TOUCH
(Seducer Part 4 - Chapter 35 of Senses)
It was the following morning that Karen noticed something wrong.
She woke before Jim, finding him still floating nude three feet above the bed, relaxed in deep sleep. It was because of this that Karen noticed it, as to her knowledge no one kicked out emotion while they slept, but instead internalized it. Just the same, even in dreamless sleep, Jim was full of lust.
She stared up at Jim for a while, measuring the emotion. It never fluctuated, but remained at a consistent level; something else emotion rarely did. Jim simply didn't have that kind of emotive ability. The conclusion she reached both amazed and disturbed her.
She quietly slipped out of bed and walked to the next room, Jim's library. She found the phone and placed the call.
"It's too fucking early," came the voice on the receiver.
"I know A.J., and I'm sorry," Karen responded, "but I need your help."
Karen could hear A.J. shaking himself awake. "Talk to me," he said.
"Have you noticed Jim acting stressed out in the past couple of days?"
"Yes, actually, I have. I even pointed it out to him yesterday."
"I think I know why. He's asleep in the bedroom kicking out a steady stream of sexual emotion."
A.J. paused. "I didn't know he could do that."
"A.J., I can't do that. Not asleep, anyway. You get my point?"
There was a long silence before A.J. spoke again. "Mind control?" he finally asked.
"I think so," Karen replied. "Something or someone is controlling his emotive centers, and it's not me. Who's doing it and why I don't know. I need you to look for equations and see what's going on up there in Jim's mind."
"This is serious," A.J. said.
"No kidding. When can you get here?"
"Two hours enough time? You said he was putting out sexual emotion so I expect you to be busy for a bit."
Karen laughed. "You're as bad as he is sometimes."
Karen hung up the phone and returned to bed, just lying down when Jim woke up.
Jim brought his hands to his face to wipe the cobwebs from his eyes, then shook his head back and forth. As there was no resistance from a bed below he spun in mid air. Once he recovered from the shock of finding himself spinning, which lasted a few seconds, he gained control over gravity and fell to the bed. After a moment he sat up, visibly shaken.
"I slept floating in the air?" he asked aloud. He began to hyperventilate.
Karen mentally cursed as she realized that she had forgotten to mention to A.J. about Jim sleeping in the air. She put her arms around Jim to help comfort him. "All night lover," she said. "You fell asleep up there and stayed."
Jim was beginning to feel panicked. "That's never happened before!" He brought his hands back to his head. "What's happening to me?"
Karen had never done it before without asking, but she began to take emotive control over Jim to calm him down. Because there was someone else in there she found the going difficult, but she got control and Jim thanked her once she did so.
"Karen," he said, once calmer, "this really has me concerned. I don't seem to be able to keep my concentration going. I'm fucking up things left and right that should be rote for me. Darts, music, even basic interpersonal skills. It's like..." he fell silent.
Karen had to nudge him to talk again. "It's like?"
"It's like there's somebody else in my skull. Can you look at me professionally for a moment? Am I going nuts?"
"Jim, you're such a weird case from the start that I couldn't answer that even if we weren't lovers. I can tell you this though, there just may be someone else in there."
Jim raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"You're kicking out enough emotion right now to excite twenty people, let alone just me, but I'm controlling your emotive centers."
"That's not possible!"
"It shouldn't be possible," Karen corrected, "but it is and you should be able to see that. These emotions aren't mixed, they're separate. What's doing that?"
Jim sat for a moment. "We need A.J.," he finally said.
"I'm a step ahead of you," Karen replied. "I placed the call before you woke up and he'll be over in a couple of hours."
"Why so long?"
"I didn't expect you to be so coherent when you woke up. Considering the content of whatever is in your skull right now, I expected to be jumped."
Jim laughed. "If I hadn't been floating, you would have been. Remind me not to be so coherent in the future."
Karen smiled. "So noted." She traced a finger down Jim's chest, stopping only when she reached the base of his cock, coaxing it hard. "Can't rape the willing," she said.
Jim moved his hands from his head to the small of Karen's back. "Far be it for me to disappoint."
By the time A.J. and Carrie arrived Jim and Karen had made love, showered, dressed, and even had breakfast.
"Gave you two enough time?" A.J. asked as they walked into Jim and Karen's kitchen.
"You're sounding like your brother," Carrie said as she sat at the table.
"I'm not the only human being with a claim to vulgarity," Jim shot back after he finished the last of his Coca-Cola. He still couldn't get himself to drink coffee with breakfast.
"Business then," A.J. said, joining the others at the table. "Karen, have you two talked about this?"
"Yes," Karen responded.
"Okay big brother, I'll tell you right now that your equations look a bit wrong. Who the fuck is in your skull?"
"Three to one odds it's Angie," Jim said. Karen nodded and A.J. simply stared.
"Who's Angie?" Carrie asked.
"Day bartender at Jim's favorite hangout, remember? You sure Jim?"
Jim nodded. "Only thing that makes sense," he said. He stood and paced around the room.
"Think about it," he continued. "this all started about the time we had that match. That's also when I first met her. Admittedly, the fact that you were trying to rig the bet didn't help, but all of a sudden I seem to have a compulsive obsessive relationship with a woman I don't know."
"She's attractive Jim," A.J. said, "and a lot like Karen."
"I know, but I've looked at other women and even had a few thrown at me since Karen and I met. Nothing at all. Now this?"
A.J. sighed. "Point conceded. What do we do about it?"
"Get her out," Karen said.
"How? Simply ask?" Before Karen could say a word, A.J. continued. "We're dealing with a powerful mutation here, to use Jim's own terminology. Different from ours, but powerful just the same. Even if it's not this bartender, think of the distances that must be involved, and the apparent consistency. Besides, we don't know why she's doing it."
"If I've got the story straight," Carrie noted, "she may just be going for the conquest of a good fuck. I've seen how some bimbos throw themselves at you two. I used to get it too. Maybe if she got that it would end."
"That's not an option," Karen shot back. Karen controlled her anger as she realized that Carrie was not serious. "Sorry," she said.
"Me too," Carrie replied.
"Carrie's right," Jim said. "Even if that's not an option it might work."
"And if it doesn't?" A.J. asked. "Too big a risk, so fuck it. No, she needs to stop by her own free will."
"And how do we manage that?"
A.J. shook his head. "I don't fucking know."
"There's another option," Karen said.
"Which is?"
"Turn the experiments you two are about to start towards this."
"That will take too much time," Jim said, "although it's a good idea. I'm just doing an awful lot of work right now, and the World Aid show is coming up. I want her out of my head before I fucking snap!"
A.J. sighed, shaking his head. "Fucking workaholic," he muttered under his breath. "Ideas?" he asked the room.
It was a full minute before anyone spoke. Jim had sat down again when Carrie spoke. "How about bringing her into the loop?" she asked.
"Excuse me?" Jim said.
"I mean," Carrie replied, "into the experimental loop. Take Karen's idea a step further. Angie's obviously a paranormal, assuming Jim's right. Shouldn't she be studied too?"
"I want better odds about my guess before revealing ourselves," Jim said.
"So we need to confirm it," Karen said.
At that moment a searing guitar riff sounded through the house. "Door bell," everyone said.
"The joke's getting old," A.J. said.
With an odd feeling of deja vu Jim answered the door to find a man holding a newspaper and pointing to a picture on the cover.
"What the fuck is this about?"
"Nice to see you too Paul," Jim said. "Come in?"
Paul Cynic did so, handing the copy of the Inquirer to Jim. Jim looked at the cover, wide-eyed.
The photo, dark and grainy, was of Jim seeing Angie to her home. Alone, the photo didn't mean much, but the accompanying headline made all the difference. "Jim Christopher leaves behind broken-hearted love for new flame." In smaller type: "Known alcoholic takes up with bartender while jilted lover plans revenge."
Karen had come up behind Jim while he read. "Where do they get this stuff?" she asked.
Paul took the paper back. "I repeat," he said, "what the fuck is this about?"
"Kindness not repaid well," Jim said. "She lost a match of drunk darts to me. I simply saw her home. Jesus! That was only last night! They did this fast!"
Paul shook his head. "You probably never even saw the photographer. I've warned you about being careless and you just don't listen."
A.J., who had also entered the room, took the paper from Paul and read the headline. And smiled. "You don't care what the press or anyone else thinks, do you Jim?" he asked.
Jim smiled his ironic smile for the first time that day. "Nope."
"Good. Don't reply publicly to this just yet. I think I have a solution to your groupie problem. It will mean bringing in Paul though. We need his temper, and his reputation for eccentricity."
"Paul knows about me, little brother."
A.J. looked to Paul in shock. "I see the day will hold a few surprises," A.J. said.
Paul simply looked between the two men. "What the fuck is this about!"
After a moment, all three men laughed. Paul, being perhaps the most aware of how absurd his posturing seemed, asked, "Now that that is out of the way, I assume that we're talking about the same situation? You have a plan?"