I dug through the stack in hopes of spotting a less mind-numbing text, and uncovered a DVD on the bottom—a DVD with a title that was decidedly un-psychic. Glazed. With three guys leering at one another on the cover, wearing baker’s aprons and nothing else.
Jacob hadn’t noticed. He was deep in a chart, or possibly a graph. Without comment, I went to the entertainment center, popped in the disc, and set the volume to a level that wouldn’t scandalize the entire building. At the sound of the cheesy background music running behind the title, Jacob’s head snapped up. I caught his eye, opened the fly on my regulation-fit ClipLand slacks, and announced, “Study break.”
Porn actually doesn’t do much for me. Jacob, however, was raring to go. He practically fought me for the right to yank my pants down, and he had my dick in his mouth before the opening credits were done. I’d always chalked up my porn non-reaction to personal preference, but in light of everything I was learning about myself lately, I suspected there was more to it.
Porn was a one-way street. I couldn’t connect to the models emotionally.
No wonder I could never find a good example of a Vibe for Pilar. It was like searching for a color photo in a pile of black and white snapshots. The key information simply wasn’t there.
I trailed my fingertips over Jacob’s scalp and he made a happy sound. He was obviously enjoying himself. Yet, when I searched for the Vibe (or whatever its might technically be called) I wasn’t so sure. I’d gotten a clearer hit off the guy on the sidewalk that morning than I was currently feeling from the guy between my legs.
“Do you meditate?” I asked.
He switched over to jacking me with a wet hand, and sat back on his heels. “Not regularly.”
“But you have.”
“It’s been a while. Maybe I should try again. It’s supposed to be…helpful.” He stood and led me to the bed, and we peeled out of the rest of our clothes while the DVD guys exchanged a few lines then started stripping, too.
“Helpful how?” I asked. “For grounding?”
“Psychs test higher when they meditate regularly, but NPs? I’m not convinced there’s any real benefit. I guess that’s why I haven’t made it much of a priority.”
Over on the bakery set, one of the naked guys pulled out a piping bag and laid a strip of frosting across the other guy’s chest, then the third guy licked it off. I considered the scenario. Was I witnessing something other than a random act of porn-osity? Maybe Jacob was trying to tell me something—and maybe that something was the kink that would unlock his Vibe. A food fetish wouldn’t be so bad. It was a heck of a lot tamer than cannibalism, anyhow.
“Should I go grab the rest of the tzatziki?” I offered.
“Why?”
I replied by flicking my eyes toward the screen.
“We’d make a huge mess,” he said. “Unless…you really want to.”
I shrugged and nudged him back downtown. Again, he started going at me with all the enthusiasm I could possibly hope for. And again I felt as much of a charge from him as I did from the inanimate TV set.
Frosting spurted. Two-on-one tonguing…and maybe that’s what Jacob was hinting at. Group action. Totally doable—the busboy with the dick pics would jump at the chance for a threesome. Especially once he got a load of Jacob’s generous endowment. I put on my naughty-voice and said, “I could call a friend.”
He looked up at me like I’d lost my mind.
“No?” I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Okay, then, I’m stumped. What’s the point of this educational filmreel?”
“No point. It’s just porn.”
Just porn. Right. If I’ve learned anything about sex, it’s that those little off-the-cuff hints are usually the culmination of years of thwarted longing too shameful to admit.
Jacob got back to business while I hit fast-forward. He didn’t complain, so it was unlikely I’d skipped his favorite part. Two-on-one blowjob. Dick frosting. Dick sucking daisy chain. Butt close-up. I slowed to normal speed. Baker #1 spread the cheeks while baker #2 piped a lopsided ring around the third guy’s rosy. Then they both ate it off. Nothing all that risqué—in fact, nothing we hadn’t done together before, albeit without the frosting.
There was more piping action, more licking, and then the scenario progressed to penetration. First with fingers, then the piping tip. I checked in on Jacob to see if he was trying to inspire me to shove a random household object up his butt. Didn’t seem to be. What a relief. Not that I had any problem with that, but you hear too many stories that start with playful experimentation and end up in the emergency room.
Maybe the porno really was just a porno, a little background noise to entertain us, keep us company while we got it on. I let the lip-smacking and frosting-fucking sounds serenade me through the appetizer and into the meal itself. Jacob rolled onto his back and encouraged me to ride his dick, which was interesting in lots of ways. Not just the feeling of his hugeness jammed all up in me, or the power to run the show however I damn well pleased. The eye contact, especially with all the lights on, was intense. Still, there was something nagging at me, something just out of reach, that I felt I didn’t quite grasp. At least until Jacob’s attention snapped to the TV. Just briefly. A second, maybe less. But not only had I definitely caught him checking in with the bakers—I’d felt the lust surging through his veins.
I resettled myself and glanced over at the screen. The bakers were done fucking, and now they all whacked off into the piping bag. There couldn’t have been all that much jiz in real life, so the crew must’ve filled it with something else, too. There was no lack of icing when the bakers held down their love cupcake and started piping him with the combined spunk.
I was just about to make a smart remark when I glanced back at Jacob and saw the Vibe was gushing out of him faster than fake semen from a piping bag. Seriously? That was what churned his butter—taking a load? Apparently so. When I offered him a facial, he got so amped up he nearly finished without me.
In the grand scheme of things, phenomenally tame. Dare I even say…vanilla?
Afterward, while Jacob slept the sleep of the truly sated, I lay there staring at the ceiling, wondering if I’d really had a psychic connection with a random dog. It seemed unlikely now, considering that I couldn’t tell if my own boyfriend was enjoying himself until he spurted all over. But the mind is a mysterious thing. Maybe it was acting the part of the surgeon who refuses to treat a family member. Because I’d lumped Jacob in the scary and untested “boyfriend” category, the empathy wasn’t willing to bloody its hands.
Not that anything I’d read supported a theory like that, but it was better than nothing. Enough of a reason, anyhow, to decide that practicing mind reading on Jacob was a one-way ticket to Frustrationville. Just look at Carolyn and her hubster. Poor guy didn’t only need to watch what he said—he had to control his very thoughts.
Relationships were hard enough to navigate without one party having access to an unfair advantage, and there was a whole world of people (and pugs) out there for me to violate with my empathic feelers.
I didn’t need to practice on Jacob.
Chapter 29
The next morning, once Jacob headed off to fight the good fight, I hit the books again. While I tried to make heads or tails of all those psychic studies, I started doubting them when I realized they contradicted each other. One claimed lack of sleep was a psyactive, for instance, while another said well-rested subjects tested higher. I would have been inclined to chalk the whole thing up to a bunch of nonsense, a stack of random books from someone’s garage sale, were it not for the thick black marks that peppered the oldest text. Redacted names. Once I realized what I was looking at, I set the tattered little tome on the edge of my coffee table and carefully avoided going anywhere near it.
I shoved aside a book that threatened to put me right back to sleep and knuckled my eyes vigorously with both hands. I just wanted to know how psychic empathy worked. Was that too much to ask?
I hea
ded downstairs and found Lydia de-cobwebbing her shrine with a tiny hand-held vacuum that generated more noise than suction. She was glad enough for the interruption. “Let’s say for the sake of argument I’m empathic,” I said.
“Gotta love how you still qualify it with all that preamble.”
I ignored the remark. “How do I do it? What can I use it for? What good does it do me if I can’t tell whether or not I’m just making up a bunch of bullshit?”
“Are you asking for a reading, or were you just hoping for some general advice?”
“I can’t afford one of your readings.”
She perched on the arm of her almost-matching sofa, considered me, then said, “You need to relax. You might act like a party boy, what with the leather jacket and the hair, but underneath that getup, you’re driven. Relax a little. Stop trying to figure out how to get it right, and focus on exploring what you can do.” She gestured to the certification that hung on her wall like a diploma in a doctor’s office. “For instance, take that pricy bit of necessary evil. It’s not like a piece of paper made a damn bit of difference in my talent, but so many Psychs swear by their numbers. Don’t be like them, hung up on external validation. It ain’t worth it.”
She went on about how it was a gift to understand people and added some rah-rah talk about trusting in myself, but my mind kept wandering back to that certificate. I rankled at the thought that I required external validation. And yet, if one of those agencies were to hand me a slip of paper that said I was unequivocally psychic?
Then I’d know for sure.
Unfortunately, those tests required a significant outlay of cash. While I was well versed in the art of comparison shopping, I quickly discovered that official psychic screenings were so closely regulated by the government that whether you tested in a rundown Englewood office or a glitzy Michigan Avenue high rise, the exorbitant fee was the same.
I could have afforded it, back when I worked at Luscious. Not easily, but I had disposable income to save. Now, though, there was no way I could fund the screening myself. I did have one good resource, though. I’ll accept gifts from Maxine, but cash is tricky. Hopefully getting me tested was something we could both get behind.
Asking her over the phone would’ve been easier, but given the price tag, I decided to wait until Sunday and spring it on her over dinner. We met down in Greektown over crisp white tablecloths, flickering tea lights, and bowls of exotic olives. She ordered a salad and I gorged myself on a flaming cheese. I tuned out the waiter trying to catch my eye and did my best to ignore the aroma of sizzling lamb flesh while Maxine regaled me with a tedious story about her neighbor and his car lot.
Something about his deadbeat son embezzling from the family business, and did I go to school with the kid? No? Well, good. Because it’s such a shame when children take advantage of their parents.
Not what I was hoping to hear on a money-finding mission. I attempted to steer the conversation away from the embezzler. “Too bad there wasn’t a telepath on staff. Y’know, someone who could’ve pointed out that the kid was shady before he made off with too much cash.”
“That’s not the point.” She was confused. Who’s to say if I felt it in my gut, or simply inferred it by the look on her face. Or maybe we just know each other well enough that it’s obvious when one of us says something the other doesn’t know what to do with. “It’s not about how he got caught, it’s that he shouldn’t have done it at all.”
“You’ve got to admit, though, having a psychic around would be pretty handy.”
“I guess,” she replied halfheartedly.
I forged ahead. “Lately they’re saying the three percent estimate was low. One in twenty people could be psychic. Some of them don’t even know it.”
“You should see the commissions he was making. And a company car, too.”
“Maybe people are getting extrasensory impressions all the time.”
“A company car,” she repeated firmly.
It didn’t take a psychic to figure out that neither one of us wanted to hear what the other was trying to say. Graciously, I decided to hear her out. “Okay, Maxine, go ahead. Make your point.”
“The dealership needs help now. It’s good money.”
“And you think I’d make a good car salesman?”
“Why not? You’ve always been outgoing. And if you had a company car, you wouldn’t need to use public transportation.”
Me, selling cars? Kill me now. “Fine. Job offer heard. And since we’re on the subject of broadening my horizons…I’m looking into the Psych Certification—”
She paled. Before I even got all the words out, the conversation fizzled. I felt it like a suckerpunch, like the room had dropped out from under me, and I was hanging there in mid-air just waiting to fall.
I stopped cold.
“Most people aren’t psychic,” she said. “And that’s okay. But no matter how you scored on a test like that, it wouldn’t mean you’re not special.”
My stomach clenched—did Carolyn’s do the same whenever someone fed her an obvious lie? Maxine was attempting encouragement, but the feeling behind it was less than encouraging. She was embarrassed, for me. And not only embarrassed, but ashamed.
The cheese congealed in my gut. So much for getting help from my own damn mother. I might as well try to bum a smoke off a panhandler. I stood up, threw down a twenty I couldn’t afford to cover my half of the meal, and said, “Gotta go—I have a train to catch.”
An angry walk and a cigarette later, I parked myself on the Blue Line, slipped in my earbuds and congratulated myself for not telling my own mother to go to hell. Five grand, give or take. She’d drop that kind of dough to have perfectly good shrubs ripped out along the driveway and slightly different shrubs planted in their place. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask her for it, even a loan. Not if she didn’t believe in me. The train rumbled along the Eisenhower median then descended into the subway tunnels, and the lights did their flick-flick, and I allowed my anger to be lulled to a simmer by the rocking of the train car.
Special, my ass. I’d show her.
As I spun out a fantasy where I’d socked away thousands of dollars for a rainy day (although, obviously, this was not my style whatsoever) a text came in from Pilar.
You got robbed?
Like, ages ago. Why bring it up now? I thought back along the gossip chain. I’d run into Trevor at the beauty supply store maybe a week ago and mentioned something to him about it, probably in reaction to his assertion that Wicker Park wasn’t cool anymore now that it was all gentrified. He’d only just told her now? Ouch.
Yeah - got my wallet back but that’s about it.
I’m replacing Nick’s computer. Want it?
While it was certainly no five grand, a used computer was a lot better than the big fat nothing I currently had. Maybe my day wasn’t completely shot to hell after all.
I hadn’t been to Pilar’s in a while, but other than a different pile of laundry on the sofa, it hadn’t changed. She and her teenage son lived in a brick post-war box where the bedrooms were too close for comfort—as in, she couldn’t have an overnight visitor without giving her kid an earful—but she always said she was saving for tuition and he’d be gone before she knew it. And now that time had come.
“I know it’s probably nothing as nice as what you’re used to,” she said, “but it’s built for gaming. Nick says it’s fast.”
“It’s plenty nice,” I said. A desktop would make my life a hell of a lot easier.
“And the printer. You can take that too if you want. I never print anything.”
“Sweet. Don’t mind if I do.”
“How about the printer stand? I won’t really need it either.”
It occurred to me that with Nick gone, it would be the perfect time for Pilar to escape from Luscious and strike out on her own—either in Chicago, or anywhere else she might care to put down roots. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Like what
?”
“Come on, girlie, why else do people ditch furniture?”
She sighed. “Okay…but don’t tell anyone. You know how the Juniors gossip.”
A cascade of fantasies unfurled, each one more exotic than the last. Pilar moving to Hollywood and primping the stars on a movie set. Pilar in Hawaii reigning as the premiere bridal expert. Pilar jetting around the world as the personal stylist of Scarlett Johansson or Winona Ryder or Angelina Jolie. “I won’t breathe a word.”
She hunkered in close as if she was worried her own walls might overhear, and said, “I’m hiring an interior designer and redoing Nick’s room.”
“As a home salon?”
“No.” She was scandalized by the mere thought. “A home theater.”
“But why should you care if Juniors know or not?”
“You know how catty people can be. My salary is none of their business.”
It was when I found myself wishing I could be happy for Pilar that I realized I was disappointed. While working at ClipLand was certainly nothing I’d ever aspired to, at least there was the sense that I could leave whenever something better came along. Not Pilar. She’d never been entirely comfortable at Luscious, but it was clear she planned on digging in her heels.
For the first time since I’d ditched all that melodrama, I finally appreciated the magnitude of my relief.
Chapter 30
I wasn’t exactly sure what I was planning to do with Nick’s old stuff when I grabbed it, other than cursing myself out for having to haul it up those narrow stairs. The bedroom set was old and battered, covered in manga stickers and gouged with random graffiti. Kid furniture. If I tried to sell it, I’d be lucky to recoup the cost of the U-Haul.
But if I put it to use, and sold my good stuff instead….
The computer might not be the latest and greatest, but I was tickled to have it. Putting together a Craigslist ad was so much easier with a keyboard.
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