“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 reach, 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.”