I don’t want to be home alone anymore. I go to the public library after school. I sit at the computers, surrounded by other people at the computers, and I feel at least temporarily safe. I don’t understand why this is happening to me. I don’t know what I’ve done that makes me deserve to have these things go wrong.
A girl from school, Alexandra Berkman, sits down next to me. We’re in some classes together, and we talk about French for a few minutes. Then she asks if I can watch her stuff while she goes to the washroom. I say sure, and when she comes back, I ask her if she’ll do the same for me.
It’s a one-person bathroom deal, and someone must have jumped right in after Alexandra left, since the door’s locked and I have to wait a few minutes to get in. Eventually a seven-year-old boy emerges, without a parent. I am not optimistic about what the condition of the toilet seat is going to be. But I go in anyway.
I’m just about to lock the door when it’s pushed hard from the outside. “Hey!” I cry out, figuring it’s someone trying to get in who didn’t see me go in first. But then a harder push comes and I’m knocked back. A guy comes storming in—big guy, about ten years older than me. “I’m in here!” I protest, and in response he punches me in the gut. I fall back onto the toilet seat, and he locks the door behind him and goes for my throat. I kick out and try to slide out from under him, but his grip is tightening and I can’t get enough air to scream. He knocks my head back onto the toilet tank and it hurts like hell.
Then, with a grin, he asks, “Did you miss me, Nathan?”
I don’t know what he means—until I look into his eyes and know exactly what he means. I just don’t know how it’s possible.
“Not so heroic now, are you?” the guy taunts. “Not so disagreeable. We had an agreement, didn’t we, Nathan? And you broke that agreement. Well, ego vigilabo fuerit vobis. Except that there comes a time when watching isn’t enough. It’s time you played your part. And this time, you won’t mess it up.”
I try to play dumb. “Who are you?” I gasp. “What do you mean?”
He lifts me up by the throat. This guy is strong. Much stronger than Reverend Poole.
I am terrified.
“We did not come here for you to talk,” the guy who used to be Poole says way too calmly. “It’s my turn to talk—and I strongly recommend that you listen.”
“I’m all ears,” I squeak.
“Unless I remove one,” he says, not really joking. “You see, Nathan, I can do whatever I want to you, whenever I want. You will never see me coming, because I could be anyone. That much should be clear to you now.”
I try to nod, but he’s still got me by the throat.
“Got it,” I croak out.
“Good,” he says, lowering me but not letting me go. “You must find the person you lost last time. You will not get another chance—and you do not have much time. If you don’t get her back to me in the next week, I will start to dismantle your life piece by piece, until there is nothing left.”
“But we don’t know where she is! Honestly, we don’t.”
“Well, then—you’d better find her.”
It’s strange to think of A as a her. It’s also wrong that I used the word we.
I wait too long to reply. He switches hands and pushes me by the back of my neck toward the sink. I thrust my hands down and push against the basin so he can’t slam my face into it.
He lets go.
“Good,” he says. “You have some fight in you. Use it. But don’t try to fight me. That would be irresponsible to your well-being. And don’t tell anyone else about this—not even A’s girlfriend.”
“How do you know about A?” I blurt.
But he’s not going to tell me.
“I’ll be in touch,” he says.
When he opens the door, there’s a line of people waiting outside. They seem surprised to see two of us inside the bathroom.
“We were having sex,” Poole explains to the woman at the front of the line.
“WHAT?” she yells. Luckily for me, she seems to be a hundred years old.
Poole strides out of the library, leaving me to be the target of the angry, curious, and/or disgusted looks.
It’s only when I get back to Alexandra that I realize I didn’t even use the bathroom, and I still have to go.
“Are you okay?” she asks as I grab my bag.
“There’s just…stuff I need to do,” I get out. She gives me a look to let me know she doesn’t particularly care to hear the details.
Nobody will. Not really. Rhiannon, possibly. But I feel that telling her will only bring her more trouble, especially if Poole somehow knows she exists. (Who else could A’s girlfriend be?)
I am on my own on this one. And, oh yeah, completely screwed.
I have no idea how to escape this.
X
It takes a few days before I am the right type of person to do what I want to do. There’s nothing like the disappointment of waking up in an old woman’s body—good for invisibility and very little else. They can be receptacles of affection, but I have no need for affection. Fear is much more effective.
I have tried to master the path from person to person. I have tried to force my intentionality into the equation. But the metaphysical mathematics elude me; I have learned how to stay in a body by killing the host, but I still am left to the whims of the gods when it comes to traveling to my next body. There used to be some correspondence in age, but that appears to have become untethered. I can end up as anyone from day to day.
Naturally, I have preferences.
Just as this body is strong, its former owner is ashamed. He has desires that are not the right desires—they are not acceptable desires in the community in which he lives. He does not want to be who he is, so I can easily come in and take his place.
After scaring the pathetically susceptible Nathan Daldry in the bathroom of his local library, I head to the gym. Even if this man is a mess in his head, his body is a well-tuned vehicle. I spend time conditioning, then lifting. I have missed this rush, the feeling of force, the glorious pain of exertion. There is sweat and there is the acceleration of the heart and a struggle to maintain a steady supply of breath. But most of all, there is strength. I can revel in his strength. Even as I feel the weights press against me, I experience my own counterbalance, my own push against. This is the body I was meant to have. This is the only kind of body that allows me to feel my promise is manifest.
I push myself to the body’s limit. Then comes the slowdown, the shower, and the unwind. But I’m still wound, even as I leave. I don’t want to go home. I want sex. I want to use this body that way. To take pleasure. To be desired, and then to take advantage of that desire.