Chapter 7

I was having a grand time. Watching Pearl in action delighted me.

Look at her! Good golly, that girl could dance!

Watching her move on the dance floor made me recall how she moved over or under me when we made love, how she walked across a room with her sinewy muscles rising and falling just under her sleek skin, how incredibly limber she was, and I figured she'd probably taken dance lessons in her youth, including ballet. She was grace personified, but with a large dollop of sexy mixed in the grace.

Telling Gomez I'd filled Pearl's dance card with my name ended up being a big, fat lie. We weren't at the dance five minutes, when Pearl was besieged with requests to dance. I'd obviously misjudged her reasons for wanting to go to the dance. She didn't want everyone to know we were a couple - well, maybe a little. What she really wanted was for me to discover and appreciate how talented she was as a dancer.

She'd succeeded. I was impressed.

The song ended, and she hugged Tom Bellini, her partner for the dance. She turned and searched for me, found me, and seconds later, she landed in my lap, and gave me a quick kiss.

"I'm dancing with Tanya's date next. Ask her to dance with you, Josh."

I nodded. Dancing with Tanya might be interesting. I'd seen Pearl and Tanya talking quietly together shortly after Pearl and I arrived, and when Pearl joined me again, her pussy was creaming. Had my girlfriend told her occasional lover that I knew about the two of them?

"If it's a slow song," I added.

It was, and I asked Tanya for the dance, which she graciously accepted, even after I'd warned her about my two left feet.

She moved close to me, draped both of her arms around my neck and cuddled her face against my chest. I tried to move with the rhythm of the music and failed, but I noticed that Tanya had rhythm, so I connected with her, and let her guide me.

She looked up at me and said, "Liar."

"Huh?"

"You don't have two left feet."

I laughed. "As long as I let you lead, we'll be fine."

"Like Pearl lets you lead in bed?"

"Uh-uh, that subject is verboten." I stumbled over one of my left feet.

Tanya laughed. I liked her laugh. I liked the feel of her in my arms. I liked her hard nipples poking my chest. I liked the stirring that was going on in her cunt, but I didn't like the hard-on that rose up in response to how much I enjoyed just about everything about her.

I might not have been happy about my hard-on, but Tanya was. She didn't back away from it at all, just the opposite. She was tall, nearly my height in her heels, so she could rub her mound over my erection, which was precisely what she did, enthusiastically, I might add.

"Pearl told me that you figured out how the two of us were with each other," she said.

I didn't respond.

Her mouth went to my ear, and she whispered, "How would you like to fuck her while she's eating my cunt?"

I chuckled nervously. With all the worldliness I'd gained with my empathic talents, Tanya had still managed to shock me. My emotional connection with her was strong, and from all I could sense and feel, Tanya wasn't jerking my chain. She was serious and highly aroused.

"Then we could switch, and you could fuck me while I ate her," she added.

Of the two scenarios, Tanya preferred the latter.

"I think Pearl would have something to say about your proposal."

She giggled. "True. What do you think she'd say about it?"

"You tell me."

With another giggle, she said, "I think she'd want to scratch my eyes out. She's head over heels for you, Josh. Please don't tell her what I said. Her friendship is important and dear to me. It was just that you're so fucking self-assured. I wanted to shake you if I could. I also wanted to test your attitude about Pearl. You passed with flying colors, by the way."

"Except for my hard-on."

"Oh, that. That's normal. An erection just let's a girl know she's sexy. If you hadn't gotten hard when I moved into your arms the way I did, I would've worried that I'd lost my touch with the opposite sex."

I scanned her deeply again, ignoring her sensations and concentrating on her emotions and her attitudes. I hadn't recognized she was pulling my leg, because she wasn't. She was very serious about the scenarios she'd proposed and would jump at the first opportunity to make the arousing fantasies real.

There wasn't a question in my mind as to how I'd react if Tanya were successful in satisfying her fantasies. Tanya and I shared the same fantasies. I wouldn't be opposed to a threesome with Tanya and Pearl because I believed sexually fidelity was a little silly at best, and at worst smacked of ownership. For me to forbid Pearl from having sex with Tanya again implied I owned her, and I didn't own Pearl, and she didn't own me. Granted, my beliefs had come from discussions I'd had with Sandy, but they made sense to me. Besides, I'd have sex with my sister whenever I could as long as I lived, so Pearl and I would need to craft an open relationship that worked for both of us, or somewhere along the line, we'd flounder as a couple, and our relationship would self-destruct.

I'd taken Tanya to her seat and was searching the crowd on the dance floor for Pearl. I knew approximately where she was because I was connected with her, but I couldn't see her. With a shrug, I started for my chair. I wouldn't mind sitting out the next dance.

In the blink of an eye, Pearl's emotions went from happy to very unhappy. In an effort to determine the source of her discomfort, I spread my empathic connection to a radius of approximately five feet using Pearl's emotional signature as the center of the circle.

Fuck, I muttered silently.

Paul Gomez's emotional signature popped up. I stood and hurried toward Pearl. Gomez was furious. I'd never felt him as angry as he was. He was also drunk or drugged up, one or the other, maybe both.

Pearl went from unhappy to terrified.

I crashed through the crowd and came to a stop in front of Pearl but facing Gomez.

"What's your problem, Paul?" I asked.

"The cunt won't dance with me." His words slurred.

"Then that's the way it is. It's her choice, Paul. Back off."

"Fuck you, you fuckin' wimp. When I finish with you, I'll show her how to dance, and then show her how a real man fucks." He flicked his wrist and a knife blade flashed, reflecting the dim light in the gym.

Unaccountably, the sight of the knife didn't frighten me, maybe because I figured Gomez was so out of it from booze or drugs that I could defend myself.

I was wrong.

He was quick, quicker than I expected, and he didn't hesitate. The knife entered my abdomen as if moving into soft butter. He took a step back and jerked the knife out of my stomach. I felt myself falling to my knees on the oak floor of the gym.

The crazy fucker stabbed me! A silly thought, perhaps, but that's what went through my mind.

My hands had automatically moved to the wound. I looked and saw blood oozing between my fingers.

My, God, I could die!

Like hell I would!

That's when the pain struck. It was excruciating and debilitating.

Like hell! I will not die!

I had a way to deal with pain. I'd removed the pain Pearl was feeling after I tore through her hymen. I'd bundled her pain and cast it away. No! It came back then. It needed a receptacle.

Gomez stood in front of me with an evil grin on his face, and so much hatred inside him I wondered why he didn't cut his own throat and be done with it. Gomez would make an appropriate receptacle for my pain. He'd caused it. I'd throw it back at him.

I gathered the painful sensations in and around the wound and projected them toward Gomez with all the mental strength I had.

What happened when my pain struck him astonished me. His body flew backwards as if he'd been hit head on by an eighteen-wheeler. His scream of pain pleased me.

Like hell! I will not die!

Forget Gomez now, I told myself. Fix yourself; repair the wound. I slumped to the floor and closed my eyes. Visualizing the wound, I looked for bleeding blood vessels and closed them one after the other starting deep and moving out toward my skin. I didn't know the anatomy of the abdomen, but I knew the stomach was located behind or just under the ribs. My wound was lower and probably involved my intestines, not my stomach. To my mind, the intestines were like sausages. The waste matter of the body was akin to the meat inside a sausage, and this junk was contained within a thin, surrounding membrane. I searched for cut intestines and leaking waste products and repaired the cuts by mentally resealing the sliced membranes. I didn't know what to do with the waste that had leaked into my abdominal cavity from the damaged intestines, so I ignored that problem. Had the knife hit any bone? I didn't think so, but I couldn't be sure. I searched for damaged bone and found none.

With a sigh, I opened my eyes. I'd done all I could to heal myself.

My eyes focused. Holding me in her lap, Pearl looked and felt terrified. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. I cancelled her connection, and all other connections in the room just as darkness descended on me, engulfing me like a heavy fog. And then I felt nothing, not even myself.

The sun was shining when I opened my eyes, which wasn't all that unusual, but I felt disoriented. And thirsty! I was very thirsty. My eyes focused, and I discovered I was in a strange room, a hospital room, I decided after taking in what I saw around me.

That's when I remembered Paul Gomez and the knife.

I tried to smile, but couldn't. Why smile? Because I was alive! After Gomez stabbed me, I was determined not to die, a determination so intense that I'd expelled the pain, casting it into Gomez's body, and then tried to repair the damage to my abdomen the knife had caused.

I'd succeeded.

Argh! Maybe not. Maybe I did nothing, and doctors repaired the wound.

Whatever. I was alive!

A pretty face with tired eyes loomed over me.

"Mom," I croaked, my throat so dry I couldn't talk.

She placed a straw in my mouth. "Drink," she said.

Ah, the nurturer. How did she know how thirsty I was?

"How am I?" I asked after swallowing a little water. I knew I was hurting, and I knew how to get rid of pain. I glanced around for a receptacle. Ah, another air-conditioning vent.

"The doctors say you'll be all right," Mom said.

I gathered my pain and cast it into an imaginary container I'd created inside the vent.

"Any lasting damage?" I asked as I established an empathic connection with my mother. I wanted the truth, and while connected I could use my built-in lie detector.

"No, but there's a chance for infection. They plan to keep you here for a few days for observation and treatment. Your father and some other Elders from the church just left. With the laying on of hands, they prayed for your quick recovery. Prayer is a powerful healer, Josh."

Humph. She was telling me the truth as she saw it.

A chubby, middle-aged woman wearing the uniform of a nurse stomped into the room on thick rubber-soled shoes. The black roots in her blonde hair showed through. I liked her honest smile, though.

"Ah, you're back among us. How are ya feeling, young man?" she said with a gravelly voice.

"Sore."

"I should hope ta shout you're sore! You've been sliced and diced, first by that no-account that stabbed you, and then by the surgeon who opened you up to make the repairs. You confused him, though, and Doctor Sanford isn't easily confused. He says your immune system must be awesome. You'd started to heal before the paramedics dropped you off at the emergency room."

"The power of prayer," Mom whispered, her eyes focused in the distance. "After being notified of your injury, Josh, your father and I prayed for you all the way to the hospital," she said with the fervor of a true believer.

Criminy, I thought, Mom and Dad will have me on my knees thanking God before the doc removes the stitches.

"I got a touch of the arthritis, Ma'am. Do a little prayer for me. I could use the relief." The black-rooted blonde winked at me as she took my wrist in her hand and checked her watch.

"What happened to Gomez, the guy who stabbed me?" I asked.

"They got him belted down and tranquilized to the gills in the psyche ward," the nurse said. "A real nutcase, that one. Swears you transferred your pain to him. Now that'd be a trick I'd like to get a handle on."

"Yeah, me, too. A knife in the gut isn't fun."

"There's a bunch of teenagers waitin' ta see you, young man. I'll allow one. Gotta preference?" The teasing twinkles in her eyes tickled me.

"How about a pretty girl named Pearl?"

"Good choice." She grinned and turned to my mother. "One visitor at a time, Ma'am."

"But..."

"Ah, give the boy a break. He's got one comin'."

Mom chuckled. "Oh, all right." She walked to the bed, leaned over and kissed my cheek. "I'll be right outside if you need me, Josh."

A minute later, Pearl entered the room. I connected with her, but then broke the connection - too many negative emotions.

"Hey, pretty one," I said with a smile. "Why so glum? I'll be fine, so cast all the negative emotions you're feeling away, and put on a happy face."