SOUND
(Seducer Part 6- Chapter 37 of Senses)
Paul returned to Jim and Karen's home late, but they were waiting for him, along with A.J. and Carrie. By the time he arrived, he looked drawn from the effort to first get Angie's attentions and then to determine the next step given Angie's own problems.
Paul joined the others at the dining room table and said with a sigh, "There are times I wish you hadn't made me give up drinking."
Jim raised an eyebrow. "Must have been an interesting few hours," he said.
"That's putting it mildly double-oh-seven."
"Is Angie the one?" A.J. asked.
Paul nodded. "No question about it," he replied. "But we'll need to rethink the rest of the plan. She's not after Jim, but what he represents. The fact that it's Jim is incidental."
There was a collective sigh from the rest of the group. "You sure?" Karen asked.
"Positive. I know it's her because she turned her ability on me for a few seconds. If I hadn't been expecting it at some point from all my subtle taunting I wouldn't have caught it. It was like sensual Russian roulette."
"Aren't all first dates like that?" Jim asked.
"Yes, but add to that the fact that Angie is one hell of a lot more complex than we thought. For one thing, she's a doctor."
"What?" Every person in the room except Paul shouted, so he took a few minutes to retell the story of how she was disbarred from the medical profession.
Karen whistled. "What made her do it?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," Paul said, "but I got the impression that there was something in her past that virtually demanded that she make the sacrifice that she did. She wouldn't talk about that part."
"Fuck," Jim said. He started to pace. "I'm going to end up being sympathetic to her now, you realize. The Pennsylvania law is a pretty stupid piece of fucked up legislation. What about cases of incest? How does parental notification help out the girl?" He shook his head. "I'd do it for such a person."
"I already feel for her," Paul returned. "My own gut is telling me that she didn't use to seduce people. She's down on her luck, or whatever cliche you want to use here, so just shutting her out of the equation is simply going to send her deeper into her own problem. I think she needs Karen's professional skills."
"Our goal was to get her out of Jim's skull," Carrie pointed out.
"It still is. But she has a bigger problem than just us. Hell, she needs lawyer if nothing else in order to get her career back on track."
All five of them were quiet for a moment before A.J. spoke up. "I move that we bring her into the loop, like I suggested before."
Carrie grabbed the closest object, a half empty can of Coke Classic, and threw it at A.J. After all, it had been her idea. A.J. apologized after catching the can and drinking it's contents.
"That's two of you who think so," Paul pointed out. "Why so?"
"Think about it," A.J. said. "Right now what this woman needs more than anything else are friends. Supporters. People who understand what she did and does. If we are those people, perhaps that will bring out an understanding of why she needs to get out of Jim's head."
"She's got at least one friend," Jim pointed out. "Mike."
"Mike has the ability to be the friend of both Jesse Helms and Robert Mapplethorpe, were he still alive," A.J. countered. "My point is that she has a need to be understood as much as we do, and because of her paranormal activity she can't find it, so she finds a way to supplant it. Jim, you and I are no different. We simply don't have to use other people."
Jim chuckled. "Sounds like mental masturbation."
"It has always been that," Karen said. Both Jim and A.J. had to stifle a laugh.
"Or in Angie's case rape," Carrie added.
Karen nodded thoughtfully. "Possibly. Paul's right, she may really need a psychiatrist or a psychologist to help her, and I am our resident head-shrinker."
"Besides," A.J. continued, "I have a much more selfish reason to bring her in. Her knowledge of biology would be so much better than ours that we may be able to speed up the work we're doing."
Jim nodded. "Let's vote," he said.
All five agreed, with the proviso that Angie get out of Jim's head first.
"Fine," Paul said. "I recommend that we deal with her Friday during and after her shift."
"Why then?" A.J. asked.
"It's when I'm supposed to pick her up for our second date."
"Why Paul, I had no idea you were such a ladies man."
Paul frowned his famous mock frown. "Bastard," he commented. They all let out a much needed laugh of relief. Once everyone had calmed down Paul said that he was tired, understandably so, and he decided drive to his Malibu home.
Once he was gone the others rejoined themselves to the living room and Karen brought up the other shoe. "I wouldn't mention this until now," she said, "because you went to such pains not to let Paul know about my skills, but there's still something we need to consider. Is Angie an empath, like me?"
Jim sighed. "I don't know," he said. "Any ideas?"
"I don't think we have enough information," Carrie said, "but I have a few thoughts. Jim, Angie seems to be able to control you from a fairly long distance. But according to the story you two told A.J. and me this morning, Karen was able to override and control your emotions during that moment you panicked. Wouldn't that mean that Karen's stronger?"
"Maybe," Karen said, "But when I controlled Jim's emotional balance she was still in there doing her erotica thing."
"That would mean that least she's a different set of frequencies," A.J. pointed out. "And we know from our own experience that the brain only allows for one use of a type of formula at a time. That would lead me to believe that she's not an empath. Besides, the one thing I don't see is some magic line running off into the distance, like I would expect when you have control of someone's emotions."
"Problem is," Jim responded, "that it's an emotional response I go through. I've experienced enough of them in the last two years to know. Care to tell me why it is that it feels like the same type of thing I feel when Karen is in me?"
A.J. considered it for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't know the answer to that," he said. "Mind if we try a simple experiment right now?"
"Go for it," Jim replied. Karen nodded.
"Jim, Angie kicks nothing through but horniness, correct?"
"Correct."
A.J. turned to Karen. "Well then," he continued, "as difficult as it is to avoid what is almost a natural state for you two, can you override it so that Jim doesn't notice it anymore?"
"I'll try," Karen said. "Let's try something like emotional calm." She focused her thoughts and sent to Jim. It was like a mask had left his face, but Jim shook his head.
"Now I'm just calm and horny," he said.
"Can you go any stronger?" Carrie asked.
"Plenty of room left," Karen said. "That's usually all I need with Jim. Even this morning I didn't need all that much."
"Fucking symbiotics," A.J. muttered under his breath, laughing.
For Karen the strength she was using on Jim was the equivalent of a 2 on a 1 to 10 scale. The morning session was a three. She increased the strength of her push to 5, then at Jim's urging pushed it to a 7.
"It's gone," Jim said.
"Good," Karen replied. "You were starting to worry me. A.J., what was the point of this?"
"To see if you could overpower her," A.J. replied. "My hunch is that distance makes no difference to Angie, so as long as you're close by you can override whatever she does."
"And if she's stronger than this close up?"
"Don't you think she'd have got Jim in bed by now?"
Both Karen and Jim thought about Jim's experience when he almost did wind up in Angie's bed, but neither one of them said anything.
Carrie didn't let it go. "What if you're wrong?" she asked.
A.J. sighed. "Let's burn that bridge when we find it, all right? Right now we need a united front for Friday afternoon. I think we all need to be there."
"Agreed," Karen said. "If Paul's right, she'll need me more than either of you two fuck-heads."
Jim groaned, while A.J. smiled and said, "I'll try not to take that personally."
"Good. We've been too serious for the last couple of days, it's not like us. Shall we go to A.J.'s favorite tavern for a change? We can return to Montana Avenue when we deal with Angie."
Jim nodded. "Deal," he said. "By the by, did any of you notice that Paul said almost nothing cynical tonight? How is this affecting him?"
"I think it pisses him off," Karen said. "I mean professionally. Paul so badly wants to help her that he would probably take her case personally to the American Medical Association, or at least California's equivalent, to allow her to practice again. You know that Paul reacts badly to stupidity, and as you so eloquently put earlier lover, the Pennsylvania situation is stupid."
"I agree that he's pissed off about something," A.J. added. "Usually the equations I get from Paul reflect that he doesn't take his posturing seriously. This all means something to him though."
Jim laughed. "Is our Paul finally falling for someone?" he asked. Everyone smiled trying to picture it, but it was Carrie who had the real answer.
"I doubt it," she said. "Remember our little 'staged' date? He said then that he likes tall blondes, and I mean at least 5 foot 10, almost to the point of perversion. He told me that it was very difficult to act attracted to even me!"
A.J. roared with laughter. "No accounting for taste," he finally said, "but I won't begrudge him not being attracted to my lady. After all, Jim and I obviously have very different tastes."
Karen and Carrie shared a secret smile over that comment.
"Fuck it folks," Jim said. "Let's go get that drink."
"Who's driving?" A.J. asked.
"You are," Jim said. "I'm not sure I always remember where your bar in Malibu is."
As the two couples walked to the car, Jim whispered in Karen's ear. "Lover," he said, "you don't need to keep the horniness out of me forever you know. At the moment, all I'd attack is you."
Karen shared his quiet smile. "Fair enough,"
she said.