by Anton Strout
“Well, that’s certainly a start,” I said encouragingly.
My stomach rumbled loud enough for both of us to hear. “Are you hungry? I’m going to cook something.”
She laughed and shook her head. “No, thank you. Given my…condition, I’m not exactly sure how I would manage that anyway.”
“Right,” I said, feeling the fool once again. “Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing, Simon,” she said sternly. “It’s okay.”
It was the first time she had said my name, and a smile crept upon my face.
“It’s terribly sweet of you to offer, though,” she continued. “For your sake, I couldtry to eat but I have a strong suspicion it would end up all over your couch, like Mr. Christos’s drink back at the cafй.”
There was an awkward moment before I took that as my cue to get up off the couch and made my way to the kitchen. I worried about leaving her alone, but I could still keep an eye on her over the counter that divided the two rooms.
I stripped off my gloves and pulled some questionable-looking chicken from the fridge. Living dangerously, I set it in a skillet over low heat while I chopped up a mix of garlic and portabella mushrooms. When I was done, I poured balsamic vinegar over the veggies and threw the mixture into the skillet as well. I started in on a zucchini as I noticed that Irene had moved herself to one of the stools on just the other side of the counter, where she seemed content to watch me work.
“No offense,” she said, “but that seems like more of an effort than I’d expect from a typical bachelor.”
“I used to eat takeout nearly every night. Enough MSG in my system for seven heart attacks, probably.”
“So why did you learn how to cook?” she asked.
“The curse of my life,” I said. “Women. I’ve never had luck with the ladies, but I thought I might keep them around a little longer if I at least learned to impress them with cooking. It didn’t really work, but I did get used to eating well. Even though I’m alone, I don’t feel like going back to my menu-collecting days.”
“Well, I’m impressed,” she said, clapping. “And just what do you call what you’re making?”
I threw the zucchini into my countertop steamer and leaned over the counter conspiratorially. “I call this mealThird Date with Jessica. Better known asLast-Minute-Download Number Sixteen. Not terribly romantic sounding, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sure it worked like a charm,” she said. “I know it would have worked with me.”
I looked at her and her body flickered as she blushed. I suppressed a smile. As usual, I had made quite a mess in such a short time in my kitchen. I set about cleaning up the remnants of my handiwork as my food cooked. I hoped keeping busy would help me avoid any further dorkiness on my part.
“Do you miss it?” she asked, resting her chin on her open palms. “Cooking for two, I mean?”
I turned on the faucet and let the warm water run over my hands while I thought about her question.
“Do I miss having someone around is what you mean,” I said. “I don’t know. I’ve never gone long enough dating someone to really feel the ties of cohabitation. I’ve gotten pretty used to the hermit life. I like my space. It’s set up the way I prefer it, except for all that packing clutter. I’m comfortable in it.”
Irene waggled her finger at me. “That doesn’t really answer my question, now does it, Simon? Shame on you!”
“Okay, okay!” I said with a grin. “I admit it. I like having someone around. I miss the company, the sound of another person’s voice, someone to cook for. But what am I going to do, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
It had been a long time since I had confided the truth about my powers to anyone. I took a deep breath. I held up my soap-covered hands and flexed my fingers at her. “I mean, what am I going to do about these?”
“You mean, what you did with the PEZ dispenser back at the cafй?”
“You watched that?” I asked.
She grinned sheepishly. “I was eaves-watching.”
I nodded. “Well, psychometry doesn’t really make being with someone an option.”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a shake of her head, “but I’m afraid I still don’t quite understand what that is really.”
I washed my hands and slipped my gloves back on as I stepped to her on her side of the counter. I headed for a carton sitting behind the couch, grabbed it by its flaps, and rested it on my lap as I sat on the barstool next to hers.
“What is all that?”
“The remnants of girlfriends past,” I said. I slanted the carton to show her the items within. Scarves, mix tapes, pictures, books, hairbrushes, and even a few pieces of sexy underwear from Victoria’s Sock Drawer or wherever they had been purchased. I moved the box closer so she could see everything, making sure I didn’t let either of my hands touch anything in it. I could feel the electric pull of my power stirring just holding the box, so I put it back down hastily. “Things they left behind or things they gave me. For most normal people? Pleasant memories of their time together. For me? They’ll never be anything more than invasive doorways into other people’s thoughts. Intimacy beyond intimacy. Everyone else’s memories are stored in these, but for me they’re pain in its purest form.”
“Why do you keep them then?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Look around, I’m a packrat, maybe that’s it. Or maybe I have trouble letting go because in some sick way I see it as some sort of penance for being cursed with this power.”
“But surely you must take some consolation in helping others with your gift!” she said.
Before I had a chance to answer, the smell of garlic overpowered me and I ran back around the counter to save my dinner from the brink of burning ruin.
“Yeah,” I said once things were back in control. “For most of my life, my ability has been treated as nothing more than a magic act or something to laugh over. Now I’m finally able to use it to some good end other than my own selfish needs and I like it. I can deal with all that. What Ican’t deal with is how it affects my personal life, especially dating. I don’t want to be in the head of someone I’m involved with. It’s…it’s devastating. Do you know what it’s like to see someone you’re dating having sex with another person?
“If that isn’t some heavy strangely homoerotic shit to deal with, I’d like to know what is. And everything in that box is a trigger for visions like that. Just like anyone who gets close to me is.”
To help the weakening sensation pass, I pushed past the disorientation and plated my food, setting the still sizzling skillet back on the stove. It felt exhausting to finally articulate out loud what had been rolling around in my head unspoken for months, but liberating, too.
“At least you can touchsomething,” Irene said without a hint of sympathy.
There was awkward silence for a moment, but then we both burst out laughing. I felt a little embarrassed about how whiny I must have sounded. Still, it lightened the dark mood I was setting with my “poor me” ramblings. Suddenly I felt in better spirits. To tease her, I cut myself a nice, big juicy piece of chicken with several mushrooms piled high on top of it. I popped the whole thing in my mouth and chewed with slow, blissful satisfaction. “Too bad you can’t taste. Delicious!”
Irene feigned pouting and stormed back to the couch. The whole act was so cute that I stole another discrete opportunity to check her out once again. She might be dead, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t hot. I felt no shame in thinking that this time. The nervousness of taking the wayward ghost into my home melted away. I strongly suspected that the reason I got along with her was because there was absolutely no chance of getting in Irene’s pants or of setting off my powers by touching her. Touching was something we couldn’t do, no matter what that pottery-spinning movie might have tried to convince me of.
While I finished eating dinner, Irene seemed content to poke through my collection of books. The shelves towered well above her normal re
ach, but she rose up in the air toward several books that caught her eye without even noticing she was floating.
The odd mix of my collection was not overly reflective of my own tastes, and I worried what she might think when she saw such eclectic combos asCurious George sitting next toThe Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. Some were simply books that had caught my fancy and others I meant to redistribute to their original owners or antiquarian book dealers. I cleared my throat.
“I can show you where you’ll be staying,” I said, “if you like.”
“I’d like that,” she said with a nod, and drifted back down to the floor. I put my dishes in the sink as she headed toward the rear hallway.
“Irene…” I began, but panicked when I saw her phase through the first door on her left.
“Is this my ro-” She was cut off as she vanished through the door.
It was the one door I didn’t want her or anyone to enter, the one door I kept locked. Shit. I ran for my jacket hanging over the back of the couch, fished out my keys, and dashed down the hall.
“Irene!” I yelled through the door. “Hold on.”
I could hear her gasp on the other side as I fumbled my keys with nervously shaking hands. When I got the door open, Irene was standing stone still, giving off a soft luminescence that I hadn’t noticed until I saw her in stark contrast to the darkness of the room. I flicked on the light and the blinding whiteness of the room sprang to life.
“What in heaven’s name…?” she gasped.
“Welcome to the White Room,” I said. Compared to the rest of my apartment, the room looked completely out of place.
Irene turned to me apprehensively. “Would you care to elaborate on this?” she asked hesitantly. “It’s all a bit…extreme, don’t you think?”
“It’s not as crazy as it looks,” I said. I wished I could undo the past few minutes. If only I had been faster, if only I could have kept her away. I felt defensive, in panic mode. “No one is ever supposed to see this room! That’s why I keep itlocked. I didn’t even think about you passing right through the door.”
“For heaven’s sake, Simon. Sit yourself down.” Irene moved closer to me and there was compassion in those eyes. With a slightly clearer head, I shuffled to the chair in the center of the room before I collapsed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that no one’s ever been in here. No one. Of all people, though, I suppose I’m lucky it was you. There’s no danger of tainting the space since you can’t really touch anything.”
Irene kneeled before me. Her own concerns were forgotten if only for a moment. It was terribly ego-stroking and a little bit thrilling to be the center of her attention. But in the White Room, it was an uncomfortable sensation, and I fought the urge to leap out of my chair and run to the safety of another room.
“What is all this?” Irene asked again.
I took a deep breath and choked down my discomfort. “Superman has his Fortress of Solitude. Batman has his Bat Cave. I have this.”
“Oh God,” she said with a look of half-joking horror. “You think you’re a superhero!”
I laughed and shook my head. “No, not at all. I’m not delusional, I swear. But those characters, fictional though they are, have one thing in common. A place to hang their cape, a secret place away from the outside world where they feel truly themselves…truly safe. This is it for me-or as close as it gets. This is my safety room. This is where I come when I fear my abilities.”
The look on Irene’s face only needed to have a light bulb coming to life over her head to complete it. “This is your inner sanctum. Your holy place.”
I nodded. She actually got it and I could have kissed her.
“It’s rather stark,” she said. “Why does it look like it was designed after heaven’s waiting room?”
“Everything else in this apartment is potentially loaded with other people’s thoughts,” I said. “That box by the front door was a prime example. I need a place that is clean of any potential triggers. A place I can retreat to, where I know I’m in control.”
She had stopped staring and started checking out the contents of the room. “And all this furniture…?”
“Straight from the manufacturer,” I said. The slightest twinge of pride tugged at my heart. “I know it seems obsessive, but given the nature of my power, I really had to go out of my way to get items that were least likely to trigger an episode. Each piece of furniture is brand new, never touched except by the machines that crafted their basic components. I even picked them up direct from the warehouse myself because I didn’t want deliverymen handling them. I assembled them and finished the job using the same coat of white on everything in the room. Fresh paint mixed up right in the store seems to dull the psychic impressions most.”
Irene walked around the room. Her footsteps made no sound whatsoever.
“You know,” she said with a grin, “psychologists would have a field day with your disorder.”
“This chair,” I continued, ignoring her comment. “It’s from a store in the Bowery. It had been sitting among the back stock for years, but it was just what I had been looking for-something new, unused, and relatively untouched for a long period of time. You should have seen how absolutely hideous it was before I painted and recushioned it.”
“Aren’t you a regular albino Martha Stewart!” she said and attempted to touch my face with the palm of her hand. I felt a mild sensation, like the shock from shag carpeting. This time, however, the small burst of energy wasn’t the same as before. This one felt mildly pleasurable and far less jarring. I let the moment stretch out as long as I could before I felt self-conscious. I stood and moved toward the door.
“I should probably show you your room now,” I said. “Your right room, that is.”
I laughed, hating how forced it sounded. I put on my best stern face and pointed my finger. “Youfollowme this time.”
I felt like a total dork. Why was I rambling around her?I am notfalling for her, I told myself.Dead girl walking.
As I debated the finer points of what branch of necroeroticism this would fall under, I locked the door behind us. I pocketed the keys as I felt a crackle of electricity on my arm. Irene’s hand was on it, sending another shiver through my body, one I was sure had nothing to do with the simple shock.
“Are you going to be all right, Simon?” she asked.
I nodded. “I will be. Thanks. But listen…”
She waited silently as I collected my thoughts.
“You can’t tell anyone about the White Room,” I continued. “Please. I hate even having to mention it, but it’s extremely important to me.”
“You don’t have to worry,” she said. Her voice sounded reassuring, but then she smirked. “Why would I tell anyone about that, my intrepid young gumshoe, when there are all those juicy homoerotic visions of yours to tell your fellow employees about?”
She floated off, laughing, and in that moment, I desperately wished that Irene were alive. Not because of my strange attraction to her, or that she was someone I could picture myself dating, but because it would be easier to strangle her smart ass that way.
11
Since I wasn’t used to having guests in my loft, I spent the rest of my night staring at my ceiling, tossing, turning, and wondering if Irene was also lying awake off in my guest room. Exhaustion eventually washed over me, though, and before I knew it, I awoke to the shrill cry of the alarm going off. I crept to the open door of the guest room, where I could make out the curled-up shape of Irene. I wasn’t sure what the cosmic rules were concerning the sleeping habits of ghosts, but Irene was resting peacefully on top of the sheets, hovering over them slightly. I didn’t have the heart to wake her before I left. What was she going to do with herself if I did wake her anyway? Float around the office until I had figured out what exactly to do with her? She was better off hidden here in my apartment.
When I caught up with Connor over coffee at the Lovecraft, I purposefully neglected telling him that Ire
ne had stayed at my apartment, even though the subject of Irene andher apartment were on the table.
We jumped a cab on Eleventh Street and rode uptown to Columbus Circle. Although Irene’s building was in the Seventies, we got out near Trump’s latest eyesore and walked along the tree-lined length of Central Park West until we came across her building, which was a far better architectural wonder. The Westmore looked as if it were straight out of a Tim Burton movie. Gothic-era gargoyles with their mouths agape laughed at some sinister secret.
We entered the Westmore’s red and gold lobby and were confronted with an elderly doorman whose dusty jacket looked like it had seen better days. A button was missing from the front of it, and judging by the size of his pot belly, I could imagine it had flown across the room whenever it had popped. We didn’t have a game plan for getting past him, but Connor patted me on the back.
“All yours, kid,” he said, and leaned against the wall with his arms folded.
I stepped forward to the tiny counter the man stood behind. His hand moved automatically for the house phone.
“Whose apartment may I ring for you, sir?”
“Irene Blatt, please,” I said. It killed me just saying her last name.
A look crossed the old man’s face and he lowered the phone back to its cradle. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure if Ms. Blatt is in right now.”
Sincewe knew that the lady of the house was dead, andI knew her spirit was holed up in my apartment, I was pretty sure that Irene wouldn’t be answering her phone.
Connor stepped up to the doorman’s desk and nudged me out of the way.
“Excuse us a moment, won’t you, Simon?” he said. I moved away from the reception area, and Connor lowered his voice to the point where I could no longer hear. Whether he used some form of mind trick or simply slipped the codger a hundred, I didn’t know, but suddenly the doorman was hurrying us into one of the mahogany-lined elevators. He pressed the button, tipped his hat, and we were on our way.
