The Music of the Mind

Thank you to everyone who has sent feedback and suggestions, it is truly appreciated. I will keep working on this series until I finish it. If you have ideas or suggestions please let me know. I am always open to feedback. Thanks as usual to my editor LadyCibille.

Chapter 11: Duet

I sat across from Tuyen and my mind raced. How to tell her all that had happened, all that might happen. She looked scared, but also a little angry. I took a few deep breaths trying to calm my racing mind. I had a million questions about my visitor who was unconscious on my couch, but no time to explore them with her here.

"Look, Tuyen, I have a lot to try to explain to you, and…well some of it may sound a bit crazy." I said with a frown. Then she did something that caught me completely off guard, she smiled.

"It's okay Mike, just tell me what is going on?" she said.

"Well, it is difficult to know where to begin." I said quietly

"Well why don't you start with our unconscious friend who has bled all over your couch. Who is he, and what happened to him?"

I thought hard for a moment, Tuyen sitting there patiently looking at me. I figured when the truth was this absurd, the only thing to do was to tell the complete truth and see what happens.

"I don't know his name, but he is the son of a crazy psychic who has built a cult of other psychics around him, and he currently wants me dead. This guy attacked me a little while ago, and I defeated him, and I just found him here begging for help." I spoke in a rush of words, then stopped and stared at Tuyen. She had the strangest look on her face. It was a look of surprise, and of recognition.

"Mike, I was at home before I came over here and I heard this voice in my head that told me to come to your house right away. It was so strong, but so soft. Did you call me to come over here tonight. . . I mean in my head? Was that you?" She looked a little scared as she spoke. I knew who had called her, and it wasn't me. Dang this was getting complicated in a hurry. I was hoping to work up to the genie.

"No, that wasn't me that was the genie." I said it with a dead serious expression on my face, but even with this Tuyen shook her head and smiled.

"A genie talked to me in my head? Come on Mike. Are you sure you're okay, this is all way to crazy. Maybe I should call Suzan, or better Ellen?" The smile had faded from her face, and now she looked very concerned. I knew I could pull her note to me and encourage her to believe me, but somehow I knew I was going to have to tell her eventually that I had been inside her head, and I didn't want to add more material to that confession. Instead I shouted in my mind, "Genie, could you please make a brief appearance, it would speed this up tremendously."

Tuyen just sat looking at me, and then I saw her eyes look past me and a look of true terror appeared on her face. Then I felt it, the presence and power of the genie. I twisted around, and there is stood right behind me, beautiful and yet cold, sexless and yet sensual. I have tried many times to think of what it was wearing, or details about it's form, but none of them will ever come to me. When you meet this being, you come away with only the memory of its power, and it alien feel to us. I turned back to Tuyen.

"Tuyen this is the genie. I freed him from his prison and in reward it gave me a great gift. That gift is why this man, and more importantly his father wants to kill me." I spoke slowly as I looked at Tuyen, but her eyes never left the genie. Then I felt its voice flow through me and somehow I knew that it spoke to us both.

"I summoned you here. Without help this man will be killed. I sensed you have the most open mind to believe him, and to perhaps help him. I can offer you no more help then that." Then I felt that sharp feeling of vacuum in my mind as the genie left. It was hard to realize how much of my mind it occupied when it was near, until the moment it left and I felt the absence more acutely.

Tuyen's eyes traveled back to my face now that the genie had vanished. She looked stunned, maybe even in shock. I was going to have to help this along, or we would go nowhere. I reached out and pulled her note to me. She was scared and very confused, but also she was excited and intrigued. I sounded some large gentle notes of calm in her, and trust that I was her friend, and I could see her body visibly relax.

"So this guy wants to kill you for a gift the genie gave you? Why don't you just give it to him?" Tuyen said, her voice shaking slightly.

"I can't, it isn't that kind of gift." I said hesitantly.

"Well what kind of gift is it then? Shit Mike, just tell me what is going on!" She was getting a little hysterical, and I reached out and calmed her mind once again.

"Well, I can hear the music of other people's minds." She stared at me blankly. "I mean, I can read their emotions, and sometimes their thoughts." I said in a whisper. Tuyen just sat there staring at me.

"Can you read my mind?" She asked her voice still a bit shaky.

I nodded. "Yeah, I can read anyone's mind that isn't shielded."

"Shielded, what the hell does that mean?" She sounded exasperated, but also a little excited. I could feel the interest starting to build in her, but also worry.

"It means that there are others with this ability. This man's father has the gift, and he has found a way to use it to give others a minor form of it. Only others with this ability can shield their minds. I can't really explain it better then that." I said.

Tuyen looked stunned, but I could feel in her notes that she was accepting more and more now, and quickly. She really had a remarkable mind. She wanted to think of something that would prove I could read her mind. She was kicking around ideas in her head. I felt her select one.

"Okay, if you can read my mind, what am I thinking right now?"

I sifted through the notes of her mind, and she was quite deliberately concentrating on one thought, so it rang loudly in her surface thoughts before me. I listened and felt my way into it.

"You are thinking exactly what it felt like when I pushed my cock into you when we were together." I said it slowly and almost laughed at the look that was on her face.

"Oh my god Mike." She just sat staring at me for a moment. "How long have you had this. . . gift?" she said.

"Since I was in the hospital. I guess when the genie gave it to me it took a bit out of me." I said.

She nodded. I pushed her thoughts away so I was only reading her surface emotions now. Suddenly she looked up at me sharply.

"The strip poker game, you cheated didn't you?" she said with a touch of anger in her voice. I nodded.

"Yeah, I did. I'm sorry. It was just, well I'm only human and the four of you are all very beautiful women. I didn't think it would cause any harm." I looked her straight in the eye as I said this. She looked a little angry now.

"Look Tuyen, I'll lay all my cards on the table. I can not only read peoples minds, but I can go in and affect their thoughts, their emotions. I have struggled with this gift. I have sworn to never use it to control anyone, or to hurt anyone." The memory of the dead man in the club flashed through my mind.

"I should tell you, that I used my gift to try to find out why you hated me so much. I didn't want to control you, I just wanted a fair shake. I wanted to know what I had done that had so offended you, so maybe I could make amends. I found an old memory of a boyfriend who looked like me who hurt you years ago, and I tried to quiet that memory. To take away that pain for you. I though maybe then you would give me a chance to show you I was an okay guy." I said all this while looking Tuyen in the eye. "

"I know I have no right to be in anyone's head like that, but please believe me I have only tried to help others with this gift. I can't stand the idea of misusing it. Anyway, I am sorry. I guess I shouldn't have done it. It is so hard to know where the line is with this." I looked down as I finished talking and I pushed her note completely out of my mind. I didn't want to feel the backlash from this.

Then suddenly she was kneeling in front of me. I looked up into her rich brown eyes and she was smiling. I was speechless. She leaned in and wrapped her arms around me and hugged me. As she did so she whispered in my ear.

"Thank you for telling me." And she pulled back looking at me kindly before she spoke again. "Look Mike, since that night my whole life has improved. I know the memory you are talking about, and the man. I am amazed it was having that much effect on me. I never really understood why I disliked you, and Jill always asked me what my beef was with you. I guess I really never had one with you. I let go of my anger for you, and I thought that was what was making everything in my life feel so much better. Maybe it was that memory you quieted, I don't know. All I do know is I have been happier than I can remember being in a long time." Her voice was tinged with the threat of tears, but she went on.

"I don't know if I like the idea of you in my head, but I do know you have been a good friend. Can I ask you one question?" I nodded "What about the sex? Did you. . .influence me to do that?" she looked concerned, but also scared.

"No Tuyen, all I did was erase that memory. I think the wine and the relief you felt from that burden must have done the rest. I swear, I would never make anyone do anything against their wishes." As I finished speaking Tuyen smiled again.

"Well good! I was worried some of the best sex of my life was going to become a bad memory." She said with a chuckle.

"Well, I guess there is a few more things I should tell you. I used the gift to make our sex more intense. I can strengthen the feeling of physical pleasure with it."

She was nodding her head now. "That makes sense, it all seemed so intense. How do you do it?" she asked looking up at me from the floor where she now sat cross-legged. I slid down beside her.

"You want me to show you?" I said smiling.

"Okay, but just a small demonstration." She said with a mischievous look.

"What I do, is I hear the thoughts and feeling of you in my mind like musical notes. Each note can be a thought or feeling, and often there are many notes together for complex thoughts or feelings. Well I noticed that when we were doing it, that new notes appeared when I touched your nipples or your clit, and I could feed more sound into them." I said trying to explain it to myself as well as Tuyen.

"So I have to already be aroused for you to stimulate the. . .the feelings?" she asked

"No, I can create them there if I want to. Let me show you." I pulled her note too me, and recalled the note for her right nipple and breast, and called it slowly forth in her mind, not too strong, and let it hum for a few seconds before releasing it.

When I did this Tuyen jumped like she had been shocked and grabbed her breast. As I finished she let go and I could clearly see her hard nipple through her shirt.

"Oh my god, that is wild." She said looking at me. "Are you still doing it?" she asked.

I could feel the note was softly humming on its own now. "No, your just slightly aroused, so it is humming on its own now." I said.

Tuyen nodded. "Well I am kind of turned on now."

"I can still it if you like?" I asked.

"No, it's okay, kind of feels good. But, I don't want to get sidetracked, what are you going to do about sleeping beauty here, and these people that want to kill you." She nodded at the man on the couch as she spoke.

"I don't really know what to do with him. He was asking for help before you came in. Saying something about someone wanting to kill him. I should probably see if I can look in his mind. Then maybe I'll know more." Tuyen was nodding as I finished speaking.

"What do you need to do?" she asked.

"Just get comfortable. If I zone out don't freak, it just means I am in so deep that I have kind of lost touch with stuff going on around me."

"Okay, I'll keep an eye on you." She said, and I could hear the nerves in her voice.

I sat in the comfy chair next to my couch and called the man's note to me. It was like being inside a box filled with metal pieces that someone was shaking. Almost every note in his mind was discordant. It took a great effort of will just to endure that noise. I tried to read some of these sounds, but they were to primal with fear, flight, and pain.

I started to follow these sounds down deeper into his mind past layers of thought, and then memory. Eventually they began to fade, and I felt that somewhere in the depths of his mind there was a single great discordant tone crying out. I passed the earliest memories, and found that the sounds around me were now so different I could hardly read them.

They were those things that reside somewhere in the base of our subconscious. Instincts maybe, or animal drives to eat, to procreate, to survive. I had never been so far into someone's mind; it was chilling in that I felt no connection to the outside world anymore. All of my consciousness was deep in the mind of this madman on my couch. What would happen to me if he died I wondered.

Still, somewhere ahead called that sound. I followed it, now moving slowly for it felt as if the space of his mind was narrowing, like a funnel to its tip. I emerged into an area almost silent. It would have been dead quiet except for the ringing of that awful assortment of noise nearby. I pushed on, and found the noise to be painful now, almost a fire to my mind. I tried to somehow shield myself from it, and again by instinct it was as if I raised a shield in front of me that the sound struck and flowed around. It was like hiding behind an umbrella in a windstorm, most of the force of the note seemed to be reflected.

At last I was at the source of that terrible noise. I could almost feel the structure of the mind around me. It is not something I think I can describe well with words, but I will try. Imagine that in your mind, at the very core of you is a place of peace, or quiet. A place that is shielded from all the noise of your mind. This quiet place gives you a center, a grounding so to speak. A place from which to draw strength perhaps, I am not sure.

What was very obvious to me was that something was terribly wrong here. I began to realize that what I was looking at was the instrument of his mind. The thing from which all his sound originated. The seat of consciousness? But the longer I stayed there, the more I could sense that it had been broken. Imagine if you will a harp with a few broken strings. When you strum the harp all you get is noise. The strings have to work together to make a chord, and most music in peoples minds were a collection of notes.

I could, in a way, feel the broken strings of his mind. I reached out then, and with my mind I felt as if I gently picked one up. It rang in a horrible assortment of noises within me. I used all of my will to summon a shield between me and that string as I held it. Then, I pulled it taught and stretched it across that space.

I could feel, somehow, where it had been attached. It was like a wound, open and sore, and out of this tear came more discordant sound. I pulled the string to it, and tried to still the jangling of the string as I held it in place. Suddenly as the string stilled the wound closed and the string held in place. The noise still rang around me, but with one less string to contribute to it.

How long I worked, and how many strings I reattached I don't know. Some were so torn and twisted it took a long time for me to pull them back together. The mind has more strings then I could count, and many of this man's were damaged. It wasn't until the end, when the last string had quieted that I could really feel the instrument as a whole.

The strings of this great harp would tremble now, and I could feel that they transferred the energy up into the higher levels of the mind. The silence here was maintained, but I could now feel the power of the notes as they rang and then traveled through the place where the strings connected into the mind.

Then I noticed something else peculiar. It was as though once a great curtain had been laid across all these strings, and I could feel the edges of its tattered and torn form still clinging to the mind. A chilling thought ran through me. Was this the place Dolkoff had altered to give his son the gift? Had he torn that curtain aside? It felt like a brutal act, and damaging.

I began to rise back up through the mind again, seeking the surface of his thoughts. As I rose I could feel the greater quiet of his mind. When I reached his most recent memories, I could tell many of them were discordant. The damage to his mind had made them ill formed. I quieted these, until I found one that caught my attention. It was just a memory of intense pain. It was a memory of Dolkoff tearing his mind apart in punishment for his failures. I stilled it as best I could, then rose out and back to my own consciousness.

As I returned to the world around me, I felt the tremendous fatigue rush over me. Tuyen leapt off the floor in front of me and grabbed me or I would have tumbled out of the chair.

"Mike, are you alright?" her voice bordered on hysterical.

"Yeah Tuyen, I'm fine." I croaked out, finding my throat to be very dry. "How long was I gone?" I asked.

"About 4 hours. Can I get you a drink or something?" she asked. Suddenly I was extremely parched and quite hungry as well.

"Yes, water please, and food." She nodded and turned to go to the kitchen after one last look to make sure I could stay in the chair. When she returned I drank the large glass of water in great gulps and ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwich Tuyen had made. It wasn't the Ritz, but it tasted great. When I was finished I could slowly feel my strength returning.

"So what happened?" she said quietly

"Not sure if I helped or not." I said quietly

"After you. . .ummm, left. This guy started shaking and moaning, but he didn't wake up. Then after about a half hour, he got very still. About an hour ago he seemed to be sleeping peacefully." Tuyen looked tired, but also excited.

"His mind was damaged. I had to go in further then I have ever done. It was amazing Tuyen. I found the instrument of the mind. I tried to repair his, but I don't know how well I did. I think Dolkoff tried to kill him for failing to kill me." As I said this I looked at the sleeping form of the man. He was peaceful now, sleeping like a baby with deep slow breaths.

"Who is Dolkoff?" Tuyen asked with a hint of concern.

"He is a man who opened the genie's box a long time ago. He wished for power over others, and he got the gift I have, but the genie claims to a lesser extent then mine. He is the one who heads up the gang of thugs I told you about. I guess family ties mean little to him if he is willing to kill his own son." I continued to sip the last of the water in my glass.

"So, if you fixed him, do you think he will attack you when he wakes?" the apprehension was now clear in Tuyen's voice.

"No, I think his father meant for him to die. He has no friends there now, but maybe with kindness we can persuade him to help us." I didn't really have any great hope of this, but I figured it was worth the risk. Then something else occurred to me.

"Tuyen, I think I know how he did it!" I said

"Did what?" Tuyen said her brow wrinkled in confusion.

"How Dolkoff opened his mind to make him a mind reader. I am not certain, but I think I know how he did it!"

Tuyen just sat quietly for a moment looking at me. I couldn't read the look in her face, and I was unwilling to call her note to me.

"You think you can make other people psychic like you?" she said quietly. I only nodded back, still excited.