The Headshrinker's Dilemma

Chapter Eleven

There was very little to say. Dale stood in the apartment with the Jamaican girl. Everything was still. Silent. The apartment itself seemed to be getting hotter. Stress did that he had heard. You know, the mix of anxiety and nerves. Dale was sure that he had read somewhere about such things raising your blood pressure. As a matter of fact, his head was throbbing, something like a headache was close by. But who could blame him? Look at what his life had become: he was a wanted man, he had killed people, hurt several, and now he just found out that he’s some death angel or whatever you would call it for some person or whatever the f**k she was… There was truly still a lot of unanswered questions. However, the answers that he had already received was nowhere close to his liking. Cashier girl. He couldn’t help but lament over what the Jamaican girl had told him. Cashier girl. He had to kill her. That was the worst of it. But even before that, his life was ruined. There was no coming back from what he had done. A prison sentence was his fate. That or being on the run for the rest of his life. Maybe, just maybe, if he got caught he would be handed over to some secret government agency for them to run tests on him to figure out how his powers worked. That would be better than prison, he thought. Whatever the outcome, there was nothing but bleakness to look forward to, different hues and shades of bleakness.

“Here,” the Jamaican girl came over with a glass of something liquid and white in her hand offering it to him.

Dale turned his nose up at it almost immediately. It wasn’t milk. Dale knew that

immediately. There was a thickness to it and a horribly foul stench.

“Nah… No, thank you –”

“Take it,” she said, her voice hard and deliberate. “This will calm you and help you get some

focus.”

Dale was at a loss for words. Calm him? Get some focus? There was no calming him. He

had been given a power that he never wanted, one that wasn’t any good, it didn’t come with any shiny costume or armor, there was nothing, no cape, no anything that made having this power – the power to shrink heads – worthwhile. Instead, everything was just a loathsome and laborious coursing of events that was inevitably going to lead him to just a big dead end.

“Trust me,” she added.

And that was the last straw.

“Trust you?” he started. “Trust you? You – You want me to trust you? Why – Why would I ever do that?

The Jamaican girl eyed him curiously. Her eyes were slits, barely able to be seen. The look gave her a mystical visage, almost other worldly and extremely serpent-like; there was a kind of depth to them, dubious in nature, but profound. Dale knew that she knew more than she had told him, she had hinted to as much. Even her identity was something that she hung over his head, threatening that it was far too great for her to bestow upon him. For a second he wondered how true that actually was. But then he remembered his powers and anything that used to make sense in this world, no longer did. There was truly a such thing as super powers – because he had one – and if there was a such thing as those then there had to be a such thing as the supernatural, by which maybe some of those super powers came to be.

“You doubt me…” she said in a low hum that felt as if it vibrated the room.

Dale was suddenly afraid. His body shivered some, then shook, he couldn’t control himself. There was something in her gait – the way she walked about and almost circled him, it was more of semi-circle. Her path and pacing was rhythmic. Dale picked up on it immediately. It was the mathematician in him, noticing patterns, observable measures; the Jamaican girl was doing something – even her voice, the inflection in her voice, all of it. Dale put his eyes on her to study her more. Her mouth was moving, it was slight but he could see it. What the f**k? he thought. But then he realized that he had been standing still the whole time. Why? He tried to move but couldn’t. Th’f**k? He was honestly moving his legs – in his mind – willing himself – but nothing was happening.

Suddenly, she stopped. Dale tried to move again. Nothing. The Jamaican girl was standing a few feet in front him, her stance wide and her shoulders broad and strong. She eyed him hard, those slits seeming to burrow through him. He tried to look away, to turn his head, to do anything but look at her because he knew somehow that’s what she wanted him to do, needed him to do. For some reason, he looked down at his hand: the drink was still in his hand. Something about the drink frightened him… He said ‘no’ but nothing came out of his mouth. What the…? Somehow he was stuck, frozen, he tried with all his might to do something – speak or move – something, anything, but it was as if he was stuck inside of himself. And then…

The Jamaican girl began to move forward. Her walk was slow. Slithery. It was like she was moving across the room towards him like a snail would, a slug. She stopped a few inches away from him. He looked at her – he had no choice – but now he wanted to. He wanted to see what she was about to do to him.

A devilish grin formed: “Now, like I said, drink. To calm yourself.”

And the girl slowly lifted her left hand which was opposite his right and as she did that, his arm raised with hers. She mimicked holding a drink in her hand and as she got to her mouth, she stopped. Every motion and movement that she had done, Dale had also. The drink of white liquid was now to his mouth. The Jamaican girl paused. She held the position, eyeing him. Again, she mumbled some words and strangely enough, Dale found himself mumbling them to – he had no idea what the hell he was saying but he still did it, he still mouthed the words – and then as she pretended to drink the from her imaginary glass, Dale really drank from his. The milky white liquid was thick like chalk but slimy. He tried to imagine what it could be, his taste buds couldn’t place it. The Jamaican girl held her position in pretending to drink from her imaginary glass until Dale’s drink was all gone. When she swallowed hard, he did as well.

“Better?” she asked.

Dale wanted to reply in the negative but he couldn’t. Something wouldn’t let him but also, he did feel better. There was something inside of him that had suddenly made him feel lighter. He tried to place it – had she drugged him? He didn’t feel drugged. He just felt unburdened. He wanted to ask her what she had done? What had she given him? But already knew that his faculties no longer belonged to him. He had tried to move again, but couldn’t.

“I know that you are – you have to be,” she answered her own question.

The Jamaican girl tossed the pretend glass to the side, Dale threw his real one. It smashed hard against the floor somewhere.

“You doubt all of this but you won’t forever,” she said.

And then she raised her arm, extending her arm out with palms facing Dale and when he blinked they were both suddenly was pressed firmly against the wall, the Jamaican girl extremely close on him – Dale didn’t know what had just happened. No one could move that fast and no one could make someone move from one spot to the other… No one. But she had. In a blink of an eye. The Jamaican girl nestled in to him, putting her nose into the cleft of his shoulder. Dale still couldn’t move, but could feel his captor opening her mouth… Her tongue fell on his neck and then she licked slowly, running her tongue up and down and all around his neck. Dale tried to resist the sensation of it but her touch and his inability to stop it was arousing. She continued, going over to the other side. He wanted her to stop but then again, he didn’t.

“You want me to stop?”

It was as if she was reading his mind. No. It was as if she was inside of him, maybe was him. He could feel her now, inside of him – his mind – and then she grabbed him! Dale jerked – or so he thought he did.

“I chose you for a reason, Dale… I have always watched you… I have always waited for you. The loner. So smart and so secluded. I have watched you… Gifted but incredibly naïve and insecure. Everything that I needed you to be to receive my gift. But then I just had to wait for you to do one thing… Just one thing to allow me to bless you with it… Just one thing. Do you know what that one thing was Dale? Do you?”

Dale searched his mind for it. He tried to make this all make sense for himself. But it escaped him, there was nothing logical about what was taking place right now. So many things had happened that should have been impossible – beginning with his ability and power to shrink heads. But it all was true and that meant she was real, whatever she was.

“I – I – I don’t know,” Dale answered her.

She looked at him – it was a pitiful look, as if she felt sorry for him. Her eyes, the way they glared, accusatory, made him mad. He wanted to strike back out against her some way, make her feel bad about what she had done to him. But he knew that all of that was futile. The Jamaican girl was in control, she was more than he was, whatever that happened to be: demon? God? goddess? Devil? f**k, if he knew.

“I know you don’t. That’s the problem with all of you people, so much potential but so limited because of your inability to actually see and hear and touch and taste and smell – it all is led by your wants and desires which never let you really experience life… And He actually values you all. Pathetic.”

She released him from whatever hold she had on him. Dale crashed the floor, his breath was suddenly shot and he inhaled gasps trying to draw in more air and more quickly.

“Relax yourself… That’s just the effects of the ritual on you. It will pass,” the Jamaican girl said plainly.

Dale did as she said. He let his shoulders fall and his body go loose as possible. He didn’t focus on breathing or not being able to. Rather, he closed his eyes and just let go, he just accepted whatever was to come next. It felt good. Nice. Peaceful. He wondered why he ever tried – this was the best part of life, letting go, there was nothing to control anyway, all of it was illusive, like fighting against the wind, punches and kicks against a force that is nothingness.

“That’s better,” she said. “Much better.”

Dale opened his eyes. The Jamaican girl was standing a little ways off from him, staring at him, under-eyed. Dale got the sense that she knew what he was feeling, maybe even thinking.

“I do,” she answered. “Both. That’s what my little concoction and ritual was all about. Now, I am as much you as you are you – I see and hear what you do – I taste, smell, and feel what you do.”

“Who are you?” Dale cried.

The Jamaican girl showed know compassion for him. Her eyes seem to grow darker and with it her stature seemed to enlarge. This wasn’t the same woman that had answered the door for him when he first came to see Felicia – God, he wished, he had never come. He should have ran for it, left town, there were no answers for him, nothing good anyway… But above all things, his stubbornness wouldn’t let him. Now, he was stuck. And she was inside of him – he didn’t know how – he didn’t know anything anymore.

“I want to be there when you finish this. And you will. Or else…”

The Jamaican girl made a move: she eased her hands to her neck, close but not touching and then moved her hands in a motion that made it look like she was choking herself – Dale did the same but his hands actually went around his neck and he began to choke himself…