The Nudge

Simon believed he did, in fact, have it figured out. He could Nudge people into working his will, all right; he just had to understand the limits. His mother giving him money was unlikely, but not impossible, Simon reasoned. "So I was able to Nudge her into doing that," he explained to Desi Arnez. The man at the library might not have really wanted to hire Simon, but he wasn't opposed to it any fundamental, categorical way; it wasn't something that he would never, under any circumstances, decide on his own to do. Same with the big-thighed blonde woman from the self-help stacks who'd had sex with him. "These were things they might all have done on their own, under the right circumstances," Simon said. "So I was able to Nudge them into doing those things."

Mrs. Foster standing naked in the window, and the grocery clerk showing her nipple -- those remained harder to explain. "I think maybe they both had exhibitionist tendencies," Simon theorized to Desi Arnez. "I think that's why I was able to Nudge them into doing those things. Some part of them was sort of leaning in that direction already." This morning's orange-haired waitress had been another matter, of course; clearly, this was a woman who wouldn't willingly expose her small, high breasts in public in a million years, not for the biggest tip imaginable, not for anything. So no amount of Nudging, Simon reasoned, would make her do it. "But anyone can be Nudged into smiling," he said, cheerfully.

Simon was cheerful because people had been smiling at him all day. The incident at Ned's had showed him that smiling was the one thing he could Nudge anyone into doing, no matter what their other individual boundaries of behavior might be. After the waitress had smiled (a smile that had quickly turned to a look of what-the-hell-am-I-doing? confusion), Simon had walked down Pine Street making one person after another smile. He was careful not to smile himself, not to make eye contact, not to do anything that might skew the experiment by inducing a non-Nudged smile. The idea was to use his mind, and nothing else, to order them to smile. And they did.

An older, angry-looking man in a stiff business suit had been the first to approach Simon as he walked. The man had his face aimed squarely at a folded-over newspaper, and he had no reason, absolutely none, to suddenly look up from his paper and grin stupidly at Simon -- no reason except that, at that moment, Simon had deliberately thought: Look at me and smile!

Then there had been succession of similar smiles tossed at him, on his mental command: A short black woman with a gold tooth, an older white woman with dyed black hair, a brooding teenage boy who looked like he hadn't smiled in maybe four years, several others -- they had all looked right at Simon and grinned like idiots as soon as he mentally ordered them to. The timing was always dead-on; there was no mistaking the cause and effect. On the sixth one (a heavy red-haired woman with big earrings), he had gotten fancy and made her turn her head completely around and smile at him after he had passed her on the sidewalk. With the next woman who approached him, he had commanded her to wave at him in addition to smiling, which she did, giving those around them the impression that they were old friends, when in fact they'd never seen each before.

Desi Arnez was almost to the bottom of his bowl.

"Every single person I passed, I was able to Nudge them into smiling," said Simon, smiling. He was thinking of Jennifer. He didn't need the Nudge to get a smile from her -- she smiled at him, routinely, on her own -- but his plan of suggesting a cup of coffee suddenly seemed less reckless than it had before, now that he had the means to all-but-guarantee that she would accept. "It's just a cup of coffee," he said out loud. "She might already be inclined to have a cup of coffee with me, right?" Desi Arnez licked stray particles of tuna from his teeth and said nothing.

* * *

They had coffee at Ned's two mornings later. Simon had haltingly issued the invitation as Jennifer had been gathering up her things to leave the library the night before, an invitation followed by the wordless command: Say yes.

"Yes. Sure," Jennifer had said, wearing that expression of inward-looking confusion that Simon had started to recognize on the face of every person he Nudged -- the expression that said, What the hell am I doing?

Despite her expression, Simon had been so relieved when she accepted that he leaked a surprised little laugh (right in front of her!), then had turned red, said goodnight and walked urgently to the back stacks to finish the dusting. He was relieved because he had learned in three days of Nudging that it was, in fact, possible to say "no" to a Nudge, if the thing being mentally suggested was fundamentally abhorrent to the person being Nudged. It was, Simon supposed, nature's circuit-breaker, a way to prevent Nudgers from sending Nudgees diving off bridges en masse. This had raised the stakes of the Jennifer-coffee project somewhat, so much so that Simon had almost backed out of the thing. If she had said "no," he knew, it would have been a real "no," an irreversible "no," a "no" on par with the orange-haired waitress' icy opposition to showing her breasts in public. Wouldn't it be ironic, Simon had mused the day before, if the sum result of his new-found Nudging ability was to demonstrate just how strongly Jennifer didn't want to have coffee with him?

But now, here they were, having coffee. Jennifer sat across the booth from him, sipping her coffee and radiating softness, not the least bit aware, it seemed, that she wasn't here entirely of her own free will. She wore a light blouse that showed the swelling shape of her bra underneath, which had made Simon look away and silently vow to behave himself.

The orange-haired waitress had shot Simon a vaguely accusing glare as they had entered, which had made him ponder (not for the first time) whether Nudgees could know that they have been Nudged; that could have ramifications, he worried, on his future with Jennifer. But looking at Jennifer now, it was clear to him that she had gotten past the issue of why she had accepted his invitation. She softly stirred some cream into her coffee, and talked (softly) about her college classes.

"Psychology is my favorite," she said. "The professor is great. Bill -- that's his name, Bill -- he really knows how to explain this stuff. Do you know how much psychology is involving in yawning?"

"Yawning?" Simon asked. He was concentrating on Jennifer's soft eyes, and wondering, idly, whether the Nudge could induce a person to fall in love.

"You ever notice that seeing a person yawn, even talking about yawning, makes you want to yawn?" she asked. "Bill's been exploring the psychology behind yawns. He's actually written a few articles about it. It's really amazing."

Simon felt a yawn coming on, and he stifled it, fearing it would be rude. Jennifer was saying: "A yawn is one of the most basic physical reflexes. Your mind can trigger one just from thinking about yawning." And then she yawned.

Simon stifled another yawn, then noticed the orange-haired waitress taking an order at a table across the room. The waitress glanced over at him coolly and he thought he saw, again, a hint of accusation in her stare. Jeez, lady, all I did was make you smile, he thought, aggravated. She was still staring a moment later, and it was then that Simon decided he'd had enough. Smile! he commanded, and the waitress did, so wide and leering that the people at the table she was waiting looked questioningly at each other.

That'll teach you to stare at me, thought Simon.

"Bill says yawns are a great illustration of psychology in action," Jennifer was saying. "Yawns cause yawns." Which gave Simon an idea. Yawn! he commanded the glaring, grinning orange-haired waitress, who immediately yawned in mid-smile. Behind her wide, leering, grinning yawn, her eyes held confusion and, Simon noted, a touch of fear. What the hell am I doing? her eyes said. The two people at her table watched in awe the facial contortions of their waitress. Then they both yawned.

"What about you, Simon?" Jennifer was saying. "What are your interests, outside the library?"

This was the part of the coffee project that Simon had been afraid of: keeping up his end of the conversation. Most of Simon's conversations were with his cat, and then they mostly involved the plots of television shows.

He looked at Jennifer's hands, folded on the table. He thought they were the softest hands he had ever seen.

"Well," Simon said, "you, um, you know about Desi Arnez. He's my main interest." He noticed that four people at two tables next to the orange-haired waitress' table were yawning now.

Jennifer laughed. "That is such a great name for a cat. I love that. What does he look like?"

"He's fat," said Simon, looking back at her soft, folded hands. "He might be the fattest cat I've ever seen." Spread your fingers out, he added mentally, and she did, unfolding them and stretching all ten of them out on the top-table as casually as if it had been her own idea.

Simon looked up from her fingers, so as not to draw her attention to them. A group of nine people at two tables pushed together on the opposite wall were yawning now. The yawn was moving through the room at a counter-clockwise direction.

"That fat, huh?" Jennifer said, smiling and still spreading her fingers on the table. "What are you feeding him, twinkies?"

"No, fish and hamburger, mostly," Simon said flatly, a moment later. He was watching the soft, fluid movement of her ten soft fingers, quivering like reeds in the wind, which they had started doing right after he had thought: move your fingers.

"Fish and hamburger? Are you kidding?" Jennifer said as she moved her fingers. Simon was so busy concentrating on their movement that he wasn't sure at first what she was referring to.

"Yeah. Hamburger. And fish," Simon said. He briefly allowed his eyes to brush, again, over the soft swell of her chest. No sign of her nipples behind the soft bra and soft blouse. "He really likes fish."

"Most cats do," Jennifer said, with a small, curious smile that was entirely of her own making. Her fingers were still moving softly. "That doesn't mean they get to have it. You really go out and buy fish for your cat?"

Simon shrugged. "That's what he likes," he said. And then, before he could stop himself, he thought: I wish your nipples were erect. And three seconds later, to his amazement, they were.

"Well, that must be one happy cat," Jennifer said, instinctively leaning forward as her nipples pushed rigidly through the fabric of her bra and blouse. Even with her leaning like that, Simon could see clearly the hard little twin shadows they created on the soft curve of her breasts. Her fingers were moving, and he let himself indulge for a moment the thought of what he might command those fingers to do.

It was then that the room-wide yawn broke over their table like a wave. Suddenly the table to their left was yawning, then the table to their right, and then Jennifer and Simon themselves both yawned. As Jennifer yawned, her fingers stopped moving and her nipples retracted and disappeared.

"Yeah, I'd say you have a pretty lucky cat," Jennifer said again, after she finished her yawn. Simon didn't answer. He was watching the orange-haired waitress, who was looking back at him stonily, her Nudge-induced smile long-gone now. On her face was the look his mother used to give him, when she thought maybe he had done something wrong but couldn't prove it. It was for spite and no other reason that Simon mentally ordered the waitress to stop right in the middle of the restaurant and crane her neck to look stupidly up at the ceiling, which in turn caused a room-wide wave of ceiling-looking.

* * *

Simon's hands shook as he crushed the broiled whitefish into Desi Arnez's bowl. It was oily on his fingers.

"It's not that big a deal," Simon snapped, as the cat dove into the bowl. "It's not like I tied her down or anything." Desi Arnez ate ferociously, and said nothing.

"She must have wanted to, anyway. Or else she wouldn't have," Simon told Desi Arnez, the edge still in his voice. "It's not like I forced her."

The woman had been brunette, young (about 25, Simon guessed), slim but not skinny, average in every way, certainly not as soft or pretty as Jennifer. Coffee with Jennifer had gone well, all in all. She had agreed to meet again the next morning, and though he knew he had Nudged her into agreeing to meet again, the fact that she had agreed meant that she wasn't internally opposed to the idea as strongly she would be to, say, diving off a bridge. He had been feeling pretty good about the thing, sweeping the stacks and considering what to say during their next date, when he had noticed the brunette.

She had been browsing the Fantasy-Fiction section, on the next aisle over from Simon. The bookshelf between them was missing books in sections that made the top half of her face and the lower half of her waistline visible to him in two separate square holes through the rows of books. There was something about the image -- her eyes and, a few feet lower, her hips and upper thighs, framed like two pictures on a wall -- that had stirred him and made him remember Jennifer's protruding nipples. They had protruded at his command! What might that mean, in terms of what was possible, sexually, with the Nudge? Just how long was he expected to ignore the possibilities?

The brunette wore light khakis that accented the sharp curve of her hips through the green fabric, behind the hole in the books. Simon had looked around him. Only one other customer was in the library, up in the New Age section. Simon had looked again at the two eyes through the square hole in the books, and then, knowing he shouldn't but unable to stop himself, had thought: Look over here.

She did. She had stared right at him through the bookshelf. He had stared back a moment, noticing how pretty her dark eyes were. Smile, he had thought, though he couldn't see her mouth. He had then seen her eyes crinkle upward, evidence of the hidden smile he knew was there now. As she kept looking at him (Keep looking at me, he had commanded), he had let his gaze move slowly down the bookshelf, past "The Hobbit" and "Dune" and the collected works of Terry Brooks, to the lower square hole in the shelf, where her hips and thighs hovered. They were soft, curving hips, announcing femininity at every bend.

If she really doesn't want to, he had reasoned to himself, then she won't.

He had looked once more at her dark eyes. What was the harm in just seeing if it would work? He had stared at her dark eyes and her curving hips a moment longer, and then, trying not to consider too deeply what he was doing, he did it.

Take down your pants, he had commanded.

A moment later, the green khakis had been gone and all that was visible through the lower square hole in the books was her soft peach-colored skin, the shadow of her navel, and, below that, the plush black triangle of her pubic hair.

After considering this sight for a moment, and willfully ignoring the rising pleas of his higher mind, Simon had thought: Stay there. Just like that. Then he had stepped toward the shelf and reached through the square hole in the books, slowly, until he felt hair in his fingers. He had stood there like that, his arm snaking through the bookshelf, his hand nestled between her legs, his eyes locked on hers. He had stayed there half a minute, before pulling his arm out of the bookshelf and walking quickly away through the stacks and out the back entrance, and home, his hands shaking.

Simon watched the fat white cat pull a last white chunk of fish into its mouth. Then it sat up and blinked at him. "It's not like I forced her," Simon said, again.

Desi Arnez said nothing.

"Quit looking at me like that," said Simon.

* * *

"What would you do if you could influence people with your mind?" Simon asked Jennifer the next morning over coffee at Ned's.

"What makes you think I can't influence people with my mind?" Jennifer answered, smiling with mock insult.

"No, I mean, if you could control their actions, use your mind to make them do things. What would you do?" The orange-haired waitress appeared to be off today. Simon was relieved. He had, without planning to, made two more women disrobe earlier that morning -- one had exposed her heavy pink breasts to him from backseat of a passing cab, and the other had tugged down her jeans and flashed her dishwater-blonde vagina at him on the bus -- and the guilt was sharp enough already without having to face the accusing stare of Miss Sunshine.

"So, you mean," Jennifer was saying, "like hypnosis or something?"

"Right. Sort of," said Simon, cupping his hands around the coffee. "Only, with just your mind. If you could look at a person and just think something -- say, 'smile' or 'frown' or 'look up' -- and then the person would just do it. What would you do?"

Jennifer laughed. She was wearing a summer skirt that came just above her knees, shorter than what she usually wore, Simon noted to himself. They were seated off the same corner of the table, and looking down discreetly, he could make out two or three inches of her bare inner thigh in the shadows of the skirt. He wondered fleetingly if the Nudge could be employed to induce a person to dress in a specific manner in the morning.

"I guess I'd never have to work again," Jennifer said, after her laugh. "I guess any time you needed money, you could just walk up to a stranger and think, 'Give me money,' and they would."

Simon stared silently at this. It was something he hadn't considered.

"No, I guess I wouldn't do that," Jennifer continued. "That'd be just like mugging someone. But it'd be a good thing for a woman to have. Say some guy is following you, and you're nervous about it and you want to lose him? You could just think, 'Hey, you better stop and tie your shoes.' And while he's doing that, you make your getaway."

Simon nodded. He hadn't thought of that, either.

"I think if you had a power like that," Jennifer continued, "you'd have to do good deeds with it."

"Good deeds?"

"Yeah. Like -- I don't know -- stopping crime, stopping poverty."

"How could it stop poverty?" Simon asked, glancing surreptitiously down at her soft knees.

What was the harm?

Move your skirt up a little, he thought, and she did, casually, pulling it halfway up her thigh without pausing in the conversation.

I shouldn't have done that, Simon thought. But he didn't make her pull it back down.

"Maybe you could hypnotize rich people to give tons of money to charity," Jennifer was saying. "Or when you read that some big company is about to shut down a plant or something, you could find the company president and hypnotize him into keeping it open."

"I hadn't thought of that," said Simon, feeling guilty that he hadn't thought of that. Guilt was the emotion of the day, it seemed. He felt guilty about the black-haired woman in the library and about the woman in the cab and about the woman on the bus. He had vowed that each one would be his last. He felt guilty that Jennifer's skirt was hiked almost to the tops of her legs now. Simon thought her thighs were possibly the two softest things he had ever seen.

"You could do all kinds of stuff," Jennifer said, getting enthusiastic about it. "You could end prejudice. Think about it. You could pretend to join one of those skinhead groups, and then when you go to one of their meetings and they're all there at once, you could just put out one big hypnotic command to cover all of them: 'Quit being prejudiced.' "

"I don't know if that would work," said Simon. He honestly didn't. Jennifer's upper thigh was completely exposed now, and it was all Simon could to do keep from staring openly at it. Just a little more, he thought, and her hand idly pulled the skirt higher, and suddenly there was her underwear. It was pink and shiny.