Web of Sensation Ch. 01

"He's crazy, eggs, hungry, bastard, turn right at, Hemmingway, oil light.."

None of it made sense. Just words, random words. But the fear that was growing within her seemed to be her own. She was afraid that she would go insane. She was afraid for her own health.

She had to stop it some way. Was there a pill, some kind of medicine that would work? Of course not.

"Turn on second, heat at 350, kill them, homerun!, got to sleep, work on Saturday, assholes, where's my shoe?"

The thoughts would be funny presented like that, if she could even slow them down. But they wouldn't stop, slow, or fade away. People wouldn't stop thinking just because they were bothering her, would they? No, she had to stop them herself.

Stop them.

How?

Concentrate on something. What? Anything.

She stared at the coffee table before her, focusing on a scrap of notebook paper left from when she'd made a grocery list earlier in the week. She just stared at it, counting the blue lines. Thirteen lines on the half sheet. How many nubs left from where it was torn off the book? She couldn't count them.

"Rain today?, dirty dishes, crotch itches, mosquito repellant, French toast…"

Count them. Twenty-six? No, thirty. And there are eighteen lines. College ruled.

"I wish I had a new car…good movie…the house needs paint."

The thoughts seemed to be slowing, completing themselves. More important, the emotions had slowed. She must be doing something right.

"I hope she likes this restaurant. We can't afford HD TV."

Two last thoughts and then nothing. The silence in her head was deafening, and she sat for a moment trying to adjust to this new feeling. Lack of feeling. The emotions were gone, too.

It was nearly six o'clock. Four hours had gone by since it began. What had she done to stop it? She had no idea.

"Kaitlyn?" she thought. Maybe she did have some control over it. "Kaitlyn?"

"Yes?"

There she was, and that marked the true beginning of Laura's new life.

#

Kaitlyn Ash was always able to make people do as she wished. When she was a child, she wasn't aware of that ability. It was just nice that they always came around to her way of thinking. It wasn't until after she passed through puberty that her special gift became more apparent.

When she started hearing voices, she thought she was going insane. Snatches of thoughts flooded through her mind and then faded, only to return with greater strength. At some point, the determined fourteen year-old simply told herself that she wasn't crazy and she should get a grip. The thoughts went away. End of story.

She was sixteen when a drive with her brother ended in disaster on a rain-slicked road. The accident killed her brother and left Kaitlyn crippled. That was the tipping point.

"I was at home, recovering, and feeling sorry for myself," Kaitlyn told Laura Saturday night. "Mostly I was sad that I'd probably never get laid. Silly, really, but that's what I cared about."

It was while she was in depths of sexual depression that she suddenly found herself in a neighbor's bedroom, in the head of a woman having sex. Suddenly flooded with sensations she'd never enjoyed, she realized that this couldn't be a delusion. It was too realistic to be false. Her orgasm was too grand to be false.

Over time, she and her neighbor came to grips with what had happened. Over time, Kaitlyn found that she could feel the thoughts and emotions of a great many people, and some, like her neighbor, could respond. It took great emotion to break through—orgasm or fear worked well, though orgasm was certainly preferred. As with life, orgasm was only a small part of the connection. But, it was the fun part.

Everything grew from there. A community grew, and Laura had just moved within its exclusive walls.

But now what?

How did her current occupation sit with her new point of view? She didn't like the job, and she'd told Sue she was quitting, so why should she bother going in on Monday? Two week notice? She had more than that in sick days and vacation time. She knew she could do better than a boring, repetitive job lying to people on the telephone.

That was when she remembered the job notice she'd forwarded home from work, and she turned on her computer.

#

"This is probably a big waste of time. How many openings did they have anyway?" Sue fidgeted with her resume as she sat by Laura in the office of Catland James Media Services on Monday morning. Both women were dressed in their best job interview clothing and armed with printed resumes padded as well as possible to cover fairly scant job histories. "What do I know about media services?"

"The listing asked for backgrounds in accountancy and human resources," Laura said. "It didn't mention media. You read it."

"I have no background in human resources," Sue pointed out.

"No, you just spend all day fielding calls from customers. Sounds like a type of human resources to me."

"You're really stretching it, aren't you?" Sue laughed.

"What have you got to lose, Sue? Even if we don't get jobs, we'll have the rest of the day free. Relax."

"Ms. Dalton?" The receptionist looked up from her desk holding one hand to the telephone earpiece hidden beneath her auburn tresses. "You may go in now." She indicated a door behind her large desk.

"Okay." Laura stood.

As she did, the door opened and a tall, broad-shouldered man with chiseled features and curly brown hair stepped out. "Ah, Laura," he said. "Come on in."

Taken aback by his informality, Laura hesitated. There was something about his voice. Pushing that thought to the back of her mind, she hurried to follow as he stepped back through the door.

Beyond the door lay a short hall with a door on either side and one at the far end. The man led her to the end door and opened it with a smile. "Right this way," he said, and stepped aside for Laura to enter.

She stepped into a large corner office with a wide view of the city beyond. It was paneled with a dark, rather lawyerly style, and books lined the shelves. Laura noted that there was also a HDTV and what appeared to be a well-stocked bar.

The room seemed familiar. Something about the paneling.

And then she saw the woman sitting behind the large desk in the corner of the windowed walls. She saw her face, her smile, and recognized her at once.

"Good morning, Laura," said Kaitlyn Ash, as she glided back from her desk.

"Kaitlyn?" Laura wasn't sure why she was surprised by this turn of events, but she was.

The surprise was compounded when Kaitlyn turned and rounded her desk without rising, revealing the fact that she was seated in an electric wheelchair and steering herself around with a joy stick on one arm.

Perhaps feeling the shock in Laura's mind, she said, "I told you about my accident."

"Yes, but, well I guess I didn't think about your recovery."

"My recovery was a bit incomplete." Kaitlyn laughed. "Sit down. You've met my husband, James," she said, nodding toward the tall man who'd brought Laura in.

James Falconer extended his hand with a smile. "Pleased to meet you in person," he said. "Glad to see you got the email."

Laura blushed and shook his hand.

"Now I'm completely confused," Laura said as she sat. "Why didn't you just tell me you had an opening? I might not have answered the ad."

"This telepathy business is dicey," Kaitlyn said. "It's not polite to make people do things. Better to extend the opportunity and see what happens."

"Although she did nudge you toward inviting your friend along," James said.

"It was the least I could do after my horny hubby's little faux pas in the shower the other day," Kaitlyn said, eyes twinkling.

"What about that gangbang the other night? There must have been twenty men. You didn't ask if I wanted that."

"And the flood of mundane thoughts the next day," Kaitlyn said. "You didn't want that, either. Once your talent had been awakened, you had to have the whole raw experience so your brain could adjust."

"Were those all, you know, friends of yours?"

"No."

"Who were they?"

"Think about a city this size," James said. "How many people do you figure are screwing on a Friday night? You were probably picking up everyone within range."

"Even if they aren't telepathic?"

"It seems that everybody is telepathic when they come," Kaitlyn laughed. "But now you've adjusted, so you'll only hear what you want to hear."

"But I didn't…"

"No, but you don't think about breathing or staying upright when you walk, do you? Your brain can do a lot of things on its own."

"Thank God. It would be a lot of work to keep everyone out," Laura said. "Why me? Do all your contacts work here?"

"No, of course not. But neither your nor your friend like your jobs, did you? We have a couple employees who are less than honest. It seemed a good time to replace them."

"I don't know anything about the job, really. I was just hoping to fake it."

"I've been in your mind, Laura," Kaitlyn said. "I know you'll be perfect."

"I should have known from the name of the company, I guess," Laura said. "And you guys are married? I guess that's a marriage made in Heaven."

"Pretty much," James laughed.

"I have certain needs," Kaitlyn said. "I can't walk but I do have limited feeling in my genitals. I've found that for complete sexual satisfaction, I need someone with a working body as a kind of stand in. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I think I do." Laura could imagine the frustration of sex without feeling in your legs. Having to lie like a piece of meat while someone works at pleasuring you would be hard.

"Exactly," Kaitlyn said in her mind. "James and I are perfectly suited. We communicate so completely that we can't be unfaithful to each other without giving it away," she said aloud. "Lust and love are two different things, Laura. He can allow his lust free reign and I can do the same through him."

Laura laughed. "I want a man like that."

"See, I knew you'd be perfect for the job."

"But it is a real job, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, we do real work," James said. "I started the company before we met. James Media. Once Kaitlyn introduced herself, in a manner of speaking, and we fell in love, we joined forces. It was handy at the start to have a partner who can convince bankers to make loans they might normally shy away from."

"I suppose so. What about Sue?" Laura asked. She wasn't so sure Sue would feel comfortable working for the voyeurs from the shower. "She might feel awkward here."

"We're hoping that quadrupling her salary will help her get over any awkwardness," James said.

"Like a man, he thinks money is enough to overcome a woman's feelings," Kaitlyn said, laughing. "But I think that if James will go away for awhile, the two of us can manage to convince her to give up the fast life of telephone service for her own office."

"Yes, she is a pragmatic girl," Laura said. "I think we can get past first impressions."

That was exactly what they did. And they all worked happily ever after.