She got up, showered, and dressed. Leaving the room and the hotel, she sat in the car where she had first let him touch her, and she had first made him come. She took the wedding ring off of her finger, and laid it on the dashboard. She cried for all of her losses as the sun came up.
PAUL YOUNG
An unexpected knock, one wintry evening. There, standing on the doorstep is Paul Young, who just happens to be in the area, and was wondering if it would be OK for him to come in to use the toilet and for a refreshing cup of tea. Nervously, the householder agrees, bemused but star-struck. For the next hour or so, they and their family enjoy the company of Young, won over by the twinkle in his eyes, his ready wit and his skills as a raconteur. Inevitably, however, it starts to get late, and the host drops hints that it is time for Young to leave. If he notices at all, Young gives no sign, and the householder has no choice but to ask him point blank to go. Young smiles, but shakes his head. Slowly, he extends a finger, and points at his hat, resting on a coffee table.
For many long weeks, the family is tormented by Young, who occupies their property like a mischievous spirit, playing all manner of pranks: taking things and leaving them in unexpected and sometimes impossible places, rapping on the wall, locking and unlocking doors. He will seduce family members into unwise acts, his sexuality amorphous and overwhelming. His victims are left feeling foolish and used, while Young’s mocking laughter can be heard coming from the stairs.
Young has been compared to the trickster spirits of mythology, such as the Native American Coyote, or Loki of Norse legend. He is seen both as a contemporary cultural manifestation of this archetype, and as the actual physical form of an ancient power. Indeed, many worship him as such, in awe of his transgressive energy.
All hope should not be lost when in the grip of Young, however. At some unspecific point after his arrival, although not often more than three months, he disappears as suddenly as he appeared. Order is restored, and life goes on. It would be foolish, however, to pretend that the victims are unmarked by the experience. Every time an object is not where it ought to be, or life deals them an unexpected and cruel blow, they imagine they hear Young’s mocking laughter, just outside the door, echoing up the stairs.
BIG LUG
Me and Big Lug looked down at the girl on the bed. She didn’t have anything on, and the sheet wasn’t covering much, and don’t get me wrong, she was worth a peek, but I wasn’t that bothered anymore. I’d seen it all before, and more, most nights, since I’d taken the poor sap under my wing. I actually looked forward to not seeing her.
Her boyfriend, some older guy from college who couldn’t believe his luck, I bet, was stroking her awake with his hairy hand. You could tell he wanted to do it to her again.
‘Come on,’ I said to Big Lug, ‘let’s get out of here. I ain’t sitting through another round of that.’
‘We must stay,’ he said, ‘in case he hurts her again.’
‘I explained all that,’ I sighed. ‘She’s into it. All the slapping, and the biting, and the… strangling. It turns her on.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Big Lug, frowning and serious, like every moment of every day.
‘Yeah, well, it kinda doesn’t matter, seeing as you can’t do nothing about it.’
‘She will see me again, one day.’
‘I wouldn’t hold your breath for that.’
There was no telling him though. I’d been over it so many times, but it never sank in. He wasn’t Aware yet, and probably never would be, he was such a bad case. So every night we’d stand here, watching over, even though she couldn’t see or hear us, and we couldn’t even move a chair, being so insubstantial and all, let alone stop guys from doing their freaky shit on her. It was a waste of time, but you don’t get to be Aware until you’ve wasted a hell of a lot. Shit, I can’t think about how long it must have been, with my boy.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘you’re just torturing yourself, watching this. Let’s go to the library.’
Big Lug didn’t move. He just stood there watching, ripping himself up inside while the guy was kissing her and touching her under his nose. It was only when the freak had gotten rid of his morning boner in her ass and gone to work, leaving her gasping and spread out on the bed like an animal-skin rug, that I could get him to shift away from her side, over the familiar carpet of scattered textbooks, through the wall and out into the sunlight.
* * *
There’s a word some of you fleshies use for what we are that we’ve taken for ourselves. Tulpa. Means you make us, with your minds. We’re a by-product, or a waste product, maybe, of your type’s thinking. Sometimes, one of you thinks about someone who ain’t real, or just ain’t there, and you think so long and so hard that person becomes real, almost. At first, we just live in your head, like a voice only you can hear or a face always there in your mind, but then, when you’re bored of us, we splinter off somehow, and we just end up floating out here. The fleshie who dreamt us up can’t hear or see us anymore, and neither can anyone else. But we can see you, and we can see each other. Not that there’s much of us to see. We look kinda vague, even to us.
Anyway, on this day, pretty much like any other day, Big Lug and me headed for the library. Tulpas feel at home in the library. I guess because it feels like there’s a tulpa trapped inside nearly every book. It was taking us a while to get there though. Takes us a while to get anywhere. The wind hardly blows us, and moving through the air is like sliding through mud.
We were halfway there when we heard the Innocents chanting.
‘SEE US! SEE US! SEE US!’
You want to know why I hooked up with Big Lug? Kinda an act of charity, but mostly it just makes life easier for your average tulpa. You see, Big Lug ain’t Aware yet. He’s what we call an Innocent. He don’t know what he is. And when a tulpa ain’t Aware it can get messy. They get it into their heads they’re a fleshie who’s turned invisible, and when they meet other tulpas who think the same thing, it tends to get religious. Like with the bunch we met on the way to the library that day.
The See-ers, we call them. All dressed up in robes they’ve imagined into existence, wearing silly pointy hats with big scary eyes painted on. They’re waiting for The Day of Seeing, when they won’t be invisible to fleshies anymore, and everything will be back to normal. I’d say live and let live, if it wasn’t for them seeing all other tulpas as demons who turned them invisible in the first place. Now, it ain’t easy to kill a tulpa. It requires a hell of a lot of hard thinking. But these nutjobs, there are a lot of them and they can all think pretty damn hard. Fortunately, their dumb-ass chanting habit works as an early-warning system. You hear it, you get out of there as fast as you can float.
It was far away at first, but the noise of the fleshie traffic in the high street made it hard to keep track of. When we heard it again, it was much closer. By the time I’d convinced Big Lug to change direction, it was too late.
‘SEE US! SEE US! SEE US!’
There were about twenty of them, just our luck. The chanting stopped.
‘Halt!’ shouted the leader of the big-eyed freaks, whose eyes on his hat were that bit bigger and freakier than the rest. ‘Are you human or demon?’
‘Oh, human, definitely. We both are.’
‘You lie, demon.’
‘Why’d ya say that?’
‘You have the form of a large teddy bear wearing a spacesuit. A demonic disguise if I ever saw one!’
Yeah. I’m a teddy bear astronaut-type thing. Look, us tulpas are at the mercy of fleshies. Whatever you dream up, that’s what we are. My boy wanted a space teddy, that’s what I am. You just got to play with the cards you’re dealt, I guess.
‘We shall disperse you, demon!’
They pulled their hats down over their faces so the painted eyes were over their real ones and started a different chant a tulpa really doesn’t want to hear.
‘DISPERSE! DISPERSE! DISPERSE!’
I could feel the subatomic particles th
at held me together drift apart. It would take an age, but us being tulpas, it would take just as long to try and make a getaway. Not that they were targeting Big Lug with their shouting. No, a handful of them had broken off from the rest and taken him to one side. They had already given him a leaflet to read and it seemed like he was interested. Was this how it would end for us? Me, stretched to infinity and Big Lug converted to some crazy-ass cult?
‘SILENCE!’
A voice louder than their chanting. A voice louder than pretty much anything.
We couldn’t see Him. He was someone’s invisible and vengeful God, old school. Whoever had believed Him into being could well have been long dead. But still here He was, bobbing about in the heavens, looking down on us all. Most abandoned Gods are sad figures, forlornly walking the streets hoping for a believer, or else having rows with near-identical deities about who really created who. This one seemed pretty content as vengeful Gods go, except he wanted the noise kept down.
The See-ers became silent, and ran into the shadows. God passed overhead and the atmospheric pressure lightened, while my particles slowly re-attracted each other. Big Lug screwed the leaflet into a ball and chucked it on the ground. I’d forgotten, he couldn’t read.
‘We don’t talk to those guys, remember?’
I was wasting my breath. This guy just couldn’t learn anything.
It’s hardest when it’s a kid who makes you. Cos the kid don’t know what’s real and what isn’t, so you’re not just some part of his inner monologue, a small still voice or whatever, as far as they’re concerned, you’re right there with them in the room. They can see you, for Chrissakes. And for that time you’re together, you’re as real as they are, and it’s a long hard fall from that to knowing that you’re just a floating forgotten thought-form. No wonder Big Lug won’t let go, even though she’s grown up and hasn’t thought about him since before she started school. Still, hanging on like that’s meant that he’s kept on trying to be something she would want. Most kids’ imaginary friends stay kids, but he’s a strapping man now, make no mistake. If she could only see him, she’d definitely fuck him.
We got to the library about midday, passing through the pole of the revolving door. It’s full of tulpas at this time, crammed up against the walls almost, and that’s with us overlapping. You see all kinds here – imaginary boyfriends, TV show characters, unconceived kids, screeching creatures made from the memories of old schoolteachers – anyone you fleshies ever dwell on, real or not, will make their way to a library somewhere eventually. It keeps you sane, being amongst your own kind who can actually see you. Cos it kills you inside a bit, every day, having people look and walk right through like you aren’t there at all. So we tend to end up here, just to get that contact. And sometimes, not too often, but still, something just sparks and it becomes like an orgy in here, with tongues and fingers everywhere, and things sliding in any hole going – male, female, unicorn, whatever, as long as it’s tulpa – although not all of us have full genitalia, but I didn’t tell you that, right? I dunno, we tulpas, we’re not good at relationships. We only ever belong to one person, really, and they can’t see us anymore. So we drag an Innocent around with us like a surrogate and come to the library hoping it’s a fuck day.
This day was not a fuck day in the library, though. Everyone was just there like most days, not saying much, getting off quietly on the companionship. Somewhere in the crowd I saw a tulpa I knew from way back. Arnold was a youngish guy, I guess, with big sideburns and a jumper with patches on the elbows. Looked like a farmer, although we were miles away from the nearest field. I don’t know why someone thought up Arnold, and it’s considered rude to ask, but I like to think he was sewn together from the few cherished memories someone had of their father. He always looked like he was about to sweep you up in his arms and carry you when he smiled. Tulpas don’t smile much, but Arnold did.
‘Hello, lad,’ he said, and held out his hand. He called me lad. He called lots of us that.
I shook his hand as well as I could with my paw.
‘How is he?’ Arnold always asked after Big Lug. He took care of a fair few Innocents himself. I could see them now, bobbing about in the library, straining their necks in hope of catching sight of whoever thought them up.
‘Same,’ I said. ‘Maybe even worse, now she’s seeing someone regular.’
Arnold flashed me his most reassuring smile.
‘One day, it will happen, just like that. You just have to be persistent. You must remember, what it was like, before.’
I remembered, but the only way you could be Aware and stay sane was to keep your mind on the moment and try not to think about it. But Arnold could make me think back. All those years, hanging about the boy’s bedroom, not even feeling like playing with the brat, maybe not even liking him that much, but still loving him, just wanting to be seen. And putting all my hopes onto that one day, when I would stop being invisible, and he’d look at me, and say, ‘Ah! There you are!’
And he became a man, and he moved away. And I followed him. And I still waited. And waited. And other tulpas who floated through kept on telling me what I was but I ignored them, and I waited, and they kept on telling me, and I waited, and they kept on telling me and maybe it was even Arnold who finally got me to…
That was all a long time ago.
There is a commotion at the far end of the library. A tulpa is ploughing through the mass, shouting. Before I can see his face, I know that it’s Big Lug.
I follow his line of vision. She’s here, standing at the desk, carefree and beautiful, and not at all like someone who had a guy finish in her ass just a couple of hours before, finally returning some of the books that have been lying scattered on her floor since the beginning of term.
He is crying that he is here, has always been, and always will be. She just needs to turn and see.
She talks to the librarian and smiles apologetically. She pays a fine and takes a receipt.
He is by her now, trying to shake her, but his thick fingers pass like water poured through a sieve. He cries her name.
She turns to go. He stands in front of her, screaming.
‘SEE ME! SEE ME!’
All the tulpas in the library are watching, silently.
A chant rises in sympathy, just the Innocents at first, and then quickly, to our surprise, the rest of us.
‘SEE US! SEE US!’
Arnold is chanting. I am chanting.
‘SEE US! SEE US! SEE US! SEE US!’
The girl walks straight through Big Lug. She leaves by the revolving door.
AGGIE AND THE HATMAN
At the back of the charity bookshop, Aggie walked up the stairs, and into the storeroom above. Max was there already, in the centre of a ring of vinyl, pricing gun in hand, well-worn price guide by his side. His pointed shoes and bobbed hair matched the fashions found on some of the older record sleeves he excitedly discovered.
‘Didn’t think you were coming in,’ he said, firing at a batch of LPs destined for the bargain bin.
‘I got held up.’
‘Like this?’ said Max, pointing the gun at her.
‘No. Not like that.’
Aggie hung her coat up, with her hair, naturally the colour of dark chocolate and determinately straight, falling down to the base of her spine. Her clothes were second-hand and autumnal in colour, suiting the time of year and Aggie herself, Max thought. Having known her for a fortnight, he could not imagine her in any other season.
‘Oh, hi, Aggie,’ called a voice. ‘Do you want a cuppa?’
The voice came from a small kitchen area, hidden behind the last metal bookcase in a row that stretched to the back of the storeroom.
‘Hello, Rosa,’ Aggie shouted back. ‘Yes, please. Tea would be great.’
‘The herby one?’
‘That’s it, yeah.’
Aggie found her foot slipping on a stray record sleeve. She caught hold of a bookcase to steady herself and it vibrated ominously
with the extra weight.
‘You nearly had me on the floor,’ she said, as Max’s gun continued to clack stickers. ‘You’re so messy.’
‘It’s not mess. There’s a system.’
‘No there isn’t.’
‘Yes there is. The system is, all the records are on the floor.’
Aggie picked up the empty sleeve and flung it at Max’s head. It flopped to the floor a foot in front of him.
‘You could have had my eye out there.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Then I could have sued you and retired.’
‘I work in a charity shop, remember? It’s voluntary. I don’t have any money. And you can’t retire, because other than sit in that pile of records, you don’t actually do anything.’
‘Oh yeah.’
There was the sound of clinking mugs and high heels as Rosa passed between the bookcases.
‘Right, here we are,’ she said, gingerly bending from a height to put the mugs on a stool. ‘Tea for you, Aggie, and I’ve done you another coffee, Max. Is that OK?’
‘Yeah, sweet.’
Aggie held the mug out to Max, and laughed as a bank of records collapsed under him as he tried to reach it.
‘Anyway, I’m going to go down to the shop. Don’t want to leave Andy on the till by himself for too long. I don’t think it’s one of his better days. So, can I leave you two to get on with it? Max, carry on with that, and Aggie price up some kids’ books. The section’s looking a bit bare.’
They nodded. The sound of Rosa’s heels on the narrow stairs soon led to quiet, save for the rumble of traffic.
‘She freaks me out,’ said Max, just as the silence was weaving a spell that would soon be uncomfortable to break.
‘Why? She’s just being who she is. You’re so prejudiced.’
‘I’m not. I don’t object to her being a man who’s decided he’s going to be a woman. I just don’t like the way she goes about things.’
Erotic Nightmares Page 11