by Rod Redux
“You’re up early,” he said, sitting at his desk.
“You woke me up,” Sharon replied.
“I’m sorry. Was I snoring?”
He’d gained some weight as middle age tightened its grip, and with the extra pounds came a bit of intermittent sleep apnea and snoring. His doctor was threatening to put him on diet pills… and the show’s producers endorsed the doc’s opinion. Allen knew he needed to lose a few, but he’d rather watch his diet and visit the gym a little more often than start popping pills that would probably give him bladder cancer or an aneurism ten years down the road.
“No… you weren’t snoring,” Sharon answered finally. She stabbed out her butt and glanced at him. “You were having a bad dream. Thrashing around and mumbling.”
Allen raised his eyebrows. “I don’t remember having any bad dreams.”
“Well, you were. I thought you were going to sock me.”
Allen winced. “I’m sorry, baby.”
“That’s all right,” Sharon sighed, then turned back to her computer and started typing.
Allen slurped some more coffee. “What was I saying?”
“What?”
“You said I was mumbling. What did I say?”
“Oh… I don’t know. I couldn’t really understand you. Something about a hole in the floor. Or a hole in the ground. You were telling someone to watch out for it.”
“Hmm… that’s weird.”
Allen leaned back in his chair, watching his wife while she read. He couldn’t help smiling. Sharon had been warmer toward him the last couple days. He’d talked to one of the show’s producers over the phone a couple times, but aside from that, he’d simply puttered around the house, and Sharon had seemed to enjoy his company. They’d worked in the garden together, cleaned out the greenhouse and the big storage shed out back. It was almost like the good old days, before his fame drove a wedge between them. They’d even broken their dry spell last night. Or rather, she had broken his dry spell.
Allen had retired early yesterday evening, wore out by all Sharon’s honey-dos, but he’d snapped awake when he felt his wife’s hand sliding inside his underpants.
“What are you doing?” he’d whispered in the dark, and Sharon had chuckled.
“Just shut up and enjoy it,” she’d replied, so he had.
He only interrupted her once, asking her to let him put it in, but she’d said no, and then she’d pulled his underwear completely off and wiggled in between his legs and gave him head, something she did so rarely he wondered if the doctor hadn’t called her earlier that day and told her that he had some kind of terminal illness.
He could only hold out a few minutes before he gasped a warning, it had been so long since she’d touched him, but she didn’t stop, and he came up off the mattress with a whoop, pulling the fitted sheet off.
After: “Am I dying or something?” With a nervous laugh.
“No!” Sharon had replied, smacking him lightly on the chest. “I just wanted to give you a nice sendoff this time. You deserve it after helping me all day. It was nice. Spending some time together, I mean. Just you and me. I miss that.”
He’d hoped she would say more, that they could talk about the distance that was growing between them, but her voice had trailed off, and then she looked embarrassed and dismayed, and she had trotted to the bathroom to shower and brush her teeth. Her hot and cold running moods were enough to drive a man insane, but he felt too good to complain. Too relieved. He was still high from his orgasm, his whole body tingling.
He waited for her to come out of the bathroom, but she stayed in there forever. So long, in fact, that he’d finally dozed off. He didn’t wake when she returned to bed.
He wanted to talk to her now, sitting here in the office, but she didn’t seem to be in the mood for him right now, and he didn’t want to push his luck.
Maybe when he got back…
2
Billy honked for him from the driveway like a punk calling his girlfriend out for a date. Allen trotted into the foyer, yelling to Sharon as he went, “That’s Billy! I’ve got to leave!”
He didn’t know if she would see him off, but he couldn’t wait very long. Billy was running late, as usual. Fucking Billytime…! They barely had time to get to the airport.
As he stuffed his feet into dress shoes, he heard Sharon call, “Hang on!” from the other side of the house, so he waited by the door, absurdly pleased.
She was still in her housecoat.
“You look nice,” she said, and she offered him a tentative smile. He stood erect as she fussed with his collar, smiling down at her, and then she surprised him again by throwing her arms around him. “Be careful, okay,” she said, pressing her cheek to his chest.
“I will,” he said with a chuckle, hugging her back. “You know, you’re really starting to worry me.”
“You’re not the only one who’s been having bad dreams,” Sharon said.
“What do you mean?”
Billy outside: Honk-honk-honk! Hoooooonnnnnnkkkkkk!
Looking toward the door, Allen laughed. “Someone’s going to call security on him.” He kissed the top of his wife’s head and moved away from her, but Sharon clung on. “Babe, I gotta go.”
“I know.”
“You’ve got to let me go.”
“I don’t wanna!”
He laughed again. “I’ll be back in a couple days.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She released him and stepped back, arms falling to her sides, an uncharacteristic expression of anxiety on her face. She looked almost childlike in her fright, like a little girl who’d been chased to her parents’ bed by the bogeyman in her closet. He realized she was almost in tears, and that frightened him. If there were two things Sharon Mandel didn’t do, it was suck dick and cry… and she had done both in the last twenty-four hours.
“I promise,” Allen said more firmly, and then he smiled at her and didn’t look away until she smiled uncertainly back.
“Okay,” she nodded. Then one last time, more sure, “Okay.”
Billy was laying on the horn again, so Allen grabbed his luggage, smooched his wife on the lips and marched out the door. It wasn’t until he was standing in line at airport security that he realized he’d forgotten to say “I love you”.
I’ll call her when we get to Tennessee, Allen thought as he waited to get patted down (the scanners were on the fritz this morning and everybody was getting patted down, oh boy!)
The TSA agent finished checking his balls for concealed explosives-- the fat rent-a-fascist had really searched him thoroughly, even gave his dick a leisurely pat-down-- then waved him on. “You’re clear to go, sir. Have a nice flight,” the swarthy fellow said, his breath reeking of pepperoni and halitosis.
“Thanks,” Allen growled, not the least bit grateful, then he shuffled forward to catch up with Tish and Billy, who’d gotten fondled ahead of him, shaking his leg as he walked in an attempt to sling the beans and frank back into their accustomed positions.
Billy laughed at his expression. “What’s the matter, big guy?”
“I’d rather risk the terrorists than get dry humped every time I need to fly,” Allen grumbled.
“He was a little handsy,” Billy said. “I was waiting for him to tell me to turn my head and cough.”
“Poor babies,” Tish teased them, resplendent in a tight blouse and wide-legged tan slacks. “You want me to kiss ‘em and make ‘em better?”
Allen grinned. “Now that I wouldn’t mind!”
Laughing, the three jogged to catch their flight.
Francis Fontaine,
Psychic Investigator
1
A second or two after giving him directions to the Forester House, the clerk of the convenience store Francis Fontaine had stopped at for gas and something to drink thought: God, I can’t stand faggots!
The thought came with a horrid mélange of emotions: disgust, hatred, fear, with terrib
le shadow-things peeking around the edges. memories the man probably didn’t even realize he had: an abusive father, one fumbling and embarrassing sexual encounter with a friend he’d spent the night with when he was in seventh grade.
The psychic fastball hit Francis as he was standing at the checkout counter with his peanut butter crackers and 32 ounce Giga-Gulp of Dr. Pepper, and it was all he could do to hang onto the Styrofoam drink container and snack. As it was, he flinched visibly, and, eyelids fluttering, stammered a thank-you to the clerk as he turned and headed not-quite-steadily toward the exit.
The clerk, a short thin man with gaunt features and a bushy ginger mustache, nodded at him grudgingly. One quick dip of his chin, lips tucked down at the corners.
The tag pinned to the breast pocket of his maroon work shirt said: Welcome to the Golden Gallon, I’m BRENT. How May I help you? His eyes were small and dark and shiny. They ticked back and forth beneath his glowering eyebrows as Francis cut a right at the souvenir display, then a left, following him all the way down the candy bar aisle.
Francis had brought his guards up, of course, had done it immediately, but a moment before the automatic doors opened with a pneumatic swish, one last thought from Brent the convenience store clerk, sizzling with revulsion and sick glee, came whistling out of the ether: Bet he sucks a mean cock.
Francis threw himself through the door with a gasp, breathing in the fresh air outside the gas station with an expression of pure relief. Well, quasi-fresh air. The clerk’s hatred and disgust was as suffocating as a cloud of poison gas. It was so much worse in closed rooms when his strange talent locked onto someone like that, someone who was rotting inside from hatred or bitterness or jealousy.
Outside, the air was clean, the sun bright. He smiled up at gauzy rafts of white summer clouds rowing silently across a sea of faded denim sky. He turned his head to stretch out the knotted muscles in his neck and shoulders and then brought his straw to his mouth and sipped.
“Ahh!”
That was better.
He started across the parking lot toward his car, a bright blue 1955 Chevy Bel Air convertible, a tiny man in a turtleneck sweater and brown corduroy pants. As he walked, feeling more relaxed and happy with each additional step he put between himself and Brent the convenience store homophobe, a woman in short-shorts and a haltertop stopped to gawk at him for a moment.
He knew how strange he looked, wearing long sleeves and heavy pants on such a warm summer day. Everyone else was in shorts and flip-flops and light short-sleeved shirts, but he had an endocrine disease that affected his body temperature. It was why he was so small and waif-like, with a round child-like face and thin flaxen hair. It was why some people thought he was a homosexual when he was, in fact, a straight married man. Even with the temperature hovering around ninety-five degrees today, if he were not dressed in long sleeves and pants (plus an undershirt, heavy socks and thermal underwear) he would have started trembling halfway across the lot to his car, and his teeth would have been chattering by the time he slid in behind the steering wheel.
There was little he could do about it, and he had gotten used to the staring a long time ago, so he merely nodded to the woman and continued to his car.
He slid in behind the wheel, opened his crackers and set them on the passenger seat for easy access. He stuffed his giant drink cup in his cup holder, and then put on his seatbelt and started the engine.
Before shifting the convertible into gear, however, Francis sat very still and visualized the clerk who was running the register inside the station.
Welcome to the Golden Gallon, I’m BRENT!
He brought the man’s alcohol-devoured features into his mind, concentrating on the image until it was clear and complete in his imagination. Then he took a deep breath, tightened his diaphragm… and projected.
Just two words, flung toward the clerk in the convenience store like a stone whipped out of a slingshot: SCREW YOU!
Inside the Golden Gallon, Brent the Homophobe was ringing up a candy bar and bag of chips for a heavyset woman who was dressed in too tight hip-huggers and a low cut blouse, thinking a candy bar and a bag of chips was the last thing in the world this fat cow needed.
Fat cunt should be saving her change for a gastric bypass, he thought as he eyed the forty pounds of tits she had flopped onto his checkout counter.
Francis’s projection slammed into the side of his head like an errant yard dart, hitting him so hard he cried out and stumbled to the side. He brought his hands up to clutch his head and knocked over several counter displays, sending cheap plastic cigarette lighters, prepackaged brownies and energy capsules scattering across the counter and tile floor.
He also pissed his pants a little.
Smiling, Francis shifted his blue Bel Air into gear and pulled away from the pumps.
At the end of the parking lot, before making a left onto the highway, he lifted his sock toboggan from the dash of the car and pulled it onto his head. It was a beautiful day and he was driving with the top down, but he had to be careful not to let himself catch a chill. He got sick very easily, and Ruthie would scold him for being so reckless with his health. She would have been horrified if she knew he was driving with the ragtop down and the wind blasting full force in his face.
What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, he thought.
Francis slid into traffic and headed east, toward the Forester House.
2
There wasn’t an official name for the genetic disorder Francis suffered from. His doctor, a dedicated physician named William Altug, sometimes called his condition Peter Pan Syndrome, but there was, as far as he and his doctor had been able to ascertain, no other reported instances of the genetic disorder that afflicted Marie Fontaine’s only child, and this after years of submitting himself to painful tests, experimental treatments and embarrassing physical examinations by a legion of curious doctors, nurses and scientists. In all the world, there was no one else quite like him. Francis was strangely proud of that sometimes. Usually though, it just made him feel lonely.
Doctor Altug had told him, after they finally did a complete DNA workup on him, that his condition was very similar to a genetic disorder called Prader-Willi syndrome. Francis was missing the same seven genes from his 15 chromosome that other Prader-Willi victims were missing, but unlike PWS victims, Francis had genetic anomalies at chromosome 3 and 17 as well.
These genetic anomalies were enough to differentiate Francis’s condition from Prader-Willi very distinctly. For one thing, Prader-Willi victims were normally mentally retarded, but Francis had tested at a low genius level IQ. Prader-Willi victims also suffered from hyperphagia, a fancy word for compulsive eating, which usually led to morbid obesity and diabetes. Francis was himself a very picky eater, and thin enough to see his ribs if he took his shirt off.
And then, of course, there was the telepathy.
He wasn’t born with it. It developed in his late teens, shortly after he had surgery to correct his undescended testicles. His doctor had put him on a plethora of hormones and medications—testosterone, Human Growth Hormones, T4, T3, gonadotropins… you name it, he took it—hoping to nudge him into puberty. Francis was sixteen at the time, and still looked like a ten year old boy.
As Francis matured, casting off adolescence like a caterpillar bursting, winged, from its cocoon, he began to suffer from headaches and dizzy spells. Dr. Altug had said that that was to be expected. Francis was taking a lot of powerful drugs.
“Let’s just try to muddle through this, alright, kiddo?” Dr. Altug had said, not unsympathetically. “You don’t want to be a little boy forever, do you?”
No, he did not. He promised his doctor that he would try to put up with the pain.
Then he began to hear voices in his head.
Thoughts that didn’t seem to belong to him would suddenly flash through his consciousness. Usually it was kind of a low drone, the words indistinct. Sometimes it was blurry images or just colors, but every now and then
he would get entire sentences. It was like his brain was a radio, and he was picking up some faraway station that only came in clearly when atmospheric conditions were just right.
Afraid his doctor would take him off the hormone therapies, stranding him forever in a state of perpetual childhood, he’d told no one about the strange thoughts and distracting voices. And to be honest, there were a lot more momentous things happening in his life at the time. He had begun to feel urges he’d never felt before, longings and desires that were both pleasant and painful. Hair sprouted from his armpits and in his pubic area. He lost interest in his playthings and became inordinately interested in cable television shows… especially the ones that came on late at night. He became fascinated with boobs. He developed a crush on his mother’s friend, Terri Hader, and followed her around the house like a little puppy whenever she came to visit.
Finally one afternoon, when Terri was visiting his mom, Francis realized the voices in his head weren’t quite as imaginary as he’d come to believe they were. He was in the TV room watching Gilligan’s Island, lying on his belly and listening to his mother and Terri talking in the kitchen. His mother was talking about him as usual, telling Terri how he’d been a difficult child right from the beginning—58 hours of labor, then a horrible breech birth that ended in an emergency Caesarean section. Francis was only listening with half an ear—he’d heard the story many, many times before—when a voice very distinctly spoke inside his head.
Better you than me, that voice said.
The words were so clear that he twisted his head around and looked into the kitchen, frowning. It had been Terri’s voice. Of that he was certain, but when he looked at her sitting at the dining room table, he saw that his mother’s friend was sipping from a glass of iced tea. She couldn’t possibly have spoken aloud, and she wouldn’t have said something that rude, either.
Not out loud, anyway, he thought, and then it was like a lightbulb blinked on over his head.