“An athlete…?” Markus repeated to himself singling that out above everything else.
“I asked you about various things. I began asking you about sports, and when I mentioned football you said things I honestly feel you shouldn’t know. Maybe you’re a sports buff but why were you able to recite hundreds of plays, you know everything about the game, and you know things that only a physical therapist or physical trainer should know. Think Markus. You’ve never played football in your life, any sport for that matter. You’ve never been taught anything about physical therapy or nutrition. Why do you know so much? Think.”
Markus mind whirled into overdrive. Zimmerman was right. He had things in his mind he never knew he had. Situations, he saw himself in sports scenarios. It was all about football and it was all in his brain. Markus thought about the drink he whipped up. The protein drink he would consume before he did sex on film. Where did he get the formula from? It was something only athletes drank. Something only a nutritionist would prescribe to improve stamina.
“Damn!” He uttered, shaking his head. “I’m in the wrong line of work. I should be in the NFL instead of in the adult film industry.”
He thought about how much he knew about the female anatomy, about the Karma Sutra, about G-spots and the clitoris. He had a lifetime of information in his mind about sports and sex and he hadn’t the foggiest idea where it came from. “Was my programming of a sexual nature as well?” He asked.
Zimmerman nodded his head.
“Either your programming, or your reprogramming. I think the person who messed with your brain tried to erase one but couldn’t. Now you have a whole bunch of stuff inside your mind.” He saw an expression of uncertainty form on Markus’s face. “Don’t worry,” he assured him. “Most people don’t use as much as ten percent of their brain capacity in their lifetimes.”
“So I’m okay now, I’m cured?” Markus asked.
“Slow down,” Zimmerman began. “I wouldn’t say you’re cured. But I don’t think you’ll be blacking out anytime soon.”
“If I wasn’t cured I’d have blacked out thinking about all of this. All of this is fucking weird. If you get my meaning…?” Markus thought about his own words completely forgetting about what Gary had stated. He looked at Nancy with wide eyes. “I’m cured.”
“How do you know?” She asked.
“I’m thinking about all these sexual positions that are now at the focal point of my mind. Shit, I never knew what a focal point was till now. I’m thinking about how Michelle will look and feel in something called the spinal crab.”
Zimmerman laughed as loud as anyone could.
He was so excited he left with little to no concern about all the other things Gary Zimmerman had discovered while he was under hypnosis. Gary told him he surmised so many things and with the information he had and a few leads he would be able to figure out more.
Markus told him to give him a call when he found anything worth mentioning, anything that wasn’t jumbled up with hypnosis and mental hocus pocus. He didn’t want to hear anymore about reprogramming and his subconscious mind and this Randleman Protocol. He was glad he wouldn’t be blacking out again.
He wanted to get to know Michelle. He kept thinking about how he used to blackout every time he thought of her. Now he had Michelle on the brain and wasn’t feeling dizzy. He wasn’t going to blackout the next time he encountered her. The fact that she might be a victim of some mind reprogramming conspiracy like him mattered little. He was going to call her as soon as he walked out of Nancy Adler’s office then he realized how late it was. Markus planned on calling her tomorrow. Downstairs, he hailed a cab.
“Wait,” Dr. Adler shouted before he hopped inside the cab. “Markus you left my office so abruptly.” She began.
“Nancy it’s Thursday already, I’ve been under hypnosis for the past four hours. Don’t you think I’ve had enough for one night?” Markus said irritably. He realized his tone and simmered down. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired that’s all.”
“No, I apologize. You have been through so much the past couple of days, weeks, months; your whole life. I’m being very insensitive,” she yawned. Markus contracted the yawn. “We are both tired,” she smiled.
“I’ll call you,” he said and hopped in the cab.
Before the door completely closed Nancy said, “Your therapy isn’t over yet. I’m not through with you Mr. Excitement. I want to see you Monday at six p.m. sharp.”
“Our agreement was for three sessions. I would say I’m not obligated to deal with you in a professional manner anymore, Dr. Adler.” She didn’t know what to say to him after he said that. She grinned when he said, “I will agree to a date on Monday. I would love to see you before my trip to the Orient.”
28
When Markus arrived at Sparks’s apartment, Sparks wasn’t home. Entice let him in. She greeted him at the door in red ruffled panties, perky nipples and nothing else. Markus didn’t understand why she was always around. She was doing her toe nails when he rang the bell and waddled to the bedroom after letting him inside.
Entice didn’t seem to have any interest in anything besides her pedicure. She didn’t ask Markus about his day, about his car or about the hypnosis session. He was so tired all he had an interest in was going to sleep.
He went to couch in the living room and went to sleep. His whole life was one big Twilight Zone episode. Everything from being sold like some sort of product to Jonathan Manners, and handed to Gwyneth as a birthday present, to people playing around with his head, and rewriting his memory, placing all forms of information inside his brain. Everything was way too much for him to intake in one day.
Markus awoke and wasn’t surprised to find out he had slept twenty-four hours. Once he picked his head off the sofa, Entice and Sparks greeted him. Markus ran to the bathroom to take one of the longest pisses of his life.
“I’m starving,” he announced when he walked out of the bathroom.
“Your black ass slept for over twenty-four hours!” Sparks snapped like it was his fault. “I tried to wake you and that was like waking a damn corpse.”
“Today is Friday or something?” Markus asked, sounding confused.
“Yeah Friday or something,” Sparks answered with annoyance. “Sleeping that much is bad for business, we gotta go check out the place Tee-Neck is renting to us.”
Markus grimaced. He wanted to snap at Sparks and tell him that managing his porn career wasn’t managing his life. Then he thought about his porn career. He used to have an agent, but he didn’t need anyone governing his life. Markus knew that wasn’t the truth. He thought about Jonathan Manners and Gwyneth and how they used to control his life. Sparks seemed like a friend but so did Tanisha. He didn’t know who he could trust. He was way too hungry to argue or consider things further. He had Michelle on his mind. With every situation presenting itself he decided to take a shower and get dressed. As he dressed Markus thought about his car.
“I gotta go see about my car,” he announced to no one in particular. Sparks and Entice were all ears.
“I thought you handled that the other day.”
“Something else came up. Listen Sparks, I have a whole lot of issues, things beyond my career, my living arrangements, and Tanisha and Cali.”
“No one knows this better than my black ass do,” Sparks said with more annoyance. “I’m here to help you, buddy.” His disposition softened. “You need me Markus. I need you. You’re making me see life in a whole new spectrum. Now that I manage you and Entice, I don’t have to be out on the streets selling drugs as much.”
“Oh…” Markus said.
“Don’t think I’m here to be another issue in your life. I got big plans for your black ass, for us. While you did the Snow White beauty sleep routine, I got you a photo opportunity.”
“A photo opportunity…?” Markus asked, confused. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean publicity. There is this magazine called Porno Industry. It’s li
ke Rolling Stone Magazine,but its porn instead of rock n roll and music. I got you on the cover.”
Markus heard of the magazine. He knew there was a lot of racism in the porn industry. He never saw a black man on the cover of the magazine.
“How did you manage to get me on the cover?”
“Never mind that,” he answered with a grin. “We leave for Japan next Thursday and the photo-shoot is set up for Wednesday twelve noon. They wanna interview you, you and Daisy Lace.” He looked over at Entice. She was sitting down, looking cute, watching the two of them talk. “I tried to get Entice on the cover with you, but they said she wasn’t a known name. But they heard of you. They know all about your black ass. They wanna put you and Daisy Lace on the cover.”
“Daisy Lace… Have you contacted Daisy?”
“Yeah, I’ve been using your phone while you were sleep. I’ve been getting to know all the people associated with your career. Daisy agreed. Daisy was a big porn star two or three years back till her white ass decided to strictly work off-camera.”
“I know all this,” Markus laughed. Sparks never ceased to amaze him. “You can tell me more about this magazine cover once I’ve gotten some breakfast.”
“After breakfast we gotta go straight to Jersey to see about that house. Some dude named Petey is gonna meet us there with the keys. It’s already furnished.”
“I know,” he said to his new manager and friend. “I’ve done movies in the backyard of that place. It’s huge.”
“Petey said it’s a mansion,” Entice blurted excitedly.
Markus took a look at Entice and grimaced. He was about to accept the fact that he was stuck with Sparks, but hadn’t considered being stuck with her. Entice was a very attractive girl he fucked, but that was for the cameras. The only woman Markus had ever slept with out of any affection and not due to necessity and or some business arrangement was Tanisha. He took a very deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Let’s go.” He said to his new roommates. “Let’s get settled into our new home.”
After eating a huge breakfast at a diner in Brooklyn, they hopped inside Sparks’s car and rushed to Jersey. The place Tee-Neck agreed to rent to Markus was a huge house with five bedrooms, three living rooms, one humongous kitchen and dining room, and five and a half bathrooms. There was a lot of land outback and an NBA sized basketball court with an Olympic sized swimming pool. Sparks and Entice were instantly amazed.
Petey, Tee-Neck’s very fat Italian friend, walked them around the place. Markus didn’t need the grand tour. He had already been throughout the house. Instead of following them, he excused himself. Markus went out to the back of the house, sat down on a chair near the pool and whipped out his cell phone. He decided to call Michelle. The anticipation was killing him. It was like he was hypnotized all over again, hypnotized because he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
The phone rang four times before Michelle answered, “Who is this?” She asked suspiciously.
Her voice was raspy, it was very distinctive. He grinned. He loved her voice already. This was the first time he actually heard her speak. “Hello,” she said again. Markus didn’t know what to say. “Speak!” She yelled. “Speak before I hang up.”
“Ah, Michelle,” he said.
“Yes. Who else would answer my phone?” She snapped, “Who is this?”
“Markus,” he replied. “Markus Johnson.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” she told him. “You might have the wrong number.”
“Didn’t I ask for Michelle? I’m sure this is the correct number. I just gave you the wrong name.”
“So give me the right one,” Michelle said in a sweet voice.
Markus smiled at his phone. He didn’t know exactly how to approach this. He figured she would know him as Mr. Excitement so he gave her that name. “It’s Mr. Excitement,” he said, feeling stupid.
“Oh,” Michelle’s vocal expression changed instantly from casual flirtation to annoyance. “You...!”
Markus grimaced. Her tone reverberated through his brain like a long echo. He heard it over and over. Markus was not aware of the sort of information Tanisha passed on to Michelle, and wasn’t about to call Tanisha to inquire. He didn’t know what Michelle knew about him, or about his situation. He never dealt with woman outside his perverse circle of sex, whether Gwyneth, her friends and associates, or the porn stars he fucked on film.
There was a deafening silence for about a minute then Michelle asked, “What do you want?”
“I wanna see you,” he said, figuring that wasn’t the best thing to say.
“For what…?” She asked. “Why do you want to see me?”
Good question, he thought. He wasn’t quite sure why he wanted to see her. Perhaps just to look at her gorgeousness and gaze into her eyes.
“Do you watch the Science Fiction channel?” He asked completely turning the conversation in another direction.
“Excuse me?” Michelle blurted.
“You ever saw an episode of Twilight Zone, or read a Stephen King novel?”
“Why?” She asked. “What the fuck does this have to do with anything?”
“Meet me later and I’ll tell you.”
“Fuck no!” She began laughing on the other side of the phone. “You’re that crazy guy who faints all the time.”
“You ever dream of flies?” He asked.
Michelle hung up the phone.
Markus, Sparks and Entice were out on the back patio having lunch with Petey. Petey was fat and humorous and reminded Sparks of Dom DeLuise. Petey was an accomplished chef. Starting the propane grill out back, he put some meat on it with his special herbs and spices in a small shaker he pulled out of his pocket.
He told them it was freshly picked herbs and spices he got from his own dear mother in Sicily. Sparks wondered what sort of man carried around his own herbs and spices, obviously a fat one, he deduced.
Entice found a portable radio inside the house and brought out back. She began dancing the way a video hoochie would providing entertainment for the men. Music played, they ate, talked and watched her dance.
Sparks asked Markus about his recent visit to the psychiatrist. Markus told him the whole story from what happened at Gwyneth’s to what Gary had found out while he was under hypnosis.
Sparks said, “I’m not gonna say I understand any of this or believe most of it. But I’ve seen you blackout with my very own eyes. Once I saw…” He let his words linger.
“What, what is it?” Markus asked. “You can tell me. Once you saw what?”
“It’s nothing,” he dismissed, wanting to change the subject. “You were gonna tell me something about Michelle.”
“Sparks, if you got something you wanna talk about you can tell me. It can’t be as crazy as what I’ve told you.”
“True,” he said. “I think I seen a flying saucer once.”
Markus and Entice broke out in heavy laughter.
“Fuck you!” Sparks snapped. “You and your, fucking Randleman Machine or Protocol or whatever...”
“Come on Sparks,” Markus said once he settled down. “I wouldn’t even believe myself if I weren’t living my own life.” Sparks gave Markus a dirty look. “Shit, if it wasn’t for Gwyneth’s very own words and Nancy and Gary Zimmerman’s psychological mumbo jumbo…”
“Back when I was around twelve or thirteen years old in the old country,” Petey began taking the time to stop eating to tell his tale. “I saw what could have only been a UFO.”
“An unidentified flying object,” Entice uttered. “I saw this show on channel five about UFO’s. They showed all forms of video taped stuff. And I read somewhere about how aliens from other planets beam cows up onto their flying saucers and use their blood like lotion for their green scaly skin.”
It was Sparks turn to laugh. “Lotion for their green ass scaly skin…? Life forms from other planets have eczema, is that it?”
“I saw all forms of lights, they weren’t planes, no plane could zi
p in and out and up and down like them. One got real close, I saw it with my own eyes, it was metal, disk shaped and smooth, smooth like chrome finish,” Petey said, and began eating again.
“What were you saying about Michelle?” Sparks decided to get back to the original subject.
“She hung up on me after I mentioned flies,” Markus said.
“She probably thinks your black ass is crazy. Some bitches ain’t into crazy niggas.”
“Nah, I think she hung up because she dreams about flies like me, and like anyone else who’s been under the Randleman Protocol,” Markus said, sounding serious.
“I don’t know if she was in this crazy weird hypnosis, child kidnapping, and slavery situation with you, and was programmed or reprogrammed with some sort of stopwatch and or this Randleman machine. If she does see flies in her dreams and faints like you and has flashbacks…”
Markus interrupted Sparks, “Had flashbacks, I’m cured.”
“Whatever,” Sparks snapped. “If she has the symptoms you had, she’ll call you back. She probably hung up from shock. She was like, how did he know I dream about flies. But if she doesn’t call you back then she thinks you’re a nut case. Either way, forget about her. We got more important things to worry about.”
“Such as,” Markus inquired. “What is more important than Michelle?”
“Ain’t no bitch important at all,” Sparks said looking over at Entice. “Present company excluded.” He got back at Markus. “Your monthly medical checkup, and AIDS test, and your vehicle, I think those are priorities.”
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