Brain Games Ch. 02

"Zachary: that is a fine and ancient name. God Remembers."

Professor Enkins was sitting behind an industrial steel desk in a largely bare office. The professor had dark, leathery skin and unusual features: sharp chin, sharp nose, large light-brown eyes that seemed almost liquid. And that gaze never wavered.

Zach stood awkwardly.

"Sit, sit. Tell me why you're here."

The professor spoke as if reciting a formula, as if he knew the answer but was simply going through the pleasantries.

There were a couple of cheap looking padded shairs and a couple more stackable plastic chairs. Zach took one of the padded chairs.

"I apologize for the lack of décor. I know: a professor's office should be stacked with ancient volumes. Or perhaps in this building, overflowing with petri dishes and microscopes. But I share this with five other adjuncts and we try to keep out of each other's way. Academia is like an aging movie starlet doped up on football money and whoring for just one more chance at the big screen."

Zach blinked.

"Ah, right, sorry. Go ahead: did you have some questions about the assignment?"

"You said... you mentioned meditation or something. I was... curious."

Enkins peered at him intently.

Zach could not get a read on his age. His hair was salt and pepper, shaggy but in a somewhat stylish way. His face showed lines of age and care, but still seemed bright with vigor. After just a moment, he had to look away. That gaze was weirdly strong.

"Yes, I did. Something like that. The brain, I believe I said, has been studied through damage, by taking away parts and seeing what breaks. But there are others who have studied it at capacity: not by dissection but through the direct application of mental focus and exercise. In this way, some humans have reduced the machine to complicated machine while others have elevated it to a mystical vortex."

Zach nodded. "Is there anything to it? The mystical vortex?"

"Sort of yes, sort of no. It's not all about the brain, but that's certainly a good place to start. So: would you like to get more out of your brain?"

"Um, yes. Yes. That's why I came."

"Wonderful, Zechariah! Wonderful. Here's my offer: attend my office hours for each of the next five weeks, and at the end of these six sessions, you can tell me if you are not in possession of the finest mind on campus and I will refund your payment in full. That's a joke. There's no money involved. Just a little joke."

"But, is it meditation? I have tried meditating and to be honest it doesn't work that well for me."

"A common experience, my young student. Meditation is a very slow path. And it has its own hazards. It can work, but it has a drawback: after years of hard work, when the full capacity of your being comes into focus, you will have lost all desire to put that capacity to any great use! I can't quite call it a devil's bargain, but it's something like that. No... there are much faster paths when you have the right instructor."

"So, what then?"

"That, my impatient young man, I am going to demonstrate."

Enkins rose from behind his desk. He seemed taller here than in the lecture hall, and a fierce presence seemed to fill the room.

"Lean back, Zechariah, and find a point the ceiling on which to fasten your gaze. No, even a little higher. There. Now keep your focus on that point as if there was nothing else in the universe. I am going to show you one little tweak to your brain that will start you on your new path. Listen to my voice, now, as I count from ten to one. Don't look away from that point, but let the vibration of my voice resonate in your mind. Ten. Breathe deeply. Nine. Relax your muscled. Eight..."

* * *

Zach started awake. Had he fallen aleep right here in Professor Enkins' borrowed office?

"How do you feel?"

Zach noticed that he felt incredibly good. Strong. Filled with ... power. Something he had never really felt in his life. It was a deep feeling.

"Good, I guess," he said, downplaying it considerably.

Enkins smiled. "Good."

"Did you hypnotize me?" Zach asked, trying to reconstruct what happened. He had a lingering image of a massive stone temple, braziers with leaping flame in a cool, dark place.

"Very astute. Yes, just a little, to jump start the process."

"So is hypnosis the magic then?"

"There is no single answer to this, God-Remembers, and there is no magic. But what I want you to do is feel how your awareness is different now. Really observe. Notice everything. Feel into it with your full attention from time to time. Practice reaching out with your awareness, to feel how you are not limited by your body."

"Like astral travel?" Zach asked, remembering the futility of his play.

Enkins smiled. It was a sharp smile.

"Don't worry about names and labels. Just reach out. And watch what happens."

* * *

With the rest of the weekend open in front of him, Zach decided to try to get his reading out of the way. He had one paper to write for his lit class on Monday. "James Joyce and the Hero's Journey."

Walking back through the campus he found himself stopping where the path he was on curved around the corner of one of the science buildings. A grassy slope gently fell away to a cluster of trees separating the humanities campus. A few people were lying out on the grass, absorbing the late morning sun, and Zach decided to join them. He would practice this "reaching out."

He found a spot well away from anyone else and sat. The sunlight on his eyelids suffused his mind with warm reds and golds. Sitting cross-legged, he put his hands on his knees and let his attention flow. He could feel the warmth of the sun tingling on his skin, and the sounds around him seemed to come into focus: he could hear some people in conversation walking along the path behind him, and the sounds of birds in the trees below, and the stirring of the breeze rustling at the grass. He felt that air flowing around him, over his skin, and again that sense of bright power he had felt when re-awakening in Enkins' office seemed to course back into him. As he was sitting, he realized it resonated with the sensation he had felt in the night, that electric tingling of energy and arousal all through his body.

Zach opened his eyes, startled at the intensity of the feelings in his body. "Jesus," he told himself. "You are seriously going to need to do something about this!"

He found his thoughts drifting to Jacob, how easy everything came to Jacob. He could just ask a girl out. He had probably asked out a dozen before Ava said yes. And Jacob didn't care in the slightest. He just grinned and moved on. Nothing phased him. Zach wished he could be like that. With all this pent-up energy, he wished he could just find that courage, access those words.

And even dwelling on the thought, he felt that energy flare even brighter. Thank god he wasn't still walking because he realized his erection had come back. He had to adjust himself to be more comfortable.

He shut his eyes again, trying to get his mind off all the sexual things. Listening for the rustling of the trees, feeling the deep blue of the sky above him.

But with his eyes shut he became acutely aware of a woman lying in the sun off to his left and a bit down-slope. He had noticed her in passing. She had curly dark hair spread out on the grass and a calm expression, a loose shirt rolled up her belly to get a little more sun. Now he felt like he could feel her in a different way. She was warm in the sun, and feeling all kinds of flushed sensations from that warmth. He felt her wanting to take off the shirt entirely, to be naked under the sun. He felt her wanting to slide her hand under her pants, to feel her own wetness.

Zach started, snapping out of it. Where did those thoughts even come from. He opened his eyes and surreptitiously glanced in the girl's direction.

She was lying in the same position, but her hand was on her belly. Had it been there before?

He closed his eyes again and let his mind flow back along that sensation. Was he just imagining? Or was he actually feeling something real?

He tried imagining her, but it felt strange, stale, fake. It was only when he let his mind relax again, let go and listen to the breeze that it seemed as though the breeze carried his awareness to her and again he felt that warm drowsy flush; and now it was as if he could see through her eyes, except she was imagining, and she was imagining looking down her body into a tangle of thick hair, as someone's head was pressed between her thighs. And she was was rocking her hips against ... against someone's mouth. Zach couldn't tell who. Was this a memory? Something she imagined? He could feel her flush growing, her excitement rising, her pleasure. He felt her slide her hand down her belly now and the touch of slippery as she spread her juice up over her clit.

He started himself out of it again, accidentally. How could he feel such a thing so intensely? As if it was real? He peered over at the girl again through half closed eyes.

Her hand was under her shorts. Her lips were parted. She had her knees up and was pressing against nothing.

Zach didn't know what to do. Now he was breathless with excitement and didn't think he had any chance of getting back to that calm that would let the air carry him into her sensation. If that was even a real thing.

So he watched.

He watched as she turned her head left and right, her left hand clutching at her breasts, her right hand moving more and more rapidly under her shorts.

Zach cautiously looked around. Nobody else was near, or noticing as far as he could tell.

She was going at it almost furiously and then stiffened, her hips in the air, trembling and let out a low, audible moan.

And immediately she snapped awake herself. Hastily yanking her hand out from her pants and pulling her shirt down over her belly. Zach slitted his eyes to almost completely closed, pretending to be a great meditator, but watched as she looked around in a panic. She took a long look at him, but he successfully held his neutral meditation face, and prayed she would see that he had a raging erection tucked along his pant leg.

She wiped her hand on the grass, got to her feet, and walked carefully downhill, away from him.

He had no idea who she was.

* * *

Zach sat a while longer, letting his arousal subside. Nonetheless, he felt it coiled within him, a power that was increasingly reluctant to be denied.

He debated with himself: was it coincidence? Had he subconsciously noticed something that tuned him into her state of mind? But that feeling of her was so intense! How could that be just a coincidence. It was something more, something like his dream, something Enkins had done... there had to be something real here.

He tried relaxing back into the sun and the sounds of the sleep Friday campus, but he couldn't. It was like jittery lightning was flickering through him and he had to get up, get moving.

The quad was supposedly off limits to frisbee players, but they were at it nonetheless, and Zach leaped to make (for him) an amazing catch at a wayward disk. He tossed it back and put a little extra spin on it. It flew straight as a bullet directly to a lanky bearded fellow, Zach thought his name might be James. He had never thrown a frisbee that straight in his life.

In the dorm, the game was going. Three player hearts, but Maddy flagged him down.

"Here's Zach, let's make it spades. Come on, Zach."

Emma and Jackson waved him over as well.

"Yeah, anyway, Jacob and Ava are back, so you'll want to be out here," Maddy said, slyly.

"I guess they are having quite a weekend."

"Maybe trying to set a record."

Zach sighed and joined the table. "I was going to work on my Joyce paper."

"You have all weekend," Maddy said, nudging Jackson over so she could sit across from him.

Emma, a pretty girl with pale, pink skin and a bit more weight than was fashionable, shuffled up the cards, and Zach cut the deck.

After sorting his hand, he looked across at Maddy and immediately felt that rush of power surge back through him. Jesus, she wanted him bad, he suddenly knew. The way she looked at him, the tickling heat in her hips. He felt his body respond.

He wondered: why can't I harness all this for something useful, like seeing her cards?

But he didn't care about the cards. He was good enough at cards, although he had drawn a terrible hand with too many spades to go nil and nothing else useful.

He told himself: Down boy. Don't fuck this up. Maddy is a good person. This is your home. Don't mess things up here.

But he felt her slender frame pressing forward, pressing her heat into the edge of the chair. He felt the tingling of longing at her dainty nipples, yearning for his kisses. He felt the rush of her heart each time she saw him.

He gritted his teeth and immersed himself in the game, and held his attention firmly on the banter, which was mostly Emma and Jackson complaining about various people on their floor. He didn't care much for that kind of gossip at the best of times and found himself connecting with Maddy's gaze from time to time. Jackson seemed to be on a run of great hands, and Emma partnered them competently. Once the game was over, Zach stood up.

"I'm going to get some lunch. Maddie: come on with me."

Her eyes lit up at the invitation, and he felt a shudder of hope and excitement run through her.

What the fuck am I doing? He wondered. Why did I even say that? And in that way? That doesn't even sound like me.

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