The Object

The Object

She needed a man. She needed someone to focus on.

She decided the quickest way to find one would be to put up a profile on a dating site, with a few very artful photos of herself. She knew she was quite attractive (she'd been told this by others, and could see it in the mirror), so she wouldn't have much trouble attracting a man initially.

So, this she did. The profile she wrote was rather vague about whom it was she was seeking; that was intentional (for her purposes, the particulars didn't matter.) She took a few photos of herself with her digital camera and tripod in her most flattering accoutrements, and posted them along with the profile on the most heavily populated site she found. As soon as everything was posted, she logged off the site and waited.

She could not say why she was doing this. It had been two years since her husband had died, and she really had no desire for a lover. She was perfectly happy alone, in her little house, with her cat and writing and artwork. There was, however, a need to extend herself, a need to hone the power of which her husband had first made her aware, and had been training her to focus, before he had died.

She needed someone to read. She had tried reading her cat, but animals were not much of a challenge. Their thoughts were too simple and instinctive. She tried reading strangers in public places, but there were too many of them at once, and their emotions became tangled in one another. She had family close by, but they were not good objects. She was so familiar with their feelings and thoughts that it was like reading the same book over and over. She needed new thoughts.

After twenty-four hours had passed, she checked the site. She had six respondents. She opened the first message and looked at the first photo and decided that this candidate was not intelligent enough to be a good object, judging from the spelling and grammatical errors in his message. The second and third candidates were much the same. The fourth showed promise, but he was far too young, and his intentions were too obvious and predictable. The fifth came across as a complete moron; no good at all.

She paused at the last message. The man seemed intelligent and self-aware enough to be suitable. He wrote well. He had expressed his own intentions in an ambiguous way, much like her profile. That was good; he was following her lead. His emotions would be more of a challenge than the others.

She studied his photo. He was smiling into the camera, holding a glass of wine in his left hand. His hair was gray, but his face smooth. He had very dark eyes behind rimless glasses, and a shy, sheepish grin showing slightly crooked but very white teeth. The eyes, unlike those of the other faces she'd seen, had the spark of intelligence and a glimmer of humor. She could sense deep emotion, buried far down and well hidden from all, including himself. There was something he had made up his mind to forget, but she could bring it into the light.

Excellent, she thought. He could make a wonderful object.

She replied to his message, conveying her interest in him. From past encounters of this sort, she knew to follow his lead. She returned the compliments he had given her, and asked a general question about his interests. He replied only a few minutes later. She read far more than the words he had typed. He was definitely interested, and if she played things carefully, she would be successful in drawing him in. Judging from the hidden thing behind his eyes, however, she would have to proceed very cautiously.

She exchanged a few more messages with him before logging off the site for the night. He was proving to be a challenge, as she suspected he would. He was much more willing to ask personal questions than he was to answer them. She gave him the information he asked for, but sparingly. It wouldn't do to reveal too much at once.

As she lay in bed, readying for sleep, she thought of the hidden thing she'd glimpsed in his eyes. She amused herself by guessing what it could be. Had he been a victim? Had he suffered great pain? Of course, it was impossible to read exactly what the thing was from a photograph, but judging from what she'd seen of his face and his words, he did not seem the type to inflict pain himself. His feelings, or what she could read of them, anyway, were deep and very guarded.

That was why she sought men instead of women. Women were more comfortable with their own emotions, in general. Women very seldom allowed anything to be buried too deeply. Women were much more willing to be opened and read. This, she thought, was their greatest strength and their greatest weakness. Men, on the other hand, made themselves weak through their projected strength. There were exceptions, of course, but in this society men were encouraged not to express emotions, save for anger, and even that only in very restricted ways.

That's why she needed a man. She enjoyed sex with men very much, but that wasn't the most important reason, or even an important reason. As far as base sexual need went, she preferred to deal with that herself, most times. It was much less messy to do it herself, both physically and mentally. The only thoughts she had to sort through afterward were her own. There was no sense of anti-climax .

She had never been one to separate the physical act from the psychic connection. For someone with her abilities, it was impossible. There had been some grossly unsatisfying and rather disturbing instances when she had tried casual, no-strings-attached encounters, and she was not anxious to try that again. She had become entangled in the thoughts and emotions of every male lover she had ever had in her lifetime. When she was young and inexperienced, it was traumatic; when she had gained some experience, it was irritating. Merely having sex with a man could never satisfy her; she needed the connection.

As was her custom, she tried to empty her mind before sleep; however, this was proving difficult. Her thoughts spun and twirled toward her intended object. Aside from speculating on the hidden thing behind his eyes, she also wondered what sort of sexual experience she could expect to have with this man. Unlike the other respondents, she saw clearly that finding a woman to have sex with very soon was not his main objective. Perhaps he needed the connection, too. Would he let down his guard, even a little, during intimacy? Maybe she'd find out. That would be a challenge.

After a time, her mind cleared, and she slept. She dreamed a dream.

She had appeared on the doorstep of what she knew to be this man's home. She had knocked at the door, but it was not answered. She tried the doorknob; it was locked. Still, she heard something behind the door--a scratching and muffled pounding, as though a prisoner was beating the heavy door of his prison to beg for release. She heard muffled cries, unintelligible words, but recognizable as pleas for rescue.

She moved to the dark window to the right of the door, and peered inside. A light burned in a far corner of the dark room, and she saw the shadow of a helpless creature crouched in the center of the floor. As in dreams, she passed easily through the glass of the window to go to the hapless creature. In her right hand she suddenly held a burning torch. The room was illuminated by the flame--a bare, desolate structure with dark walls. The creature, nominally human, was crouching with knees drawn to chest and head down. She called to it. It did not respond. She was bending to lay a comforting hand on its head when she awoke.







She had wakened earlier than usual. She made her coffee, greeted and fed her cat, and went to her computer. She had originally intended to check her email, and possibly check the day's news, but she found herself logging on to the dating site instead.

She found that she had four more messages. The first two were from men whom she dismissed as unsuitable, judging from their semi-illiterate communication. The third man was undeniably sexy, but after reading his message she got the impression that he wouldn't be much in the way of an object.

The fourth message was from her intended object. It was brief--he had written to say good morning, and that he had enjoyed corresponding with her the night before, and gave a phone number. He wrote that he would be available later that afternoon, if she'd like to call him. He gave his first name (they had both been so involved in the conversation the night before that they had not exchanged names.) It was a fairly common male name, which meant "strong and noble" in Gaelic. She replied with her first name (not the one she signed on legal documents, but the nickname she had chosen for herself and which was used by family and friends) and gave her own phone number, asking him to call her when it was convenient. Then she logged off the site.

She was not working her regular job that day, and she had planned to do a few things around the house and yard, and work on a couple of art and writing projects. However, she had trouble focusing on the tasks at hand, as she was anticipating his call. She found herself wondering what his voice would sound like, what words he would choose; she wondered where the conversation would go, and if they would decide to meet after that first conversation. She rehearsed in front of the mirror in the bathroom, and practiced moderating her tone of voice, her vocal timbre (just husky enough to be sexy, but not too obvious) and her best sincere laugh. She practiced a few variations of this laugh--he didn't seem to be the type to be impressed by girlish giggles--and decided a low, husky chuckle might work the best. She then wondered how much humor he would inject into the conversation. Judging from the spark in his eyes (the spark behind which the hidden thing crouched) and his smile, he would have a good sense of humor.

At around six in the evening, as she was washing pastel dust off of her hands from the drawing she had just completed, her cell phone rang. Hurriedly she dried her hands and answered. A man's voice, deep and mellow, but slightly unsure, spoke her name as a question.

She responded. He greeted her warmly but hesitantly, and asked if he had called at a bad time. She assured him he had called at a good time (she wasn't about to tell him that she had been anticipating his call since early that morning) and asked how his day had been.

He gave a noncommittal answer; he had been working at his job and the day had gone without a hitch. He asked her the same question. She told him of her pastel drawing and he seemed very interested. She described it in detail, and he told her he'd love to see it sometime.

The conversation flowed from subject to subject: they discussed emotionally neutral topics, such as their respective jobs, books they'd read, movies they'd seen, places they'd traveled. Neither asked for nor volunteered any personal thoughts. The conversation was pleasant, but superficial.

They spoke for nearly an hour. He ended the conversation by saying he needed to eat dinner and work on some things he'd brought home from his job. He hoped that they would talk again soon. She responded in kind, and ended the call. She turned her cell phone's ringer off, hooked it up to the battery charger, and went outside to sit in her porch swing in the summer twilight, and think over the conversation she'd just had with her intended object.

As she always did with any conversation in which she took part, she gleaned much more of his thoughts than what he'd chosen to put into mere words. She thought about the interest he'd expressed in the pastel drawing she had described to him. He had listened politely to the professional description she had given (she never dumbed anything down for anyone, and believed him to be well-educated enough to understand the terminology), but his mind was not forming an image of the drawing as she was describing it. Instead, his thoughts seemed to have jumped to the wall upon which it might be destined to hang, the room itself, and how she might look standing in it. She concluded that he may or may not be very interested in art, but he was definitely interested in her.

How she could derive these perceptions merely by speaking to him over the phone was a mystery to her, and had been all of her life. When friends called her, she knew that they were troubled (or lying about something) after a few minutes' conversation; when answering the phones at her job, she could discern the reason for the client's call without having to ask. This ability had served her well for most of her life, but had brought its share of pain as well. There had been people she had encountered and read (before she had been aware that what she was doing was a special ability) whose thoughts frightened, angered and disturbed her. During a few instances, the fear produced by the thoughts of these people had left her too terrified to leave her home for several days, and had caused her to have as little to do with other human beings as possible.

This was troublesome, until she had met her husband. He was quick to recognize the ability in her, as he was possessed of the same gift himself. He taught her to focus it, to be able to zero in on a single person and block out others, and to block out the static produced by the thoughts of those around her when she needed to be alone in her head. He impressed upon her the importance of using the power judiciously. To delve too deeply into the mind of another was a violation, worse than physical rape.

Shortly before his death, he had begun to teach her to prevent invasion of her mind by those who would use her thoughts against her. He taught her to empty her mind of all thought and emotion before sleep; this, he told her, would not only help her focus her power, but also allow her to guard her own thoughts more easily. His death had been sudden; she had not fully mastered the proper use of her ability. She had only gained enough knowledge to be a possible danger.

She was aware that a little knowledge was very dangerous, and sought always to be cautious while reading others. Instinctively she knew which thoughts were closely guarded by the object and not to be brought to light; she kept her findings to herself in these instances. However, if a person was lying to her, she sensed the truth, the real thought, hiding behind the shadow of deception. She would usually call the liar's bluff. She had ended quite a few relationships by doing so.

Her object had not lied to her at any point in the conversation, but of course she had not asked any personal questions. She made a note to ask him at least one personal question the next time they talked by phone. The next conversation she had with him, by phone or face to face, would determine whether or not she would want to continue this acquaintance. She had to proceed with caution, and decide upon the question she would ask, and determine how deeply she should delve at first. Even if he gave no spoken answer to her question, she would indeed have an answer in her own fashion. If nothing else, she could discern the answer from words not spoken.

Although she had made up her mind to focus on this man and not do much further searching on the dating site, she found herself back at the computer, logging in. She had a total of eleven messages: two from one man whom she had already ruled out (she answered with a "thanks-but-I'm-not-interested" comment); eight from newcomers (none of whom seemed suitable) and one more from her intended object. She deleted the previous ten messages and opened his.

Again, he had thanked her for the conversation, and expressed an interest in meeting her. His message was brief; he stated that he would be available for the upcoming weekend and asked her to call if she was agreeable to the meeting. She replied that she was definitely agreeable and would call him the next day, when she was through with work.

She found it difficult to empty her mind that night, even more so than the night before. The thoughts were too pleasant, too anticipatory, too agitating. She visualized a blue flame, as she did when the meditation didn't go smoothly, and watched her thoughts being fed, one by one, into the quiet fire. This proved successful, and soon she slept.

She dreamed again. This time she and her object were walking along a path which wound through a familiar forest. She had often dreamed of this forest; she recognized the tall poplars shading the path, and the dewberry bushes with ripe fruit underneath the trees. The day was warm and sunny. She and this man were holding hands; even in the dream she could feel the warmth and electricity of his touch. They were not speaking, but she felt content, and so did he, judging from his thoughts.

Suddenly he let go of her hand and she felt a chill. A cold wind blew storm clouds across the sky, and shook the trees. She felt an emptiness. He had disappeared.

She awoke suddenly, the word "NO!" leaving her lips as her eyes opened. She sat up in bed, orienting herself, then turned on her bedside lamp. The room was her room; her cat was curled at the foot of her bed, as usual. She was wide awake and agitated.

She got out of bed and headed for her computer, then paused. She had not intended to log onto the dating site, but to type out her dream in her journal. She knew, however, that if she went to her computer she would be compelled to log onto the site, and re-read his messages. She did not think this wise.

Instead, she went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As the water heated in the microwave, she pondered the dream. Was she getting too lost in his thoughts already? Had she forgotten what her husband had taught her? A fleeting thought came to her: perhaps she should make her excuses to her object and end things before they started. She brushed the thought away.