Skin After Skin - PsyCop 8

by Jordan Castillo Price

  Maxine and I may disagree about many things, but she was right about this: I was a good salesman. Not only did I liquidate my bedroom set within a couple of days, but once I had cash in hand, I went a little overboard and sold off all my other big pieces, too. I hadn’t anticipated coming so close to funding my Psych certification, and once I was closing in on that goal, I started adding price tags wherever they would stick. I may have gotten carried away playing empath, too. When I detected a certain warm fuzzy from someone, a Vibe minus all the screwed up power plays and need for validation, I laid on the charm. They were happy to take the furniture off my hands.

  The scarred floors and rough plaster had looked edgy and chic as a backdrop for all my nice stuff, but now that the place was empty, it was just shabby. I had only the one day a week off, and I spent it rearranging my worldly possessions. First I pulled out the soiree gear from the office, the display tables and folding chairs, just to make the room feel less abandoned. Then I shifted some boxes and tucked away the twin bed in the dinky bedroom, where it wouldn’t feel so dwarfed by the vastness of the huge empty space.

  The apartment was transformed yet again, though what I could do with the current configuration, I didn’t know. Without the conversation pit in the center, the display tables weren’t enough to support a party. Not unless I planned on hosting a ballroom dancing class or a roller derby. I was attempting to come up with more creative uses for folding tables when a text came in from Jacob.

  Dinner?

  Dinner. While I did have a surplus of tables, we normally ate on my couch, which was gone. Maybe watched some TV, also gone. Then retired to my big bed. Ditto.

  Your place? I texted back.

  Sure. Vegetarian?

  Awesomesauce. (Auto-correct had a field day with that.)

  I stood in the middle of my big empty room with my hands on my hips. A wave of perfectly non-psychic empathy washed over me and I saw the room through Jacob’s eyes. Vacant. Abandoned. Barely habitable. As if I was planning to move.

  Or planning to move in. With him.

  Some small part of me was thinking, Would that really be so bad? And then the rest of me rolled its eyes and said, Duh! Cohabiting would be one thing, but I refused to show up at his place with nothing to my name but an old computer, a checkered smock and a bag of hair product. I couldn’t stand the thought of being a man’s charity case. Call me old-fashioned, but I refused to live together out of financial necessity.

  I refused to cab it to his place, too. In fact, I took all the cash I’d amassed selling off my stuff and ran it over to the bank before I was tempted to piss it away on minor conveniences like transportation or food.

  It took two buses and a three-block walk to put me at Jacob’s condo. Talk radio was playing in the background when I got there, and the whole place smelled like garlic and basil. “You’re making me an actual meal?” I wasn’t sure my stomach would know what hit it, but I was flattered nonetheless. I perched myself on the granite countertop and observed the proceedings with mild interest.

  “Is cheese okay?” he asked.

  “More than okay. Lay it on me.”

  “I wasn’t clear if vegetarian meant lacto-ovo, or vegan.”

  “Cheese is fair game.” Unless I caught it feeling sorry for itself, anyway. “Eggs…I haven’t exactly decided.”

  “So you’re not watching your cholesterol.”

  “Nah, I’m hale and hearty. I’ve just developed a philosophical aversion to the consumption of animals.”

  “Does it bother you if I still eat meat?”

  “Not at all.”

  I watched him lug a huge cauldron of pasta to the sink and dump it through a strainer. Steam billowed around him, and the light on the range hood threw some yellow backlight. His features should have been softened, but instead they were thrown into starker relief, more dramatic, more intense. It was a weird effect, practically cinematic. And he looked like some kind of action hero…making me noodles.

  My heart gave a little palpitation—not sparked by cholesterol, but emotion. I couldn’t recall the last time anyone had done something so nice for me. He hadn’t questioned my motivation, hadn’t cajoled or insulted or teased, only asked what I needed from him. I slid down from the counter and pressed myself into his back. My lips fit themselves perfectly to the nape of his neck, and he sighed and leaned back into the embrace. “I love you,” I whispered against the heat of his skin. “And don’t you dare even think about parroting the words back to me because it’s socially acceptable and you think I expect you to.”

  He dropped the pot and turned to face me. I did my best to mash him into the sink so he couldn’t do it, but I was fighting a losing battle since the guy’s built like a tank. I thought he was about to ignore my directive and lob the phrase back at me—maybe with the vocabulary slightly modified so he was technically not disregarding my request—but instead he gathered me in his arms, squeezed the breath right out of me, and cut off any potential protests by crushing his mouth against mine.

  Pasta congealed as we anointed his place from one end to the other, first with me doing a backbend over the butcherblock, then Jacob splayed across the coffee table, and eventually both of us tangled in fitted sheets that popped off the corners from the exertions we placed on the poor, beleaguered mattress. Sweat cooled on my limbs and across my chest as my heart rate slowed to normal and I caught my breath. I was hungry, I realized vaguely. But I felt so gloriously wrung out and sated, a little thing like an empty stomach hardly mattered.

  We’d been so busy working up to our grand finale, we hadn’t even bothered turning on the bedroom lights. Jacob uncoiled an elasticized sheet corner that was wrapped around his leg like a boa constrictor, then rolled over to pin my shoulder to the bed and give me big, dark doe eyes by the hallway light. I supposed if he insisted on relaunching that L-bomb I’d dropped, I was braced for it.

  So, of course, what he said was, “Move in with me.”

  I closed my eyes and did my best not to make a face.

  “I’ve hardly seen you all week,” he pressed on. “You work nights and weekends. My schedule’s all over the place. I want to fall asleep listening to the sound of you breathing. I want to wake up with your hair poking me in the shoulder.”

  Damn if he wasn’t eroding my resolve. But since my little head was satisfied, my big head was thinking clearly—and what it told me was that any partnership I entered into without being able to carry my own weight would be a sham. Once we’d exhausted our repertoires of sexual positions, the inequalities would be more noticeable, and then resentment would start creeping in.

  I opened my eyes. He was still giving me that damn doe-eyed look. I sighed, looped my arm around his head and hugged his face to my chest. “I’ll think about it someday, but not right now. And I need you to listen when I say, it’s not you, it’s me. There’s too much I’ve gotta figure out. I told you how I feel, right?” I felt him nod in the crook of my elbow. “So ease up on the thumbscrews and let’s enjoy our time together.”

  I peeled off a spent condom that was stuck to my thigh, dropped it over the side of the bed, and said, “Look, finding someone to hook up with is easy. The way you don’t second-guess my every last decision, the fact that you actually believe in me? That quality is exceedingly rare. I’m not interested in a sugar daddy, but I’m sunk without your moral support.”

  “I’m doing what anyone would do.”

  “Bullshit. You helped me build my Craftacular storefront. You were amazing at the Soiree. Hell, you’re supportive all the way down to the pesto we didn’t get around to eating.”

  “It’s probably separated by now,” he murmured.

  The thing about giving someone your trust is that it’s even lousier when they let you down. I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and said, “I’m trying for the certification.” I realized he might think it had something to do with hair, and added, “Psych certification.”

  I’d been worried he would scoff, or laug
h, or anything that would ruin the night, and worse, throw me off my trajectory. But no. He squeezed me tight and said, “I was hoping you would.”

  Obviously Carolyn didn’t know Jacob half as well as she thought she did—either that, or I’d been dating some real losers—because for such a reprehensible cad, Jacob was turning out to be pretty great.

  “And don’t make a big fuss over it,” I told him, “but I may be willing to leave a toothbrush here.”

  In a voice logy with impending sleep, Jacob said, “I’ll be sure to treat it with the respect it deserves.” He rolled off me and wound the duvet around his midsection. I curled onto my side, nestled against his broad back, and considered rinsing the texture paste out of my hair. But nah. Let it poke him in the shoulder blade—if that’s what he was into, who was I to judge?

  Chapter 31

  Jacob’s condo might not be exactly my style, but there was something to be said for furniture. A single night at his place made me regret my decision to sell everything off. I turned to Craigslist. Stuff there could be had for free or cheap, but I soon realized it was all stained, tattered or just plain ugly. A crooked entertainment center wouldn’t class up the place, and a beige microfiber sectional that bore the worn impressions of a thousand ass-rubs would never make my cavernous living room look full. Just shabby. And the room was doing that well enough itself without help from anyone’s sorry castoffs.

  I was standing in the middle of the wide-open room, wheels spinning, when there was a rap on my door.

  “You home, kiddo?” Lydia called.

  I let her in and gave a sweep of my hand to encompass the depressing emptiness. “If you could call it that.”

  I dragged a pair of ancient metal folding chairs to the center of the room, kicked them both open, and situated them in a conversational angle to one another. She circled the room, took a good look around, then parked herself in a chair. “Is this some kind of fashion statement?”

  “I needed cash. I liquidated.”

  “Good. I was worried you were moving out.”

  “Where would I go?” Other than Jacob’s place, obviously. “You can’t beat the rent.”

  “No. But you can’t really live like this. Can you?”

  “I set up the bedroom,” I said, though spending time in the teenager bed wasn’t anything I looked forward to.

  “What about these boxes?

  I sighed. “They’d probably be just about as comfortable.”

  “That’s not what I mean—I’m asking what’s inside.”

  “Crystals. Doo-dads. All the stuff from my Sticks and Stones Soirees that I haven’t gotten around to selling.”

  “And you chose to sell off the furniture you were actually using rather than moving the metaphysical gear because…?”

  Good question. “Because…I suppose I knew I’d take a big loss if I tried to offload this crap in bulk. To turn a profit, I need to hand-sell it piece by piece.” I sighed. “And now I have nowhere to sell it. Don’t worry, the irony is crystal clear.”

  “Chin up, kid. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

  “Is there? At what point do I concede that my innate stubbornness isn’t doing me any favors? If only someone could look into the future and tell me whether all this effort is even worth it.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “And now you believe in precogs? Whaddaya know. My cards are downstairs—but bum me a smoke, and I’ll see if I can pick up any quick impressions.”

  I lit one for each of us, handed one to her, and re-planted myself in the creaky chair. Lydia took a deep drag, eyes focused softly. I watched. I won’t lie—it felt a little funny seeing her in action without my barrier of cynicism protecting me. She looked around, focusing mostly on the doorways: front door, far door, and the broom closet I never used because the slop sink inside gave me the willies. Lydia pointed to the creepy door and said, “That’s important.” Then she cocked her chin toward the front door and said, “More boxes come through there. And after that, more people.”

  “So I should start throwing parties again.”

  “You’ll note I didn’t claim you should do anything whatsoever.”

  I stretched my legs out in front of me, straining the dubious chair, and let my head sag back. With nothing more than a coffee pot and a pile of folding chairs, the only thing I was qualified to host was an AA meeting. “What’s the use of inviting people over for Sticks and Stones if there’s no furniture for them to hang out on?”

  “You think people come for the furniture?”

  “Not exactly.” I gestured toward the cavernous room. “But the setup is part of the whole experience. Without anything in it, this whole space just feels off.”

  “Ah.” She nodded sagely. “And there you have it. Without all your stuff to ground it, what kind of vibes does this place give out? The failure of the last five business that couldn’t make it.”

  Five? Shit. Like the fallout from CUTTERZ wasn’t bad enough.

  Lydia said, “I don’t throw the s-word around lightly, but in this case I’ll make an exception. What you should do is cleanse the space.”

  “I take it you’re not talking about the roaches.”

  “Nothing you can do about those, they’ll just come back. I’m referring to the vibration.” She must’ve caught me giving her a look, because she added, “I do my own place at the start of every fiscal quarter. And you already have all the gear, so what have you got to lose?”

  We poked through my boxes and located some incense and a few bags of herbs that she claimed would do the trick, but she had bookings to attend to, so she couldn’t babysit my faltering attempt at clearing my space. Maybe that was for the best. I felt like an idiot waving incense smoke at all the nooks and crannies while I attempted to visualize positive vibes clearing out all the bad juju.

  Even with no one watching, I felt like a dumbass.

  I adjourned to the web to see if there were any actual techniques I could be putting to use. But it was the internet, after all—teeming with so many amateur attempts at proficiency and flat-out scams that I couldn’t trust a damn thing I pulled up. Finally one site seemed promising, with its detailed lists of emotions and their thorough definitions, until I realized the “psych” wasn’t extrasensory, but psychological. Frustration. Yep. There it was.

  I dragged over a box of books and started flipping through some of Jacob’s PsyCop material. The dry stuff—the more tedious, the better. Not because I thought I’d find something as pragmatic as metaphysical cleanup techniques inside. More like I was hoping to find a reference to a legitimate, searchable website. But no dice. Either the books predated the modern web, or the items they cited were buried deep in subscription-based metaphysical research journals.

  I was wishing the universe could throw me some kind of bone when I picked up the last of Jacob’s stuffy textbooks and revealed a paperback at the bottom of the pile that had definitely not come from him. Mindfulness Methods, my ass. The only thing I was mindful of was how inexplicably pissed off I got every time I saw the cover model’s self-satisfied grin.

  No doubt I was experiencing displaced anger at Red for blowing out of town without so much as a goodbye. But it sure as hell felt like it would be amazing to kick up some sand and wipe that smirk off the model’s face. Maybe the book needed to be exorcised. Or penanced. Or whatever the terminology was. More likely, though, the book was a shining bastion of high vibration, and I was just too spiritually inept to handle it.

  Even so…maybe it had an index.

  I flipped to the back and a business card fluttered onto my lap. Rainbow Dharma: Chicago’s LGBTQIA Meditation Gathering. I felt a pang. This was the non-date Red had invited me to share. How might things have turned out differently if I’d been less of an ass?

  I picked up the card and scrutinized it. Tacky printing, lotuses and rainbows. No phone number, no website, not even an email. Just a Facebook group. No doubt it was all as dumb as the rest of the internet, but you never know where
links will eventually lead.

  The group’s page opened to a quote: “Radiate boundless love towards the entire world — above, below, and across — unhindered, without ill will, without enmity.” – The Buddha.

  Below that, some pics of a potluck. The attendees looked pretty normal. Not just the sort of folks who’d come to a Sticks and Stones Soiree, but people you’d see on the bus or the checkout line of the grocery store, too. Some of them I knew by sight. Some may have even spent time in my chair, back when my apartment was CUTTERZ.

  I clicked to the members list to see if any of their names rang a bell, scrolled down a few taps…then froze in my tracks. There in the far back of the crowd was one guy I knew, all right. Red Turner. Even as I clicked the photo to take a better look at him, I wondered what I was getting so worked up over. Because the way I reacted to that tiny glimpse—heart pounding, mouth suddenly dry—you’d swear I actually gave a shit. I moused over the tags to click through to his profile, and found I was actually nervous as it loaded. I told myself to stop being stupid. Everyone stalks everyone on Facebook. And it didn’t mean squat.

  Maybe I had a touch of the precog. Because the page loaded, and I realized it really hadn’t meant squat. It wasn’t Red at all, but a totally different guy who only looked like him from a certain angle when he was rocking a snazzy fedora. Obviously not Red, given the preponderance of duckfaced selfies on his wall.

  And the crushing pangs of disappointment I couldn’t deny.

  I clicked the back button so many times, the browser brought me to all the way back to the home page, then refreshed it four more times. What business did I have getting whipped into a frenzy about seeing Red, anyway? I’d just rolled out the L-word.

  I’d moved on.

  …and what was I doing again? Finding out how to clear the energy. Right.

  Fuck the internet. I hadn’t found a single thing that would help me psychically fumigate my apartment, and to make matters worse, I couldn’t get that image of Red out of my mind. I’d never even boffed the guy, so I could hardly think of him as the one that got away. But, damn it, there was no denying that’s exactly how it felt.