by Sarah Noffke
I loathe when people are cutesy, like dental hygienists who describe themselves as picky people. Worse are optometrists who say they’re happy to see you and then wink. And don’t even get me started on a proctologists who admits to being a pain in the ass.
“When and how have I made these requests?” I say, my voice articulate.
She giggles, covering her mouth. “Sir, is this a game? Am I being tested?”
I regard her blankly.
When I don’t answer she indicates to the sleek silver laptop on the desk. “You send me emails. And I hope I respond with my confirmation fast enough. You never reply when I ask if I’m meeting your expectations. I mean I like that you are clear and concise with your instructions. And I realize that you’re busy and don’t have time to answer my questions inquiring about your wellbeing. I’m sorry if it’s wrong to ask such things. It’s just that as your personal assistant…” She trails away and now her hands are fidgeting in each other. “Well, I feel like I should personalize my…” She pauses. Hesitates. Sighs. “I’m sorry, that’s not what I mean. I’m just so nervous now that I’m finally meeting you. It’s hard to get my words out. And I don’t want to say the wrong thing…” She trails off again, talking to me like one of Dahlia’s fans speaks to her. “Well, it’s just nice to finally meet you after all these years.”
Personal assistant? For years? This just got creepy. A shiver actually tickles up my spine. What the fuck is going on here? I knew Vivian was obsessed with me but this is bloody ridiculous.
“Mistress will be so delighted to see you. Shall I announce your arrival?” the woman says.
I shake my head. “If I know that bitch, she already knows I’m here,” I say, turning for the door.
And just as I near it I catch the pictures lining the space; a collage of framed images lines the wall next to the door. There are pictures of Vivian in various places. New York. Mexico City. Rome. Egypt. And beside her in all the photos is me. I blink rapidly at the pictures. Then I turn back to the lady who is dutifully standing by and watching me. I point to the photos. My mouth falls open but nothing comes out. I turn back. The poses look natural. Me standing, sitting, lounging. But they’re obviously photoshopped. Expertly done. The clothes I’m wearing. The way I’m positioned. These are photos from my life. Superimposed next to Vivian. And then the urge to back up and get the hell out of the building courses through me. I fight it and open the door in front of me at once, before I have a chance to change my mind.
***
The oversized office is colder than the reception area. Vivian is on the phone when I enter. Without a word she places the receiver on the hook, and then she just looks at me. Stares. I feel a seemingly unending desire to stay locked like this forever. Again she reminds me of Marilyn Monroe with her blonde hair and full lips. And her complexion would make an angel cry; it’s perfectly clear, wrinkle free and seems to be glowing. But I remind myself that this gorgeous women is half my age. Actually, she’s only a few years older than Adelaide, which is beyond bizarre.
A full thirty seconds pass where I study her and the office. In the corner sits an armchair strikingly similar to my much loved plaid one. It even appears to be worn in the same places. And the artwork and furnishings are all indicative of the ones in my flat.
“What the fuck is going on here?” I say.
Vivian rises from her leather desk chair, her actions composed and steady. The velvet forest green dress hugs her curves in a way that feels wrong. In a few paces she clears the distance between us, pausing only a few feet away.
“Whatever do you mean, my love?” she says in a voice that sounds like it alone could unlock a vault. And the look she regards me with also unfastens something inside me. It’s like she’s sizing me up for a feast.
“What. Do. I. Mean?” I say each word deliberately. “I have a personal assistant. This place,” I say, throwing an arm at the chair I could swear is mine but I know it’s not. “And the pictures out there.” I indicate the reception. “You’re fucking stalking me, you psycho bitch.”
A long smile takes its time unfurling on her face. “What can I say? I believe in immersing myself in the life I want to live. I fake having something until I do. I know pretending and fantasizing only brings that fortune about, and look, here you are,” Vivian says, tucking her fingers behind the lapel of my suit and swiping down an inch.
I lower my chin and regard her for a long few seconds. “This personal assistant,” I say.
“Jennifer,” she supplies.
“You’re the one sending her the emails?” I say.
“Naturally,” she says with a pleased grin.
“And where do the lunches she has delivered go? The travel plans? The suits?”
“Well, they are wasted, but that’s okay because they are in preparation for you, my love,” she says.
“You’re sick,” I say, zero disgust in my voice to my shock. It’s more of an observation.
“I’m different,” is all she says.
“And you’ve been watching me. Taking photos,” I say, again indicating to the lobby where the pictures of me line the wall. “For how long?”
“Not long,” she says, turning and walking off a few paces before stopping at her desk and pressing her hands down on it behind her, leaning back slightly.
“You’re going to stop now,” I say, my voice not nearly as stern as I intended.
“I won’t,” she says, all confidence.
“Vivian,” I say, and now I actually sound angry, which produces a satisfied grin from her.
“Yes…?” she says, drawing out the word.
I can’t ask her about the mole, since I don’t want her to know I’m privy to that trespassing. However, there are other questions I can ask her, that I intended to. It’s why I’m here. “You were educated at the Institute,” I say.
“I was,” she sings. “Do you recognize me?”
“Yes, although that experience isn’t really memorable,” I say.
She nods. “I wasn’t very captivating then. I was, as you probably know now, a dud. No powers.”
“It was the trauma of being abandoned,” I say rather than ask.
“You’ve done your homework,” she says in that voice that has a power even when she isn’t using it to control.
“When did you come into powers?” I say.
“When I left the Lucidite Institute,” she says.
“And how did you get your powers to come through? What did you do to overcome the trauma?”
And the nonchalant smile on her face is too endearing. Makes me like her when that should be an impossibility. “I think you mean who helped my powers to come through. And isn’t the answer obvious?”
“I don’t ask questions if something is obvious,” I say, trying to sound angry at her.
She pushes up off the desk, standing tall like a proud race horse after a victorious run. “Of course it was you, Ren Lewis. You’re the one who helped me draw out my abilities to reflect psychic energy, voice control, and clairvoyance.”
And her admission touches a domino and they flip down one after another, creating the picture I’d been unable to see. Of course she is in love with me. Obsessed. I unknowingly fixed her. My photographic memory seeks to review the lectures I gave in front of her, searching for the answer of how specifically I saved her. But I impart a tremendous amount of wisdom in each of those sessions. How am I supposed to decide which piece of information I gave was most crucial for each individual, especially one as complex as Vivian?
I’ve been silent for too long, searching long ago memories, when she says, “My mother was afraid of me starting at a young age. She told me that my father, who I’d never met, was a powerful man. She was afraid I’d become like him one day, possessing a control over her. My mother never told me what that power was, just released me to the care of a filthy orphanage.”
And although the memory isn’t one I’ve experienced I immediately get a flash of what that day would hav
e looked like. My imagination somehow is seeking to illustrate what Vivian is sharing.
“I spent three years at that orphanage before Dr. Raydon found me. I was lucky that he visited my orphanage,” Vivian says.
Dr. Raydon, the Institute’s therapist, finds lost Dream Travelers by visiting various places. He uses Aiden’s daft technology to find Dream Travelers by scanning frequencies. It’s part of his job to rescue them so they can be saved and properly trained. Another one of Trey’s humanitarian projects.
“I was different then, when I was at the Institute,” she continues.
“I remember,” I say, and my voice sounds strange. Sympathetic almost, but that can’t be right. And to my dismay, Vivian’s smile tells me she noticed.
“Shuman tried to help me fix the block on my abilities. Dr. Raydon counseled me for years. But it was you who gave me the key.” She almost sings the last part. “And that’s the reason you’re all I can see. Everyone watches me. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but I’m captivating. I can have anything I want. I’m a force to be reckoned with and you,” she says, pointing at me, “are all that I want and desire.”
My teeth grind down on each other. I’m speechless. I see it. Vivian is captivating. She’s lightning. Everything about her is electric. And her eyes on me are tantalizing, especially knowing I’m all she sees. And her stare is a force I feel could shock my system like a defibrillator, restarting my heart. I shake off this obvious sorcery.
“What did I tell you that unlocked your powers?” I ask simply.
“You said that psychic energy was the strongest power on earth and yet it takes incredibly little to block it. A minor tragedy is enough to rip that power from a Dream Traveler making them a dud, as I was,” she says.
“Your trauma wasn’t minor,” I say and can’t believe the words jumped out of my mouth. What the fuck?
“I’m glad you recognize that,” she says nearing me, stopping only inches away. “You also said that a pair of flimsy sunglasses is enough to shield the sun, which burns at about six thousand degrees on the Kelvin scale. I think this was more of a holistic lecture on energy, but it spoke directly to me. There are many blocks on energy in this world, aren’t there?”
“Yes,” I say. “Television, electricity, poor nutrition, lack of exercise can all dim a psychic’s energy. Only trauma can completely stop it though, that I know of.”
“Well, then you informed us that all one has to do is find the thing blocking the energy and remove it. After that was accomplished the power would shine at full force,” she says, and her tone is full of an indulgent smile.
“So you figured out your mother was responsible for the block on your powers,” I say, piecing this together.
“Actually, I knew that already, but you made me realize what I had to do. I had to remove the physical block. I had to take out that which created the trauma,” Vivian says.
“You murdered your mother,” I say, my eyes narrowing,
“Naturally, and then my powers flowed forward like a dam being broken,” she says, and there’s no guilt in her voice; if anything a great deal of pride. “Really, Ren, what kind of woman abandons her child out of fear? I spent ten years with her and she just dropped me off at an orphanage like it was nothing at all.”
My mind skips to Adelaide and those fearful eyes she had when staring at that little monster. And she, like Vivian, was abandoned by her mum all because of her powers.
“Is it possible you misunderstood the experiences your mother had that created that fear?” I say.
“You sound like Dr. Raydon,” she says and she’s bloody right. Again, what the fuck is going on?
“And I know now what she experienced. My father was a tolerant man, but could still have anything he wanted. He could have anything he wanted and didn’t allow disobedience. I sought out Frank Bishop after my mother’s death and demanded he train me. It was then that I learned just how powerless my mother was in his presence,” she says.
Fuckity fuckity fuck. How could our stories parallel so much? Just like Adelaide she had an absent Dream Traveler father and a Middling mother who abandoned her. And she sought out her father to better understand her powers. This is bloody bullshit.
“And I know now that my mother never had a choice when in my father’s presence, as no one does in mine. I’m always in control.” And now she reaches out and touches my jaw. I don’t pull away from her chilly touch, her fingers like icicles. I regard her with a studying gaze.
And yet, Ren, I don’t want to control you, I hear her voice in my mind. Please don’t make me. I want you to stand willing by my side. I want you to be the one person who wants me because you do and not based on my controls. I want us to get along and please each other because we’re in love and not because you can control me and I you. And all those words she pours into my consciousness using my telepathy linked to touch.
Then Vivian steps back, a question in her eyes.
“I already have all of that with someone else and she’s not a murderer,” I say simply.
Vivian’s smile tells me she isn’t deterred. “But she can’t grant your wishes. She can’t understand you like I can. She’ll never comprehend our powers, the weight, the burden, the exhilaration,” Vivian says.
And I can’t argue fully against her. Dahlia doesn’t completely understand me, but when I touch her I’m not bombarded. And she wants me without me attempting to control her.
“I know how to funnel my thoughts, to give only the thoughts I desire to a telepath. I can shield. You taught me how, remember?” she says, like she’s been in my head and knows part of the argument that I’m pitifully constructing,
I abandon this and force my attention in a new direction. “What are you doing with the Smart Pods?”
“You probably think I’m going to use my voice control to force people to surrender to me so I can rule the world? Is that right?” she says, sounding amused.
“That would be in line with an evil dictator and murderer,” I say.
“Well, I don’t want to rule the world. I actually want peace and that begins in the home. I’m listening in, cued by key words, tones of voices. I’m finding the dysfunctional families,” she says.
“Why?” I say, struck by this seemingly innocent search.
“So I can then use my voice control,” she says simply.
“To…?”
“To fix them. To make the abusive father stop. Make the neglectful parent love their offspring. To stop the mother who sounds like she’s about to abandon her kid from doing it. To stop him from leaving,” she says, and her words are marked by her personal journey and yet carry no pain or pity.
“You can’t do that,” I say, and yet I realize she can. And where is the problem really? What’s wrong with intervening for good? It’s what the Lucidites have been doing for decades.
“I pretty much have the system automated now. It’s only a matter of time before domestic households operate as they should, in functional loving ways,” she says.
“Vivian, this isn’t right,” I say and yet my argument doesn’t continue as I wanted it to. Her smile stops me.
“I like hearing you say my name. And soon you’ll see that this is right. Soon you’ll see this as a worthy endeavor. And soon you’ll join me,” she says in that voice, the one I want to keep talking, to say more just so I can hear it.
“Have you seen this reality?” I say, wondering if she’s been granted a clairvoyant vision on this.
“Oh no, but I know you well enough to know you won’t be able to resist something like this. It is your perfect scenario. Me. Fixing the broken world. And stopping bad guys. What else could you want?” she says.
I swallow down what feels like a ball of wax. I, the master of strategy, have no idea how to handle this.
I’m fucked.
Chapter Fifteen
“How the fuck do I fight a villain who isn’t fighting me?” I say, pacing the room, the blue carpet making a soft crunch with ea
ch of my steps.
“Are you sure you’re asking the right question?” Dr. Raydon says from his armchair covered in happy little polo players. Whoever created that fabric and plastered a chair in it should be shot.
I halt. Turn and face the man with a mustache the size of a wiener schnitzel. “We had a deal,” I say, tapping my foot. “I’d talk to you about my problems as long as you didn’t say dumb shit like that.”
He chuckles and slaps his knee like a bloody sailor at a saloon. “Are you certain you need to fight Vivian? Maybe you’re viewing this the wrong way.”
“That’s impossible. I never do anything the wrong way,” I say with a huff before continuing my pacing. “Tell me everything you remember about your sessions with Vivian.”
“Now Ren, you know that information is classified.”
I halt yet again and face the man with a beach ball for a belly. “She’s trying to force families to get along. She’s imposing happiness on people. It’s…it’s…”
Dr. Raydon gives me a clever smile. “You want to say it’s wrong, but is it? Do you really believe that?”
“You can’t force people to be happy,” I say.
“I’m not arguing that, Ren,” he says, his hands sandwiched together in the prayer pose. “I personally believe you should inspire people to be a better version of themselves. But what I’m calling you out on is your own struggle with this. I don’t agree with what Vivian is doing, but do you?”