The TV was on, the volume down, the way Doreen always did when Jon fell asleep in the living room at home. He thought he recognized the episode. It was the one with Billy Mumy, the kid from Lost in Space, who had incredible mental powers, and he used them and the fear and terror they produced in the town folk to force the entire middle-of-nowhere town to serve him slavishly. It was just at the end of this episode, a distraught man looking miserably out the window his farmhouse at the falling snow. “It’s a good thing,” he said. “Real good. And tomorrow’s gonna be a real good day.”
Jon heard a crack come from the kitchen, where the yellow glow of the pool hall light that hung over Bernhard’s kitchen table spilled from the open door. He stood up, the old vinyl couch creaking.
“Damn,” a voice said. It was Dr. Bernhard. But wasn’t he—wasn’t he—
Jon couldn’t remember, but something wasn’t right. He walked to the kitchen, where he could see Dr. Bernhard through the door, squeezing English walnuts with a rusted nutcracker. The nut split with a loud snap, and the pieces flew everywhere. “Damn,” he swore again.
“Dr. Bernhard?” Jon asked, stepping tentatively into the room. “Is that—are you okay?”
Bernhard looked up. He was unshaven and his gray and white hair was a mess. He was wearing a stained and rumpled white button up shirt and black slacks, as if he had dressed for work, and, other than taking off his tie, not changed clothes again for a week. His eyes were bleary, but his face lit up when he saw Jon. “Jon, my boy! Good to see you, good to see you.”
“Dr. Bernhard? Are you all right?”
“Just trying to crack some walnuts. I love English walnuts, don’t you? Anyway, come, come, sit. I’ll get you a Coke!”
Dr. Bernhard stood up and walked to the refrigerator—Jon noticed that his feet were bare and dirty. When he turned back around, black glass in hand, Jon saw there was dried blood over the front of Dr. Bernhard’s shirt. Quite a lot of it.
“Here you go—oh,” he paused, in reaction, Jon guessed, to his own shocked expression. “Yes, I imagine I’m a sight.” He put the black glass down in front of Jon, the effervescent fizz of carbonation almost sparkling above it. “I’m afraid someone got hurt. Very badly. I did what I could, but . . . “ he trailed off.
“What happened?” Jon asked.
“It’s a very long story,” he replied. “Can I make you a sandwich?”
“No, I’m not hungry. Did you get hurt? Is the person okay?”
“So much blood,” Bernhard murmured. “I should have made it more complete. No, no, I shouldn’t have gotten them involved at all. You mean to do well—I meant to do the right thing, of course, but—well, just look what happens.” He pointed at his shirt. “Blood. Everywhere. I suppose I should have left well enough alone.”
He turned around, and pulled a package of Oscar-Myer bologna out of his refrigerator, along with a jar of yellow mustard and some cheese slices. “White bread, or wheat?” he asked.
“I’m not hungry,” Jon repeated.
Dr. Bernhard took out a loaf of white bread and started smearing mustard on it. “I thought I was planning well enough. Of course I did, why wouldn’t I? But—I should never have gotten you involved. Some books just shouldn’t be opened. I guess that’s the thing. Once you open Pandora’s box, it doesn’t matter what you meant to do, does it? Use it. Bury it. Destroy it. It doesn’t matter, the box is already open. That cat’s out of the bag. But I couldn’t have guessed what would happen.”
“What happened to who? How? What happens?”
“Humans are very fragile creatures,” Dr. Bernhard murmured, unwrapping a Kraft single and planting the square of orange cheese on top of a single piece of bologna. “We break very easily. We are lucky, that our little planet is so hospitable. Otherwise, there’d be none of us, at all.” He put a second piece of bread on top of the sandwich, and then carefully cut it in half. “So easy for us to bleed.”
“Who got hurt?” Jon asked. “Who—was it you? What happened?”
Dr. Bernhard put the sandwich down in front of Jon. “Did I ever tell you how my wife died? I did, I think.”
Jon nodded. “I think so. I guess. She was in a car accident.”
Bernhard laughed sadly, and sat back down at the table. “She was driving home from her office—she was an insurance agent, with Farmers Insurance Group. Have I told you that? They were doing construction on the expressway, and traffic had come to a standstill, but apparently the man driving the van that hit her didn’t notice. The witnesses said he never hit his breaks, that he barreled into her going sixty or perhaps seventy miles an hour. Her little Volvo was crushed. Doesn’t sound that fast, in the scheme of things, but it was enough to kill her instantly. The Volvo was flattened—caught between the van and a rental truck in front of her, it was half its original length. The impact broke her legs and her arms and her back and her ribs, which punctured her lungs, and if that didn’t kill her quickly enough, no doubt having her skull crushed and punctured by the gear shift handle did—it apparently broke off and hit her like a bullet. Also, it broke her pelvis, which must have torn her lower intestine—“ He sighed deeply. “So fragile. We make such progress, yet we remain so easy to break.”
“Dr. Bernhard? Is that—the blood on your shirt—”
“It was a hard year, after that. It was a good thing I didn’t have my finger on the button. That I didn’t have a nuclear bomb in my basement. The man—Karl Logan—was drunk. His license had been suspended. He had been arrested on three prior occasions for drunken driving. He ended up breaking his nose and apparently his fingers, but otherwise was simply bruised. He was convicted of manslaughter, served a year, and was out again not that long after I moved from New Mexico to California. If I could have, there were times, Jon—times where I would have killed them all. Karl Logan. The judge that only gave him a year for the death of my precious, irreplaceable wife. The people who had put him back on the street, after three convictions for drunk driving. His ex-wife, who I had found out didn’t press charges after Karl Logan, in a drunken rampage, had driven his truck through the wall and into her living room. I think I might have killed them all.”
“I’m—sorry,” Jon mumbled. “About your wife, I mean.”
“But it wouldn’t have brought her back, Jon. Killing them all wouldn’t have brought her back. Nothing I could have done would have brought her back.” He shook his head ruefully.
And suddenly, Jon remembered something. “You’re dead,” he said. “You’re dead, too. You died. At a mall in Los Angeles.”
Dr. Bernhard raised his eyes. “Sometimes things aren’t always what they seem. You should know that. Don’t you?”
Jon suddenly felt terribly thirsty, and reached out for the class of Coke. But now, as he lifted it up, the black glass was empty. As he put it down, he saw his fingerprints, bright and yellow and glowing, on the glass.
“Dr. Bernhard, what happened? What did you do?”
“Not enough, not enough. But—I hope I can set it right. I hope I can undo what I have done, without making it worse. Defuse the bomb without setting it off, you know? Yes, you do, Jon. You’re such a smart boy. I don’t suppose anything can really be the same. The way it was before. But it never really is, is it? And it’s not as if it was never going to happen. It’s not as if I made it, after all. I just—stole it, you know?”
“What happened?” Jon asked.
“It’s a very long story,” he replied. “Can I make you a sandwich?”
“No, I’m not hungry. Did you get hurt? Is the person okay?”
“So much blood,” Bernhard murmured. “I should have made it more complete. No, no, I shouldn’t have gotten them involved at all. You mean to do well—I meant to do the right thing, of course, but—well, just look what happens.” He pointed at his shirt. “Blood. Everywhere. I suppose I should have left well enough alone.”
He turned around, and pulled a package of Oscar-Myer bologna out of his refrigerator, along with a jar of yellow mustard and some cheese slices. “White bread, or wheat?” he asked.
“I’m not hungry,” Jon repeated.
Dr. Bernhard took out a loaf of white bread and started smearing mustard on it. “I thought I was planning well enough. Of course I did, why wouldn’t I? But—I should never have gotten you involved. Some books just shouldn’t be opened. I guess that’s the thing. Once you open Pandora’s box, it doesn’t matter what you meant to do, does it? Use it. Bury it. Destroy it. It doesn’t matter, the box is already open. That cat’s out of the bag. But I couldn’t have guessed what would happen.”
“What happened to who? How? What happens?”
“Humans are very fragile creatures,” Dr. Bernhard murmured, unwrapping a Kraft single and planting the square of orange cheese on top of a single piece of bologna. “We break very easily. We are lucky, that our little planet is so hospitable. Otherwise, there’d be none of us, at all.” He put a second piece of bread on top of the sandwich, and then carefully cut it in half. “So easy for us to bleed.”
“Who got hurt?” Jon asked. “Who—was it you? What happened?”
Dr. Bernhard put the sandwich down in front of Jon. “Did I ever tell you how my wife died? I did, I think.”
Jon nodded. “I think so. I guess. She was in a car accident.”
Bernhard laughed sadly, and sat back down at the table. “She was driving home from her office—she was an insurance agent, with Farmers Insurance Group. Have I told you that? They were doing construction on the expressway, and traffic had come to a standstill, but apparently the man driving the van that hit her didn’t notice. The witnesses said he never hit his breaks, that he barreled into her going sixty or perhaps seventy miles an hour. Her little Volvo was crushed. Doesn’t sound that fast, in the scheme of things, but it was enough to kill her instantly. The Volvo was flattened—caught between the van and a rental truck in front of her, it was half its original length. The impact broke her legs and her arms and her back and her ribs, which punctured her lungs, and if that didn’t kill her quickly enough, no doubt having her skull crushed and punctured by the gear shift handle did—it apparently broke off and hit her like a bullet. Also, it broke her pelvis, which must have torn her lower intestine—“ He sighed deeply. “So fragile. We make such progress, yet we remain so easy to break.”
“Dr. Bernhard? Is that—the blood on your shirt—”
“It was a hard year, after that. It was a good thing I didn’t have my finger on the button. That I didn’t have a nuclear bomb in my basement. The man—Karl Logan—was drunk. His license had been suspended. He had been arrested on three prior occasions for drunken driving. He ended up breaking his nose and apparently his fingers, but otherwise was simply bruised. He was convicted of manslaughter, served a year, and was out again not that long after I moved from New Mexico to California. If I could have, there were times, Jon—times where I would have killed them all. Karl Logan. The judge that only gave him a year for the death of my precious, irreplaceable wife. The people who had put him back on the street, after three convictions for drunk driving. His ex-wife, who I had found out didn’t press charges after Karl Logan, in a drunken rampage, had driven his truck through the wall and into her living room. I think I might have killed them all.”
“I’m—sorry,” Jon mumbled. “About your wife, I mean.”
“But it wouldn’t have brought her back, Jon. Killing them all wouldn’t have brought her back. Nothing I could have done would have brought her back.” He shook his head ruefully.
And suddenly, Jon remembered something. “You’re dead,” he said. “You’re dead, too. You died. At a mall in Los Angeles.”
Dr. Bernhard raised his eyes. “Sometimes things aren’t always what they seem. You should know that. Don’t you?”
Jon suddenly felt terribly thirsty, and reached out for the class of Coke. But now, as he lifted it up, the black glass was empty. As he put it down, he saw his fingerprints, bright and yellow and glowing, on the glass.
“Dr. Bernhard, what happened? What did you do?”
“Not enough, not enough. But—I hope I can set it right. I hope I can undo what I have done, without making it worse. Defuse the bomb without setting it off, you know? Yes, you do, Jon. You’re such a smart boy. I don’t suppose anything can really be the same. The way it was before. But it never really is, is it? And it’s not as if it was never going to happen. It’s not as if I made it, after all. I just—stole it, you know?”
Bernhard picked up another walnut and put it between the teeth of the rusty nutcracker. “Something would have happened. Eventually, something would have happened. Right?”
“But what happened? Why—there’s blood on your shirt. What happened to you?”
Bernhard sighed. “Ah, yes. What happened to me? I don’t know. I’m just not sure. Too much data—too many possibilities. Too many things can go wrong. Especially over time. I was—I’m counting on things, I’ve been counting on things, that I probably should not. But hope springs eternal, doesn’t it?”
Jon rubbed his temples. His head was hurting. “What hope? What are you talking about?”
Bernhard put down the nutcracker and fixed his eyes on Jon. “Jon, you’ve looked into the book. You’ve seen what I left for you, in the briefcase. Do you believe that I would have gone so far, just to keel over dead in my soup?”
“I—I don’t know. Didn’t you?”
“Well, yes, I did. Of course I did. But I’m hoping it’s only a temporary issue. But, again, I suppose that’s counting on a lot—”
“Can’t you just speak English? What the hell is that supposed to mean? You’re not dead? It’s a trick? You’re a ghost? What?”
Bernhard sighed heavily. “The artifact—it’s over a billion years old. Did you know that? Can you imagine? A billion years old, Jon. Produced by a civilization that was already a hundred million years old when it sent them raining out into the cold blackness of space, when it sent them out by the hundreds of millions—”
Jon blinked. “Hundred of millions? Hundreds of millions of those things—those magic books? I—hundreds of millions?”
Bernhard nodded, leaning forward, his eyes wide and bright under bushy gray eyebrows. “Yes. Maybe more. And we are separated from them, those that created the artifact, now, by almost seven-hundred and fifty million light years. A very long way, for such a thing to travel. A very long way. As incredible a thing as it is, that it could survive the journey through time and space—it’s just amazing, that’s what it is. Amazing.”
Jon shook his head, pushing the empty glass and the uneaten bologna sandwich back. “You lied to me. Since almost the first thing you said—you’ve been lying to me. Playing tricks. Making up stories. To do—to do all this. To make me responsible for that stupid book. I—you didn’t ask my opinion, you didn’t ask me if I wanted to get stuck with this thing, or—”
Bernhard frowned, tapping his fingers impatiently on the table. “Well, I couldn’t exactly take out a want ad in the papers, could I? I couldn’t exactly tell you that I was planning on stealing an alien artifact from the government, could I? That I was planning on hiding it at your house?”
“You could have just not done it at all!” Jon shouted. “You could have just let me live my life and left me alone. You could have taken it and run away with it and made yourself invisible and built a goddamned city on the moon with this stuff. You didn’t need to get me involved at all—”
Bernhard nodded solemnly. “Yes. Yes, you are right. That’s what I should have done. I—it was just, I knew there was something I had to do. And I needed someone safe to leave the artifact with, if it didn’t work out. My plan. Someone that I could trust with terrible power. And I knew that someone was you. Even if you didn’t know it, Jon, even if you don’t now, I did. I do. It’s just that once the clock starts ticking, once the process starts, it’s so hard to put the genie back in the bottle.”
“You keep saying that,” Jon mumbled.
“And you are in great danger,” Bernhard warned. “You.” He glanced away. He picked up walnut and rolled it around between his fingers. “And Megan.” He looked back up. “And Richard Mathers.”
“What do you mean, ‘and Megan’? How is she in danger?”
Bernhard looked away. “She’s with you. That is all it will take. I warned you to be careful about who you involved. For their sake, as well as yours.”
“And what about Mr. Mathers? Why is he in danger?”
Dr. Bernhard stood up. “I’m sorry. I have to go. I wish I could be of more help. I know this is a difficult time for you.”
“I—you know it’s difficult? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be back. I think.” He started heading for the door. “All in all, I still think I did the right thing. Giving you the book, I mean. That you were meant to be trusted. Not coincidence, Jon. Providence.”
“I—what providence?” He got up, quickly following Bernhard as he walked out of the kitchen and across his living room, a-six-years old Billy Mumy staring sternly at him from the television. “That doesn’t mean anything. I sure shouldn’t have trusted you—you lied—all the stories—the movies—you were just setting me up. Where do you get off talking about trusting people—”
“I was meant to trust you. You were meant to trust me,” Bernhard said, reaching the door and putting his hand on the knob. “That doesn’t mean I was meant to be trustworthy. It doesn’t mean that I wasn’t also meant to betray your trust.”
“That’s horseshit—” Jon started.
Smiling sadly, Dr. Bernhard opened the door. “It’s not, Jon. I promise you.” Then, with a clear smirk—even now, some part of him was still clearly enjoying the difficulty of Jon’s circumstance tremendously. “Trust me.”
And he slipped out the door, closing it behind him.
“Wait one goddamned minute—” Jon started, jerking open the door, already starting to step through before he realized that Dr. Bernhard was not outside. That, in fact, nothing was outside. It was just empty, endless blackness, and he was stepping right into it.
He tried to regain his balance, as his foot found no purchase. But he couldn’t, and he fell forward, tumbling head over heels into the infinite dark.
Jon hit the floor with a solid thump. He just lay there for a moment, breathing heavily as the darkness receded from his vision, the explosion of adrenaline that had both woken him up, and apparently prompted him to roll out of bed, continuing to make his arms and legs shake. For a moment, he couldn’t remember where he was. But the smell—that wonderful, unique hotel smell, that smell of being someplace different—and the steady hum of the air conditioner brought it back. He was at an EconoLodge in Shelbyville, Kentucky, just off I-64. Alone, in a motel, with Megan Kincaid. And she was safe, and he was safe, and the book and the briefcase were safe and hidden.
Jon shook his head. It had just been a dream. But again, it had seemed unusually real. Unusually distinct. Like the dream with Megan. Except it had been completely different in content. Dr. Bernhard hadn’t been almost entirely naked and suspended on a beam of light, for one thing. Probably a good thing, that. Jon had enough to worry about without that image haunting him.
From the other bed, Megan inhaled dramatically. Then she hummed, a soft, breathy hum that was almost a low moan. It sounded almost . . . well, sexual. She did it again, this time louder, and Jon sat up, peering over into her bed. She was laying on her back, the sheets almost completely kicked off. For someone complaining about his peeping into her shower, she certainly didn’t dress heavily for bed. All she was wearing was her white tank top and her thin, pink panties. If the light hadn’t been so dim, there wouldn’t have been much left to the imagination. As it was, it was still a lot more that Jon had been imagining just a few days ago.
She arched her back, breathing in deeply, turning her head left and then right. She exhaled, making a soft, almost pained, hum as she did so. Eyes still closed, the hum grew louder, and then she spoke. “Fingers,” she said.
Jon stood up, looking down on her as she shifted her hips. Had she just said what he thought she had said?
“Mmm,” she hummed, a clear smile on her lips. Were her cheeks flushing? “Waiting.” It was hard to tell in the faint light from outside the window, but she looked flushed to him. “Touch me,” she murmured. “Your fingers.”
There was no mistaking what she was saying. Was she talking in her sleep? Was she—was she having the same dream he had had? About her?
Suddenly, he felt his own face flushing. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but just the idea that Megan was having that dream, that she might know what he had dreamed about her, was embarrassing.
Although how could it really have been his dream, if Megan was having it, too?
Jon looked over his head, where he knew the book was attached to the ceiling, invisible but there, almost directly above where Megan lay. It was too dark to see the ceiling, but he didn’t have to see it to know that it was exactly where he had hidden it. He could feel it, almost as if it were vibrating at some impossibly low pitch. As if the air were charged with static electricity, coming from that exact point.
He felt suddenly certain that Megan was having a dream. The same dream he had had. And the book was the source.
Jon blinked as Megan parted her lips, slowly rolling her tongue across them, then closing her mouth, puckering, her cheeks drawing in. Like she was sucking on something.
She reached out as if to grab something, her hands almost brushing against Jon as he stepped back. Then she brought her hands back down to her chest, pressing them softly against her breasts then sliding them upwards.
He should wake her up, he thought. Let her know what she was doing, right? Standing there and watching the sleeping girl fondle herself—almost certainly because of the book, somehow—that wasn’t any different than peeping at her in the shower, right? Or using the X-ray vision to look through her clothes. So, he reached out and turned on the small brass wall lamp beside her bed.
His mouth opened to say something, to tell her to wake up, but he couldn’t seem to quite get the words out. He remembered the dream, remembered how Megan had—in the dream—taken his hands and pressed them against her, moving them in slow circles over her breasts and what she was doing now seemed to mirror that exactly. What if, he wondered, he had let her take his hands, just then? What if he touched her hands now?
He shook his head. No, no, no. He was going to wake her up. That’s was it. Even though, with the light on, he could see a lot better and it was truly something to see. She was so beautiful. So wonderful. So unexplored. Her hands, massaging her bosom, and her hips rocking against the bed. The flush of pink in her face. His cheeks were burning. He was feeling dizzy.
“Intershishum,” she mumbled.
He reached out to touch her shoulder, and her arms flew out, knocking his hand away, her back arching as she drew in a sharp, ragged breath. Then, she rolled over, winding the white hotel sheets around her legs as she did so, and fell onto the floor.
She rolled over, eyes blinking in the lamp light, and after a moment fixed on Jon. “Jon?” she asked. “What—I—”
“You were having a dream,” Jon said quickly. He knew his face had to be red as a beet—the tips of his ears felt like they were on fire. “I—uh—you woke me up. I—you were—talking. Um, here.” He pulled the white sheet at her feet up so that it covered her torso and let it drop, backing away and trying to not look at her so directly, but having trouble avoiding it.
“But what happened? Why—there’s blood on your shirt. What happened to you?”
Bernhard sighed. “Ah, yes. What happened to me? I don’t know. I’m just not sure. Too much data—too many possibilities. Too many things can go wrong. Especially over time. I was—I’m counting on things, I’ve been counting on things, that I probably should not. But hope springs eternal, doesn’t it?”
Jon rubbed his temples. His head was hurting. “What hope? What are you talking about?”
Bernhard put down the nutcracker and fixed his eyes on Jon. “Jon, you’ve looked into the book. You’ve seen what I left for you, in the briefcase. Do you believe that I would have gone so far, just to keel over dead in my soup?”
“I—I don’t know. Didn’t you?”
“Well, yes, I did. Of course I did. But I’m hoping it’s only a temporary issue. But, again, I suppose that’s counting on a lot—”
“Can’t you just speak English? What the hell is that supposed to mean? You’re not dead? It’s a trick? You’re a ghost? What?”
Bernhard sighed heavily. “The artifact—it’s over a billion years old. Did you know that? Can you imagine? A billion years old, Jon. Produced by a civilization that was already a hundred million years old when it sent them raining out into the cold blackness of space, when it sent them out by the hundreds of millions—”
Jon blinked. “Hundred of millions? Hundreds of millions of those things—those magic books? I—hundreds of millions?”
Bernhard nodded, leaning forward, his eyes wide and bright under bushy gray eyebrows. “Yes. Maybe more. And we are separated from them, those that created the artifact, now, by almost seven-hundred and fifty million light years. A very long way, for such a thing to travel. A very long way. As incredible a thing as it is, that it could survive the journey through time and space—it’s just amazing, that’s what it is. Amazing.”
Jon shook his head, pushing the empty glass and the uneaten bologna sandwich back. “You lied to me. Since almost the first thing you said—you’ve been lying to me. Playing tricks. Making up stories. To do—to do all this. To make me responsible for that stupid book. I—you didn’t ask my opinion, you didn’t ask me if I wanted to get stuck with this thing, or—”
Bernhard frowned, tapping his fingers impatiently on the table. “Well, I couldn’t exactly take out a want ad in the papers, could I? I couldn’t exactly tell you that I was planning on stealing an alien artifact from the government, could I? That I was planning on hiding it at your house?”
“You could have just not done it at all!” Jon shouted. “You could have just let me live my life and left me alone. You could have taken it and run away with it and made yourself invisible and built a goddamned city on the moon with this stuff. You didn’t need to get me involved at all—”
Bernhard nodded solemnly. “Yes. Yes, you are right. That’s what I should have done. I—it was just, I knew there was something I had to do. And I needed someone safe to leave the artifact with, if it didn’t work out. My plan. Someone that I could trust with terrible power. And I knew that someone was you. Even if you didn’t know it, Jon, even if you don’t now, I did. I do. It’s just that once the clock starts ticking, once the process starts, it’s so hard to put the genie back in the bottle.”
“You keep saying that,” Jon mumbled.
“And you are in great danger,” Bernhard warned. “You.” He glanced away. He picked up walnut and rolled it around between his fingers. “And Megan.” He looked back up. “And Richard Mathers.”
“What do you mean, ‘and Megan’? How is she in danger?”
Bernhard looked away. “She’s with you. That is all it will take. I warned you to be careful about who you involved. For their sake, as well as yours.”
“And what about Mr. Mathers? Why is he in danger?”
Dr. Bernhard stood up. “I’m sorry. I have to go. I wish I could be of more help. I know this is a difficult time for you.”
“I—you know it’s difficult? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be back. I think.” He started heading for the door. “All in all, I still think I did the right thing. Giving you the book, I mean. That you were meant to be trusted. Not coincidence, Jon. Providence.”
“I—what providence?” He got up, quickly following Bernhard as he walked out of the kitchen and across his living room, a-six-years old Billy Mumy staring sternly at him from the television. “That doesn’t mean anything. I sure shouldn’t have trusted you—you lied—all the stories—the movies—you were just setting me up. Where do you get off talking about trusting people—”
“I was meant to trust you. You were meant to trust me,” Bernhard said, reaching the door and putting his hand on the knob. “That doesn’t mean I was meant to be trustworthy. It doesn’t mean that I wasn’t also meant to betray your trust.”
“That’s horseshit—” Jon started.
Smiling sadly, Dr. Bernhard opened the door. “It’s not, Jon. I promise you.” Then, with a clear smirk—even now, some part of him was still clearly enjoying the difficulty of Jon’s circumstance tremendously. “Trust me.”
And he slipped out the door, closing it behind him.
“Wait one goddamned minute—” Jon started, jerking open the door, already starting to step through before he realized that Dr. Bernhard was not outside. That, in fact, nothing was outside. It was just empty, endless blackness, and he was stepping right into it.
He tried to regain his balance, as his foot found no purchase. But he couldn’t, and he fell forward, tumbling head over heels into the infinite dark.
Jon hit the floor with a solid thump. He just lay there for a moment, breathing heavily as the darkness receded from his vision, the explosion of adrenaline that had both woken him up, and apparently prompted him to roll out of bed, continuing to make his arms and legs shake. For a moment, he couldn’t remember where he was. But the smell—that wonderful, unique hotel smell, that smell of being someplace different—and the steady hum of the air conditioner brought it back. He was at an EconoLodge in Shelbyville, Kentucky, just off I-64. Alone, in a motel, with Megan Kincaid. And she was safe, and he was safe, and the book and the briefcase were safe and hidden.
Jon shook his head. It had just been a dream. But again, it had seemed unusually real. Unusually distinct. Like the dream with Megan. Except it had been completely different in content. Dr. Bernhard hadn’t been almost entirely naked and suspended on a beam of light, for one thing. Probably a good thing, that. Jon had enough to worry about without that image haunting him.
From the other bed, Megan inhaled dramatically. Then she hummed, a soft, breathy hum that was almost a low moan. It sounded almost . . . well, sexual. She did it again, this time louder, and Jon sat up, peering over into her bed. She was laying on her back, the sheets almost completely kicked off. For someone complaining about his peeping into her shower, she certainly didn’t dress heavily for bed. All she was wearing was her white tank top and her thin, pink panties. If the light hadn’t been so dim, there wouldn’t have been much left to the imagination. As it was, it was still a lot more that Jon had been imagining just a few days ago.
She arched her back, breathing in deeply, turning her head left and then right. She exhaled, making a soft, almost pained, hum as she did so. Eyes still closed, the hum grew louder, and then she spoke. “Fingers,” she said.
Jon stood up, looking down on her as she shifted her hips. Had she just said what he thought she had said?
“Mmm,” she hummed, a clear smile on her lips. Were her cheeks flushing? “Waiting.” It was hard to tell in the faint light from outside the window, but she looked flushed to him. “Touch me,” she murmured. “Your fingers.”
There was no mistaking what she was saying. Was she talking in her sleep? Was she—was she having the same dream he had had? About her?
Suddenly, he felt his own face flushing. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but just the idea that Megan was having that dream, that she might know what he had dreamed about her, was embarrassing.
Although how could it really have been his dream, if Megan was having it, too?
Jon looked over his head, where he knew the book was attached to the ceiling, invisible but there, almost directly above where Megan lay. It was too dark to see the ceiling, but he didn’t have to see it to know that it was exactly where he had hidden it. He could feel it, almost as if it were vibrating at some impossibly low pitch. As if the air were charged with static electricity, coming from that exact point.
He felt suddenly certain that Megan was having a dream. The same dream he had had. And the book was the source.
Jon blinked as Megan parted her lips, slowly rolling her tongue across them, then closing her mouth, puckering, her cheeks drawing in. Like she was sucking on something.
She reached out as if to grab something, her hands almost brushing against Jon as he stepped back. Then she brought her hands back down to her chest, pressing them softly against her breasts then sliding them upwards.
He should wake her up, he thought. Let her know what she was doing, right? Standing there and watching the sleeping girl fondle herself—almost certainly because of the book, somehow—that wasn’t any different than peeping at her in the shower, right? Or using the X-ray vision to look through her clothes. So, he reached out and turned on the small brass wall lamp beside her bed.
His mouth opened to say something, to tell her to wake up, but he couldn’t seem to quite get the words out. He remembered the dream, remembered how Megan had—in the dream—taken his hands and pressed them against her, moving them in slow circles over her breasts and what she was doing now seemed to mirror that exactly. What if, he wondered, he had let her take his hands, just then? What if he touched her hands now?
He shook his head. No, no, no. He was going to wake her up. That’s was it. Even though, with the light on, he could see a lot better and it was truly something to see. She was so beautiful. So wonderful. So unexplored. Her hands, massaging her bosom, and her hips rocking against the bed. The flush of pink in her face. His cheeks were burning. He was feeling dizzy.
“Intershishum,” she mumbled.
He reached out to touch her shoulder, and her arms flew out, knocking his hand away, her back arching as she drew in a sharp, ragged breath. Then, she rolled over, winding the white hotel sheets around her legs as she did so, and fell onto the floor.
She rolled over, eyes blinking in the lamp light, and after a moment fixed on Jon. “Jon?” she asked. “What—I—”
“You were having a dream,” Jon said quickly. He knew his face had to be red as a beet—the tips of his ears felt like they were on fire. “I—uh—you woke me up. I—you were—talking. Um, here.” He pulled the white sheet at her feet up so that it covered her torso and let it drop, backing away and trying to not look at her so directly, but having trouble avoiding it.
She sat up, smiling. “Dreaming? No shit. If that was a dream—I never had a dream like that. But I guess it had to—” She looked up and Jon, her face still flushed pink, her bleary eyes brightening visibly. “I was talking in my sleep? Really?” She looked at him slyly. “What did I say?”
Jon thought he felt himself turning redder. “Um—”
She stood up, the sheets falling away as she did so. “Did you do something?” she asked, one eyebrow arched. “Did you do something to me with your book? That wasn’t like any dream I’ve ever had. And it was just me and you—”
“I didn’t,” Jon said quickly. “I didn’t do anything. But I think—I mean, it sounded like I had that dream, too. Not tonight, I mean, but like three days ago. Were you on—ah—like a laser beam? In this thing that looked like a tornado made out of blue fire?”
“Holy shit!” she breathed, grinning widely. “You didn’t do anything to me? With the book? But—we had the same dream?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Jon said. “I think the book did. Maybe to both of us. Just not at the same time. I’m sorry, I had no idea—”
The maniac grin of Megan’s was back. “We had the same dream. The same dream! You and me. It’s like—you were in my brain. Or I was in your brain. Or we were both in each other’s brain. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. I kept telling you to touch me—”
“Umm,” Jon hummed, looking to the side, embarrassed, suddenly, as he saw the dream again in his mind. “All the blue fire and the big laser beam and I—but I don’t see how we could have had the exact same dream. I don’t get it—”
“I do,” Megan said, stepping closer. “At least, I think I do. I think—I think you’re supposed to touch me. With your fingers.” She laughed. “Ha! That sounds so goofy,” she said, shaking her head and taking another step forward. “But you did. In the dream. And—” She took another small step forward, now just a few inches from him. “—it felt nice. You touching me.”
Her face was pink and her cheeks were red. She looked embarrassed, but also feverish. As she stood in front of him, he could feel the heat her body was radiating. She looked a little drunk.
“You want to touch me, Jon?” she asked. “In the space? Inbetween?” She raised her eyebrows and nodded her head at him. “We haven’t got all day.”
She leaned forward, her face directly in front of his, and brushed her hair back from her forehead with her hand. “Want to try? Touch me.” She took his right hand in hers and lifted his hand up, brushing it lightly against her bosom as she did so, bringing it to her face. She kissed the tip of his finger, and then pressed it between her eyes. She closed her eyes.
After a moment, she opened them again. “Hmm. Not a lot of action, there. In the dream I—I dunno what it was, but it was something.” She smiled, then sat down on the edge of the bed, still holding onto his hand. “Maybe that’s not quite the right place.”
“Um—”
She lay down on the bed, flat on her back, face pointed at the ceiling. She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes, and gently placed Jon’s hand against her throat. Then she put both arms down at her side. After a moment of Jon, crouched over with his hand resting lightly above her collar bone, breathing shallowly but otherwise completely frozen, she shifted her body, breathing in and arching her back slightly. “Go ahead,” she murmured. “Touch me. With your fingers.”
Jon opened his mouth to say something, and then it just stayed open. His head was buzzing. He heard a ringing in his ears. He had never felt so aroused and so simultaneously terrified in his entire life. At once much more mundane than his dream, it was also much more . . . much more what? Terrifying? Wonderful? Exotic? Fantastic? Unbelievable? Paralyzing?
After what seemed like the longest minute of his life, Megan’s eyes fluttered open. “What? You want an engraved invitation? You need a road map? Instruction manual?”
“I—uh—I—uh—” Jon stammered.
She smirked. “Maybe it would be easier if you pretended I was a pocket calculator.”
“I’m—It’s just—I feel dizzy—”
“You need to sit down,” she said, sliding over to the opposite edge of the bed, the thin strap of her tank top catching on Jon’s fingers as she moved, pulling partway down her shoulder. It almost seemed to Jon that she had tried to get his fingers to catch on the strap and, when they had, she pushed herself up with an obvious effort, almost trying to have him pull it down further. Jon, without quite meaning to, jerked his hand away. “Come on,” she said, patting the empty section of rumpled sheets she had left. “Sit down.”
Jon sat. He didn’t think he could stand anymore. Something was happening here—something between him and Megan. Something he wouldn’t have dared hope for in his wildest dreams—well, perhaps in some of the wildest ones, but nowhere else—and it was real, live, and transforming abruptly from impossible fantasy to inevitable reality. They were going to transcend being an item. They were going to consummate their relationship. He was fourteen and he was going to lose his virginity. To the most wonderful girl he had ever met.
That was, if he could keep from passing out.
“Okay,” she said, settling back down, putting her arms back to her side and closing her eyes. “Let’s try this thing. You touch me. With your fingers. And we’ll see what happens.”
Jon sat, frozen.
“Come on,” she said, keeping her eyes closed, her head facing straight up. “I’m half-naked. In bed. Right next to you. Asking you to—you know, touch me. With your fingers.” She exhaled slowly. “I’m waiting.”
Wordlessly, Jon moved one limp arm over, placing his suddenly cold and sweaty palm on Megan’s midriff. She inhaled, and he could feel her diaphragm flex as it pulled air into her lungs, her chest rising. A small half-smile curled the corner of her mouth. “That’s a start,” she said, eyes still closed. “Where else can you put your fingers? Do you think?”
Jon moved his hand from the soft white cotton fabric covering her midriff to the soft, bare skin of her abdomen. His hands were cold and clammy, he knew, even though his face was burning, but she didn’t seem to mind. “Mmmm,” she hummed. “I think you’re getting warmer. Try again.”
He raised his hand, sliding it over her navel an up across the hollow of her solar plexus, then to the side, over the ridges of her ribs, his fingers finding their way under her tank-top.
“That’s good, too,” she murmured. “Maybe there isn’t just one place you’re supposed to touch,” she breathed, her face growing redder. She looked embarrassed by what she was saying, but didn’t stop. “Maybe you’re supposed to touch everywhere. Me, everywhere.” She giggled. “With your fingers.”
Without quite meaning to, he put his other hand down, sliding it under her shirt and up along the side of her torso, up high enough that he could feel soft swell where the side of her breast began.
“Oh,” she said softly. “Mmm. Your hands feel nice. Doing that.”
Her face was almost crimson, a weird mix of what looked to Jon like embarrassment and arousal. The exact same strange juxtaposition of feelings Jon was feeling. It was like she wanted him to do it, almost as much if not more than he wanted to, but was embarrassed by it. That she actually wanted him touching her, that she was actually, actively soliciting it—that alone made this sudden hallucination all the more inconceivable as something actually taking place in Jon Edmond’s real, small, dull, assembly-language-programming, Pitfall-playing, text-book-reading-for-fun life. But that she was also embarrassed by it, like him, somehow took it to the next level. It was almost like they were two parts of the same person. She was embarrassed that she wanted him to touch her; he was certainly embarrassed about how much he wanted to. It was almost like someone had opened up his mind and read his most secret, most humiliating, fantasies about Megan to her. To them both. And it turned out that she found them just as uncomfortable and embarrassing, and wanted just as much to act them out, as he did.
Jon thought he felt himself turning redder. “Um—”
She stood up, the sheets falling away as she did so. “Did you do something?” she asked, one eyebrow arched. “Did you do something to me with your book? That wasn’t like any dream I’ve ever had. And it was just me and you—”
“I didn’t,” Jon said quickly. “I didn’t do anything. But I think—I mean, it sounded like I had that dream, too. Not tonight, I mean, but like three days ago. Were you on—ah—like a laser beam? In this thing that looked like a tornado made out of blue fire?”
“Holy shit!” she breathed, grinning widely. “You didn’t do anything to me? With the book? But—we had the same dream?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Jon said. “I think the book did. Maybe to both of us. Just not at the same time. I’m sorry, I had no idea—”
The maniac grin of Megan’s was back. “We had the same dream. The same dream! You and me. It’s like—you were in my brain. Or I was in your brain. Or we were both in each other’s brain. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. I kept telling you to touch me—”
“Umm,” Jon hummed, looking to the side, embarrassed, suddenly, as he saw the dream again in his mind. “All the blue fire and the big laser beam and I—but I don’t see how we could have had the exact same dream. I don’t get it—”
“I do,” Megan said, stepping closer. “At least, I think I do. I think—I think you’re supposed to touch me. With your fingers.” She laughed. “Ha! That sounds so goofy,” she said, shaking her head and taking another step forward. “But you did. In the dream. And—” She took another small step forward, now just a few inches from him. “—it felt nice. You touching me.”
Her face was pink and her cheeks were red. She looked embarrassed, but also feverish. As she stood in front of him, he could feel the heat her body was radiating. She looked a little drunk.
“You want to touch me, Jon?” she asked. “In the space? Inbetween?” She raised her eyebrows and nodded her head at him. “We haven’t got all day.”
She leaned forward, her face directly in front of his, and brushed her hair back from her forehead with her hand. “Want to try? Touch me.” She took his right hand in hers and lifted his hand up, brushing it lightly against her bosom as she did so, bringing it to her face. She kissed the tip of his finger, and then pressed it between her eyes. She closed her eyes.
After a moment, she opened them again. “Hmm. Not a lot of action, there. In the dream I—I dunno what it was, but it was something.” She smiled, then sat down on the edge of the bed, still holding onto his hand. “Maybe that’s not quite the right place.”
“Um—”
She lay down on the bed, flat on her back, face pointed at the ceiling. She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes, and gently placed Jon’s hand against her throat. Then she put both arms down at her side. After a moment of Jon, crouched over with his hand resting lightly above her collar bone, breathing shallowly but otherwise completely frozen, she shifted her body, breathing in and arching her back slightly. “Go ahead,” she murmured. “Touch me. With your fingers.”
Jon opened his mouth to say something, and then it just stayed open. His head was buzzing. He heard a ringing in his ears. He had never felt so aroused and so simultaneously terrified in his entire life. At once much more mundane than his dream, it was also much more . . . much more what? Terrifying? Wonderful? Exotic? Fantastic? Unbelievable? Paralyzing?
After what seemed like the longest minute of his life, Megan’s eyes fluttered open. “What? You want an engraved invitation? You need a road map? Instruction manual?”
“I—uh—I—uh—” Jon stammered.
She smirked. “Maybe it would be easier if you pretended I was a pocket calculator.”
“I’m—It’s just—I feel dizzy—”
“You need to sit down,” she said, sliding over to the opposite edge of the bed, the thin strap of her tank top catching on Jon’s fingers as she moved, pulling partway down her shoulder. It almost seemed to Jon that she had tried to get his fingers to catch on the strap and, when they had, she pushed herself up with an obvious effort, almost trying to have him pull it down further. Jon, without quite meaning to, jerked his hand away. “Come on,” she said, patting the empty section of rumpled sheets she had left. “Sit down.”
Jon sat. He didn’t think he could stand anymore. Something was happening here—something between him and Megan. Something he wouldn’t have dared hope for in his wildest dreams—well, perhaps in some of the wildest ones, but nowhere else—and it was real, live, and transforming abruptly from impossible fantasy to inevitable reality. They were going to transcend being an item. They were going to consummate their relationship. He was fourteen and he was going to lose his virginity. To the most wonderful girl he had ever met.
That was, if he could keep from passing out.
“Okay,” she said, settling back down, putting her arms back to her side and closing her eyes. “Let’s try this thing. You touch me. With your fingers. And we’ll see what happens.”
Jon sat, frozen.
“Come on,” she said, keeping her eyes closed, her head facing straight up. “I’m half-naked. In bed. Right next to you. Asking you to—you know, touch me. With your fingers.” She exhaled slowly. “I’m waiting.”
Wordlessly, Jon moved one limp arm over, placing his suddenly cold and sweaty palm on Megan’s midriff. She inhaled, and he could feel her diaphragm flex as it pulled air into her lungs, her chest rising. A small half-smile curled the corner of her mouth. “That’s a start,” she said, eyes still closed. “Where else can you put your fingers? Do you think?”
Jon moved his hand from the soft white cotton fabric covering her midriff to the soft, bare skin of her abdomen. His hands were cold and clammy, he knew, even though his face was burning, but she didn’t seem to mind. “Mmmm,” she hummed. “I think you’re getting warmer. Try again.”
He raised his hand, sliding it over her navel an up across the hollow of her solar plexus, then to the side, over the ridges of her ribs, his fingers finding their way under her tank-top.
“That’s good, too,” she murmured. “Maybe there isn’t just one place you’re supposed to touch,” she breathed, her face growing redder. She looked embarrassed by what she was saying, but didn’t stop. “Maybe you’re supposed to touch everywhere. Me, everywhere.” She giggled. “With your fingers.”
Without quite meaning to, he put his other hand down, sliding it under her shirt and up along the side of her torso, up high enough that he could feel soft swell where the side of her breast began.
“Oh,” she said softly. “Mmm. Your hands feel nice. Doing that.”
Her face was almost crimson, a weird mix of what looked to Jon like embarrassment and arousal. The exact same strange juxtaposition of feelings Jon was feeling. It was like she wanted him to do it, almost as much if not more than he wanted to, but was embarrassed by it. That she actually wanted him touching her, that she was actually, actively soliciting it—that alone made this sudden hallucination all the more inconceivable as something actually taking place in Jon Edmond’s real, small, dull, assembly-language-programming, Pitfall-playing, text-book-reading-for-fun life. But that she was also embarrassed by it, like him, somehow took it to the next level. It was almost like they were two parts of the same person. She was embarrassed that she wanted him to touch her; he was certainly embarrassed about how much he wanted to. It was almost like someone had opened up his mind and read his most secret, most humiliating, fantasies about Megan to her. To them both. And it turned out that she found them just as uncomfortable and embarrassing, and wanted just as much to act them out, as he did.
Without opening her eyes, Megan put her hand on Jon’s knee, squeezing it reassuringly. She licked her lips, preparing to say something, he was sure. She’s going to tell me to stop, he thought, not without some relief.
“You don’t have to stop,” she whispered softly.
His ears rang and his head buzzed—almost hummed, like, somewhere in the far distance, there was a choir of voices, a thousand voices, each hitting a slightly different pitch. This is it, Jon thought with a sudden, hallucinatory clarity. I’m in the interstitium. The space between us, between Megan and me, that’s it. That’s the interstitium. That space is gone. Or we are that space. Because we’re in it. Because we’ve filled it. We are the interstitium.
They were connected. In a way he had never imagined he could be, with anybody. In a way he couldn’t explain. It was as if they were perfectly in synch. So much so that she sensed his doubts. So much so that she shared his arousal, his trepidation, his desire, and his fear. Something about that connection, about how he could see—and even, he thought, feel—that she was feeling much the same things, that they had even had the same dream. It was dizzying. Wonderful. Almost incomprehensible.
Jon swayed a little, moving his hand across her ribs, over her solar plexus, moving the other hand up slightly, so he was almost touching the side of her bare breast. She was warm, and her face was flush, her breathing becoming rapid and shallow. His own cheeks were on fire. His hands were cold and his ears were hot. It was all he could do to take a deep breath. As wonderful as touching her was, both hands under the white cotton of her tank-top, both little more than an inch from her bosom, it felt to Jon like he was wearing thick gloves; that he couldn’t entirely feel her. Like he was watching all of this unfold at a distance. He at once felt physically and emotionally closer to Megan than he had ever had—not just closer than he had ever felt to her, but closer than he had ever felt to anybody, period. Closer than he had ever dared hope he’d be to anybody, much less Megan. Yet, at the same time, it felt like he was seeing it all through a telescope, like it wasn’t him at all so close to Megan, touching her so intimately. Like he had been granted an opportunity, just for a moment, to borrow someone else’s life.
The tips of his fingers touched the lower swell of her bosom, and he froze. Here it was. He wasn’t just going to rub up against her while they passed in the hall or strategically locate and elbow in the right location while they were all watching TV over at Johnny Two’s house. He wasn’t just going to sneak a peak down her shirt while she bent over to get the popcorn. He was going to put his hand, already under her shirt, on her bare breast.
“Getting closer. Keep going.” She giggled nervously. “You’ve got a lot of ground to cover, if you’re going to be touching everywhere. With your fingers.”
Jon felt a weird twitch, and his body shook. He had fantasized about, seriously, much less than this for most of the past year. The likelihood that something was going to happen between them had certainly kicked up significantly over the past week—and, in retrospect, he supposed, the last several months, before he had even gotten the book. But even yesterday, driving around looking for the first official motel they were going to stay at, he hadn’t dared to hope for anything like this. Certainly, not so soon. This was going well beyond kissing. This was touching. Intimately. Leading, almost inexorably, to something a lot more intimate.
“Sometime today,” she murmured. “Before I lose my nerve.”
Jon slid one hand slowly up further insider her tank top, across her bare bosom, waiting for her to make him stop, waiting for her to tell him no. But she didn’t. She just took a deep breath in as his hand cupped her bare breast, then sighed. “Your hand feels nice,” she said, her voice low. “I don’t know why we didn’t do this sooner.”
Jon surprised himself by finding he actually still had a voice. “Because you would have beat the shit out of me.”
“He talks!” Megan said with a chuckle, smiling broadly but still not opening her eyes. “I was starting to think we were going to go through this whole thing and you weren’t going to say boo. A girl likes a guy to talk a little bit, you know, if he’s going to be feeling her up and squeezing her tits and stuff.”
Jon jerked his hands back. “I’m sorry—”
“I didn’t say I wanted you to stop, dumbass,” she said crossly, opening her eyes, and grabbed his hands. She pushed them both down against her chest, holding them there, and then closed her eyes back. “I want you to keep going. You’re going in the right direction. Trust me. Just—you know, it’s nice if you do something other than just breathe, is all I’m saying. You don’t have to talk a whole lot, but a little is kind of nice.” Her hands still on top of his, she pushed them inwards, than pulled them around in a circle. “So I know you’re not a zombie. Or a serial killer. Or having a heart attack.”
“Heart attack, most likely,” Jon said. Even hearing himself in his head, his voice sounding tinny and distant, as if someone else was speaking. “I’m—I—I can hardly breathe.”
“Hmmm,” Megan pondered. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Because we can stop. If you don’t like it.”
“No, no, it’s good, good,” Jon said quickly. “Really good. I just—you feel—I want—”
“Mmmmhmmm?” She kept her hands on his, moving them slowly across her breasts. “I feel you want?”
Jon shook his head. “You—you’re wonderful. I—I just—” And there it was again, that word wanting to leap to his lips. The word she didn’t like. But what other word was there? Sure, she was attractive. She was beautiful. Sure, he wanted to make out with her. He wanted to fool around. Almost more than anything he had ever wanted in his life. But this was more than that. He wanted to do things for her. Buy her presents. Make her happy. He wanted to get her a house and a car and grow old with her. He wanted to go to the same shitty job every day and worry about taxes and how to pay the mortgage and mow the lawn and take the kids to the dentist—not in general, not with just anybody, but with her.
He looked at her, eyes closed and cheeks bright pink, her auburn hair splayed out behind her in a halo, so dark it was almost black in the low light, the slightest smile curving her parted lips as she moved his hands in slow circles. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with this woman, whatever it took. Love might be a lot more than talking about the Eurythmics over pizza, sharing banana splits, French kissing, and making out in a motel room, but even if it was just those things, did that make love bad? Or wrong? Or did she just not feel what he was feeling? The dizziness, the giddiness, the butterflies in his stomach and the goose bumps on his skin? The overwhelming desire to be with her, forever and for always, no matter what? Was he just something for her to do, a way for her to escape from her parents and her dull, boring life to something more in synch with her own manic personality? Until something better came along?
And, he suddenly realized, he couldn’t do this. Go all the way. Not with her, not like this, not right now. He was so tempted, he wanted to so badly. But he couldn’t do it. And if things worked out like he thought they both hoped they would, they would have plenty of time together to try everything. No school, no homework, no parents and, in truth, no need to work at all—as it was, it seemed like they would have all the money they ever needed. There was an order it should go in, and as much as every cell in his body might be telling him differently, this wasn’t it.
He was going to put a stop to it, now.
“That’s pretty good,” she said softly, lifting her hands off his. “Try someplace else.”
Well, maybe just a little bit more. He slid his hands down, over her navel, then across the lower swell of her abdomen, stopping his fingertips just above the lacy elastic of her pink, satin panties. She inhaled sharply as he did, and, Jon matched her perfectly, feeling his own arousal overpowering almost anything else.
“Good spot,” Megan breathed. “Very good.”
Jon shook his head, certain he was about to pass out. At least, he thought, that would make him stop. Because it didn’t seem like he was going to be able to stop this on his own, and Megan, unlike before, was obviously not going to be any help in getting him to behave. He moved one hand gingerly down, just two finger tips, tracing their way over the edge of her panties and down across the satin fabric beneath. She trembled as he did so, exhaling haltingly, and Jon matched her. Her breathing, already rapid, quickened. His did, too, in perfect time. Then, she parted her legs slightly, arching her hips.
“Can’t,” Jon mumbled, still breathing in time with Megan. “Can’t.”
“Hummm?” Megan murmured, put her own hands on Jon’s, pressing them down. “You can. You can. I want you to.”
With a jerk, Jon pulled his hands away and fell backwards off the bed.
Megan sat up. “That was smooth.”
“Can’t,” Jon repeated. “Sorry. Not right now. Not yet. Not—it’s not the right time.”
Megan blinked down at him. “Not the right time? Alone together in a hotel room is ‘not the right time’?”
“I can’t,” Jon said. “I—I don’t think—I mean, we haven’t—I mean—I mean, I really like you.”
“This isn’t going to be a ‘let’s just be friends’ talk, is it?”
“No, no. I want to be—I want us to be—”
Megan leaned forward, smiling. “Mmmhmm?”
“Everything. Forever. I don’t want us—we don’t need to be in such a big hurry. I want us to have the rest of our lives to—together. I want us to have time. And if we aren’t going to have time, then I don’t want to—right now—”
“Everything forever, huh?” she asked. Smiling, she fingered the loose strap of her tank top. “Forever can start tonight. If you want.”
“I do,” he said. “But—”
“We might get busy doing other stuff, later. What with the FBI and the CIA and the Army chasing us. We might get hit by a meteor tomorrow. Old senile Ronnie Reagan might press that big red button and start World War III.” She tugged downwards on the strap of her tank top. “You never know what’s going to happen.”
“But—that’s the other thing. I—the dream. You. How you’re acting—”
Megan raised her eyebrows. “How I’m acting? You don’t approve of how I’m acting?”
“No, no, not that,” Jon said quickly, then looked up at the ceiling. “I think—I think it might be the book. Something else is going on here. Hold on.” Jon stood up and went to the closet, grabbing her faded blue denim shirt and throwing it to her. “Put this on—I can see your—your—things—I can’t think clearly.”
She caught the shirt and put it on, slowly stretching provocatively as she did so. “My ‘things’, huh?” she asked, smirking. “You mean, my nipples? My extremely hard and aching nipples?”
Jon turned his head away, shaking his hand at her. “Yes, those things. Put the shirt on, before you give me a brain hemorrhage.”
Megan sighed, and Jon did, too. He turned around with a jerk. “Did you hear that? We—we’re breathing at the same time. In and out. At the exact same time. It’s like—it’s like we’re synchronized.”
Looking at Jon, Megan’s smiled faded. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine,” Jon said, sitting beside her on the bed. “It’s just—it’s the book—”
“Jon,” Megan said seriously, taking his hand. “I’ve been with guys before. Not a lot of them, to tell you the truth. I’m not exactly a virgin, but I’m probably a lot closer than you think I am—”
Jon blanched. “I didn’t say—”
“You’re interrupting,” Megan said, and then continued. “But, yeah, I’ve done stuff and I’ve liked guys and I’ve made out and I’ve never felt like I do now. Like I did when you put your hands on me. After waking up from that—that—whatever it was. It was like—I felt like I had turned into a cat. The minute I saw you, I just wanted to rub up against you, and keep rubbing up against you, and when you touched me I just wanted to purr—”
Jon swayed where he sat, the desire to pull on her hand, to pull her to him and to take her, right then and there, suddenly almost overwhelming. Hormones, he thought. Think of the old stinky grandma.
“I’ve never felt like that. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. It’s like—it’s like magic. I’ve never felt so—so warm. And I mean warm. Like that. In my stomach. All over. It’s like—it was like—” She paused, looking to the side, squeezing Jon’s hand. “It’s like being tickled by an angel. I don’t want to say it’s like being tickled by God, because that’s, like, sacrilegious and I’m bad but I’m not that bad, but—I mean, that’s what it was like.”
Jon nodded, looking up. “I think—this is going to sound weird, okay, but I’ve been thinking this before tonight, but—I think you’re feeling what I’m feeling. I mean, I think those are my feelings. And you’re—you’re tuned into me, somehow. Well, not just somehow, that’s a cop-out. It’s the book.” He looked up to the empty space on the ceiling where he knew the book still was, invisible to the eye but still working its magic. “It’s connecting us. It’s making you feel what I’m feeling.” Jon took a deep breath, watching as Megan inhaled. “You had the same dream I did—”
“Jon,” Megan said, taking his hand and bringing it to her lips. She put her other hand on his thigh, squeezing gently. “If this—if this is the book—” She kissed the top of his hand, parting her lips, gently letting her tongue touch his skin. “—if what I feel right now is because of the book—” She kissed the tip of his index finger slowly, opening her mouth and moving his fingertip slowly over the soft skin of her lips. “—if what I want to do—if what I want to do with you—is the book—” She rolled her tongue around his finger slowly.
She stopped, looking at him seriously, her face flushed to a bright crimson. She leaned in so close that her nose almost touched his. “Then that, Jon—that is a very, very good book.”
Jon blinked three times, looked left, looked right, and Megan exploded in blue.
Megan backed off. “Hey, you just—you just turned on the X-ray vision, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Jon said, again in awe of the vision of Megan in blue and chrome. “I wanted to see something.”
Megan sat back, spreading her arms. “See anything you like?” she asked, as Jon focused on Megan and then inside Megan, watching her heart beat, rapid and strong, watching as her lungs filled, actually seeing her diaphragm flex. He put his hand against his neck, feeling for his own pulse.
Megan shifted. Jon could see her bones and muscles moving as she did, then barely visible springs inside the mattress. “What are you looking at? Exactly?”
“Your heart,” Jon said. He looked down at his own chest. “I think my pulse is a half-a-second behind,” he muttered. “Behind my actual heart beat.”
“What are you mumbling about?”
“Turn your x-ray vision on. Do you remember how? Blink three times, then look left, then look right.”
She shrugged. “Okay,” she agreed, and did so. She leaned back, then forward. “Yikes! It’s hard to get used to that. Hey! You’re naked.” She looked up and then down. “And frisky. My, my, my.”
Jon felt his face burning, but did his best to ignore it. “Look at your heart. Look at mine. And this—“ He put two fingers against her neck, at her jugular vein, and took her hand and placed it against his. “You feel my pulse?”
“Holy shit,” she murmured. “Our heart beats—”
“We’re in synch. Our pulse matches perfectly. We’re even breathing the same. You exhale when I’m talking, I exhale when your talking, we breathe in at the same time—”
“Jesus,” she whispered. “How are we—how is it—doing that?”
“I dunno,” he replied, then got off the bed. “Stand up.”
“For what?”
“Just stand up. I want to try and see our hearts together.”
“Uh huh.” Megan sighed, and Jon did, too. “Okay, just stop it, that’s starting to creep me out,” she said as she stood up, wobbling uncertainly as she did so, and chuckled. “You want to see what with the who now?”
Jon moved against Megan, and she stepped backwards. “Yikes! Watch it, Skeletor, you look a little Night-of-the-Living-Dead with these things on.”
He put his hands around her waist and pulled her against him. “Look,” he said, pressing his chest against hers. Looking down, he could see both their hearts, blazing and blue, beating in tandem, in perfect synchronicity.
“Wow,” Megan whispered, then laughed. “Two hearts that beat as one. We’re a living Hallmark card.”
“It’s the book—somehow. It’s doing something to us. Doing something to you. Making you feel what I feel, want what I want.”
Megan laughed. “And you don’t want that?”
“I do—I mean, I want you to want what you want and I want us to be—I want you to want me, but—”
“I love Cheap Trick,” Megan said. “’If you want my love, you’ve got it. If you need my love, you got it. I won’t hide it—‘”
Jon frowned. He thought she was quoting something again—she listened to a lot more music than he did. But he couldn’t help but notice that she had picked something with the word “love” in it. Twice. “Cheap Trick?”
Megan arched her eyebrows. “Cheap Trick. The band? ‘I Want You to Want Me’ is one of their songs, and you said it and—never mind.”
Jon let go of her, stepping back. “Look, I just—I don’t want to mess this up.” He blinked three times, looking left and right. With a sigh, matched perfectly by Megan, he sat down on the bed. “I don’t want to—I don’t want to lose you.”
“Can I turn this shit off now, Zombie-boy?” Megan asked. “If you wanted to kill the mood, making me look at your skull ’n’ bones and icky parts was a good way to do it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jon mumbled. He was suddenly very tired again.
“That’s better,” she said, sitting down beside him and pulling her denim shirt tightly around her. “I don’t see how you can stand that shit. It’s like being in some sort of freakshow funhouse. In black and white. It’s just creepy.”
“Well, it’s sort of blue and black and white for me—you look like you’re made out of blue chrome when I do it. There are settings, if you blink—”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not the big techno-geek. That really isn’t my kind of thing.” She slapped her hands on her bare thighs and smiled at Jon. “So, just to be clear: you really don’t want to have sex?”
Jon blanched. Jeeze, she was blunt. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to—I mean, I do—”
Megan grinned. “No you don’t. Because if you wanted to have sex, we’d both be in this bed—” She patted the sheet, and then pointed in front of the beaten-up television. “—or, on the floor, or possibly in the shower—butt-naked and rockin’ the Casbah.”
Jon felt faint. Her casual conversation about them—Megan and Jon—having sex was plenty enough. But on the floor! Or in the shower! Butt-naked and “rockin’ the Casbah”! She was trying to kill him. She was trying to use his own adolescent hormones against him and make his head explode.
Jon licked his lips and when he spoke, his voice cracked. “I just want it to be—I don’t want it just because of the book. I don’t want—I don’t want anything to mess this up.”
“You’ve said it twice, now. What are you worried about getting messed up? What, you think I’d really suck or something? I mean, suck in a bad way? Because I’ll bet I can suck in a good way. Which I'd be happy to try right now. If you're up to it. And you looked like you just might be, a minute ago.”
Jon swallowed hard. “Ah. Um. No, it’s—it’s just—“ he stopped and sighed.
Megan looked at him expectantly, her nostrils flaring as she exhaled in synch with Jon. “Yessss?”
“Look. When I woke up, I had had this dream about Dr. Bernhard, and he was cracking nuts and he had blood all over his shirt and he told me I was in great danger. Then he did this dramatic pause and looked away and said, ‘And Megan’ and I asked him what he meant: ‘And Megan’. ‘How is Megan in danger?’, I asked, and he tells me that you’re with me, that’s all it will take, and that he told me to be careful about who I involved, for their sake as well as my sake, and he did tell me that, and then he goes on about how he thinks I’m meany to be trusted with great power because he was a senile old man and I was thinking about how he always told me about how everything has a price how these people that won the lottery almost always ended up broke and miserable and about how aliens could send a Trojan horse that would give us everything we could dream of and end up killing us—”
“Whoa, whoa there, take a breath,” Megan said, putting a finger against her lips and inhaling deeply. “I’m about to suffocate.”
Jon stopped, and they both inhaled deeply. “Sorry,” he said. “Maybe it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sure it does,” Megan said cheerily. “You’re all proper and chivalrous and stuff. I guess we can get married and do it missionary style every Thursday at eight-fifteen, if that’s how you want it.” She leaned forward, her face flushed. She looked slightly drunk. “But I felt your hands on me. Felt how you touched me. I don’t think that’s how you want it. At least, not the only way.”
Jon sighed, and she did, too. “No, it’s not, but—but I don’t want to mess up, with us. I don’t want to want something so bad that something bad happens—to you or to me or to both of us. I—”
They both inhaled simultaneously. “You’ve watched the Twilight Zone, right?”
Megan exhaled exasperatedly, flopping dramatically backwards on the bed. “God, you are such a geek. You are such a guy. A guy-geek. A geek-guy. Yes, when you and Johnny Two wanted to watch it. That’s about it.”
“I don’t want us to turn into the Twilight Zone. We’re, like, on the run from the government and staying in hotels and I’ve got a briefcase full of—things. And a big book of magic. Life is enough like a the Twilight Zone as it is.”
“So fooling around with me would be like an episode of the Twilight Zone. Is that what you’re saying?”
“No!” Jon shouted. “No, no, God, no. I—do you remember the episode—did you see the episode, the one where there were a bunch of tall weird looking bald guys who looked like Lurch from The Addams Family and sounded like Vincent Price?”
“Um, no. That doesn’t ring a bell.” Megan started chewing on her pinky. “Actually, if you don’t want to do anything interesting, I’m kind of tired. What time is it?”
Jon looked over at the clock. “3:14,” he said. “But—I’m trying to explain. The big bald aliens, they were called the Kanamits—I think it’s supposed to be like a combination of Communist and cannibal. Anyway, they were promising Utopia, they were going to solve everybody’s problems and make everybody happy and give everybody everything they ever desired. And they did, for a while. But it turns out the book they brought—the aliens brought it, and the humans had been trying to translate it—it was called ‘To Serve Man’, and everybody thought it meant they just wanted to help out the poor human race. But it turned out that wasn’t it. They find out at the end, it was a cookbook. They were getting all these people to get on their spaceships by promising Utopia, and then serving them for dinner.”
Megan rolled over. “You lost me. Can you turn out the lights?”
Jon reached up and turned off the lamp. “The point is, getting what they wanted—getting maybe what they wanted most—that’s what got them turned into soup. Even—when I had the dream, I dreamed I fell asleep in front of the TV, and it was showing the Twilight Zone—”
Megan groaned. “Oh, good Lord. You are obsessed. You’re right, there’s something weird going on. I shouldn’t be attracted to you. At all. I think I’m getting better, though. Keep going.”
Jon frowned, but ploughed forward. At least she was no longer pressing the issue. “It was the one with Billy Mumy, the kid from Lost In Space. He’s this little kid who can control everything with his mind—he’s like a god. Everybody has to think happy thoughts or he makes bad things happen to them. Throughout the whole thing, people are either plotting against him, and he’s wishing them away to the cornfield—”
Megan turned back around and propped herself up on her elbow, looking at Jon in the dim light from outside the EconoLodge window. “Cornfield? Happy thoughts? What the hell are you talking about?”
“What I’m saying, is that he had, like, almost omnipotent power—he could make anything, he could do anything. And everything was fucked up. He wasn’t happy, he was always wishing people away, everyone around him was miserable. When it came down to it, he had all the power in the world but he wasn’t really any happier than the townspeople he was terrorizing.”
Megan sighed, Jon following suit. “So who is the terrorized townspeople in this scenario? Me or you?”
Jon shook his head. “I don’t mean it that way. I just—okay, did you see the episode with Burgess Meredith where he’s this bank teller—”
Megan dropped to the bed and rolled back over. She grabbed a pillow and pulled it over her head. “I’m going to sleep.”
“Just one more,” Jon said. “Then I’m done. He’s a bank teller and all he really wants to do is read. Then he’s down in the bank vault when the bomb drops, and the outside world is blown practically to smithereens. At the end, he stumbles across a library, filled with books still in good, readable condition, and—even though the whole world has blown up—he’s happy, because all he wants to do is read. He’s about to get started, when his glasses slide off his face and they break or he steps on them or—anyway, he can’t read without his glasses. He suddenly got exactly what he wanted—a people-free world, where he could do nothing but read, and then he broke his glasses. I don’t want—I don’t want to lose this. You and me. I don’t want to break my glasses. And I’m worried that what the book is doing, if it’s connecting us, that there’s a bad side. Or there can be. And if I’m greedy, or I abuse that, then I lose it, and—you know, I want to go out. And date. And just spend time together. First. Maybe figure out what to do with the book, you know?”
“How would he eat?” Megan mumbled sleepily.
Jon paused. “How would who eat?”
“The guy. With the books. Even if he didn’t break his glasses. Who was going to make him dinner? He couldn’t go to the grocery store. What if he got sick? No doctors.”
Jon nodded. “I guess that’s what I mean. If it’s too good to be true, then maybe—well, maybe we should proceed with caution.”
“I’m too good to be true, huh?”
Jon laid down beside her, putting an arm around her shoulder. “You, more than anything.”
Megan took Jon’s hand, and then tossed it back off her shoulder. “Uh uh. You get in your own bed. If we’re going to do this thing, we’re going to do it right. Separate beds. No hugging me in my skivvies. No spying on me in the shower with X-ray vision. Understand? I don’t really get how you go from watching me in the shower to being a big old prude, but whatever. I’m tired.”
Jon got up off the bed, walking over to his own. “I understand. I’m tired. I need sleep. Maybe you do, too.”
“Mmhhmmm,” Megan murmured. A few moments later, she was snoring.
“I love you,” Jon said to the snoring girl, and it was true. He really did. Then he lay back, listening to Megan’s snores keep in time with his own breathing. Shortly, he fell asleep, too.
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