TOUCH
(Seducer Part 7- Chapter 38 of Senses)
At 2:30 p.m. on Friday Jim and Karen entered the bar and made their way to the serving bar. By the time they were seated in their barstools the bartender had poured four Bushmill's, two for each of them. Together, Jim and Karen said, "Thanks, Mike," and drank both sets of drinks down.
"No problem," the bartender said, starting a third round. "You're going to confront her today aren't you?"
"Yup," Karen replied. "I'm sick and tired of this woman competing for my man. We're going to get her to stop."
The bartender smiled. "Good luck," he said as he walked away.
Jim turned to Karen. "He knows?" he asked. "Or is he that good?"
Karen shook her head. "He's just that good at reading people. He doesn't know about you or me or Angie or anyone else, I don't think. He's just like your older brother when it comes to reading people."
Jim chuckled and sipped his drink. "That should have occurred to me ages ago," he said. "I think I need to get the two of them together sometime."
Karen nodded. "Might be worth doing. Get them to compare notes."
"Problem is that Mike keeps this shit in his head. Larry has had to work with files and notes for years although it's becoming intuitive for him. I'd love to do it though. I know that Mike's not one of us though."
"With his ability to pour the right drink, are you sure?"
Jim smiled his ironic smile. "A.J. once used his weird eyesight to look at him once. Nothing unusual came through at all. No, Mike's simply an exceptional human being."
"I take exception to that," the bartender said as he came back to within hearing range. "Whatever it was you were saying about me."
Jim raised his glass and toasted the bartender. "Nothing except that you seem to take up after your namesake quite well." He finished his drink, and Karen did the same with hers.
The bartender poured another round, although giving Karen half as much as Jim as she didn't quite have the tolerance he did. "I don't come from Harmony," he said, "and don't you ever tell Spider I said so. I'm from Vancouver."
"Really?" Karen asked. "I'd have never guessed."
"Eye lass," the bartender replied. "not many of me kind up thar, nor whar thar ever such a type as me."
Both Jim and Karen laughed. The bartender had never affected an accent in all of the time they had known him, but his false-irish-with-a-touch-of-scotch that most North Americans try to do from time to time was impeccable. As they drank their drinks the bartender glanced up to see A.J. and Carrie come in and take a table by the jukebox and away from everyone else.
"Interesting," the bartender commented. "What's your brother and his lady doing here? This isn't their haunt this time of day."
Jim didn't turn around. "Insurance," he said to the bartender. "If this gets ugly they're here to keep me from blowing too much steam."
The bartender laughed uneasily. "You're not going to wreck my bar again are you?"
"I hope not. This one's going to be between Karen and Angie. I'm just here to watch. Give me a bottle of Bushmill's and a bottle of Vodka and a bottle of good tonic, and I'll take it over to them."
The bartender nodded, having already got out the bottles.
"Mind if I take out the light bulb over that table?" Jim asked. "I'd like to be as out of the way as possible."
Instead of responding the bartender walked over the the end of the bar and reached under to a switch. The light over the table went promptly out, putting A.J. and Carrie completely into shadow. When he walked backed to the stunned Jim and Karen he said, "You're not the only person to come into my bar looking for privacy."
Karen smiled. "You're full of surprises Mike," she said.
"I always will be. Got customers." With that the bartender walked away.
Jim grabbed the two bottles of liquor and Karen the bottle of tonic and a couple of limes for good measure and they joined A.J. and Carrie at the table. Upon sitting down Jim faced out into the bar and said, "Not bad. You can see into the bar but the patrons really can't see you unless they come looking. Perfect."
A.J. nodded and took the bottle of vodka, pouring a vodka and tonic for both himself and Carrie. After sipping some of his he asked, "Well, are we ready to do this?"
Karen nodded and let out a breath. "I think so," she said.
"You've got the tough job, so your judgment is the one we'll have to follow."
"I know, but I've never had to fight someone on this level before. I've never met another full empath before now."
"We aren't sure she's a full empath," Carrie pointed out, "or even if she's an empath at all. Karen, it won't be any problem."
"I hope you're right," she replied. "We don't know what the effect of two empaths clashing would be."
A.J. drank down his drink and was pouring another when he said, "We're about to find out. She's here."
All four occupants of the table faced into the bar to see Angie walk into the bar and talk to the bartender for a moment. They saw her look at her watch and check her hair in the mirror behind the bar, then turn around as if to wait for someone, which she was.
"She's got Paul's name written all over her face," A.J. said.
"Or at least on her equations?" Jim responded.
"Isn't that what I said?"
Karen took a deep breath and stood up. "Show time," she said.
As she walked to the bar Jim muttered softly, "Good luck lover."
Karen reached the bar as Angie was looking away, so Karen's "Excuse me" startled her. The looked surprised for the briefest instant then said, "Hello Karen. You startled me."
Karen smiled. "Sorry about that," she replied. "Waiting for someone?"
"Yes, actually. You'll probably be relieved to hear that I have a date."
"Yes, I know. Paul's not coming - an attack of conscience he called it."
Angie narrowed her eyes and looked closely at Karen. "What are you doing here?"
"May we speak?" Karen asked. "I'd like to talk to you about Jim."
Angie started to fume. "That bastard! He was lying all along and I fell for it! Paul set this up, didn't he?"
"No, I did. Don't blame Paul, he feels pretty shitty about it."
"He's going to feel worse, attack of conscience or not."
"I'd leave him alone," Karen said. "This isn't about him anyway. It's about Jim, and your efforts to get to him."
"Paul just made me want to redouble my efforts," Angie said with a sneer.
Karen sighed. "May we please find an open table? We can stand here and argue or we can have a seat and a couple of drinks and talk this out, all right?"
Angie stared at Karen for a moment and then sighed. "All right," she finally said. The two of them found a table, and the bartender brought out two drinks, a Bushmill's for Karen and a rum and coke for Angie. As Karen sipped her drink Angie asked, "How can you drink that shit?"
"It's not so bad," Karen replied.
After a moment during which time both women sipped at their drinks, Angie spoke again. "So you want me to leave your man alone," she stated.
"That's right," Angie replied.
"No can do. I'm making the best play for him that I can, and the final decision is going to be his."
"An interesting philosophy. Usually men rationalize to each other that they win women from their husbands by that same method. This is the first time I've seen one woman do it to another, and I'm a psychologist so if anyone would have access to such a thing, I would."
Angie laughed a bit, more like a snort. "I like breaking new ground. You'll need to do better than the psycho bullshit."
Karen nodded and finished her drink in two swallows. "All right," she said, "I can break new ground too. I'll tell you something no one ever has before. Get out of Jim's head!"
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I know for a fact that you're in there, messing with his thought processes."
Angie pushed her chair a bit back from the table. "What are you talking about?"
Karen leaned forward and grabbed Angie's arm. "You know precisely what I mean," she hissed. "You've got a kind of skill that makes men desire you, or something like that, and you're trying to use that advantage in getting Jim."
"Have you lost your mind?"
"The problem is that Jim has a few quirks to his mind that you couldn't possibly know about, and it's affecting him badly. What you're doing is pushing him over the edge, and it's got to stop."
Angie was wide-eyed now. "Speaking of being over the edge," she said. "And let go of my arm!"
Karen did so and sighed. "I can see that we're going to have to do this the hard way. I'm sorry about this, but you've left me with little choice." Karen looked directly at Angie and took over her emotive centers and began to make her sad. She took Angie to her threshold for crying and then suddenly let her go. Angie's mouth dropped open.
"You see," Karen whispered, "you should never assume that you're the only one who can do it."
Angie was slack-jawed for several moments, then finally managed to get her moth closed. Then she let out the breath she had been holding and picked up her drink, still half full, and finished it off. She set the glass down with enough strength to put a crack in it.
"I..." she stammered. "I've never been able to do that. I mean that, I... that..." her eyes went wide again. "Oh, shit."
Karen agreed. "Oh shit is right," she replied. She leaned back for dramatic effect. "I want you out of Jim's head."
Angie still seemed to be in a bit of shock. "How did you do that to me?" she asked. "I've never been able to do that!"
"You want more?" Karen roared. She then brought her voice back down to a whisper. "On a 1 to 10 scale that was a 4. I can hit you with any emotion of my choosing. I am a full empath dear, and you'd best not fuck with me, or with mine, you got that?"
Angie stared for a moment again, trying to come to a decision, then motioned for the bartender to bring another round. When they arrived she drank her rum and coke down without a pause. "All right, empath," she finally said. "I'm out."
Karen didn't hesitate. "Jim!" she called out. "Is she out?"
Jim had already walked half way to the table when Karen shouted. He walked the remaining five steps and said, "She's out." He faced Angie. "Why?"
Angie said nothing, so Karen spoke up. "I have a theory," she said. "Would you like to hear it?"
Angie still said nothing, so Karen continued. "Paul told us your story about losing your license."
"That bastard!" Angie shouted.
"Don't judge him too harshly," Jim said. "He only did this because we're so close. He wants to represent you to get your license back." Angie still steamed but said nothing.
"Anyway here's the theory," Karen stated. "Something has happened in your life to bring out a sort of hatred towards men with power. Granted, the only two examples we've seen are Jim and Paul, but I think that's the pattern. At first I was thinking it had something to do with your being disbarred from your profession, but it's been pointed out that there has to be a reason for you to have felt so strongly that you broke the low, no matter how stupid a law it was. After all, you can drive less than 100 miles and leave Pennsylvania for a state where the abortion laws make more sense. Jim thought it might be that you dealt with a incest case. Not good enough.
"However, if you put these two concepts together a pattern emerges. A hatred for men, plus the risk you took and paid the price for. I'd say that you personally had an abortion when you were a minor, probably incest if the look on your face means anything, and you saw yourself in your patient. Most human beings in the same circumstance would react that way."
Angie was to startled to not say anything. "Three doctors didn't before she was brought to me," she said.
"I didn't say doctors," Karen pointed out, "I said human beings. You should have seen Jim when he found out about all of this. Even he stopped being pissed off about you trying to take over his mind for a few minutes."
Angie had started to cry. "I..." she started. When she couldn't continue Jim went to the bar and grabbed a few cocktail napkins and brought them to the table. Angie blew her nose and wiped her eyes and went on.
"I was fourteen," she said. "Young Latina girl in Philadelphia, living with her father and six boys in a one bedroom apartment."
Karen nodded. "Jim, you should leave," she said. "This is going to need to be private."
"No, stay," Angie said. "You should hear this too, so you can understand."
"One brother was only a year older than me," she continued. "We hit puberty about the same time, at ages 13 and 12 respectively, and we did something that I'm told a lot of siblings who are very close do. We investigated each other. And we got caught.
"Father was furious. He beat Juan so badly that he ran away the next day. Me, I was punished a special way. I became pregnant when I was fourteen." Angie looked directly at Karen. "That was a good guess," she said. "you are probably very good at your line of work.
"The thing you got wrong is that I didn't get an abortion. We were catholic, and good catholics don't get abortions. Finally when I was showing enough that anyone could tell I wasn't just getting fat, a social worker asked who the father was, and I told the truth.
"We all wound up in homes, and father wound up in jail. I'll never forget at the trial that he called me a 'seducer'. My father died in prison. He fell on a knife 26 times. Child molesters are the scum of the prisons, and that's according to the prisoners.
"The baby was born while I was still fourteen, and the state took the baby away." She started to cry again. "Somewhere I have a 14 year old daughter who will never know about me. And a 14 year old sister. The first time I saw the movie 'Chinatown' I nearly had a nervous breakdown. I lost a lot that year, including my faith.
"Somehow I managed to not slice open my wrists when I was a teenager. I got back into a school where they didn't know about me, and dug in. I made it out and into college, then medical school, and moved into rural Pennsylvania and set up shop.
"Now comes the strange part. In the middle of my first year of practice, Juan shows up with a young girl. Couldn't have been more than thirteen and about ten weeks pregnant. He says he knows all about what happened to me and asks me to help someone out so that she won't have to go through the same hell I did. I performed the abortion.
"My brother got into trouble for that one, because someone thought he was the father, and I knew he wasn't. Blood types are very specific and my brother wasn't even close.
"I went to testify on his behalf. I figure I've had enough of Pennsylvania and I'll move to some other state and get my license there. Anyway, this prosecutor has my testimony disallowed, because of court testimony from my father's trial showing that I had had sex with my own brother. I became a lousy character witness, despite the fact that my evidence was purely scientific. Then I did something stupid.
"By this time my talent was no mystery to me, so I turned it on the prosecutor. I made him want me, figuring that the case would be thrown out."
Jim's eyes went wide. "The State vs. Rameriz!" he shouted. "Jesus, that was all over the news for a while."
Angie nodded. "And I'm the bimbo that drove her brother to his own suicide, and a prosecutor to his," she said. "According to the press I caused the whole fucking thing, when I was just trying to help one little girl. I haven't stood a chance to get my license back since. I guess I...became what my father always thought...I was. Could you get some more napkins, please?"
Jim went back to the bar to find A.J. there. "How's it going bro'?" A.J. asked.
Jim whistled and shook his head. "Amazing," he said. "She's more fucked up than we thought. We definitely need to bring her in." Jim took a stack of napkins and walked back to the table, where Karen was holding Angie as she sobbed uncontrollably.
Karen used her emotive ability to help calm Angie down. Once Angie stopped crying she said, "That's incredible. I could feel you calm me down. How do you do that?"
"It's difficult to explain," Karen said, "and most people can't feel me do it although Jim can. Can you do anything other than control someone's sex drive?"
"No."
"Have you tried to?" Jim asked.
Angie looked up to him. "I...I haven't tried. Shit, I haven't even thought to try."
Jim looked at Karen, and she nodded. "Want to try?" he asked.
Angie looked up. "You can do it too?"
Jim laughed and sat down. "Be quieter, this is a secret. No, I can't do it too. My ability is strikingly different. A question first. Do you believe that we support you?" He motioned over to A.J., and both A.J. and Carrie joined them. Jim repeated the question.
Angie looked from face to face. "Support me?" she asked.
"Yeah, support you. None of us would have done anything different than you if we had faced the same situation."
"Wait a moment," Angie said. "You said something about Paul wanting to help me get my license back?"
"That's right," Karen replied. "He feels bad about what he had to do."
"Had to do?" Some anger came out.
"Until your date with him, we weren't sure it was you. We're all sorry, but it was necessary. Otherwise none of this could have happened."
"Paul is the best attorney we've ever had," A.J. said, "and because of the natures of our professions we have to use lots of lawyers. He's also one of our closest friends."
"And it's a lot more than that," Carrie added. "All of you, and I mean every person at this table except for me, has some kind of paranormal ability. It's not only that we support you as a human being, but as a kindred spirit."
"We're researchers ourselves," A.J. added. "We're trying to find out why the things we do happen at all. Not one of us knows. To be blunt, we need a doctor because we don't know enough about physiology to figure out what we do."
Angie held both hands out in front of her. "Slow down, slow down," she protested. "This is happening too fast."
"Look," Karen said. "We want to help you, but we need your help too. We want you to join our secret little research team."
Angie let out a breath she wasn't even aware she was holding. "I'm confused," she finally said.
Jim smiled. "Not too surprising," he replied. "We're a bit intimidating. Angie, I don't love you, I love Karen. I resent the hell out of the fact that you felt the need to do what you did to me. But I can understand your reasons and motivations. I have always wanted to be your friend, and that hasn't stopped. Please, be willing to let us past that shell you've built."
Angie started sobbing. "You let go of me," she said to Karen.
Karen smiled. "I haven't been controlling you for a few minutes now. I don't do that without the subject's knowledge unless it's an emergency."
Angie nodded, and realized that she was controlling herself. She forced herself to stop crying and wiped her face. "How can I trust you after everything that's happened?" she finally asked. "How can you trust me?"
"We'll need you to come to Pacific Palisade with us," Carrie said.
Angie faced Carrie for the first time. "Who are you?"
"I'm Carrie Fallon, A.J.'s main squeeze. Or rather, he's mine."
Angie started to giggle. "You mean both Christopher brothers are off the market?"
Jim laughed aloud. "There are three of us," he said, "so there's still hope you might get one."
Everyone laughed at that comment, including Angie. Finally she asked, "If you don't do what Karen does, what is it that you do?"
"Not here," Jim replied. "This one can't be done in public. You'll have to come with us. Then we can show you why we trust you, and how you can trust us."
Angie nodded. "All right then. Show me."
As they walked out the door, Jim waved to the bartender,
who gave a visible sigh of relief.