Soulmates
35
Coming to Grips
Jaime and Keira and Trayce and Emerson
“WHAT HAPPENED back there?” Emerson asked as the four teens drove out of Astoria and headed toward Portland. “I mean what really happened?”
“We linked our minds together and sent Schwartz packing!” Keira said. “We didn’t know we could project our head voice like that.” She sat in the back seat with Trayce and handed Jaime his computer so he could use the text to speech engine. Jaime launched the app, but didn’t type anything.
“Who were those other people?” Emerson continued.
“Angus is a detective,” Keira said. “The two strippers are his sidekicks. The other woman is Dr. Rose. In addition to being a psychiatrist, she’s my pseudo-aunt. Not really related, but I’ve called her ‘Aunt Rose’ ever since I started talking.”
“And they just happened to show up? How convenient,” Emerson said. She wasn’t sure just how much of everything that just happened she was buying. She couldn’t hear anyone’s thoughts now. She was trying to guard her own thoughts so no one else could read them.
Jaime reached across the console to touch her hand on the steering wheel.
«Just like you happened to be with us,» Jaime said to Emerson. «They all had a purpose.»
«Fuck! Stop talking in my head! And stop mindreading me!»
Jaime withdrew his hand and things went silent for Emerson again. She couldn’t tell if he was still reading her mind. She focused on the road instead of the conversation in the car. It was just Keira talking to Trayce, so Emerson decided to work on her color scheme software design. If she could.
“Dr. Schwartz theorized about needing a number of people tied together in order to control other people’s minds. I guess, in a way, we just proved him right. We linked minds and gave him a command to retire and quit pursuing head talkers. It took all four of us linked together, though,” Keira said.
“I still can’t believe it,” Trayce said. “I’m hearing a complete muddle of you three in my head. I need to go back to a doctor. My mother has started hearing voices in her head and her doctor gave her some pills that help her. I don’t want to be schizophrenic. When I was there, at the inn, everything was quiet and peaceful.”
“Schwartz was drugging you and hypnotizing you. Have you forgotten that?” Keira asked.
“I can’t think straight,” Trayce said. Emerson was feeling some empathy for the girl.
Jaime reached into his computer bag and pulled out a folded-up sheet of aluminum foil which he handed to Keira.
«Wrap it around Trayce’s head. She’ll get a little relief,» he said to Keira.
Keira told Trayce what she was going to do and then proceeded to wrap the top of Trayce’s head in the foil, crimping it down so it would stay in place, then smoothing it out against her scalp.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Emerson laughed at the image in her rearview mirror. “An honest-to-God tinfoil hat?”
“Jaime has a closet lined with aluminum foil,” Keira explained. “It’s the same principle that Schwartz used in the walls of the inn to block microwave, RF, and brainwave transmission. This isn’t as effective as that, but it should help to lower the volume for Trayce.”
Trayce snorted.
“Now I really feel like a lunatic.”
“Imagine you’re getting a perm. Is that better?”
“Kinda. I still hear voices, but not as loud.”
Keira reached over to take Trayce’s hand and helped to guide her into a quiet space, blocking out the voices she heard. Keira was surprised to find that the only voices she seemed to be receiving were hers and Jaime’s. Emerson was not actually in Trayce’s head.
“Are we going to have sex now?” Trayce asked sleepily.
“I don’t think we’re quite ready for that, do you?” Keira responded.
“But you already had sex with Jaime. Without me.”
“We wished you were with us. And then, all of a sudden you were. Except you were crying for help. So, we came to find you.”
“Thank you, I think,” Trayce said, squeezing Keira’s hand. She was flooded with calm and reassurance. “I’m going to sleep for a while now. I just want to go home to Mommy.”
“We’re on our way, love,” Keira said.
«Are you okay, love?» Keira whispered in her mind to Jaime. «You’re awful quiet.»
«I used my out-loud voice,» Jaime whispered back. «I’m afraid someone will die.»
«Oh, honey. There isn’t a correlation between those two things. You don’t cause people to die with your out-loud voice.»
«I know that in my head. But my inside voice was so loud people obeyed me. I could have killed Schwartz. Or made him kill himself.»
«It was all of us together. We don’t know how powerful you actually are,» Keira said. «We need to run a lot of experiments.»
«No!» Jaime shouted. Trayce jumped in her sleep and Keira quickly comforted her back to sleep.
«Honey? What’s wrong.»
«I don’t want to know what we can do. You and I are strong enough to see the entire world in our heads,» Jaime said. «What will happen if we make love to Trayce? I mean really. Physically as well as mentally. She has no discipline and I had to fight off the commands Schwartz put in her. It could blow up any time.»
«Is she that strong?» Keira asked.
«No. She’s that weak. She truly is a satellite. She gets drawn into people’s orbit for a while and then wanders off. We are apparently the strongest gravitational pull she’s encountered. Think about it. The characters she says she’s written about are all people we connected her to. Angus and the strippers. The woman and her daughter in the theatre. The depressed woman who felt she was ugly and unloved, even though she was beautiful and her fiancé adored her. They were all people we showed her. I don’t think she is actively hearing anyone else.»
«Oh no! What are we going to do?» Keira cried. Jaime sighed.
«Continue to love her and provide the channel for her. All we’ve done is provide characters, not stories. No matter what Schwartz said, she’s a very talented author.»
They both calmed themselves and the car continued to be quiet for a while. Emerson glanced over at Jaime with a raised eyebrow, but Jaime didn’t try to respond.
«What about Emerson?» Keira asked. «Is she part of our family?»
«Emerson is a catalyst. That’s the only way I can think to describe her. When she was brought into our link, she was like glue that stuck us together. She has no innate head talk ability. But I don’t think we could have commanded Schwartz without her.»
«Aunt Rose…»
«I didn’t tell her. I don’t think we should. Right now, that’s something that only you and I know. If Emerson leaves us, we’ll no longer have the command voice,» Jaime said. «At least, not like we just did.»
“Um… Could you talk to me a little?” Emerson said just then. “I mean with your TTS. I think the adrenaline has left my veins and I’m having trouble focusing on the road.”
“Of course,” Jaime typed into the TTS. “I understand what you mean. Trayce is asleep and Keira is nodding. I feel pretty drained, too. I was thinking that the color scheme tool part of your app could be a standalone and would have a wide range of uses. Take house paint, for instance.”
“You’re actually thinking about my color picker?” Emerson asked.
“Yeah. I still think it’s the coolest thing in our class. Imagine picking a paint color for your bedroom and having an accent and trim color suggested. Or three or four options for a scheme.”
“That would be pretty cool. And it’s a more slowly changing environment than fashion. Do you think I could actually scan an entire paint company’s color palette? Then I could plot all the colors on the HVC scale and interpret the color schemes with the company’s paint names or numbers,” Emerson said. She glanced over at Jaime. “You really are a great computer lab partner. It’s not just your sex appeal.”
“Well, you know the old Amish saying,” Jaime typed. “Kissin’ wears out. Cookin’ don’t.”
“Okay. I’ll make the stretch to apply that to what I said,” Emerson laughed. “Um… I don’t know if I’ll be able to continue with the fantasy. I mean, it all sounds so neat when I think it, but when I say it out loud, it doesn’t seem as practical.”
“I think we’re all going to be evaluating our place with each other in the next few days and weeks,” Jaime typed.
“Some of that is going on right now,” Emerson said.
She nodded toward her rearview mirror and Jaime turned to look at Keira and Trayce. They were leaned toward each other across the empty center seat. Trayce had her head on Keira’s shoulder with Keira’s head leaning against her. They each had a hand clasping the other. Both girls had beatific smiles on their faces.
Trayce and Lanie
“Mommy!” Trayce cried out when they got her home. “Mommy, hold me!”
Lanie ran to the door and wrapped her daughter in her arms. Susan stood across the room and smiled at them. Keira and Jaime stood in the doorway. Emerson had chosen to stay in the car.
“You’re back! Oh, thank God, you’re home,” Lanie said.
“I didn’t want to go, Mommy. I didn’t want to leave you,” Trayce said. Lanie looked up at Keira and Jaime.
“Thank you,” she said. “Whatever you did to find her and bring her home, thank you.”
“Mom, this is my boyfriend and girlfriend, Jaime and Keira. I know that isn’t a usual kind of situation, but I think I love both of them,” Trayce said. “We’ve got a lot of things to work out yet, but you’ll probably be seeing them around.”
“They found you and brought you home,” Lanie said. “I’ll reserve judgment on anything else.”
“We’ll leave you to talk and tell about the adventure,” Keira said. “We’ll talk later. Okay, Trayce?”
“Yeah. Thank you, Keira and Jaime.” She let go of her mother long enough to softly kiss each of them. All three sighed. “You know how to reach me.”
Jaime and Keira left to rejoin Emerson.
“Yes, we know who it was and where he is,” Trayce told her mother at dinner. Susan had gone home once the family was reunited.
“We should call the police,” Lanie said. “Though I don’t have much faith in them at the moment.”
“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Trayce said. “He’s really pretty pathetic. Jaime and Keira had a heart-to-heart talk with him and showed him the error of his ways. I don’t think he’ll ever try anything like that again.”
“Were you… sexually abused?” Lanie asked.
“No. If I had been, I wouldn’t have left before he was arrested. He wanted to run hypnotism experiments on me. Somehow, he decided I was an easy candidate if he kept me in isolation for a week. Not only was he not a very good kidnapper, he wasn’t a very good hypnotist either.”
“Are you… still suffering from hearing voices?” Lanie asked. “I mean, that’s what the note said.”
“I didn’t write a note,” Trayce said. “That was part of the ruse he was using to keep the police from looking for me.”
“Well, that part worked.”
“I do still have some imaginary friends, you know,” Trayce giggled. “They show up in my stories. That’s all. I’ve got a bunch of story ideas I wrote down while I was there. I think second semester creative writing is going to be fun.”
Jaime and Keira and Trayce
«Are you there, love?» Jaime whispered to Trayce over the distance.
David and Olivia had decided to stay another night at her apartment after checking in with the kids. Jaime and Keira had reported a ‘fun’ time in Astoria. They were all too happy to have another night of the house to themselves, and after checking in with Keira’s parents had gone to Jaime’s house. After David and Olivia left, the couple went to bed, and just slept.
When they woke up and had scrounged dinner from leftovers in the fridge, they watched a movie and then decided they’d waited long enough. This time when they went to bed, they were naked and kissing with intent.
«I’m here. Mmm. Kiss me again?» Trayce murmured.
«We always have kisses for you,» Keira said. «Are you doing okay?»
«Yeah… I think so. It’s funny, I didn’t really hear any voices in my head until you called. It was almost as peaceful as the inn, but there’s out-loud noise. He blocked ears as effectively as thoughts at the inn,» Trayce said.
«You might not be able to hear anyone else inside for a while,» Jaime said. «Maybe that’s a good thing for you. I can see you’re still struggling to accept us.»
«Yeah, a little. Now that I’ve seen you and touched you, you seem more real to me. But it’s still hard.»
«Keira and I… We’re in bed,» Jaime said.
«Yes. I can feel it. I can feel your skin touching mine… or hers, I guess. Are we going to make love?»
«Do you want to?» Keira asked. «Jaime and I didn’t want to make love in our heads until we were ready to do it physically, too. I guess we pushed the limits of that.»
«I think I pushed your limits,» Trayce laughed. «Can I ride along? Is that too much like just being a voyeur?»
«No, it isn’t,» Jaime said. «We really feel like you… belong with us when we’re making love. But just like we didn’t rush together, we don’t want to rush you, either.»
«I think I might be a little oversexed,» Trayce giggled. «I didn’t know there were other real people doing all the things I was doing in my head. I just found how great it was and wanted more all the time. Still do.»
Jaime and Keira kissed, inviting Trayce to join them. They didn’t hold back from that point on. They folded Trayce into their caresses and oral stimulation. When Jaime went down on Keira, Trayce burst out.
«Yes! I can do this! I love it! Keira, I will never hesitate to go down on you. I didn’t know if I could, but I love your taste, your texture, and the way you smell. Thank you, Jaime, for letting me experience this!»
«It will be even better when you are on the receiving end,» Keira gasped. «Oh, lovers! Just a little more.»
Trayce was near an orgasm, but chose to float along with Jaime’s joy in having given their girlfriend such pleasure.
How could I ever have thought they were anything but real? Trayce thought.
«It’s hard to imagine we have such a deep connection that other people don’t know or understand,» Jaime said. «Oh, yes. I still can’t believe you do this to me!» He settled back as Keira sucked on him. Trayce imagined more kisses with Jaime as they both mounted to his climax.
«Oh! Why am I not in bed with you? Now especially! He’s going to do it, Keira! He’s going to put his penis in our vagina. It feels so good!»
The excitement of the three experiencing everything from each other as well as their own arousal kept them all ready for another round. Having just come, Jaime was less likely to speed ahead, but sliding into Keira gave him a weird double image as he saw both Keira and Trayce in his vision. He was in both, though physically he could only be in Keira.
«You rub me in all the right ways,» Keira said. «Trayce! You’re rubbing our clit while Jaime is in us. Oh, God! I love the way you make us feel.»
«Oh, yes! Don’t stop. I’m coming. I’m coming,» Trayce said. Keira peaked with her, but Jaime didn’t stop. «Yes! More!»
«More!» Keira joined. It was only a minute before they were pulsing together in orgasm, this time bringing Jaime along with them. They could feel the power of his spurts in Keira’s vagina.
Jaime stayed in Keira as long as he could, but ultimately, he softened and slid out, still holding and kissing his lovers. His thoughts expanded, listening deep in both Keira and Trayce. Worlds of possibilities opened before him as the three silently committed themselves to each other.
«Order Dr. Rose and Detective Angus away like you did Dr. Schwartz,» came a command from deep inside Trayce. Jaime and Keira had nearly raised their hands together when Jaime exerted control over the subliminal command.
«Schwartz doesn’t have that power over you any longer,» Jaime said to Trayce. «Let him go and all the suggestions he made to you. You are free of him now.»
«Did… Did I do something?» Trayce asked. «We were all together and then I was separate. Don’t leave me!»
«We’re not leaving you, lover,» Keira said. «We knew Schwartz left some nasty triggers in you. It’s not you. Jaime just had to stop one.»
«He’s still controlling me?» Trayce cried. «Will I never be free? There’s this part of me, deep inside that is joyful over the… power we have. Are we ever going to use it?»
«Not if we can help it, sweetheart. I never want to need that kind of power again. Don’t try to force our will on anyone,» Jaime said gently.
«I’m not safe, am I?» Trayce said. «I mean you’re not safe with me. I can’t risk hurting you because of what he did to me.»
«We can take care of that,» Keira said. «You won’t hurt us. You love us as much as we love you.»
Trayce was not fully mollified, no matter how much Keira and Jaime reassured her.
«I don’t think I should sleep with you tonight,» Trayce said. «I mean, while we’re connected. I’m afraid I’ll transfer something while we’re dreaming. I need to withdraw. I can’t sleep like this.»
«You don’t need to worry, Trayce,» Jaime reassured her.
«Hate to… you know… come and go, but goodnight. We’ll talk more this weekend. Can we get together IRL? Good. Let me know.»
Trayce faded out of their connection.
“That kind of hurt,” Keira said aloud.
«She’s been abused by that quack and left with post-hypnotic suggestions,» Jaime said. «We just need to be patient and dismantle them when we find them.»
«What was that one?» Keira asked.
«One of Schwartz’s most fundamental. He couldn’t predict that Dr. Rose and Detective Angus would be a threat. So he left a suggestion that she should disable his enemies.»
«That would include us.»
«I don’t think she or he realized that. In fact, it was how I fought the suggestion. She weakened the link by attacking his enemies,» Jaime said.
«Are we unsafe?» Keira asked. Jaime pondered the question, taking Keira with him in his analysis of the problem.
«I don’t think so. When it comes down to it, Trayce has very little power. She doesn’t hear everyone around her,» Jaime said. «Even in Angus’s room, she was listening to you and me. We heard Angus and Dr. Rose, so she heard them. When she’s in a creative mode, she hears snippets from around her that fit in with what she wants to write. But lately, she’s been getting all those snippets from observations we’ve made. The mother and her daughter in the theater. Angus, Kate, and Thursday. The depressed woman at the play. They are all people we observed and she got through us. She is really a satellite.»
«You mentioned that before. We should be careful about how much of Emerson we expose to her.»
«Emerson would not be happy to be featured in a story. But at least, Trayce knows who that is and I don’t think she’d write a story about her without telling her.»
«What are we going to do about Emerson?» Keira sighed.
«That’s a million-dollar question.»
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
