“The past is only a memory. Memories have no power to hurt you. You are calm, and relaxed.” Stefan’s voice was louder, firmer, for a moment. I dropped my line of thinking and focused on him. “Four. Your arms feel very light, weightless. Your right arm is so light, so free, that it feels as if it could float right up out of your lap….”
They had set me up in the Police Academy right away, and no, I didn’t try to contact Stefan. I didn’t try to contact anybody. I was just barely treading water, and I was positive that one of the other cadets would figure out I liked dick, beat the crap out of me, and get me kicked off the force and back into the loving arms of Heliotrope Station.
“The past is only a memory. Memories have no power to hurt you.”
“What?”
I blinked. Stefan raised a black, pointed eyebrow and gave me his most lofty eyeliner-focused look.
Eyeliner?
We stood in a hallway that was painted two shades of blue, navy on the bottom and robin’s-egg blue on top. The horizontal line where the two paint colors met went all the way down the hall, which made it stretch and warp in forced perspective if I looked at it too hard.
“I think the hall’s breathing,” I said.
“What’d they give you?”
“I dunno.”
He looped his arm through mine and I flinched, because my arm was sprained. Wait a minute, no it wasn’t. Why did I think it was?
“Kitchen’s this way,” he said. “Don’t dawdle in the hall. After that ridiculous ‘no fraternization’ line they fed us yesterday, I’m paranoid about getting caught.”
We rounded a corner and collided with another resident—Movie Mike, Heliotrope Station’s token telekinetic. “Gimme a cigarette,” he told Stefan, “and I won’t tell anyone I saw you two homos getting it on.”
I might have been into other guys, but he was the one wearing a bright blue blazer with pushed up sleeves and a skinny tie with piano keys printed on it. Unfortunately, I was too high to argue about the various shades of meaning that could be attributed to the word homo. And I had no doubt that Stefan would be happy to wipe the floor with Movie Mike with no help at all from me.
Stefan countered with, “We’re doing nothing more risqué than walking down the hall.” So far, anyway. “You think anyone would even care?” Obviously, he was taunting Mike. And maybe tinkering around in his head, too—ferreting out his insecurity and self-doubt, and turning it a few notches higher. “Know what I found out after Show and Tell? I’m the best empath here. Level five. So what’re you going to do to get admin’s attention? Slide a penny across the table? I’m sure everyone will be so impressed.”
Mike’s cheeks colored. “No fraternization. They told me that when I went in for my talk.”
“No smoking, either.” Stefan gave him a glare that could wither a silk plant.
Movie Mike did his best to glare back. Stefan might wear more makeup than half the chicks in the program, but he was still the last guy anyone would want to hold a staring contest with. Mike caved first. He looked away, slouched beneath his shoulderpads and dodged around us. “Fucking fags.”
“Asswipe.” Stefan marched in the opposite direction, taking long steps now. I stumbled along beside him. “I wouldn’t have given him a cigarette even if I had any left.”
Probably not, but Mike’s threat to go tattle on us was nothing more than a bunch of hot air. Psychs were like nutjobs. They watched each others’ backs. Mike was just trying to rattle Stefan’s cage for form’s sake. I don’t know why he even bothered. Hopefully he wasn’t angling for a three-way or anything. I didn’t think so—Stefan probably would have called him on it if he had been, even subconsciously.
Stefan paused, and tugged my arm to stop me from meandering into the range of a rotating video camera. It swept the hall, red light blinking. When it focused on the courtyard door, he made for the kitchen, and towed me right along with him. He could move fast, for a big guy—especially when unlimited desserts and various institutional culinary propellants were there for the picking.
Stefan pulled a comb from his pocket, wedged the pointed end of the handle between the doors, gave it a twist, and clicked the door open. I slipped in, he followed, and he shut the door behind us. It was a crappy lock, obviously. It only locked from the outside. And you could pick it with a sharp comb if you knew where to press the bolt.
We snuck past a dozen tables with upside-down chairs on top. The industrial clock on the wall, lurking behind a steel cage as if one of us would go berserk and destroy it for no good reason, clunked as the second hand swept by the twelve. We had a good twenty minutes before the orderlies would herd us into the showers. Maybe more, but we always made it a point to be ten minutes early, at least. Especially now, with the creepy new orderlies on the payroll, I wasn’t going to take any chances.
“Oh my God,” Stefan cried from the kitchen. He sounded like he might be having an orgasm. “Brownies.”
I tore open a cabinet and looked for something to sniff. Aerosol cooking spray. Yes.
“Do you think they’ll notice if I eat one?” he asked.
“How likely is it you’ll stop at one?”
“Good point. I’ll need to be subtle. Help me.” The brownies were pre-cut, so he’d need to shave a sliver off each one so that no one noticed a portion was missing.
“Just cut the biggest ones in half.” I held the cooking spray upside down and sprayed until the oil cleared the tube, and I had access to the good stuff. I sprayed nitrous into a plastic food service glove and took a hit.
“So good.” Stefan’s voice was thick with chocolate. The walls inhaled.
I lowered the glove and the room dipped and swayed. “C’mon, do a whippit with me.”
He stuffed a handful of brownie slivers into his mouth, then came over and pressed me into the stainless steel sink. I filled the glove with nitrous and he huffed it. Then he rested his forehead against my shoulder while he enjoyed the spinning.
“They put a dead body in there,” I said.
Stefan tensed up, and spoke into my T-shirt. “What?”
“In the room with me.”
He groaned, and pushed back. I stared at him in the greenish glow of the kitchen’s after-hours lighting. He didn’t need to see my eyes to feel what I was feeling, but I think it helped. “People should think twice before donating their bodies to science. You’re strangely unperturbed. They must have given you some really tasty pills.”
“I couldn’t see the body itself…. The corpse. It was in a body bag.”
Stefan shuddered.
“They gave me these pills and just left me there. Me and the body bag. It stunk. But I didn’t notice right away. Once I did, the thought of how much of it I’d already inhaled made me sick.”
“Have another hit,” he said gently. “Want me to blow you while you’re high?”
I sucked in a lungful of nitrous straight from the can and shook my head. It didn’t feel safe; we were too exposed. I spoke as I let the nitrous out of my lungs. “Later on.”
“What were they trying to do?” he asked.
“All I can figure was they were waiting for me to get a read on him. When he showed up, I described him, and they took my vitals and parked me in my room. Where d’you suppose the spirit was hiding for all those hours?”
Stefan ran his fingers over the stubbly sides of my head, then tweaked my Mohawk up in the middle. “Maybe it wasn’t there. Maybe they gave you an enhancement, and then they got you to make a spirit show itself to you after it was already departed—call it back to the body or something.”
I shook my head and the walls rippled. “No. They only give me enhancements in the green room. The one with lead walls, or Kryptonite or…whatever.” I felt nauseated. I told myself it was a decent high. “I think it was something else. The opposite of an enhancement.”
“There is no such thing.” Stefan straightened my earrings. They were always getting tangled. I touched his black-dyed hair. It was crunchy
with Aqua Net. He caught my hand, gave it a quick kiss, and then pulled away. If I wasn’t going to drop trou, then stolen dessert trumped me. “Well, at least they only kept you in there for a few hours. Could’ve been worse.”
I nodded, which was probably not the best idea, and then I upchucked into the sink. Nitrous must not mix well with whatever it was they’d had me swallow. Stefan tactfully ignored me and continued shaving pieces off the brownies.
I swished out my mouth and rinsed the puke down the drain. “I’ll come visit you tonight,” I said. I might not be fit for a blow job at that very moment, but at two a.m., when the overnight orderlies jockeyed for their lunch breaks? Oh, yeah.
“Be careful. I don’t like the looks of the new orderlies.”
“I’m always careful.”
Stefan glanced at the clock. “Come back now.”
“What?” Was someone looking for us already? We’d only been gone a few minutes. “Do you feel someone coming? We gotta hide—or they’ll catch us fraternizing.”
“Ten. You’re focusing on the sound of my voice.”
“Ten people? Fuck, they found out.” If I rolled myself up into a ball, I could fit under the sink. But Stefan? No chance.
“Nine. You’re breathing. You’re relaxed.”
I listened hard. I didn’t hear a group of people.
“Eight. And the present begins to filter in. Focus on your right hand. And remember where it is, on the arm of the couch.”
“I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Seven. I see you haven’t lost your edge, after all. You’re not in Camp Hell, Victor. You’re in my office. Sitting. On the couch.”
I was sitting? No I wasn’t. I glanced back at the sink, and a wave of disorientation hit me. I was sitting. At least, that’s what it felt like.
“…Three. Focus on the palm of your hand, make a fist, and open it again. That’s right. You’re very calm, and very relaxed.”
“Stefan?”
The room spun, and I realized the dimly-lit kitchen was actually a dimly-lit office—Stefan’s office. His face filled my field of vision, and my God, he was so old. I glanced down at my permanent press slacks, my standard-issue plainclothes dress shoes. So was I.
“…you awaken totally refreshed, and you remember everything you’ve seen.” He watched me. I blinked. Was I really there with him? I could have sworn we were in the kitchen. I could have sworn I was twenty-three. It all seemed so real.
“You feel calm,” he said, in his regular voice. Not his hypnosis voice.
“Yeah. I do.”
“You went deep, fast. I was worried you might not be a good candidate for hypnosis. Good thing I didn’t mention that and bias you against it. So—want to talk about it?”
His eyes were the same. Hazel. Shrewd. He’d stopped plucking his eyebrows and penciling them into sharp peaks, but they still looked groomed. My guess was that he still combed them into shape. His nose was… oh, there was a tiny dot, the size of a pore, where he’d used to have a silver nose ring. His mouth was the same.
I’d loved him so much.
“Or maybe you need to process it.”
I nodded. I’d never told him. Not once. And then I just left him in that fucking…place.
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t up for waterworks.
He watched me for a moment, and then stood up. “Sit for a few minutes. Or lie down if you want. It’s a decent couch. I’ve got to make some notes.”
There was a clock within view of the couch. It was almost five. He’d knocked out his last two appointments for me. I hoped they weren’t suicidal or anything. I tried to ground myself in the present. Beige wall. Berber carpets. Textured ceiling. I let my breath out slowly.
Stefan had to have heard it, but he continued to write without looking up. Just like he’d heard me ralph in the sink, but had kept right on pilfering brownie crumbs. “I remembered one of the times we raided the kitchen,” I said.
“Thought so. You wanted me to huff your glove.”
“Oh God. I was talking and moving and stuff?”
He dismissed my embarrassment with a flick of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve seen worse.”
-SEVEN-
I hung my coat in the hall and followed the smell of something better than I deserved for dinner into the kitchen. Sloppy joes, or spaghetti sauce, or…I lifted the lid and peeked. Chili.
Jacob came up out the basement in a T-shirt and jeans. There were cobwebs in his hair. He opened his mouth to say something, I’m guessing something a normal person might say, like hello. And I blurted out, “I just saw Stefan. And he hypnotized me, and I remembered something about Camp Hell.”
He came over and stood in front of me, reading my body language. He was probably trying to see if I wanted to be touched, or if he should leave me alone. I hoped he’d figure right. I couldn’t tell, myself.
My elbow twinged when he ran his hands up my arms, but I ignored it. I leaned toward him, and he clasped me against his chest. He was so big. And maybe I’d been wrong, when I figured he wasn’t really my type, that I was into flashy guys. Because Stefan was all about the rock-star look, but he was also big and solid, and patient and smart. I settled my cheek against Jacob’s shoulder, and focused on the places our bodies touched. They were all solid muscle. “You feel amazing.”
“Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I, uh….” Actually, realizing that I’d left Stefan at Camp Hell to rot was bothering me a hell of a lot more than the scene he’d helped me dredge up. “I realized that they tested Neurozamine on me. Back before it was on the market. Way back. Before it was even called that.”
Jacob turned his face toward me and kissed the side of my head. He slid both hands up my back and wove his fingers through my hair. “Neurozamine’s side effects are a lot milder than Auracel’s.”
That was true. “It metabolizes faster, too. Just a couple of hours.”
He stroked my scalp with his fingertips. I closed my eyes. The smell. I’d smelled it plenty, since I’d worked homicide. But those first few times really stick with you.
“They figured that out by locking me in a room with a dead body and timing how long it took me to get a read on the spirit.”
His fingers went still on my scalp for a moment. He reached down to steady himself on the countertop with one hand. And then his other hand began stroking again, gentle, patient, as if I hadn’t just told him about the corpse.
I opened my eyes.
Jacob was squeezing the countertop so hard, his knuckles were white.
“I’m gonna ditch my suit,” I said. I brushed a kiss over his jaw as I pulled back, and I wondered if a real wool blazer would have felt less clammy than the SaverPlus special with the man-made lining. I slipped it off, and my shirt was still damp beneath my holster. “Um…I’m thinking it shouldn’t go back in the closet.”
Jacob stepped up behind me, and his hand closed over mine. “I’ll take it to the cleaners.” He wrapped his other hand around me and loosened my tie. “The back of your shirt is stained with sweat.”
“Nice.”
“Let me take care of you.” He dropped my jacket on the couch, then my gun and holster, and then he led me to the bathroom.
Our downstairs bathroom was big and brand spanking new, since the original owner died before she’d even finished installing it. In the eighties. I didn’t mind the pastel tiles or the whitewashed cabinets. They were the closest thing to white we had in the whole loft.
Jacob parked my ass against the sink, turned on the shower, and peeled off my shirt. I avoided looking at it too hard. At Jacob, too. He’d seen me naked for months. But tonight it felt different, somehow. Vulnerable.
I stared at a spot in the center of his chest where a partial spider skeleton had caught on his T-shirt while he was rooting around in the basement. If I looked hard, I could see how each tiny leg had been jointed.
Jacob slipped m
y belt off, undid my fly. My dress pants dropped. He pushed down my boxers, and I shoved down my socks, stepped out of everything in one big wad of fabric and shoes. The bathroom was hazy with steam. Jacob slipped out of his clothes, let them mingle with mine, the whole mess of it fit to be thrown out on the street, except that I really liked the way his jeans hugged his package, so maybe those could stay, spider parts or not.
Jacob climbed into the shower first, then held a hand out to me. It was a far cry from my old shower stall, which had been molded all in one piece in a factory somewhere, and shipped by the dozens to every apartment rehab in the Midwest. No, this beauty was floor to ceiling tile, bizarre shades of salmon and ecru, seafoam and wedgewood. I knew Jacob hated it. But its condition was pristine, and neither of us had the time or inclination to have it ripped out and replaced with something less weird.
I ran a fingertip over the grout between a pale green and pale pink tile. “I can get a lawnchair,” Jacob said. He put his hand on my hip and thumbed my hipbone as he said it. “That way, you can sit back and….”
Whatever he was going to offer, no doubt it would’ve been totally hot. Only my mind shifted to something completely else. Not like a cosmic hand was channel-surfing in my brain or anything. I still knew who I was, where I was, and with whom. It was more like picture-in-picture, a super vivid flash of Camp Hell.
The orderlies.
The showers.
Movie Mike, back from one course too many of experimental drugs.
Mike in a wheelchair, with his head bobbing around and weird-assed noises coming out of his throat.
A plastic chair, lying on its side on the grungy blue tiles. Water beaded on the arms, puddling under the seat. Or maybe urine.
“I can’t,” I told Jacob. I’d been aiming for a firm delivery, but I’d overshot the firmness aspect and ended up snapping.
Jacob caressed my cheek with his knuckles. “What is it?”
We all thought Movie Mike would snap out of it once the drugs ran their course. I always bounced back. So did Stefan. But Mike never did. The orderlies would strap him into this plastic chair and hose him down.
PsyCop 5: Camp Hell Page 5