Chapter 7: Wednesday, August 4, 2010.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010.

Darrell pushed his chair back and stood.

“Uh oh,” Alice said nervously. “Is this going to turn into a scene?”

Darrell stomped across the lounge toward them.

“Only if we let it,” Jake said.

Jake made Darrell scared of him and Alice.

“That’s strange,” Alice said when Darrell suddenly went back to his table, sat down, and stared down into his beer mug, his hands trembling. “Did you do something to him?”

“Yeah, I did. He’s a little unstable. I didn’t want to have to worry about him. He thinks you have a pistol strapped to your leg and a very bad temper.”

“Under this little dress?”

Jake smiled.

“And I’ll be able to do that, too?” she asked.

“Within a couple of weeks. You’ll be able to identify troublemakers and deal with them. Jan was the first one I changed. She picked it up very fast. Much faster than I did. Having someone to teach you makes a big difference. In fact, this is a good opportunity for you to practice. Did you feel any other unwholesome emotions while you were strutting.”

She slapped his arm. “I don’t strut.”

Jake sent her a flash of disbelief.

“Stop that,” she said, laughing. “I don’t.”

“If I looked like you, I would flaunt it, too.”

“Hush,” she said. “There is one other person. He isn’t as sick as Darrell. I feel envy. It is really strong. Envy and desire. In fact, it is so strong that it is scary.”

“I don’t ever go to bars,” Jake said, “so I don’t know if this crowd is unusual, but there seems to me to be a lot of fucked-up guys here.”

“Bars and clubs are the kinds of places where you meet creepy guys.”

“One of them here is having trouble keeping his desires under control. I want you to figure out which one it is.”

“How do I do that?”

“It’s easy to tell the direction that an impression is coming from,” Jake said. “It’s sort of like telling which direction a noise is coming from. Focus on the envy and desire you were describing. Cast out for its source. Turn your head back and forth like you would if you were trying to pick out a sound.”

Alice slowly turned her head back and forth.

“I’m just not sure,” she said. “It’s hard to isolate it.”

“Then we’ll just have to make the signal stronger. Stand back up and stick your tits out again.”

“Jake!”

Obey me, apprentice, he sent with just a touch of growl. This is an important lesson.

“Yes, sir,” she said and complied. She again moved her head back and forth. “It worked. That got his attention again. I think it’s in that direction.”

Alice pointed to a table off to the side with four young men, all of whom had their attention fixed on her.

“Better. Now I want you to filter out everybody else’s emotions, leaving only the envious guy.”

“How?”

“How do you make your fingers wiggle? It’s too basic a skill to describe. Just think it and it will happen.”

Jake let her struggle with the task for a minute.

“Wait, that’s it,” she finally said. “When I finally got it to work, it was effortless.”

“Well done. Much of what you will learn works the same way. When you’re dealing with consciousness — your own or the target’s — it’s simply a matter of asserting your will. You just do it.” He looked over at her. “Did that help you identify which of those guys did it?”

“Yeah. Once everybody else went silent, it was obvious that it was the guy in the green polo shirt.”

“Correct. Keep going. Now that you’ve silenced everybody else, tell me what else you can tell about him, not just emotions but anything.”

Alice closed her eyes and focused.

“He’s got a hard-on,” she said after a few seconds. “He needs to take a piss.” She paused again. “He’s frustrated. He wants to approach me but doesn’t dare.”

Jake sat silent, letting Alice continue. After a half a minute her frustration surged.

“I just can’t quite catch it, but I can tell that he’s thinking about what he’d like to do to me. All I can tell for sure is that it’s sexual and violent.”

“Not bad at all. It takes longer to learn to read thoughts than emotions and sensations,” Jake said. “It will come. Keep practicing. Take advantage of being out in public. Try to read me, too. Read the rest of the family when we’re back home.

“As for your friend, he’s got this fantasy of taking you by force, but his impulse control is pretty good. I don’t see any evidence that he acts on his desires.”

They heard the call from the hostess that their table was ready. They presented themselves and followed her back to their table. After they were seated and had ordered, Jake looked down nervously at the table.

“Do you remember when I promised you that I would never change you without your permission?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I meant it and I still mean it, but I do have a confession to make.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“When I first met you, I made a change to you then.”

“Let me guess. It has something to do with why sex has been even better than ever for me since I started working at Diana’s.”

“Yes,” Jake said and told her about how he had taken over the brothel from his father, keeping his father’s policy of enhancing the sexual responses of the women.

“If you want, I’ll put you back the way you were.”

“Since you must know that I would stab you with this fork before I let you do that, I’ll assume that your offer is for form only.”

“Yes, I was pretty sure that you wouldn’t take me up on it, but I had to make the offer. All of you mind readers have to know that you can trust me.”

“Don’t you worry about whether you can trust us?”

“There are lots of people that I would worry about. My father, for instance. And what about Darrell? Can you imagine what he would do with this kind of power? That’s why I’m so selective about who I change. But I’m not worried about you eight. Every one of you is special. I would trust each of you with my life.”

“What if you’re mistaken?”

Jake shrugged. “The more mind readers we have, the more protection we have from each other. Soon you’ll know the contours of my mind like you know your own face in the mirror. The same with the others. We’ll all know each other that well.

“If someone changed one of us, the others would be able to tell. We can’t hide from each other. If some outside mind reader were to change any of us, it would become known to all of us pretty quickly. The only way one of us could take control of the others would be through some kind of lightning coup. I doubt it’s possible. Someone would notice before more than a couple of us had been taken under control. At that point, it would be open war.”

“I hope you’re sure about that.”

“Pretty sure. I’ve gamed out several ways such a coup might work. Since the planning needed to pull it off would be involved, the scheming would be detected by the others before it could get very far. Plus, none of us has that kind of ambition. We’d rather be a part of something bigger than ourselves than dominate the others. Of course, there is also the personal loyalty issue.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m very fond of all of you. I value you all. Even that big oaf, Boris. We’ve been through some scrapes together.”

“Scrapes? Plural? Like when you attacked Tommy Cox?”

“Now you’re just teasing. You know we didn’t attack him.”

“I know you say you didn’t.”

“You’re not going to goad me. You’ll be able to read it directly out of my memory soon. The point I’m trying to make is that I’m pretty sure that everyone feels the same way about me that I feel about them. On top of that, I think that as we read each other and get to know and accept each other, our bonds will only deepen.

“In fact, it has already happened somewhat. As near as I can tell, the women of the first wave keep no secrets from each other. I’m the only one they scheme against. There is already intimacy between them, physical as well as emotional”

“I saw that. They did seem to be very like-minded.”

“Yes, it’s because we can’t hide what we’re thinking from each other.”

“So tell me what it’s like to grow up as a mind reader.”

Jake spent some time telling Alice about his childhood, including the story of Gil Hambry.

“Wow. That must have had a big impact on you. It seems like the way you relate to everybody springs from that.”

“I think you’re right that it was significant, but my mom and grandmother were pretty big influences, too. I’d hate to disappoint either of them by being dishonest or cruel or anything like that. But enough about me. What about your childhood?”

“I grew up in the suburbs. Stable parents. Public schools. It doesn’t get any more vanilla than me growing up.”

“And yet you turned out so exceptional.”

She flashed him a brilliant smile. “I’m glad you like the result, but there really was nothing special about my life.”

“Did you ever have a boy break your heart?”

“Not once. I was never exclusive in high school. Sometimes a boy would try to tie me up, but I always insisted that we both be free to see other people.”

“That’s unusual. Teenaged girls usually opt for monogamous relationships.”

“Lots of them, true. But why limit yourself to one boy? They were all kind of alike anyway.”

“So there was no one special?”

“There were lots of guys that I liked. Some I liked a lot. The same in college.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“I guess not. I just never had any reason to. I’ve never needed a guy for security or status.”

Jake dug out a memory of his of a late night with Ellen in Paris and replayed it for Alice. It had started with Ellen teasing him, trying to provoke Jake to spank her. He finally did, pushing her hard. After the sex, they lay in bed for an hour, cuddling and talking about, among other things, Ellen’s desire for children with Jake.

Alice had dropped her fork when she began experiencing Jake’s memory. He watched her tense up during Ellen’s spanking. She began to tear up at the intimacy they had shared afterward.

“I don’t get off on discipline as Ellen does,” Alice said, “but the pillow talk was wonderful. Was she really that open with you? You’re her—” She looked around and lowered her voice. “You’re her son.”

“With us, it’s not hard to be intimate. It’s hard not to be.”

“Oh,” she said.

Jake felt apprehension in Alice.

“Alice, you’ve never really opened up to others,” he said. “You didn’t need to. You’re gorgeous and outgoing, sweet and intelligent. Others see that and it’s enough to attract them to you. The few who pushed you for more quickly got the message that there was a limit to how close you’d let them get. I think that you’re going to find that it’s much more of a challenge to be with us.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I haven’t really had to give of myself.”

He gave her a smile. “It will work out okay. You’ll see. Now let’s try a new game. Hold on a second.”

Jake went rummaging through memories in Alice’s cerebral cortex. He found an interesting memory, reassembled it into the proper sequence, and played it back to Alice.

“Tell me about that night,” Jake said.

“Oh, my. I’d forgotten about that. That was me coming home after having a date. It was my first time with a certain one of the basketball players. Mom wanted to talk about it with me.”

“But you didn’t want to.”

“I couldn’t tell her that I’d just screwed the boy on our first date.”

“I guess I can see how that might be uncomfortable. Did you ever tell her about your dates?”

“No. After a while, she stopped trying to pry out the details.”

“What about girlfriends?”

“Starting in junior high, I was closer to the boys than to the girls. It makes me look shallow, doesn’t it?”

“Shallow? Not at all. You are anything but that. But you have been pretty self-sufficient. You didn’t really need anybody. You probably never even struggled with your classes, did you?”

“No. My grades were always fine.”

“How’s your sex life with women?”

“Jake! That’s rather personal.”

Jake peeked to find that she had only had sex with women on the job, not that she had any objection to it. It was just that vaginal intercourse was the kind of sex she preferred.

“What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done?”

“Jake!”

Jake read the thought that arose. She had finished out high school by having a gangbang with most of the senior boys on the baseball team. She had avoided doing something like that before then because she didn’t want it to sully her reputation. She had waited until the school year had ended before she had gotten together with the boys after their final game of the season.

“How pure was your reputation before you and the baseball team?”

“People knew I’d put out, but in high school there are sluts and there are sluts.”

“I’ll have to tell you about Carol and the Hillside High basketball team.”

“Little Carol? She’s what? Thirteen?”

Jake told Alice about Carol and how he had gotten to know her.

“And your job is to get her bed partners?”

“It’s either that or meet her needs myself, and that’s a job I don’t have the capability to do on my own. I don’t think there is any single guy who could do it.”

“That gives us something in common,” Alice said, “since it’s my duty to recruit girls for Diana’s.”

“I’d say that you’re about to get a lot better at that.”

“I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re right. It will be a lot easier now. It’s hard to work the subject of prostitution into most conversations. I’ll be able to see who best to approach now. I might be able to get us all the girls we need.”

“Enough shop talk. Let’s go back to learning about Alice. Were you involved in sports?”

Jake mostly kept the conversation on Alice for the rest of the dinner, only occasionally letting her turn it back to him. Soon they finished their meal, shared one of L’Espalier’s baked desserts, and left for the art museum.

On the way, Jake asked her about her interest in art and what she had learned about it at the university. He had never spent much time talking about art with someone who was knowledgeable. She gave him a quick course on how to appreciate paintings.

At the museum, she took him to the rooms with paintings from the twentieth century. Jake spent a while camped in front of a Jackson Pollock.

“I didn’t figure you for a Pollock fan,” Alice said to him quietly, standing next to him after she had gone around the room herself.

“Five people moved past it while I was standing here. Four of the five thought it was a fraud perpetrated to separate money from gullible art collectors and museum curators.”

“What did the other one think?”

“It was ‘ballsy,’ to quote her.”

“There are things I admire about Pollock.”

“Then tell me why this isn’t just paint dripped onto canvas?”

“Okay, but first a little background. The thing about art is that the good stuff works on many levels. Some of those levels are concerned with the subject matter. Other levels are the craft that goes into it and how it compares to similar works of art.

“Look at the Mona Lisa. At one level it’s a portrait of an interesting if plain-looking young woman. At another level it’s one of many portraits commissioned by wealthy men wanting to enhance their reputations as sophisticated connoisseurs and patrons of the arts, to say nothing of wanting to curry favor with their wives. At that level, it says something about how artists think their patrons want to be seen.

“Some paintings deal with the politics of the day. Some with nature subjects. Some use old techniques and some use new ones.” She gestured toward the Pollock. “Now look at this one. What is the subject?”

“That’s just it. It has no subject, other than paint poured onto the painting.”

“Exactly. That was Pollock’s aim. He worked diligently to ensure that his paintings did not inadvertently give the impression that there was a subject. That’s actually hard to do because people will often detect patterns that weren’t intended by the artist.”

“You mean the painting is really only about paint poured on a canvas?”

“I think so. That, and what it provokes in the people who encounter it. When you take away the subject, the painting asks what is left. Without content what’s left is craft and aesthetic theory, issues that are more important to artists than to art collectors or most art museum visitors, although arguably craft and theory constitute their own kind of content.”