wasn’t as stable as spinning was with girls. I turned. Marie was walking up to the door of the restaurant.

She looked so good. Her brain was spinning at a happy six. She tapped her phone screen and picked her ear buds out of her ears as she came through the door. Fox was racing over to her. She forced a smile.

I could tell it was a force.

Her brain speed dropped to a two by the time Fox grabbed her hand and fished out his wallet.

That wasn’t OK.

If he was gonna go as far setting me up with Kitty, and I had this superpower. I smiled. Why not spread the wealth?

I pulled my hoods forward until I had Marie framed in my sight and everyone else in the restaurant blocked out. It wasn’t quite perfect. I could feel the cashier, Fox, and the three dudes coming in from the street. She was the only woman though. That made it easier. Nothing else was spinning.

I took a deep breath.

I lacked all subtlety. I cranked her brain up to a ten as he paid for her slice. She twisted. The look in her eyes over her shoulder at me was hot as the sun. She started walking over to me. There was a very definitive swing to her hips.

Oh shit.

She knew it was me. That crazy bitch at the pub with Lynsey last night. She went to me first before her buddies could sweep in and pick up my litter.

Fox hurried into view with a can of diet coke and a slice of veggie for Marie. I twisted in my seat, back to them, and looked down at my half finished slice.

Marie’s fingers stroked across my shoulder as she twisted around the table and sat across from me.

She was a black girl, with little makeup, and her hair tied back in a loose and wavy ponytail. She wore colored contacts. She didn’t always have the steel blue eyes she was looking at me today. She was almost formless in her fluffy white parka. She immediately unzipped it and hung it over the back of her chair. She was wearing her Dalhousie Engineering sweater, which showed some more of her figure. It wasn’t a display, but it could’ve been with her smirk.

It didn’t matter. I knew what she looked like down to a skimpy slutty police uniform back on Halloween. She was tall, athletic, with big tits and the best legs and ass I had ever drooled over. She crossed her legs under the table. The toe of her snow boots crossed over the front of my jeans.

I felt my heart clog my throat.

“Hey!” Fox beamed, he slid her slice and popped down in front of her. He dragged his chair around the table and smiled at her.

She fell, not far from the ten I had forced her to, when she smiled at Fox.

“Thank you.”

Through those words, I cranked her up to a twelve.

She was staring right into Fox’s eyes then and there. I was being a good friend. She turned back to me.

“Hey, shit, Jordan,” Fox said, checking his phone quickly as he reclined in his chair. “Calculus.”

“I think I’m going to skip class today,” I said. Vickie and Lynsey were up at upper campus after all.

“That’s great, I’d hate to eat alone.” Marie’s smile might’ve been pointed at Fox, but her eyes were all for me.

Maybe ditching wasn’t the best idea.

“It sucks we never got put in the same class,” Fox said. “At least we got chem, physics, and English together. Can’t win ‘em all.”

He pulled Marie closer for a quick kiss.

I was doing the right thing.

I twisted her up to a fourteen when their lips were together. She just melted in his arms.

It worked!

“Wow,” Fox said. He was giddy. “You’re amazing.”

“Yeah,” she said, flicking her eyes to me.

I really shouldn’t help people.

“I feel amazing,” she said.

“I think we’re going over my place for games later,” Fox said, standing up. “I know that’s not your thing. So, still on for tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she said.

Fox clapped my arm, grabbed my garbage, (I would’ve finished that crust!) and all but skipped out of the restaurant.

I looked at Marie. She smiled around the pizza in her lips, tilting sideways watching Fox leave. She waved a little wave.

When she looked at me, she had spun down, but to an eleven. An eleven is anything short of anal in a dirty bathroom stall.

“Uh, he’s head over heels for you and I thought I could help,” I said.

“Yeah, I noticed.” She was smiling as she chewed. I felt like I was under a microscope in her eyes.

“How are you two doing?”

“He’s very vanilla. A very nice guy.” she said, after she had finished chewing. “I prefer excitement.”

Great.

“Look, I haven’t made a move on his sister because I’m a good friend,” I said.

“Why not? Kitty’s down for it. And from what I’ve heard from Paula, you could give that little kitten quite the education.”

“Uh ... You talk to Paula?”

“Yeah, she’s in engineering as well.”

“Why are the engineering girls so hot?”

She laughed her ass off and grabbed a napkin to catch the pop that had come out of her nose. I felt better. Making her laugh ratcheted her down to an eight.

“Thanks,” she said, still chuckling as she wiped off her boobs. She caught me looking and amped up to a nine.

Should I run?

“Seriously, there’s about one in ten first year girls in engineering. Almost all of them in our chemistry class. I point them all out to you? You’ll probably change your “engineering girls are hot” idea.”

“You can carry a lot of uglies,” I said. “You’d have to drop out before I changed my mind.”

Why was I flirting?

Oh, look at her smile.

“Maybe I should go?”

“Why, you’re skipping class and I’m free for two hours. We never hang out.”

“That’s because you don’t like video games, so you’re never over Fox’s when I am,” I said.