by Edward Lee
"Think about it." Cathleen faced Westmore directly. She put a hand to her thigh and slid it upward, hiking the already very short hem of her nightgown. The gown's neckline plunged to reveal the top edges of her nipples. "She's stainless, bereft of the world's tarnish. Unlike you. A busted, alcoholic hypocrite."
Thanks a lot, Westmore thought. "What the hell's your problem, Cathleen?"
"Westmore," Nyvysk stated. "At this precise moment, it's not Cathleen we're speaking to."
Westmore looked back at him, dismayed.
"Cathleen, wake up!" Willis raised his voice louder. "Come back!"
She turned back to Willis, walked right up to him. "The toucher. Who can't touch anybody without seeing horrors."
Willis grabbed her arms with his gloved hands. "What did you mean when you said `not just the moon'? Did you mean some other kind of apogee?"
"You're a pervert but you can't touch other people," Cathleen said. "You can't touch the women you lust for more than anything. That's glorious. That's perfect. What do you see, then, when you touch yourself?"
Willis shook her some more. "Wake up!"
In a snap of her arm, she slammed him back against the wall. "What do you see when you jerk yourself of feasting your eyes on smut? Hmm?" She slammed him again.
"Nothing," Willis said, gritting his teeth. "That's the way l like it."
"You'll like this better-" and then she grabbed his hand, pulled the glove off, and forced his hand up under her gown.
"Stop it!" Nyvysk shouted.
Willis tried to fight her off but the instant his hand was pressed between her legs, his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed.
Jesus! Westmore rushed over, grabbed her from behind, but she snapped around and rammed the heel of her palm up against his chin. His teeth clacked shut, nearly cracking. The force of the blow bolted him across the room where he toppled over the desk.
Now Nyvysk, a much larger man, was trying to pin her to the wall. Westmore got to his knees, looking through stars in his eyes across the desk.
Wlwt is going on here! Nyvysk's getting his ass kicked!
"Give me that phony celibacy, you pious queer," Cathleen croaked. In spite of Nyvysk's size and strength, Cathleen had twirled him to the floor and had pinned him down by his shoulders. She straddled him overtly, sexually. "You can get it up for me, can't you? Just close your eyes and think about all those trusting priests and young men you've spent your whole life wanting but never having. For what? For God? Would He do that for you?"
Nyvysk struggled against her but it was as though he'd been shackled down. "Westmore!" he yelled out. "Get Mack, get the others! Get help!"
Westmore jumped to the intercom and yelled for everybody. Now Cathleen was trying to drag Nyvysk's slacks down. She breathed her promises right into his face. "Come with me and I'll take you to a place where you can have them all, forever. And you can have your boy, Saeed. He misses you so much, since you got him killed ... "
"I didn't get him killed!" Nyvysk choked out.
Westmore jumped on her, tried to pry her off of the older man. "You're the damned exorcist! Exorcize her!"
"It's not a possession! It's just a simple transposition," Nyvysk garbled back.
But none of this seemed simple to Westmore. He was wrestling with her and losing. When Mack and Karen rushed into the room, it got easier but not by much.
"Is she crazy?" Karen exclaimed.
"What the hell's going on?" Mack yelled.
Cathleen kicked and flailed as the four of them finally got her to her feet. They had her wedged against the wall; finally her struggles grew feeble.
Thank God, Westmore thought. She's wearing out ...
Cathleen's eyes turned mad. Her smile seemed inhuman. She looked at the four of them and said, "None of you are going to live much longer. Then I will see you again, in the domain of my king. We'll grind you up every night ... until the end of time."
Objects began to slam around the room, paintings falling from the wall, books sliding off shelves. The blotter on the desk flew upward, and then a statue in the corner thudded over.
Cathleen went limp, folding up in Westmore's arms. Exhausted himself now, he picked her up and trudged to the couch. "You've gotta be shitting me!" he nearly shouted at Nyvysk as though it were his fault. "What was that?"
"She looked insane," Karen said.
Mack seemed as bafed. "What, did she just go nuts?"
Nyvysk was leaning over Willis, who remained unconscious. "It was a transposition. Cathleen's a very accessible medium. Things like that will happen to her when she puts herself in a trance."
Westmore checked Willis out too. "Is he all right?"
"Yes. He just passed out."
"And how come all that stuff flew around the room?" Karen asked in delayed shock.
"Cathleen's not just a mentalist, she's telekinetic," Nyvysk said. "Some of those powers got away from her when Hildreth left her body."
"That's reassuring," Westmore complained. "What if it happens again?"
"It probably won't."
"Should we call a doctor for Cathleen?"
"Not necessary," Nyvysk said. "She'll wake up in a while and be fine."
"She wasn't even acting like herself," Karen said.
Westmore sat down next to the safe. "According to Nyvysk, she wasn't herself, she was someone else. It was someone other than Cathleen talking to us."
Mack seemed skeptical. "If it wasn't Cathleen, who was it?"
Another figure drifted into the room: Adrianne, in a disheveled robe. "It was Reginald Hildreth," she said. "I just saw him and Cathleen at the Chirice Flaesc."
II
"This flesh church," Westmore said when they'd relocated to the South Atrium, "that Nyvysk told us about."
At the long table, the older man nodded. "The Chirice Flaesc-the Temple of Flesh-the altar of Belarius."
Karen was astounded by what Adrianne had said in the office. "And you saw Hildreth there as well as Cathleen?"
"How could that be possible?" Mack added.
Adrianne sighed. "It's not the first time I've seen Hildreth's spirit-body there. Karen saw it too-"
"And so did I," Willis reminded, "when I saw the revenant of the girl from the locksmith company, before Westmore opened the safe."
But Adrianne specified. "Seeing Hildreth at this place in hell is nothing new now. But when I said I saw Cathleen too I meant that I saw the vessel of her soul. It's almost as if they lured her spirit there to keep it captive."
"I still don't understand," Westmore said.
"Cathleen was out of her body," Adrianne elaborated. "Just like I was."
"An out-of-body experience ..."
"Exactly."
"That would explain the transposition," Nyvysk calculated. "It was deliberate."
Adrianne nodded. "Those things--those Adiposians- seem to be Hildreth's helpers here-the things that have molested all of the women of our group. They canted Cathleen to induce a trance, so that Hildreth could occupy her body for a while."
Westmore didn't know if he could believe this.
But, at this point, what else could he believe?
"It's just so damned frustrating," Cathleen said next. She looked blanched, a blanket wrapped around her. Since she'd roused from the mishap, she'd wiped off the strange pontica dust, but a few traces left the most minute glimmer on her skin. "I don't remember any of this."
"That's not uncommon," Nyvysk said.
"Yeah, but it's still maddening." Cathleen looked around, embarrassed. "I'm sorry I put everyone through that."
,.It wasn't your fault," Nyvysk reminded her. "You're a very sensitive medium-we all knew that a transposition was possible. Overall, the incident gives us more information about Hildreth and his motivations, however supernatural they obviously are. You, Adrianne, and Willis know full well that your many talents can often go overboard."
"What exactly are your other talents?" Mack asked Cathleen.
Bored
, she replied, "I'm a diviner, a crystologist, a medium, and a telekinetic. It's no big deal."
"Sounds like a big deal to me," Westmore had to comment. "A telekinetic? I'm starting to believe this other stuff, but I'm not sure I believe you can move things with your mind."
Nyvysk and Willis chuckled under their breath.
"I pretty much gave it up after the accident," Cathleen went on. "It's the kind of thing you have to constantly practice, or else you get rusty."
"Cathleen doesn't like to show off anymore," Adrianne told him.
Westmore smiled. "That sounds like an excuse to me, but that's cool."
Cathleen frowned. "All right ..." She looked at the ashtray that Westmore and Willis were sharing. A few seconds ticked by, then the ashtray turned a hundred and eighty degrees.
"Did you see that!" Karen said, impressed.
"This is bullshit," Mack insisted and looked under the table.
Hmm, Westmore thought.
"Now, don't blame me if I screw this up," Cathleen announced. "I told you I was rusty."
She looked at the pitcher of lemonade at the middle of the table. In increments, the pitcher began to move toward Cathleen an inch at a time.
She reached out to grab the handle but just as it would get close enough-
clunk.
The pitcher fell over.
"Damn!" Cathleen said.
The lemonade spilled. Everyone at the table stared.
"Well, almost," Cathleen said.
Mack was still looking under the table, to see if it had been rigged. "I, uh, I guess it's not bullshit . . ."
"I can't believe what I just saw," Karen said, astonished.
"It's still no big deal," Cathleen repeated, wiping up the mess with a bunch of paper towels.
Seeing really is believing, Westmore thought. The demonstration stunned him. He didn't see how it could possibly be faked, and that made him wonder harder about everything else that had happened here. "All I can say is ... I'm pretty friggin' impressed."
"Such is the power of the mind," Nyvysk offered. "But I'm sure that Cathleen can tell you, her talents can be quite a burden at times, and the same goes for Adrianne and Willis."
"With every benefit, there's a detriment," Adrianne said.
"What exactly are the detriments?" Westmore asked. "You all have incredible talents. Seems to me you have a unique power. How can that be a burden?"
"I can't touch anybody," Willis volunteered an answer. "I'm a tactionist. I can read target-objects. When the target object is a person, I see things I don't want to see. That's my burden."
Strangely, Mack piped in, "Why don't you tell them everything, Willis? You would if you had the balls."
Westmore's brow furrowed. For the entire stay, there'd seemed to be a strained animosity between Willis and Mack that Westmore could never figure.
"We were all born in original sin," Adrianne said. "Not just Willis-all of us. It's between us and God ..."
Another strange comment.
"Indeed," Nyvysk said next. "We all have our secrets. We don't need to discuss them here."
"No, why not?" Willis seemed perturbed yet animated. "I don't care. Mack and I know each other, from five years ago. We hate each other. Now he wants me to tell you all why, so I will." He looked right at Mack.
"Go ahead," Mack said. "And you can also tell them why you lost your medical license."
An uncomfortable silence ticked by, which Willis eventually broke by saying, "I have a sexual problem. It's got noth ing to do with my target-object abilities-I'm just what you'd call a sex-addict."
"Don't feel bad," Cathleen said. "I am too."
"But you've never broken the law because of it," Willis went on. "Earlier in my career I was a clinical psychiatrist. I chose to work for the state instead of private practice. I wanted to give something back to the world-I'm not materialistic" He shrugged at the table. "Social services seemed ideal for me, but as a psychiatrists you can imagine-I got the hard cases. Mostly battered women, rape-trauma victims. Women with drug problems. My tactionism was a great advantage to a point; when I'd touch a patient, I'd see so much of her life. It was all very, very dark, as you could guess, and it was very depressing. I did manage to help a lot of women, but there was a price-all that mental backwash, all that despair and horror: I had to look at it in almost every patient. Over time, I began to medicate myself, so to speak, with sex.'
"Sex with your patients?" Westmore asked.
"Damn right," Mack said. "Some doctor-he was fucking his patients, and that's not all."
Willis' voice grew grim in this confession. "It's true, I'll admit. Just as I was addicted to sexual release, a lot of my patients were addicted to drugs. I'm not a strong person. There were many times when I was manipulated."
"Bullshit," Mack said. "You're the one who was doing the manipulating. You were taking advantage of a bunch of head-cases."
"That's not true!" Willis snapped.
Nyvysk held his hand up to Mack. "Let him talk."
Willis continued. "Sometimes my patients would seduce me-for drugs." He gulped. "I'd prescribe drugs for them, in exchange for sex. I had many weak moments; I wasn't strong enough to resist the temptation. I was falling apart; the despair was burying me, all those bleak, traumatized lives washing back to me, any time I touched them seeking a diagnosis. So, yes, I used some of them-to treat my own addiction."
The room stood in a stunned hush. Wow, Westmore thought. That's some confession.
"I admit, some of my actions were criminal, and all were unethical," Willis went on. "It didn't last long. Eventually a complaint was filed against me by the husband of one of my patients. The hospital investigated, I confessed, then I was fired. The hospital was sued. My license was revoked."
"Sometimes it's good to talk about things like this," Adrianne broke some of the discomfort.
"Yes," Nyvysk added. "Self-disclosure is therapy in itself. We all have our misgivings and our outright mistakes, or sins."
Mack leaned forward, with a sarcastic grin. "But Willis hasn't told you the best part. He hasn't told you who the husband was that turned him in."
The table waited. Willis took a deep breath and said, "It was Mack."
Another hush bloomed over the table, with some shocked looks.
"I didn't know you were married," Cathleen said.
"I'm not now. My wife went off the deep end and ran off. She went nuts on the dope Willis got her addicted to-"
"That's not true at all!" Willis shouted back. "She was already strung out, long before she ever came to me for treatment. She got into drugs in the porn business, where she met you!"
More shocked looks spread across the table.
"You were in the porn business?" Adrianne asked.
"That's how Mack met Hildreth in the first place," Karen offered. "And me too. We were both working for T&T Enterprises when Hildreth bought it." Karen smirked, if only at herself. "Mack and I were both in the movies.. ."
"It's not part of my life that I'm proud of," Mack said. "I came from a shit town, got almost no education. The porn industry was there, so it was a way to make money. That's where I met my wife. She wound up having some psychological problems, so she goes to see Willis and he gets her all fucked up on drugs-"
"I didn't do anything of the sort!" Willis exploded. "I admit, what I did was wrong--"
"Wrong! You were exploiting disadvantaged women, manipulating their addictions, and giving them drugs in exchange for sex! Yeah, I'd say that's wrong!"
"I wasn't the cause of your wife's problems, you were! I know, Mack! I saw her entire life every time I touched her!"
Mack jumped up, red-faced in rage. "She fell off the edge of the earth, you asshole! She's probably dead now, and it's because of you!" and when Mack made to lunge at Willis, Westmore and Nyvysk grabbed him, held him back.
"Stop it, both of you!" Nyvysk insisted. "This is accomplishing nothing."
"Everybody just calm down," Karen said.
"So much for self-revelation," Cathleen said when everyone was reseated.
"That was a shock," Adrianne said. "I didn't know you two guys even knew each other."
"It doesn't matter now," Willis said. "It's between him and me. Anyway, I apologize for all that."
Nyvysk looked contemplative now "It's interesting, though, objectively, I mean. Another sex-connection."
"What?" Westmore asked.
"Everything about this place, and about Hildreth, is sexually rooted. Everyone here has a sexual connection. Karen's been in the sex industry, and tonight we learned that Mack has been in the sex industry. Adrianne is sexually self-repressed; she hasn't had sex in a decade because sexual contact for her triggers involuntary OBE's, while I, too, am sexually self-repressed-I'm a gay yet celibate ex-priest. Willis is a sex-addict who can't touch other people, and Cathleen is a sex-addict who can't function psychically without some sexual motivation. We all have sexual secrets, and it's almost as though those secrets have brought us here." The older man paused and looked at Westmore.
Everyone else was looking at Westmore too.
"All but you," Cathleen said through a half-smile.
"Yeah, what's your sexual secret?" Karen asked. Her eyes glimmered.
Gnat ... Westmore swallowed a laugh. "I don't think I have any ... because I almost never have sex, not since I quit drinking. For all my adult life, I was a one-night-stand guy because my social life was the bar scene. Now I don't drink. I still go to bars but never drink, and when I'm there I'm not interested because I'm the only one sober, and the only available women are drunk. I stay away from them because they'd get me too close to my addiction: alcohol."
"Ah, so you're sexually self-repressed too," Nyvysk seemed satisfied.
Westmore frowned. "How'd you arrive at that?"
"To you sex and alcohol are synonymous. But you've eliminated alcohol from your life, therefore sex is eliminated by default. Simple."
Westmore threw up his hands. "Whatever you say."
"It's just worth considering as something more than coincidence," Nyvysk went on. "Each one of us has a sexual quirk or anomaly, and we're all sitting in the middle of this house which used to be a porn studio, a bordello, and a treatment center for clergymen guilty of immoral sexual behavior. Prostitutes were murdered here in the '50s, and adult film stars were murdered here several weeks ago. So far, Cathleen, Adrianne, and Karen have all experienced a discorporate molestation. Willis has target-object visions of the mansion's sexual atrocities, Westmore finds DVD's full of even more sexual atrocities, and I'm getting EVP's of a dead young man I was sexually obsessed with twenty years ago. There's something very sexual about this house, in an innate way. Carnality seems to live in its walls, and there's either an active or passive carnality in all of us. It's almost as though the sexual singularities of everyone here have been magnetized-by the mansion. We didn't gravitate toward the house, the house gravitated toward us."