Invisible Threads--Chapter 18

Writer's Note: Please read the previous chapters and prologue of Invisible Threads before reading this.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Meanwhile, Cherie was getting under Gary's skin.

"Get up. I'm hungry." He was awakened by Cherie jostling him harshly by the shoulder. His first thought was that she must have changed her mind and decided not to sleep. A glance at his wristwatch told him that four hours had passed. He was having difficulty waking up and desperately wanted to roll over and shut his eyes again. He tried.

"I'm hungry." She ratcheted up the whine.

"I'm really tired."

"I don't care. Get up and let's get something to eat."

Gary had no appetite. "Go by yourself."

"I hate eating by myself and we're in Las Vegas. Let's get out of the hotel room."

"I'm not hungry."

"I checked on Yelp. There's a Wendy's that we can walk to."

That gave him pause. "Wendys? Okay. I'm up."

"And run a comb or something through your hair. It's in your toilet kit."

Gary wasn't aware he had a toilet kit. Opening the suitcase, he found a green bag with the price tag still attached. Inside it was a toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant, a bar of soap, a small bottle of shampoo, and a comb. He pulled out the comb and went to the bathroom. His hair was indeed out of control. He did what he could and stepped back into the room. Cherie deemed it adequate.

The sun had just set and the temperature dipped enough to require them to wear light coats. Thankfully Cherie had packed those, too.

Gary tested the waters of Cherie's mood. "You did a good job with the packing."

"Damn straight. I am awesome. I keep reminding you of that and it keeps slipping your mind."

Gary smiled. There were things that Cherie enjoyed. When she was doing something that she enjoyed, she could be fun to be around. Apparently, she enjoyed traveling.

Two other people were in the elevator when they stepped on. Cherie punched the "L" button, which was already lit. She took his hand and held it. She continued to hold it through the lobby and onto the street. When they got outside, she let go.

"The couple in the elevator were contestants. I remember interviewing them."

"I assumed that. Which way is Wendy's?"

She pulled out her phone, opened the map app, and hit go. It showed their location and the street. "It's three blocks down to the left."

The sidewalk was littered with what appeared to be prostitute's business cards or advertisements. Cherie's head swiveled around taking in all the sites as the lights came up in response to the sun going down.

She was into the experience. "This is fantastic! It's like if you make something so gawdy, it comes full circle and becomes classy again. They have so much class that they can be as gawdy as they want."

"That's a good thing?"

"It's a... thing. I don't know if I have a value judgement for it."

Gary saw no families with children. There were people in groups and lots of couples walking down the sidewalk holding hands or gesturing at some sight or other.

"Why don't you have a boyfriend?" It just blurted out.

She turned away from an opulent fountain complete with multi-colored lights and gas flames. "Where the hell did that come from?"

"I don't know. You just seem like the type that would have one."

"What? Meek? Timid? Needing a man in my life to fulfill me?"

There was no right answer so he remained quiet.

"And it's not like anyone's beating down my door."

"Well, I don't..."

"Stop. You are about to say something well-intentioned but inept. Then I would get pissed off."

Her words were angry but her tone was jovial. She actually punched his arm at this point. He didn't know the significance of the arm punch.

The rest of the walk was filled with her pointing at various buildings and lights and advertisements and describing them to him although he was right there and could see them for himself. He remained mostly quiet as conversations with Cherie that were not focused on the show or a specific meeting were rare. She was having simple fun and he had no mental flowcharts for that. It was good for her to laugh and smile and he did not want to say or do something that might piss her off.

She looked up at him. "You 're not saying anything."

Crap.

"I was just enjoying how much you were enjoying yourself." Maybe that would get him out of it.

"Bullshit. But I'll let it pass because it's pretty good bullshit." She laughed again. "You're a weird son of a bitch."

"So I've been told."

"There are worse things than being weird."

"Name one."

"Being boring."

"They're not mutually exclusive. I can be both."

At this she laughed. And then she punched his arm again. The therapists had never told him what an arm punch meant. He would have to google it.

She was on a roll. "I guess that's true. I just had a deep thought. You are kind of like this city. It's so unapologetically gawdy that it is classy and you are so unapologetically boring that you are interesting."

"I apologize all the time."

She laughed harder.

Wendy's came through. The restaurant looked and worked the same as the one in Champaign. It had the same layout, the same menu, the same complicated drink machine, the food looked the same, tasted the same, and cost about the same. And he liked it. No changes or challenges.

After the meal, they walked around a little more until their fatigue got the best of them and then headed back to the hotel. On the ride back up the elevator, they were alone and she leaned against the wall. "I think that I've pushed myself as far as I can go in one day."

He nodded. The elevator door opened and they made their way to the room. He never completely trusted electronic locks, but their room door opened again.

She stepped quickly inside, saying: "First dibs on the bathroom!" Before he could say a word about the fullness of his bladder, she'd entered it and locked the door behind her.

When she emerged, dressed in her usual white and purple sweat suit, he darted in, bursting to go. When he came out all of the lights in the room were off except the one next to the bed on what he guessed was his side. They had not discussed sleeping arrangements but with the only other seat in the room being the small chaise longue, there seemed little option.

Gary climbed into bed. He was exhausted after the long day and settled down into the covers to find himself instantly wide awake. Cherie lay motionless on her side facing away from him. He knew what her asleep breathing sounded like. She was awake. It took several tries to find the off switch for the light next to the bed. The room settled into a soft darkness lightened by the ever-present exterior lights seeping around the curtains.

He could not sleep. He was acutely focused on the fact that a not completely unattractive young woman lay in the bed next to him. Anyone who believes that a young man needs to find a woman attractive to have sexual fantasies about her has never been a young man. His fantasy went like this: back in his apartment, he was asleep in his bed. He was awakened as an unclothed Cherie slipped into the bed next to him. "I can't take it any longer."

The fantasy had never developed much narrative detail beyond that point. And, of course, nothing like it came close to happening. But he never locked his bedroom door at night, just in case.

Although not technically a virgin, he was close. His total sexual experience included two encounters - both with the same young woman - in freshman year. She was noticeably unattractive and as socially awkward and clumsy as he. During a conversation regarding their social standing, they moved onto their embarrassment at being college-age virgins. The logical follow up was to solve the problem, and they both agreed.

Their two efforts had been chaotic and clumsy; the second attempt was slightly better. The afterglow conversation turned into a disagreement and then a fight and they realized that, after the hormones were burned off, they did not like each other at all.

It was now seven lonely years later. He had no romantic interest in Cherie. No daydreams about white picket fences and backyard barbecues. But, yes, as Phang would say, he could tap that.

Now, the internal dialogue where he was trying to talk himself down from a sexual fantasy was turning into a sexual fantasy. Great, that's all he needed. Biologically, he was beginning to hurt. He considered sliding out of bed, going into the bathroom, and taking care of the problem. But what if she heard? Or, what if when he got back into bed, she rolled over and said, "I can't take it any longer..."

Damnit. There was only one way out of this. He got out of bed and headed toward the bathroom.

Cherie was awake. "You okay?"

"My stomach hurts a little."

"Probably just nerves." She rolled away.

"Something like that."

He went into the bathroom. When he came out, his biological problem was resolved and her breathing indicated that she was asleep. He climbed back into bed, thought through a workaround for a math problem, and fell asleep.

He woke up to find reddish sunlight coming in around the draperies. His left arm was numb and there was an unaccustomed weight on his chest and leg. Concerned, he reached to the spot on his chest where the weight was and found Cherie's head. There was also a wet spot on his t-shirt where she had been drooling. Her breath was not good. The weight on his leg was her leg and he found that he had put his arm around her in his sleep and the blood flow was cut off into that arm.

He extracted himself without waking her and sat up on the edge of the bed. She rolled over. The tingling in his arm was a little painful as the blood flow returned. Checking his phone, he found that they had about 15 minutes before the alarm went off. He got up and walked around to shake off the pins and needles. There was no telling how long they had been sleeping in that position.

Looking over to make sure that Cherie was facing away, he opened the curtains. From the eighth floor, the view was good and he could see down The Strip about a block. He also could see off into the distance between some of the buildings. He had never tried to open the extraverse when he had an expanded view.

He brought the threads into view. As he had assumed, they filled all of the volume that he could see. They were clearly in view and he could also see the buildings and the mountains in the distance. The threads did not block or obscure any view but seemed to visually co-exist with the objects of base reality. He sensed information flowing along a particular thread and tapped into it. It ran down the sidewalk along which scurried this morning's early birds. He could feel each person.

He sensed the anomaly before he saw it. Then his eyes were drawn to a rooftop across the street that was about four floors below his feet. The outline was clearer now and still appeared to be a bi-pedal primate but seemed larger and somehow more threatening. It's faceless head tilted up at him. The terror dwarfed what he had felt in the lab with Phang. The anomaly lifted off from the roof and began to move through the air directly toward him, slowly at first and then picking up speed. Frozen in fear, he watched it close the distance between them at a fantastic pace. Just as it was about to crash through the window, he threw his hands in front of his face and screamed.

The scream made a whispery, hoarse sound. He heard the last of it as he woke and sat up in bed. It was a dream. Only a dream. Cherie had not been awakened. It was still dark. He checked his phone. 3:12 AM. Nearly three hours before the alarm would sound. Completely disoriented, he composed his thoughts as his breathing and heart rate steadied. The dream had been so real and tangible that he could not tell the difference between it and what he was experiencing now. He tapped Cherie on the shoulder.

She did not open her eyes. "Leave me alone. I'm sleeping." Her words were wet and slurred.

That felt real.

He felt his t-shirt. It was dry. No Cherie drool. At least he did not have to deal with the subconscious ramifications of them cuddling in their sleep. It never happened. That it was part of the dream made perfect sense given his thoughts of the night before.

He laid back down and pondered. This had all started with a connection between the inner workings of the human brain and larger-scale physics. Absolute reality was no more demonstrable than ether. It didn't really exist and varied depending on the viewpoint of the witness. Reality was relative to perspective. His terror was real. Relativistic changes in individual perception would have impacts on the extraverse. How did that affect the relationship between the electromagnetic pulses in his brain and the physical world around him?

He was done sleeping for the night.