He was naked beneath the covers. He must have been naked when she was doing whatever she did to him. She smiled and patted his hand in a motherly fashion.

“You Americans are so silly with your modesty. Don’t worry. I have not done anything with your body. Not yet!” With that she walked out of the room smirking and closed the door behind her. He instantly knew there were clothes for him in the top drawer of the dresser. He knew like he had known her name without a single word spoken. She’s in my fucking head again! Oh. My. God!

* * * *

CHAPTER 4

They began sitting cross-legged, face to face. Aaron couldn’t think of anything but Michelle. She wore a slip of a white dress, very short, nothing more than a nightie. As she sat there, legs splayed wide, he appreciated every detail and contour of her inner thighs and skimpy white underwear. Utterly impossible to concentrate on anything she said.

“Please close your eyes!” she snapped at him with a knowing smirk on her face. “Picture me in your mind.”

Easy.

Sitting there, the curves of her breasts and thighs calling to him, her devious little smile promised sex––lots of sex. Gradually his mind’s eye view of her changed. Not that the picture was different per se, but now he sensed something more. This beautiful hundred pound kitten exuded a power, a force of personality like a massive lioness. He caught her amusement. Not mocking him, it was more the pleasure one derives from watching a child walk for the first time.

He knew she viewed him as child-like, and this test of their connectivity was the equivalent of baby steps. He hoped he didn’t botch it. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself.

He concentrated further on the woman who was really a lioness in human skin, and delved into her psyche. He sensed her attraction to him, her desire to both fuck and bite him at the same time. In the middle of this desire was a vague memory of another time, a very far away time. Shadows of another man, but not exactly a man. The shadows mixed together in a blend of longing, desire, and hatred. There was a sense of violence, extreme violence, and sex.

Suddenly his mind slammed into a blank wall. He could perceive no emotion, no thought, only the image of Michelle accompanied by her powerful predatory nature held tightly under her iron control. He wondered what would happened if she lost control.

He heard her voice, but not with his ears. The sensation was so much more, replete with intent, an irresistible force of command. <Imagine yourself, your mind, sealed within a steel box. Is like a vault. Picture your mind enclosed within a vault.>

He did as she instructed, and instantly recognized a closure, a blocked layer of protection closing his mind off from the world around him.

<Very good. Is easy for you.> She spoke again directly in his mind, and he registered her approval and relief at his ability to do this the first time, without difficulty.

It occurred to him that if he was blocked, how could he still hear her in his mind? Why wasn’t she blocked out? A sick feeling hit his gut as he began to suspect that maybe he could not attain any privacy. Would he be doomed to a life where his every thought, no matter how petty and disgusting, his every sin was laid bare for her perusal? Who could live with such a burden? Could any man live every moment of every day with perfect thoughts? He worked himself into a panic. In his distress, his neat little mental vault failed completely.

“Michelle, how can I still hear you if I’m inside my vault?”

“Aaron, ne t’inquiet pas, you were closed to me, your mind blocked.”

He interrupted, “But ...”

She spoke over the top of him. “But I can send to you. Don’t worry. Is always this way. I can send to you always. You can send to me always.” She sent him a calm feeling, letting him know she approved of him without reservation. He felt that same sense that everything was gonna be okay. It seemed to help. He relaxed and gradually became embarrassed over his panic attack.

She spoke again into his mind. <Try to reach me and read my thoughts. You will see how it is when we are blocked. You cannot read me when I choose to be private. Is the same with you.>

He strained so hard, he found himself physically leaning towards her as he flowed down through their connection. He hit a solid blank wall where her mind should have been. Nothing. Not a damn thing. He couldn’t read one nuance of meaning from her apart from the fact she sat there smirking at him, pleased. He continued to hit her blank wall, and so he pushed harder, concentrating on reaching with all his intensity. His mind washed over and around Michelle, engulfing her, but not finding a way in. He kept reaching out until he sensed others in the surrounding residences. Aaron touched on an older man, someone in his sixties whose mind was hazy with alcohol from the six pack of Bud Light he drank while camped in front of the TV. The old man’s mind was filled with speculations of football statistics and possible outcomes for the game.

As soon as Aaron noticed the man’s mind, he also became aware of the woman who slept in the bedroom of the same apartment a few yards away. Her mind was deeply shrouded in dreams, a cloudy world of images and feelings, something about her sister and her husband, the man watching football. She dreamt of the vague details of an illicit affair between her husband and her younger, more attractive, sister. Her emotions were in turmoil over the dream, a frenzied mix of anger, resentment, jealousy, and self-loathing for her inability to retain her husband’s attention and affections. She writhed in anxiety, fighting with her own sheets and blankets.

Aaron had enough of this and reached out in other directions, seeking what else he might encounter. Completely absorbed in his psychic scanning, he had lost focus on Michelle and his internal privacy block.

He touched on a teenage girl who chatted online with her boyfriend. She was typing frantically on her laptop, trying to justify her actions to her boyfriend. She had gone to a party with one of her girlfriends, drank too much, and ended up in the bedroom with another guy. She didn’t want her boyfriend to know how far things had actually gone.

Michelle snatched his attention away from his psionic ramblings with a psychic push. Her mind shoved his mind, a very disorientating experience. He grabbed for something, reaching out with his hands to stabilize himself on the carpet. He felt off balance, dizzy, but she hadn’t touched him physically at all.

In the moment of her psychic push, Michelle transmitted flashes of surprise, anger, and envy for a split second before slipping back behind the blank wall of her vault. He remembered himself and refocused on his own mental vault, reestablishing his privacy.

She stood up abruptly. “You were reading their minds, oui?” She gave him a raised eyebrow, looking down on him. “You are better at this game than I thought. Enough practice for tonight.”

He realized he had transmitted his encounters with the neighbors directly to her. He was would have to learn to multitask, to maintain his mental vault while scanning others nearby. He suspected it might be like trying to chew gum, pat your head, and rub your belly all at once. Not impossible, but tricky.

“Why didn’t you tell me I could do that?”

Her irritation leaked through their emotional ties, her eyes flashed in anger. “I did not …”

“You didn’t know?” He spoke over the top of her when he realized the truth. His ability was unique.

“Non,” she snapped curtly.

He swelled with pride, a childish feeling of superiority and wonder at this magnificent new existence. He speculated about what new experiences, as yet undiscovered, this life might hold for him.

“I see the auras, but I cannot read minds apart from yours.” She flashed her eyes again, a demand for submission. He knew she was testing to see if he would take the bait and rise up, only to be slapped down. He wasn’t adversarial or proud, nor foolish enough to be baited into a challenge. He looked down away from her in the universal sign of submission. He stayed seated while she stared down on him, standing over him like a master ready to whip her slave for taking undue liberties.

After a moment of glaring without catching a rise out of him, Michelle softened. “You have every right to be intrigued. Pourquoi est-ce que je dois être celui avec le gamin spécial?”

He barely understood her. She had said something about being stuck with the special boy. Special like the kids on the short bus.

She reached out her hand to pull him up. “The aura tells me of moods and personalities. I knew things from your aura the night we met. I knew those men were police corrompue, and they would create beaucoup de problèmes, but I did not know they would shoot you. I cannot read minds, or see the future.” She admitted this apologetically as he stood up to face her.

“No more conflict.” With this she returned to the role of benevolent master she had assumed upon his awakening. Michelle placed her hands on his head, holding him straight, directing his eyes into her gaze. She restarted her instruction with the basics of mesmerizing people through direct eye contact and subtle commands.

“It is magnétisme animal. Is natural we attract the prey. We are predators.” She stared unblinking, drawing him in with those entrancing vivid green eyes. He felt her looking down into his soul. She owned him with nothing more than her gaze. She broke the eye contact, yet again leaving him with a feeling of child-like inadequacy.

She spoke reassuringly, “You will see tonight. Women will come to you all the time. They are easy prey.” She spoke as though it was a normal, everyday thing to hunt people like animals in the wild.

“When feeding, there is a chemical, une médicament puissant. Is like strong drugs.” She opened her mouth inhumanly wide. Her jaw unhinged like some kind of beast that would swallow him whole. She pointed at her elongated canines tapering to razor sharp little points. He took a step back out of her reach, fear and morbid fascination dueling to keep him in place.

“You mean like the venom of a snake?” He managed to sputter out a nervous question.

She snapped her mouth shut as if it had never happened. “Exactement. This médicament heals the bite marks. They do not bleed when we finish.” She expanded further, “And the bite gives much pleasure.”