John Lutz - Pulse

“Guess not.”

“I’ll thank you later for doing this for me,” she said. “Thank you properly.”

She kissed him on the lips and he felt an immediate erection.

Sherri must have felt it, too. “I better not do that,” she said, smiling up at him. “And you better get the car back to your mother.”

Rory waved good-bye to Clyde, who’d been standing watching them, then got into the Chevy and backed it down the driveway and into the street. So far he didn’t feel any different from taking the pills. He ran a stop sign near his house, but managed to get the Chevy parked back in the garage.

When he went in through the kitchen he saw a note from his mother beneath the salt shaker on the table. She’d gone shopping with a neighbor in the woman’s car and would be back soon.

Rory got a soda from the refrigerator, went into the living room, and slumped down on the sofa. He used his cell phone to call Sherri and they talked for a while. Sherri was the one who started giggling and talking crazy, then they both started making less and less sense so they each kissed their phones and then broke the connection.

Leaning back in the sofa, Rory sighed happily. It had been a hell of a day, but looking back on it, not such a bad one. He and Sherri were closer now, that was for sure. All in all, his world seemed pretty good, its pieces all in place.

He rested the back of his head against the sofa cushion and wondered…

It seemed like five seconds later when Rory woke up. It was dark outside. He struggled to an upright position and took a sip of soda. It was warm and fizzy and some spilled down onto his shirt.

He looked around for a clock, then remembered that there was none in the living room. That was where he was, in the living room of his house.

Reassuring, familiar territory.

After unremembered dreams?

He took a few deep breaths and decided he felt pretty good. Maybe a little confused, and sort of… heavy.

Light played over the living room walls. Headlights. Tires scrunching gravel. A car in the driveway.

Voices. A car door slamming. High heels clacking on the concrete porch. Paper sacks crackling. A soft jingling and then the ratcheting sound of a key being inserted in a lock.

The light came on, causing his eyes to ache.

“Why on earth are you sitting there in the dark?” Rory’s mother asked. She was standing near the door, clutching several large Antoine’s bags.

“I was watching TV. Musta fell asleep.”

“I hope you didn’t spill any of that soda on the couch.”

“Nope. I was careful.”

He suddenly realized he had to piss, and urgently, so he stood up, swaying gently. He couldn’t get his legs to work for a moment; then he trudged heavily toward the hall and the bathroom.

“You’re still half asleep,” his mother said.

“I guess I am. TV does that sometimes.” He plodded on toward the bathroom. How did it get so far away?

He still felt heavy. More like three-fourths asleep. Drugged.

Sherri and her little white pills.

But they had worked. He remembered feeling much better not long after taking them. The tension, his fear that he might say something wrong, or that in some other way Sherri would find out what really happened to Duffy, had seemed suddenly unimportant and then left him.

If the pills worked this time, they’d work again. People expected so much from him. It wasn’t as if he lived a life without pressure.

He bumped into the small table in the hall, causing it to scrape against the wooden baseboard.

“For God’s sake, turn on a light,” his mother said behind him. “I hope you don’t drive that way at night. You’re liable to kill somebody.”

New York, the present

D r. Grace Moore’s office was on West Forty-fourth Street, in a building attached to The Lumineux, a swank hotel with European decor. The idea was that some of the tasteful mood and environment might rub off.

Her office was furnished much in the manner of the hotel, with minimalist style and obviously expensive furniture. Matching taupe carpet and drapes set off-but barely-mauve furniture and throw rugs over a hardwood floor. Deep blue was, here and there, an accent color. The tan leather sofa where her patients sat was incredibly comfortable. She thought that in sum the office gave her patients confidence in her, and engendered a heightened tendency to share secrets.

Linda Brooks, a twenty-nine-year-old woman Dr. Moore had been treating for two years, had seemed exceptionally upset when she’d arrived for her appointment today, but now, sitting back on the sofa with her head resting against the cushions, her eyes half closed, she’d obviously calmed down.

Linda was an attractive dark-haired girl with well-defined features and a cleft chin that helped to lend her a habitual sincere and determined expression. Her teeth seemed always clenched, her jaw muscles almost constantly flexing. Linda had been diagnosed five years ago as mildly schizophrenic with episodes of paranoia. Lately, the paranoia had been increasing in frequency and seriousness.

“Have you been taking your meds as required?” Grace asked, seated in a soft swivel chair with her legs crossed. As usual, she was composed and calm.

“Of course I have,” Linda said. “That’s what they’re for, aren’t they?

“Do I sense hostility?”

“Toward you, no,” Linda said.

“Toward yourself?”

“God, let’s not get into that.”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“I knew you were going to ask that.”

“Of course you did; it’s the obvious question.”

“So is my reply. No offense, Dr. Moore, but you don’t know the right questions.”

“So what are they?”

“The questions I’d ask.”

“Such as?”

“Will I ever again look forward to getting out of bed when I wake up? Am I ever going to be able to develop a loving relationship with a man? Will I ever have to live on the streets because my parents’ money and my insurance have run out? Will any of these shitty medicinal cocktails you dream up actually cure me? Is it possible I’m imagining being stalked by the same man?”

“What was that last one again?”

Linda smiled, pleased to have piqued Dr. Moore’s interest.

“He’s average height, built like a young Frank Sinatra, wears a baseball cap sometimes, like he thinks it’s some kinda disguise. But I see him. I know him. I recognize him. You think he’s a hallucination, but he’s not.”

“Frank Sinatra… I would have thought you’d say Mick Jagger, or somebody more to the musical tastes of people your age.”

“Okay, Mick Jagger. Even though he’s older than both of us.”

“This man who’s following-”

“Stalking.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Where he appears, how he moves, how he looks at me. Have you ever gone to the zoo and tried to outstare one of the big cats?”

“Believe it or not, yes,” Dr. Moore said. “A long time ago. A panther. I found it impossible.”

“Because if the bars hadn’t been there, the panther would have consumed you. Both of you knew that. And now one is stalking me. There are no bars.”

Dr. Moore felt a chill of fear, and pity, for what Linda must be going through. “Where do you see this man, Linda?”

“The street, subway, park, my apartment…”

“ Inside your apartment?”

“Once, for just an instant, when he was leaving out through the kitchen window. There’s a fire escape out there.” Linda opened her eyes all the way to match stares with Grace. Like the panther, Grace thought. “He wasn’t a hallucination.”

“Was the kitchen window closed and locked?”

“Of course.”