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Author's Notes: This story got kinda tedious and preachy on me but I decided to put it out any way. I'm sure I won't get any feedback but I guess that's o.k. (sniff, sniff)
Disclaimer: The characters portrayed in this fan fiction belong to NBC and any other copyright holders. No infringement is intended.
Benign
by Keeper March
There are forces afoot and overhead that know more than we can ever imagine. They grasp more than we can ever comprehend. Words have not been invented yet that can articulate the things we do know, much less the things we don't. Omnipotent is one of these almost-words. You can say the word, you can spell it with squiggles and dashes, but you cannot wrap your brain around its full complexity. Even the truly, truly gifted have only a miniscule measure of its meaning, a drop in the ocean compared to its full value. I thought I was a genius. I am probably the smartest man on the planet. But I am nothing. Nothing against the weight of the almighty.
*****
The mind of a god. The powers of the unlimited. I suppose these seem like wonderful things. In a way they are but in a larger way they are a burden. If I was average I could do average things. If I were human I could have humanity. I could have sympathy for weakness. But I'm not and I don't. I'm not human and as much as I complain about my circumstances, I would
never hope to be. Not really. I'm just making a sad metaphor. I am, oh, how to describe to you what I am? I have seen the beginnings of planets and the deaths of stars. I can't put things into time because your time is arbitrary to me. I was here before you invented time. I have watched, at times more closely and with more interest than others, and I have seen everything you do. I am not your god, though. Your god, or should I say it GOD (and therefore make the jackass that's writing this spell it that way), is one facet of the whole that I help make up. Your GOD is benign.
I am not. Not in the way that you suppose your GOD is. I must say the Greeks and the Romans had it a little bit closer than you Judeo-Christians. Monotheism works in theory but there are just too many conflicting winds of fate to leave it up to one power or even two. Rest assured, though, there is an infinite numbers of us. We play with you, we watch you, we even get a
little bit invested in you (See your GOD, boy did he get invested).
We don't just do it for sport. We do it for countless reasons. Even if I laid them all down for you, you wouldn't get them. Just know that we have a hand in everything you do. This next incident that's about to be recounted is probably a greater hand than I should have taken but I'll let some kid with cancer win the lottery or something. You humans have this crazy obsession with the lottery. By the way, if you see Italics, it's me. The jackass that's writing this decided to wise up and separate my text so you'll know.
*****
Taxing. That's really the only way to describe pretends. Taxing and rewarding. The rewards are great but make no mistake about it; the whole process from start to finish is exhausting. There are moments in every pretend where something can go completely awry, totally and insidiously wrong. But I have to keep doing them. I have to keep helping people. I guess after all the crap in my life, helping someone else is the only way I've come up with to heal. I need to be a do-gooder. Ohh, I love that part. He NEEDS to be a do-gooder. What bullshit. He needs to clip out all those newspaper articles on people he's saved. They never show you that part, do they? They never show you his conceit. And yeah, I'm gonna interject as often as I want so you can catch up and stop bitching or you can stop reading.
After what the Centre did to me, I have to get out there and help people. I can't let that place destroy the good that's left inside of me like it's almost done to Miss Parker.
Yeah, he's such a sweetheart. Ever notice how he deliberately holds things over Miller's head? I mean, Miss Parker. You ever wonder why her daddy didn't let her use her first name? I wouldn't either once I found out my id was named after my wife's spring fling. Not that Parker's not a barrel full of bad vibes herself. I'm totally overriding Jarod's monologue which is nothing but a sob story about how he's the white knight and the Centre is his dragon to slay. He does this quite often and, man, is it
tedious.
Then, it hits me. I like Jarod, I really do. Underneath the simpering is a pretty complex person (on the human scale) who really did have the misfortune of having a shitty childhood (chalk that one up to another Omni who put him there then got bored with him.) But all his hemming and hawing and I want to scream. I want to throw it in his face. And that's how it starts. I decide to take Jarod on a little ride through his own morality.
From this point on, I'll try to interject less. But no promises.
I'm packing up for my next pretend when I get a knock at the door. I know it's not the Centre (I mean, they knocked) so I figure it's one of the friends I met on this pretend wishing me goodbye. I roll back the steel door and standing before me is a blond guy I don't recognize.
"Can I help you?" I ask.
"Nope, Jarod, you can't really help me," he says as he shrugs his way into my loft. He's about my height or taller (real quick, I'm definitely taller. I get to choose my body. You think I wouldn't choose a prime specimen. About his height, my ass) and he walks in like we know each other. Memories of Alex and other Centre personnel flash through my head."I'm not from the Centre," he says as he continues to survey my accommodations.
At an absolute loss, I ask, "Do I know you?"
"No, not really. But I know you. I know all about your pretends and your past and your ego."
"My ego?" (Notice he picks up on the ego. Not the past, which is what one would expect him to jump at but the ego.)
"Yes Jarod, that little voice inside of you that makes you crisscross the country doing good deeds, the Johnny Appleseed of philanthropy. It's a nice cover for your conceit."
"I don't know who you are and I don't know what you're talking about but I think it's time you left."
"Not so fast, hoss. You like to play games with people. You and I are gonna play a game."
"I'm not into games and?"
"Stop right there. Tell me about you and Miller."
"How do you know Miss Parker's first name. You are from the Centre. I'm not telling you anything." I move towards the door but he slams it shut with a wave of his hand. He's got telekinetic powers. He has to be from the Centre.
"I told you I'm not from the Centre. I just want to have a conversation with you. Now tell me about Miss Parker."
I'm wary of him but for some reason I feel like it's okay to tell him. One of the benefits of being an Omni is that you put people at ease real quickly. "I worry about her. We were best friends once. I miss her friendship."
"Miss anything else about her?" he interrupts as he fingers some papers on my desk.
"What do you mean?"
"I know you were each other's firsts. Tucked away in one of the air vents. You were what, eighteen? You gave Angelo a box of Cracker Jacks and kept him occupied while you?" He just smirked at me.
"Who told you that? She doesn't even remember that. I tried to talk to her about it and she just looked at me with absolute amazement." I give an extended pause "No, it meant nothing to her."
"I didn't ask what it meant to her. I asked what it meant to you," he said as he finally settled down onto the couch. "Do you ever dream about it? Dream about her?"
"No." I'm pretty sure it came out too harsh. I take a deep breath. "No."
Quieter this time, with more conviction."Okay. You've never done anything to knowingly harm someone else have you?"
"Not knowingly." That's the truth. I have never knowingly harmed another person who didn't deserve it. (Always that merit clause!)
"And you don't think you've ever crossed the line? That maybe people sometimes just make mistakes. That judge, jury, and executioner is a too weighty a role for you?"
"I help people that need help. I go after the bad guy."
"Therefore you're a good guy."
"Right," I say with a smile.
"And you've never stumbled?"
"I'm not perfect but I try to do the right thing."
"That's good to hear," he says with a faint smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. Suddenly it occurs to me that I'm having this deep, personal conversation with a total stranger whose name I don't even know.
"Who are you?"
"I was waiting for that. I'm nothing and everything."
"A name would be sufficient"
"Names are so human. I'm more interested in you. What if Parker walked through that door right now?"
"I'd run," I reply without thinking. It sounds cowardly but my level of self-preservation is higher than my pride.
"It's not cowardly. It's reality. But what if I said she wasn't coming to take you back? What if I said she was here to get to the bottom of your relationship?"
"I wouldn't believe you. She wouldn't be real."
"She'd be real alright. She'd be flesh and bone real." With that the door opened and Parker was there. My first instinct was to indeed run. He, the, whatever the hell it is, got off the couch in less time than it takes to blink. Wordlessly and with such speed that I couldn't trace it, he had me tied down to a chair in the center of the room. "That's to prevent you from running," he said.
"Miss Parker, please come in."
"What the hell is this?" she asked with a scowl. This is definitely Parker. She walks in and sees me tied to the chair and strolls over to me, very cat-that-ate-the-canary.
"My birthday isn't until January. But I just got the sweetest present a girl could receive. This girl anyway."
"He's not for you, at least not like that. I want to ask you a few things Miller."
Suddenly the storm clouds in Parker's eyes flare up and she punches me on the shoulder. Hard.
"Did you tell him my name?"
"No, no," is all I can sputter out a first. "He just knew it."
"Sorry, Parker," the thing says. "I forgot how touchy you are about that. Who'd you lose your virtue to?"
Parker just stares at him a second, incredulous that the first thing out of a complete stranger's mouth is how she was deflowered.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"No, Jarod and I have a little bet riding on it. He says it was to Raines and I think you're still untouched."
She laughs at the absurdity and then glares at both of us in turn. For some ungodly reason she too trusts him and with a resigned sigh mutters, "Foster Witt, roommate's brother, 19."
"While Foster was a lousy lay and should be almost memorable in that regard, he wasn't your first."
"I think I'd know my first a little better than you. And if it wasn't Fos, than who was it?"
"Jarod," he replies and even I wince.
"Jarod," she says with a smirk, which even though I know she's within her right, still stings. "I've never had sex with Ratboy."
"You don't remember in the air vents. He made a pallet for the two of you. It was kinda awkward since you were both new to the whole thing but he did make sure that you came. Nice touch for a first-timer."
She looks at me again. "That is bullshit!" She's near hysterical and I don't blame her. "We've never had sex, have we Jarod?"
I look away from her because she could always read my eyes and also because if she hits me, I would kind of like to be surprised by the blow. A little masochistic of me but I just think it would be better for her violence to take me off-guard.
"You'd better answer the woman."
I look up at her then, "Yes."
She looks at me, knows that I'm not lying and tries to absorb the information.
"When?"
"I was eighteen, you were seventeen. I, how the hell can you not remember it?" I nearly scream at her.
"I don't know, I? This better not be one of your tricks."
"It's not a trick, Parker," the stranger says quietly. "It happened and you don't remember any of it. But I'll make it up to you."
With that he waved one of his hands over Parker's eyes and stepped back in to the shadows. Parker snapped her lids shut and after a few minutes, opened her eyes and began to blink.
"Parker?" I asked. "Parker are you okay?"
"Jarod?"
"Yeah?"
"Jarod, why are you tied up? Where are we?"
"We're in a warehouse I've been staying at on one of my pretends. There's someone here. I don't know who he is."
"I don't see anyone," she says as she steps closer to me and runs a hand down my face.
"Parker, stop. He's here and he's watching."
"You're just paranoid because of the Centre. But we've finally done it. We've finally gotten out. Oh Jarod," she says as she begins to kiss my check. I know I shouldn't but I lean into her embrace for just a second before I pull away.
"Parker, you've got to stop. You're not yourself. He's done something to you. Parker, stop," I say as she continues to run her hands over my face and fingers my shirt collar. And damn myself if I don't like it.
"Jarod," she whispers as she takes a seat on my lap, "it's me. It's Miller." And looking into her eyes, I want to believe her. She plants little soft, open-mouth kisses all over my face as she strokes my arms, which are still tied behind me to the chair.
"He's done something to you," I say but it looks just like her and the way she's nuzzling at me and subtly rocking herself in my lap make me lose a piece of myself and I begin to kiss her back. I've almost forgotten what it's like to kiss her, to just lose myself in the heat of her. But she reminds me of everything. I tear my mouth away. "You're not her. You're not."
"Don't you love me anymore?" Her lower lip barely trembling, her eyes vulnerable, her brow scrunched in confusion.
"Of course I love you. I'll always love you but you're not her." I shake my head at her hoping she understands.
"Of course I'm her, Jarod. I've always been her." Now she has my shirt unbuttoned and is working on her own. I groan in absolute despair. She begins to lick at my nipples and there's nothing I can do but respond. I begin to lick her neck in turn, lave at the artery there as she places butterfly kisses around my eyes and forehead. Now her shirt's completely off and pretty soon her bra and I groan in frustration.
"Dammit, Parker. This is wrong. You're not you."
She looks at me with those eyes and asks, "Don't I look like her?"
She intimately caresses me and asks, "Don't I feel like her?"
"Yes," I croak out as a close my eyes to concentrate. On what I'm not sure, but I know I need to concentrate before everything just slips away.
She unbuttons my pants and takes my already erect shaft out. My eyes fly open. She raises off me and tugs down her panties and skirt. "No," I whisper. "You're not her."
My words sadden her for a second and she stands over me and takes my face in her hands.
"I'm her and I love you."
I know it's insane and I know it's not right but I can't help it. If I have wanted anything in my life, that want is nothing compared to what I want now. It's so strong, so overriding it is a need. I know that this isn't real. I know that if Parker were in her right mind, this wouldn't be happening. I know that whatever it is that did this to her may still be in the shadows. I know that I'm taking advantage of her altered state. I know all this and I don't care. Especially when she finally lowers herself onto my lap and my body into hers.
"Oh, Jarod," she moans and I nod, acceptance of my fate sealed. She rocks slightly and my arms strain against their barriers. "Please, Jarod. Please come inside me." I'm undone. She could make any request under the sun, ask me to return to the Centre, ask me to swear off my family, anything at all to fulfill her one request. I nod again, this time with utter conviction. And suddenly, my arms and legs are free. I can wrap my arms around her and hold her to me. At this new arrangement I give I groan of approval and grab her hips as I pull her closer to me. She pulls her face away from mine for a second and smiles. I lower our joined bodies to the floor as I sink as deep into her as I can. Everything is too white-hot to allow for any control. A twenty-year lapse needs to be made up in a matter of seconds.
Her legs wrap around my waist and I raise up to look at her, her head thrown back, her eyes squeezed shut. I can almost feel her start and then the hitch. I have filed it away in my brain and only now am I reminded that Parker is neither a moaner nor a screamer but a whimperer. Right before she comes, she sucks all the air in the room into her lungs and holds it, from who or what I don't know but instead of releasing it with an expected primal scream, she lets it seep out on a sigh, a whimper of tiny death that starts her whole body rocking. And I live for that hitch and whimper. And as she tightens and convulses around me, I thrust into her two or three more times with desperation. On each thrust I make a wish. That she'll forgive me. That she'll forget. That she'll always remember. And then I grant her wish.
Afterwards I can't extract myself from her. I don't want to remove myself from her, from this moment. I kiss her as she slowly regains consciousness.
All the foreplay I was denied I now initiate. I try and memorize every detail.
"Hello, Jarod." I had forgotten about him. I should be angry at his intrusion on our intimacy but more than ire or shame, I'm scared. Scared at his motivation.
He waves his hand in front of Parker again and I reel back, guessing at what will come. She closes her eyes again, blinks again and then she changes.
Changes back. Changes into reality. And she's still in my arms and I'm still inside her.
"Jarod?" Utter confusion lines her face. "What are you, what are we, you're in?"
The stranger waves his hand again and she loses consciousness but not before I realize that she had no idea.
"You didn't just realize, Jarod. You knew all along that wasn't THE Miss Parker. Not your Miss Parker now." He pauses a second to sneer at me.
"The white knight just took advantage of his fair lady. Instant gratification. You couldn't stop, could you? You didn't care that under normal circumstances Parker would have never allowed your little tryst to happen. You just wanted her. Jarod, what makes you so different from those guys who take advantage of women who've had one too many. Huh, King of the Do-gooders? Jarod, in my opinion, you just raped your childhood sweetheart."
*****
Nine days since my world ended. Nine days since I tasted heaven and viewed hell. Nine days since the Visit. I still don't know what he was. I still don't know why he came to me to accelerate my fall. Everything he said was true. I raped Parker. Not violently, not even in a way the haunts her. It haunts me, though. Not the act but those two seconds of awareness
afterward. When she looked at me and wondered what was going on, why I was on top of her with our clothes strewn around us. I thought I was above everything. He's right, whoever he was. I had played judge, jury and executioner. What would I say if someone else were in my shoes. I would think them a fiend. I would have punished them without a second thought to
their motivations or intentions. The only consolation is that Parker doesn't know.
*****
Snippets of dreams I've had all my life. Jarod and myself. As we were when we were children, as we are now. I've made myself hate him. I've hardened my heart against all the older memories and tried to replace them with new ones that I can tinge with bitterness. The thing that keeps me pursuing him is that it is the only steady thing in my life. My pursuit is my rock.
Here's Parker's problem. Tenacity while an admiral quality for the most part can also quickly segway into the vicious and alïve. Jarod is her rock because she's afraid of anything else. She comes across as this bad ass when in reality, she's still this scared little girl. She's just playing dress-up. While it's cute, it also prevents her from meeting her full potential. I suppose I do have a soft spot for her. In life we must choose sides and if she and Jarod are pitted against each other, I'd choose her side. But my life isn't like your life. I can be just as contrary as I want. Besides. You really didn't think this thing was over did you? Look at your scrollbar on the right. There's still a little ways to go and Parker hasn't gotten her wake-up call yet.
I breeze into work, the appearance in place. I've been having this recurring dream of Jarod and myself. It's not like I've never had them before but this one is so real and not my usual bodice-ripping visions. It seems so real that the first night I had the dream, I woke up sore.
Not I've-just-run-a-marathon sore but I-just-got-my-world-rocked sore. I'm thinking about this as I pull open the doors to the pit. That's what I call my little workstation. The pit just seems appropriate. Broots is hacking away at his computer and Sydney is watching some subjects on the television. I can't tell if it's a live feed or a tape. "So boys, how have we been earning our keep?" Sarcasm oozing off me.
I must say that I give Miss Parker props for sarcasm. She's really a master at it. But I'm a master at irony.
"Syd," I turn to face him as his TV screen blips and snows into a different scene all together. We both just look at it for a second trying to delineate forms.
"Hey. What's this?" I turn at Broots' question and he has the same shady picture on his computer monitor.
"Has Jarod hacked into the satellite again?" I ask, clearly annoyed. There's no telling what's going to be broadcast on Jarod TV. If he's doing the same thing as last time, it will be on every computer monitor, TV screen, and semi-reflective surface at the Centre.
"I don't know?" Broots starts but is interrupted by the sound coming on and the picturing clearing up. And there, on the screen is Jarod tied to a chair, his shirt off, with me, naked in his lap, facing him. My breath leaves my throat as my breakfast almost replaces it. I see my pixilated self begin to slowly buck into Jarod and implore Jarod to come inside me.
The scene loops back and I say it again. My words, my voice replays again and again in my head and in my ears until I get dizzy from it, from the way it rolls and crashes into my brain. It's all I can do to run to the bathroom before I throw up.
*****
I find her sitting in her darkened bathroom, her forehead resting on the cool porcelain of the toilet. Sydney told me what happened. I knew it wasn't over. At first he accused me of being the cruelest creature he's ever encountered. When he finally realized I had no idea what he was talking about, he told me everything. From maintenance to the Triumvirate, everyone saw the footage. Damage control wasn't even an option.
Parker was bewildered and ill. Her father was livid. Most everyone else thought it was long overdue and convinced that it had happened before. The Triumvirate wanted to call a T-board but one look at Parker and they figured it was all some creative editing on my part. Broots figured that was exactly what it was too as did the rest of the Centre so everyone else got a good
laugh at Parker's expense. They thought I had reached a new height of one-upsmanship. Sydney wasn't convinced. Parker's reaction said it all.
If she was angry, then he would have known. But the way he had to take her home and the way she kept muttering "It couldn't have," he was convinced there was more to it.
"I have to go to her," I told him.
"Don't. I don't know how she'll react."
I didn't know either but I couldn't stay away.
"Parker." I startle her with my presence. She's pale and sweaty and looks so lost.
"What was today, Jarod? I?"
"I raped you."
This makes her head shoot up. "What are you talking about? That tape was real? Thank god no one else believes it was but?it was. And it didn't look like rape to me."
I sit on the floor with her. I want to take her into my arms but how does one explain how they raped someone with the victim in their arms. "I was in Chicago on a pretend. There was this stranger. He accused me of having an ego, of playing god. He brought you to me."
"Was it in a warehouse? Were you tied up?"
"Yes."
"I made some crack about you being a birthday gift. He asked how I lost my virginity. He said you and I? we were each other's?firsts."
"Yes. Then he made you remember what we were like, all those years ago. I knew it wasn't you. I knew that you had no idea. But, I couldn't stop myself. I wanted you too much. I didn't care if it was right or wrong or if the real you would want it, I wanted?"
"You wanted to come inside me," she finished for me. "Oh god, and when we were finished, you we lying on top of me."
"Yes, he gave you your perception back and for a few moments?"
"I was who I am right now."
"Yes. That's how I knew that you didn't remember any of it. You weren't in your right mind."
"Who is this guy?"
"I'm right here."
We both turn as the stranger enters the bathroom. I feel Parker move a little closer to me and for some reason I grab her hand.
"Who are you I ask?" as he takes a seat on the edge of the bathtub.
"I couldn't explain it to you even if I wanted to."
"Are you an angel?" Parker asks and almost blanches on the concept that the divine can be that cruel.
"Hmm, I guess that's as close as you'll be able to understand it. I am a part of a whole that you cannot comprehend. You can barely understand the concept of a GOD much less what role we share and how our existences are intertwined."
"Why us?" I ask. "Why be so malicious?"
"It's not malicious, Jarod," he says with a half-smile. "It's not benign either. It's not categorical. I wanted you and Miller to start living up to your full potential. That's all that divinity is, the ability, the need to strive for our full potential. You think you're living up to your full potential helping little old ladies cross the street? You were given this gray matter and you choose to waste it on pez and slinkies. The universe doesn't work that way. The universe is set up so that every man, every woman, every child is winning. Even when you think you're losing, the universe wants you to win. It's setting up dominoes to help you win. You, you've taken yourself out of the race.
And Parker, you think your full potential is in Blue Cove, Delaware. You think it's with a family that wants to see you fail. All these struggles you two have endured, all the tests we have given you, you think it's because fate is cruel. Fate, destiny is benign, my friends. Why do the gifted kids get more homework than the average ones? Because they can handle it, because doing it, overcoming it, makes them stronger. So far the two of you have just wallowed. You think the coincidences in your life are just that, coincidences? Of course not. The two of you are supposed to be together.
And not to get kittens out of trees or try all 31 flavors but to achieve what most people can't even dream. The two of you make me sick with all your missed opportunity and misplaced energy. Complain about the Centre all you want, at least it knows how to get things done."
"So what you're saying is that all of this, our lives have been tests and that we're fated to do something more?" Parker asks.
"And they say he's the genius! Yes! Of course. You think I visit you mortals everyday. You're the unwashed masses. I've taken up my valuable time to put you back on a path that you both seem determined to veer off. I had to resort to animal lust," he glances at me, "and shame," he glances at Parker, "to get the two of you to sit down together and realize that things have got to change. But I can't help you anymore. Jarod, if you want to continue to mope and act like a five-year old, fine. But my god, man, what a waste.
And Miller, if you want to cry under the covers and curse the same stars that want to make you great, fine too. But the only gift humans have that is truly their own, is their potential. Get off your asses and live up to yours."
With that, the stranger got up and left.
Now I'm not going to ruin it for you and tell you what happened. Jarod could have gone back to his old life or Parker could have hauled him in.
They could have decided that they would be blissfully happy with 2.5 kids and a white picket fence. That's the beauty of your world. You can decide and achieve. And now that I sound like a Hallmark card, I'll leave you to think about your own little lives. I don't have time to interfere with everyone's.
The End
Disclaimer: The characters portrayed in this fan fiction belong to NBC and any other copyright holders. No infringement is intended.
by Keeper March
There are forces afoot and overhead that know more than we can ever imagine. They grasp more than we can ever comprehend. Words have not been invented yet that can articulate the things we do know, much less the things we don't. Omnipotent is one of these almost-words. You can say the word, you can spell it with squiggles and dashes, but you cannot wrap your brain around its full complexity. Even the truly, truly gifted have only a miniscule measure of its meaning, a drop in the ocean compared to its full value. I thought I was a genius. I am probably the smartest man on the planet. But I am nothing. Nothing against the weight of the almighty.
*****
The mind of a god. The powers of the unlimited. I suppose these seem like wonderful things. In a way they are but in a larger way they are a burden. If I was average I could do average things. If I were human I could have humanity. I could have sympathy for weakness. But I'm not and I don't. I'm not human and as much as I complain about my circumstances, I would
never hope to be. Not really. I'm just making a sad metaphor. I am, oh, how to describe to you what I am? I have seen the beginnings of planets and the deaths of stars. I can't put things into time because your time is arbitrary to me. I was here before you invented time. I have watched, at times more closely and with more interest than others, and I have seen everything you do. I am not your god, though. Your god, or should I say it GOD (and therefore make the jackass that's writing this spell it that way), is one facet of the whole that I help make up. Your GOD is benign.
I am not. Not in the way that you suppose your GOD is. I must say the Greeks and the Romans had it a little bit closer than you Judeo-Christians. Monotheism works in theory but there are just too many conflicting winds of fate to leave it up to one power or even two. Rest assured, though, there is an infinite numbers of us. We play with you, we watch you, we even get a
little bit invested in you (See your GOD, boy did he get invested).
We don't just do it for sport. We do it for countless reasons. Even if I laid them all down for you, you wouldn't get them. Just know that we have a hand in everything you do. This next incident that's about to be recounted is probably a greater hand than I should have taken but I'll let some kid with cancer win the lottery or something. You humans have this crazy obsession with the lottery. By the way, if you see Italics, it's me. The jackass that's writing this decided to wise up and separate my text so you'll know.
*****
Taxing. That's really the only way to describe pretends. Taxing and rewarding. The rewards are great but make no mistake about it; the whole process from start to finish is exhausting. There are moments in every pretend where something can go completely awry, totally and insidiously wrong. But I have to keep doing them. I have to keep helping people. I guess after all the crap in my life, helping someone else is the only way I've come up with to heal. I need to be a do-gooder. Ohh, I love that part. He NEEDS to be a do-gooder. What bullshit. He needs to clip out all those newspaper articles on people he's saved. They never show you that part, do they? They never show you his conceit. And yeah, I'm gonna interject as often as I want so you can catch up and stop bitching or you can stop reading.
After what the Centre did to me, I have to get out there and help people. I can't let that place destroy the good that's left inside of me like it's almost done to Miss Parker.
Yeah, he's such a sweetheart. Ever notice how he deliberately holds things over Miller's head? I mean, Miss Parker. You ever wonder why her daddy didn't let her use her first name? I wouldn't either once I found out my id was named after my wife's spring fling. Not that Parker's not a barrel full of bad vibes herself. I'm totally overriding Jarod's monologue which is nothing but a sob story about how he's the white knight and the Centre is his dragon to slay. He does this quite often and, man, is it
tedious.
Then, it hits me. I like Jarod, I really do. Underneath the simpering is a pretty complex person (on the human scale) who really did have the misfortune of having a shitty childhood (chalk that one up to another Omni who put him there then got bored with him.) But all his hemming and hawing and I want to scream. I want to throw it in his face. And that's how it starts. I decide to take Jarod on a little ride through his own morality.
From this point on, I'll try to interject less. But no promises.
I'm packing up for my next pretend when I get a knock at the door. I know it's not the Centre (I mean, they knocked) so I figure it's one of the friends I met on this pretend wishing me goodbye. I roll back the steel door and standing before me is a blond guy I don't recognize.
"Can I help you?" I ask.
"Nope, Jarod, you can't really help me," he says as he shrugs his way into my loft. He's about my height or taller (real quick, I'm definitely taller. I get to choose my body. You think I wouldn't choose a prime specimen. About his height, my ass) and he walks in like we know each other. Memories of Alex and other Centre personnel flash through my head."I'm not from the Centre," he says as he continues to survey my accommodations.
At an absolute loss, I ask, "Do I know you?"
"No, not really. But I know you. I know all about your pretends and your past and your ego."
"My ego?" (Notice he picks up on the ego. Not the past, which is what one would expect him to jump at but the ego.)
"Yes Jarod, that little voice inside of you that makes you crisscross the country doing good deeds, the Johnny Appleseed of philanthropy. It's a nice cover for your conceit."
"I don't know who you are and I don't know what you're talking about but I think it's time you left."
"Not so fast, hoss. You like to play games with people. You and I are gonna play a game."
"I'm not into games and?"
"Stop right there. Tell me about you and Miller."
"How do you know Miss Parker's first name. You are from the Centre. I'm not telling you anything." I move towards the door but he slams it shut with a wave of his hand. He's got telekinetic powers. He has to be from the Centre.
"I told you I'm not from the Centre. I just want to have a conversation with you. Now tell me about Miss Parker."
I'm wary of him but for some reason I feel like it's okay to tell him. One of the benefits of being an Omni is that you put people at ease real quickly. "I worry about her. We were best friends once. I miss her friendship."
"Miss anything else about her?" he interrupts as he fingers some papers on my desk.
"What do you mean?"
"I know you were each other's firsts. Tucked away in one of the air vents. You were what, eighteen? You gave Angelo a box of Cracker Jacks and kept him occupied while you?" He just smirked at me.
"Who told you that? She doesn't even remember that. I tried to talk to her about it and she just looked at me with absolute amazement." I give an extended pause "No, it meant nothing to her."
"I didn't ask what it meant to her. I asked what it meant to you," he said as he finally settled down onto the couch. "Do you ever dream about it? Dream about her?"
"No." I'm pretty sure it came out too harsh. I take a deep breath. "No."
Quieter this time, with more conviction."Okay. You've never done anything to knowingly harm someone else have you?"
"Not knowingly." That's the truth. I have never knowingly harmed another person who didn't deserve it. (Always that merit clause!)
"And you don't think you've ever crossed the line? That maybe people sometimes just make mistakes. That judge, jury, and executioner is a too weighty a role for you?"
"I help people that need help. I go after the bad guy."
"Therefore you're a good guy."
"Right," I say with a smile.
"And you've never stumbled?"
"I'm not perfect but I try to do the right thing."
"That's good to hear," he says with a faint smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. Suddenly it occurs to me that I'm having this deep, personal conversation with a total stranger whose name I don't even know.
"Who are you?"
"I was waiting for that. I'm nothing and everything."
"A name would be sufficient"
"Names are so human. I'm more interested in you. What if Parker walked through that door right now?"
"I'd run," I reply without thinking. It sounds cowardly but my level of self-preservation is higher than my pride.
"It's not cowardly. It's reality. But what if I said she wasn't coming to take you back? What if I said she was here to get to the bottom of your relationship?"
"I wouldn't believe you. She wouldn't be real."
"She'd be real alright. She'd be flesh and bone real." With that the door opened and Parker was there. My first instinct was to indeed run. He, the, whatever the hell it is, got off the couch in less time than it takes to blink. Wordlessly and with such speed that I couldn't trace it, he had me tied down to a chair in the center of the room. "That's to prevent you from running," he said.
"Miss Parker, please come in."
"What the hell is this?" she asked with a scowl. This is definitely Parker. She walks in and sees me tied to the chair and strolls over to me, very cat-that-ate-the-canary.
"My birthday isn't until January. But I just got the sweetest present a girl could receive. This girl anyway."
"He's not for you, at least not like that. I want to ask you a few things Miller."
Suddenly the storm clouds in Parker's eyes flare up and she punches me on the shoulder. Hard.
"Did you tell him my name?"
"No, no," is all I can sputter out a first. "He just knew it."
"Sorry, Parker," the thing says. "I forgot how touchy you are about that. Who'd you lose your virtue to?"
Parker just stares at him a second, incredulous that the first thing out of a complete stranger's mouth is how she was deflowered.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"No, Jarod and I have a little bet riding on it. He says it was to Raines and I think you're still untouched."
She laughs at the absurdity and then glares at both of us in turn. For some ungodly reason she too trusts him and with a resigned sigh mutters, "Foster Witt, roommate's brother, 19."
"While Foster was a lousy lay and should be almost memorable in that regard, he wasn't your first."
"I think I'd know my first a little better than you. And if it wasn't Fos, than who was it?"
"Jarod," he replies and even I wince.
"Jarod," she says with a smirk, which even though I know she's within her right, still stings. "I've never had sex with Ratboy."
"You don't remember in the air vents. He made a pallet for the two of you. It was kinda awkward since you were both new to the whole thing but he did make sure that you came. Nice touch for a first-timer."
She looks at me again. "That is bullshit!" She's near hysterical and I don't blame her. "We've never had sex, have we Jarod?"
I look away from her because she could always read my eyes and also because if she hits me, I would kind of like to be surprised by the blow. A little masochistic of me but I just think it would be better for her violence to take me off-guard.
"You'd better answer the woman."
I look up at her then, "Yes."
She looks at me, knows that I'm not lying and tries to absorb the information.
"When?"
"I was eighteen, you were seventeen. I, how the hell can you not remember it?" I nearly scream at her.
"I don't know, I? This better not be one of your tricks."
"It's not a trick, Parker," the stranger says quietly. "It happened and you don't remember any of it. But I'll make it up to you."
With that he waved one of his hands over Parker's eyes and stepped back in to the shadows. Parker snapped her lids shut and after a few minutes, opened her eyes and began to blink.
"Parker?" I asked. "Parker are you okay?"
"Jarod?"
"Yeah?"
"Jarod, why are you tied up? Where are we?"
"We're in a warehouse I've been staying at on one of my pretends. There's someone here. I don't know who he is."
"I don't see anyone," she says as she steps closer to me and runs a hand down my face.
"Parker, stop. He's here and he's watching."
"You're just paranoid because of the Centre. But we've finally done it. We've finally gotten out. Oh Jarod," she says as she begins to kiss my check. I know I shouldn't but I lean into her embrace for just a second before I pull away.
"Parker, you've got to stop. You're not yourself. He's done something to you. Parker, stop," I say as she continues to run her hands over my face and fingers my shirt collar. And damn myself if I don't like it.
"Jarod," she whispers as she takes a seat on my lap, "it's me. It's Miller." And looking into her eyes, I want to believe her. She plants little soft, open-mouth kisses all over my face as she strokes my arms, which are still tied behind me to the chair.
"He's done something to you," I say but it looks just like her and the way she's nuzzling at me and subtly rocking herself in my lap make me lose a piece of myself and I begin to kiss her back. I've almost forgotten what it's like to kiss her, to just lose myself in the heat of her. But she reminds me of everything. I tear my mouth away. "You're not her. You're not."
"Don't you love me anymore?" Her lower lip barely trembling, her eyes vulnerable, her brow scrunched in confusion.
"Of course I love you. I'll always love you but you're not her." I shake my head at her hoping she understands.
"Of course I'm her, Jarod. I've always been her." Now she has my shirt unbuttoned and is working on her own. I groan in absolute despair. She begins to lick at my nipples and there's nothing I can do but respond. I begin to lick her neck in turn, lave at the artery there as she places butterfly kisses around my eyes and forehead. Now her shirt's completely off and pretty soon her bra and I groan in frustration.
"Dammit, Parker. This is wrong. You're not you."
She looks at me with those eyes and asks, "Don't I look like her?"
She intimately caresses me and asks, "Don't I feel like her?"
"Yes," I croak out as a close my eyes to concentrate. On what I'm not sure, but I know I need to concentrate before everything just slips away.
She unbuttons my pants and takes my already erect shaft out. My eyes fly open. She raises off me and tugs down her panties and skirt. "No," I whisper. "You're not her."
My words sadden her for a second and she stands over me and takes my face in her hands.
"I'm her and I love you."
I know it's insane and I know it's not right but I can't help it. If I have wanted anything in my life, that want is nothing compared to what I want now. It's so strong, so overriding it is a need. I know that this isn't real. I know that if Parker were in her right mind, this wouldn't be happening. I know that whatever it is that did this to her may still be in the shadows. I know that I'm taking advantage of her altered state. I know all this and I don't care. Especially when she finally lowers herself onto my lap and my body into hers.
"Oh, Jarod," she moans and I nod, acceptance of my fate sealed. She rocks slightly and my arms strain against their barriers. "Please, Jarod. Please come inside me." I'm undone. She could make any request under the sun, ask me to return to the Centre, ask me to swear off my family, anything at all to fulfill her one request. I nod again, this time with utter conviction. And suddenly, my arms and legs are free. I can wrap my arms around her and hold her to me. At this new arrangement I give I groan of approval and grab her hips as I pull her closer to me. She pulls her face away from mine for a second and smiles. I lower our joined bodies to the floor as I sink as deep into her as I can. Everything is too white-hot to allow for any control. A twenty-year lapse needs to be made up in a matter of seconds.
Her legs wrap around my waist and I raise up to look at her, her head thrown back, her eyes squeezed shut. I can almost feel her start and then the hitch. I have filed it away in my brain and only now am I reminded that Parker is neither a moaner nor a screamer but a whimperer. Right before she comes, she sucks all the air in the room into her lungs and holds it, from who or what I don't know but instead of releasing it with an expected primal scream, she lets it seep out on a sigh, a whimper of tiny death that starts her whole body rocking. And I live for that hitch and whimper. And as she tightens and convulses around me, I thrust into her two or three more times with desperation. On each thrust I make a wish. That she'll forgive me. That she'll forget. That she'll always remember. And then I grant her wish.
Afterwards I can't extract myself from her. I don't want to remove myself from her, from this moment. I kiss her as she slowly regains consciousness.
All the foreplay I was denied I now initiate. I try and memorize every detail.
"Hello, Jarod." I had forgotten about him. I should be angry at his intrusion on our intimacy but more than ire or shame, I'm scared. Scared at his motivation.
He waves his hand in front of Parker again and I reel back, guessing at what will come. She closes her eyes again, blinks again and then she changes.
Changes back. Changes into reality. And she's still in my arms and I'm still inside her.
"Jarod?" Utter confusion lines her face. "What are you, what are we, you're in?"
The stranger waves his hand again and she loses consciousness but not before I realize that she had no idea.
"You didn't just realize, Jarod. You knew all along that wasn't THE Miss Parker. Not your Miss Parker now." He pauses a second to sneer at me.
"The white knight just took advantage of his fair lady. Instant gratification. You couldn't stop, could you? You didn't care that under normal circumstances Parker would have never allowed your little tryst to happen. You just wanted her. Jarod, what makes you so different from those guys who take advantage of women who've had one too many. Huh, King of the Do-gooders? Jarod, in my opinion, you just raped your childhood sweetheart."
*****
Nine days since my world ended. Nine days since I tasted heaven and viewed hell. Nine days since the Visit. I still don't know what he was. I still don't know why he came to me to accelerate my fall. Everything he said was true. I raped Parker. Not violently, not even in a way the haunts her. It haunts me, though. Not the act but those two seconds of awareness
afterward. When she looked at me and wondered what was going on, why I was on top of her with our clothes strewn around us. I thought I was above everything. He's right, whoever he was. I had played judge, jury and executioner. What would I say if someone else were in my shoes. I would think them a fiend. I would have punished them without a second thought to
their motivations or intentions. The only consolation is that Parker doesn't know.
*****
Snippets of dreams I've had all my life. Jarod and myself. As we were when we were children, as we are now. I've made myself hate him. I've hardened my heart against all the older memories and tried to replace them with new ones that I can tinge with bitterness. The thing that keeps me pursuing him is that it is the only steady thing in my life. My pursuit is my rock.
Here's Parker's problem. Tenacity while an admiral quality for the most part can also quickly segway into the vicious and alïve. Jarod is her rock because she's afraid of anything else. She comes across as this bad ass when in reality, she's still this scared little girl. She's just playing dress-up. While it's cute, it also prevents her from meeting her full potential. I suppose I do have a soft spot for her. In life we must choose sides and if she and Jarod are pitted against each other, I'd choose her side. But my life isn't like your life. I can be just as contrary as I want. Besides. You really didn't think this thing was over did you? Look at your scrollbar on the right. There's still a little ways to go and Parker hasn't gotten her wake-up call yet.
I breeze into work, the appearance in place. I've been having this recurring dream of Jarod and myself. It's not like I've never had them before but this one is so real and not my usual bodice-ripping visions. It seems so real that the first night I had the dream, I woke up sore.
Not I've-just-run-a-marathon sore but I-just-got-my-world-rocked sore. I'm thinking about this as I pull open the doors to the pit. That's what I call my little workstation. The pit just seems appropriate. Broots is hacking away at his computer and Sydney is watching some subjects on the television. I can't tell if it's a live feed or a tape. "So boys, how have we been earning our keep?" Sarcasm oozing off me.
I must say that I give Miss Parker props for sarcasm. She's really a master at it. But I'm a master at irony.
"Syd," I turn to face him as his TV screen blips and snows into a different scene all together. We both just look at it for a second trying to delineate forms.
"Hey. What's this?" I turn at Broots' question and he has the same shady picture on his computer monitor.
"Has Jarod hacked into the satellite again?" I ask, clearly annoyed. There's no telling what's going to be broadcast on Jarod TV. If he's doing the same thing as last time, it will be on every computer monitor, TV screen, and semi-reflective surface at the Centre.
"I don't know?" Broots starts but is interrupted by the sound coming on and the picturing clearing up. And there, on the screen is Jarod tied to a chair, his shirt off, with me, naked in his lap, facing him. My breath leaves my throat as my breakfast almost replaces it. I see my pixilated self begin to slowly buck into Jarod and implore Jarod to come inside me.
The scene loops back and I say it again. My words, my voice replays again and again in my head and in my ears until I get dizzy from it, from the way it rolls and crashes into my brain. It's all I can do to run to the bathroom before I throw up.
*****
I find her sitting in her darkened bathroom, her forehead resting on the cool porcelain of the toilet. Sydney told me what happened. I knew it wasn't over. At first he accused me of being the cruelest creature he's ever encountered. When he finally realized I had no idea what he was talking about, he told me everything. From maintenance to the Triumvirate, everyone saw the footage. Damage control wasn't even an option.
Parker was bewildered and ill. Her father was livid. Most everyone else thought it was long overdue and convinced that it had happened before. The Triumvirate wanted to call a T-board but one look at Parker and they figured it was all some creative editing on my part. Broots figured that was exactly what it was too as did the rest of the Centre so everyone else got a good
laugh at Parker's expense. They thought I had reached a new height of one-upsmanship. Sydney wasn't convinced. Parker's reaction said it all.
If she was angry, then he would have known. But the way he had to take her home and the way she kept muttering "It couldn't have," he was convinced there was more to it.
"I have to go to her," I told him.
"Don't. I don't know how she'll react."
I didn't know either but I couldn't stay away.
"Parker." I startle her with my presence. She's pale and sweaty and looks so lost.
"What was today, Jarod? I?"
"I raped you."
This makes her head shoot up. "What are you talking about? That tape was real? Thank god no one else believes it was but?it was. And it didn't look like rape to me."
I sit on the floor with her. I want to take her into my arms but how does one explain how they raped someone with the victim in their arms. "I was in Chicago on a pretend. There was this stranger. He accused me of having an ego, of playing god. He brought you to me."
"Was it in a warehouse? Were you tied up?"
"Yes."
"I made some crack about you being a birthday gift. He asked how I lost my virginity. He said you and I? we were each other's?firsts."
"Yes. Then he made you remember what we were like, all those years ago. I knew it wasn't you. I knew that you had no idea. But, I couldn't stop myself. I wanted you too much. I didn't care if it was right or wrong or if the real you would want it, I wanted?"
"You wanted to come inside me," she finished for me. "Oh god, and when we were finished, you we lying on top of me."
"Yes, he gave you your perception back and for a few moments?"
"I was who I am right now."
"Yes. That's how I knew that you didn't remember any of it. You weren't in your right mind."
"Who is this guy?"
"I'm right here."
We both turn as the stranger enters the bathroom. I feel Parker move a little closer to me and for some reason I grab her hand.
"Who are you I ask?" as he takes a seat on the edge of the bathtub.
"I couldn't explain it to you even if I wanted to."
"Are you an angel?" Parker asks and almost blanches on the concept that the divine can be that cruel.
"Hmm, I guess that's as close as you'll be able to understand it. I am a part of a whole that you cannot comprehend. You can barely understand the concept of a GOD much less what role we share and how our existences are intertwined."
"Why us?" I ask. "Why be so malicious?"
"It's not malicious, Jarod," he says with a half-smile. "It's not benign either. It's not categorical. I wanted you and Miller to start living up to your full potential. That's all that divinity is, the ability, the need to strive for our full potential. You think you're living up to your full potential helping little old ladies cross the street? You were given this gray matter and you choose to waste it on pez and slinkies. The universe doesn't work that way. The universe is set up so that every man, every woman, every child is winning. Even when you think you're losing, the universe wants you to win. It's setting up dominoes to help you win. You, you've taken yourself out of the race.
And Parker, you think your full potential is in Blue Cove, Delaware. You think it's with a family that wants to see you fail. All these struggles you two have endured, all the tests we have given you, you think it's because fate is cruel. Fate, destiny is benign, my friends. Why do the gifted kids get more homework than the average ones? Because they can handle it, because doing it, overcoming it, makes them stronger. So far the two of you have just wallowed. You think the coincidences in your life are just that, coincidences? Of course not. The two of you are supposed to be together.
And not to get kittens out of trees or try all 31 flavors but to achieve what most people can't even dream. The two of you make me sick with all your missed opportunity and misplaced energy. Complain about the Centre all you want, at least it knows how to get things done."
"So what you're saying is that all of this, our lives have been tests and that we're fated to do something more?" Parker asks.
"And they say he's the genius! Yes! Of course. You think I visit you mortals everyday. You're the unwashed masses. I've taken up my valuable time to put you back on a path that you both seem determined to veer off. I had to resort to animal lust," he glances at me, "and shame," he glances at Parker, "to get the two of you to sit down together and realize that things have got to change. But I can't help you anymore. Jarod, if you want to continue to mope and act like a five-year old, fine. But my god, man, what a waste.
And Miller, if you want to cry under the covers and curse the same stars that want to make you great, fine too. But the only gift humans have that is truly their own, is their potential. Get off your asses and live up to yours."
With that, the stranger got up and left.
Now I'm not going to ruin it for you and tell you what happened. Jarod could have gone back to his old life or Parker could have hauled him in.
They could have decided that they would be blissfully happy with 2.5 kids and a white picket fence. That's the beauty of your world. You can decide and achieve. And now that I sound like a Hallmark card, I'll leave you to think about your own little lives. I don't have time to interfere with everyone's.
The End
