Chapter 1

The first time it happened, I only heard one thought - thank goodness. My first period had just started, and I'd informed my father about the messy, but nevertheless momentous event. He raised his eyes to the heavens and sighed. He also thought, Hazel, this was supposed to be your job, not mine.

Hazel was my mother's name, and I discovered later that my dad frequently conversed with her silently. She'd died in an automobile accident when I was four years old, so I didn't remember her beyond an occasional flash of memory or an errant image, sort of like one slide in a slide show. No, a drunk driver didn't hit her. She was returning from a trip to visit my grandmother and fell asleep at the wheel. After Dad buried the love of his life, he tried to be both a father and a mother for me, but he wasn't very good at being a mother. He was a heck of a dad, though.

Anyway, I heard his thought as if he'd spoken the words out loud. I discounted the fact that I'd read his mind because, after all, reading minds was impossible. So I responded to what I believed was a statement.

"Well, she's not here to handle the job, Dad, so hop in your pickup and go buy me some sanitary napkins."

He gave me a curious look, and then shrugged. "All right. Does one size fit all?"

"Droll, Dad. How should I know?"

"Sure as shootin', I'll buy the wrong thing, so put on some shoes, Katy. You're going with me."

The napkins did come in various configurations depending on the strength of the menstrual flow. While I studied the selection offered by Safeway, Dad wandered away blushing. My father was a tough old bird, but when it came to girly things, he didn't cope well. So far, my period was light, but I figured that could change, so I selected the Maxi with Wings.

Two years later, shortly after my fifteenth birthday, it happened again, and I'm not referring to another period. Those came regularly, every twenty-eight days, at least after my dad helped me go on the pill. I'm referring to the fact that I heard someone's thoughts other than my own. My best friend, Barbie, short for Barbara, and I were strolling through the mall, and clear as a bell, almost as if she were speaking to me, I heard her thought.

My, my, look at the crouch on that guy. He must be hung like a horse; either that, or he's stuffed his pants with a pair of gym socks.

My steps faltered, and no doubt my jaw gaped. I was shocked! I was shocked for two reasons. First, Barbie was a demure, innocent gal (I soon found out that her modest, diffident faade masked a sexually plucky mind). On that day, I believed Barbie wouldn't say shit if her mouth was full of it, so I was shocked. All of a sudden she's thinking about a man, a complete stranger, that she believed - hoped? - was hung like a horse. If Barbie had spoken the words, I'd have been shocked, but I was doubly shocked because I was looking at her when I heard her thought. I mean, her lips didn't move, not even a twitch. Was she a ventriloquist? Not to my knowledge.

Then another thought came to me, once again clear as a bell.

Look at the ass on that broad! Man, I'd sure like to fuck it. I'd jam my cock into her ass and fuck it and fuck it while she screamed in pain or groaned with pleasure. Either way would be okay with me.

The eerie voice in my head was low, and masculine. What I heard had to be another thought. If a man actually voiced out loud what I heard in my mind, he'd risk being lynched by the members of the moral majority among the mall shoppers.

I spun my head toward the source of the thought, but I couldn't determine which male behind me wanted to fuck my ass. Wait, I cautioned myself. What makes you think you're the object of his thought? With my more open approach, I spotted the culprit - a dirty, old man gazing lustfully at a middle-aged, overweight woman. Her ass was at least an ax-handle wide, maybe a little more.

His next thought made me blush, and I didn't blush easily. It involved his tongue and the fat woman's sphincter. The emaciated old man actually licked his lips.

Then more thoughts assaulted me:

Dammit! I'm goin' to be late! (A good-looking young man.)

Fuck! I spent too much again. Phil's goin' to skin me alive. (A well-dressed, middle-aged woman.)

Where's my mommy? (A five-year-old boy.)

A few seconds later, the little boy's mother grabbed his hand and gave him the business for running away from her.

Then all hell broke loose. All at once, the thoughts of everyone around me came at me hurly-burly with the volume knob turned to high. It was as if I were listening to all the stations on a radio at the same time. I covered my ears with my hands - which did nothing to stop the flow of thoughts assailing me - and rushed from the mall. Once outside, the number of thoughts entering my mind diminished to a manageable level.

"What's wrong, Katy?" Barbie asked. Concerned about my sudden departure, she'd followed me outside.

Did she speak? Or was I hearing her thought? I shook my head, and said, "I'm not feeling well. A headache. A bad one."

I slumped onto a concrete bench and, using my elbows as a fulcrum on my knees, cupped my face with my hands. Should I tell her what was really happening? No. If she knew I could hear her thoughts, she'd freak out. Anyone would. Thoughts were private. If she knew I was in her head listening to her private thoughts, she wouldn't be my friend for long. Soon, she'd shun me. Besides, Barbie was a bit of a gossip. She didn't have it in her to keep my affliction a secret.

I had to talk to someone about what happened - what was still happening. I could think of only one person who would listen and help me without condemning me: my dad. Barbie and I weren't at the mall to shop, but rather to meet some friends and hang out, so I told her to go ahead without me, that I'd call my father to pick me up. Her thoughts told me she was relieved. She was looking forward to running into Paul, a boy she was interested in getting to know better - a lot better, according to her fantasy. Jeez! She needed to wash out her mind with a bar of soap. Hah! Demure, Barbie wasn't! Not by a long shot.

I called Dad on the cell phone he'd given me for Christmas, and a half-hour later he picked me up. He wasn't happy with me, either. Evidently, I'd interrupted an intimate assignation he'd made with Mrs. Wilson, a middle-aged widow lady down the street from where we lived, which was as good a place as any as a starting point to tell Dad what was happening to me.

"I'm sorry I ruined your afternoon with Mrs. Wilson, Dad."

His jaw dropped. How could she know? he asked himself. I didn't call Tess until after Katy left for the mall with Barbie.

"I know because I can hear your thoughts, Dad."

Perhaps I should've waited until we were home before demonstrating that I'd been cursed with the ability to hear thoughts, because he swerved into the oncoming lane of traffic and narrowly avoided a serious accident. He gained control of his pickup and pulled into a parking lot in front of a strip shopping center.

When he turned off the engine and turned to me, whatever switch had turned on my mind-reading capacity, turned it off again because Dad's thoughts suddenly stopped entering my mind. Oh, the blessed silence!

We talked. I told him everything, even about the old man wanting to fuck the fat lady's broad ass, although I didn't present the concept in such crude terms to my father.

"It takes all kinds," he said with a chuckle. He took my hand in his. "Has this happened before?"

"Once, I think," I said and explained the circumstances.

"I remember. Your comment seemed strange at the time, but I decided I'd probably expressed my thought out loud."

"Dad, I'm frightened. After the dirty old man, I heard a few more thoughts from different people, and then all of a sudden I could hear a lot of other thoughts, hundreds of thoughts from men, women, boys and girls, until the jumbled up voices sounded like loud static in my mind. Talk about noisy! I had to get away, so I ran outside. Once outside, I could only hear the thoughts of those nearby, which was more manageable. Dad, what happens if this thing comes back? It'll drive me batty! Some big men in white coats will strap me into a straightjacket and put me in a padded room."

"Maybe it won't happen again, Katy. Maybe..."

"Maybe doesn't cut it, Dad. It happened a year ago, and it happened again today. It'll happen again. I feel like a freak, a sideshow in a carnival. 'Step right up, folks. Get your mind read by Katy. She'll astound you! Amaze you! Step right up!' Fuck!"

"Watch your language, young lady!"

"Sorry."

"If it happens again, we'll deal with it. Notice I said we, not just you. We'll both deal with it. We'll do whatever it takes to give you a measure of control so you can go on with your life as normally as possible."

Control. I hadn't considered the possibility of controlling the curse. Yes, I thought of it as a curse. I certainly hadn't considered the affliction a gift, not then.

My mind remained blissfully silent for about a year, hearing only my own thoughts, thank goodness. Then the curse assaulted me again. I was at the movies with Jim Reed. He was holding my hand in his sweaty palm when his thoughts came through loud and clear.

What would she do if I took her hand and placed it over my hard-on?

I spun my head toward him; he was staring straight ahead, ostensibly involved with the movie. Hah! I wanted to slap him silly.

Look at the legs on that cunt! Another thought?

Not Jim. The mental voice was different in tone. I deduced the thinker was probably referring to the leggy bikini-clad woman on the big screen.

Boring! I should've gone to the sci-fi flick. A different mental voice.

The greedy bitch ate all the popcorn. Yet another voice.

Suddenly, all the mental goings-on in the theater entered my mind at the same time, turning into raucous static. I jumped up and rushed from the theater. Jim followed me. I ignored him and pushed speed-dial number one on my cell phone. When Dad answered, I said, "It happened again, just now, in the theater!"

"Do you want me to pick you up?"

"Yes." I told him which theater, and we settled on a pickup point.

"What's wrong?" Jim asked compassionately.

"Headache." I scrunched up my face as if in pain, which wasn't too far from the truth. "As you heard, my dad is picking me up." Jim hadn't picked me up at my house to take me to the movies. I'd met him at the theater. I wasn't allowed to go on alone dates until I was sixteen, an unreasonable rule to my mind that I broke occasionally. Besides, my sixteenth birthday was only two weeks away. I cautioned Jim to keep our secret from my dad.

He agreed and asked, "What did you mean by it happened again? What happened again?"

"Migraine."

"Oh."

"I don't have one very often, but when I get one it's debilitating."

Jim wondered what debilitating meant. He was a good-looking boy but not very bright. He'd been taught manners, though, and stayed with me until Dad arrived. I tried not to hold Jim's disjointed thoughts against him, reasoning if the curse became permanent that most thoughts coming my way would be disorderly.

Dad's thoughts were a jumbled mess, too, but most of them expressed worry about my well-being, and one of them cursed his wife and my mother for leaving him to deal with raising a teenaged daughter with bats in her belfry.

"Not nice, Dad. None of this is Mom's fault, and the bats in my belfry are voices."

"Sorry," he said blushing. "I frequently talk to your mother through my thoughts. I curse her; I rail against her for leaving me, and I blame her for all my troubles because I loved her so deeply. Still do. It's my way of keeping in touch with her without becoming maudlin about her loss."

"I understand."

"And I misspoke, or rather mis-thought, if such a word exists. You don't have bats in your belfry. You have a gift you must learn to control."

Fuck! he thought.

"My sentiments exactly," I said.

"Sorry," he said, apologizing again. "It'll take a while for me to become accustomed to having my mind read. In the meantime, please be patient and understanding with me. I think things I'd never say. Everyone does."

If she continues to read minds, she'll grow up faster than she should, he added as a thought, and the concept made him look unhappy.

I decided not to comment on his thoughts, but he was correct. If my own thought processes were an example, everyone had a dark side, a side they kept hidden from those around them, a side they explored only in their minds. Barbie was a good example. On the surface, she was ladylike and innocent. Underneath, she was a caldron of hidden passions.

"How do I learn control, Dad?"

"Use the scientific method. Experimentation," he said and added a silent question. Does she want to eliminate the gift completely or merely learn to control it so it doesn't overly interfere with her life? If I had the gift, I'd want to control it, not eliminate it, but Katy's not me. Contrary to her belief, she's still a girl, not a woman, and it might be better if she eliminated the gift completely.

I considered both his spoken words and his thoughts. I'd need his help applying the scientific method to the problem. Frankly, I didn't know where to start. Regarding his silent question, I decided I wanted to learn control, not eliminate the ability, because life would certainly be more interesting if I knew what those around me were thinking, especially if they were unaware I could hear their thoughts. Because Dad couldn't read my mind, I expressed my decision.

He smiled. I loved my father's boyish smiles. They warmed my heart.

"Okay. Let's start by deciding what you want to control. I take it you certainly don't want to hear the thoughts of everyone around you, especially in a crowded area like a mall or movie theater. Correct?"

"Definitely. The noise was almost painful, Dad. Debilitating."

Unlike Jim Reed, Dad understood the word.

I can only imagine, he thought, and then said, "The distance between you and a sender appears to be a variable in your ability to hear a sender's thoughts. You said when you left the theater that the number of voices in your head diminished. Correct?"

"Yes."

"Besides distance, walls or other physical obstructions might also affect your gift."

"Probably."

"I think to learn control, you'll need to understand the gift first. So our first experiment should determine the maximum distance from a sender that allows you to hear a sender's thoughts. Then we'll experiment with walls between you and a sender to determine if that distance changes."

Dad offered to be the sender, and that evening we determined that beyond about thirty yards, I couldn't hear his thoughts, and if he were in a room with the door closed his thoughts turned into murmured gibberish like people speaking quietly across a crowded room. I could tell he was thinking, but couldn't make any sense out of his mental words, which pleased Dad enormously because he realized he wouldn't need to worry about me reading his mind while in the privacy of his own room.

"I'm sorry, Dad. I know I've invaded your privacy. If you were the one with this so-called gift, I'd be much more upset than you." Then I thanked him for being so understanding and helpful. The hug and kiss I gave him to express my gratitude embarrassed him, but pleased him at the same time.

I avoided crowds for the next few weeks, and Dad and I learned more and more about my curse. I also learned some of my so-called friends weren't really friends. I learned other things I'd prefer not knowing, too. Like Mary Ann wanted to lick my pussy. Yuck! Like Bill Jensen was gay - a shame. He was a hunk! Like a lot of boys and men wanted to fuck me; no real revelation, but hearing their graphic thoughts on the subject tended to upset me more than if I'd merely noticed their leering eyes.

In truth, sexy thoughts didn't bother me very much. After all, I did a lot of thinking about sex myself, but some thoughts I heard were downright evil. Evil disturbed me a lot. For example, Mr. Olsen, a neighbor, wanted to murder his wife. He daydreamed about it, developed scenarios and bloody methods that would, hopefully, let him get away with it. Would he actually murder the woman? Probably not. Still, it was possible.

Many thoughts expressed extreme anger and hatred, not only from adults but also from kids my age and younger. I crossed off the names of some boys on my list as potential candidates for boyfriends that fit this category. One of them wanted to rape me, and it wouldn't be the first time he'd raped a girl, either. He'd threatened another girl to keep quiet after he raped her, scared her so badly she kept the crime to herself. I asked Dad if I should report the boy to the police.

"They wouldn't believe you, Katy. What would you say? I read his mind and found out he raped the girl and threatened her with her life if she told anyone."

With a grimace, I said, "I see what you mean." Still, my inaction nagged me. I wanted the boy to be punished. He'd rape again, and when he did, I'd feel partially responsible. I'd feel the same if Mr. Olsen actually murdered his wife. I told Dad how I felt.

"Cupcake," he said, using his favorite pet name for me, "you need to approach these kinds of problems as if you couldn't read minds. If you don't, you'll drive yourself bonkers. Let's say you succeed and stop the boy from raping again by helping the authorities put him behind bars. It'll take a lot of your time and energy. Then what? Your gift will just let you know about another evil person, and then another and another, ad infinitum. You can't right all the wrongs in the world. The worse thing you can do is start feeling responsible for all the evil you're sure to uncover with your gift."

What could I say? He was right.

School was scheduled to start the following week, and Dad and I hadn't made any breakthroughs that offered any control over my curse. How could I concentrate in a classroom with my mind hearing all the disjointed thoughts of the other students in the room?

When I expressed this concern to my father, he surprised me.

"I'm not completely ready, but we don't have a choice, so we'll get started tomorrow. About a week ago, I came up with a probable solution to your dilemma, and I've been looking into all the variables since. It involves biofeedback. I believe your gift deals with certain brainwave frequencies. If I'm right, you can learn to turn it on and off using biofeedback. I've made arrangements to use an EEG machine through Dr. Cottrell in the Psychology Department at the University. He's been coaching me how to use it and create the biofeedback software you'll need to train your mind how to control your gift.

"By the way, Katy, I didn't tell Cottrell about your gift. I told him you had some bad habits I wanted to break, so stop chewing your fingernails."

To make a long story short, the next night Dad hooked me up to the EEG machine, and I learned to play a computer game hooked up to the EEG. By concentrating on certain brainwave frequencies, I could speed up the game. Using other frequencies, I could slow the game down or stop it completely. Pretty snazzy, huh?

"Now comes the tough part," Dad said. "We need to learn which frequency or frequencies allows thoughts from a sender to enter and coalesce in your mind, and which frequencies, if any, stop the mental transfers. Armed with this knowledge, I can write the software that will train you to use biofeedback to gain the control you need. If we're successful, you'll essentially have access to an on/off switch that you can toggle with your mind, an all-or-nothing solution." He paused, and then added, "However, I suggest we take the experiment one step further, if we can. I think you should learn how to turn on one sender while turning off another at the same time, which will make your gift more useful."