American Goth (7 page)

“What do you remember of overload?” she asked.

God, what I knew I wanted to forget. Not more than a week after the session where I’d had the opportunity to stop but chose to go forward, I learned very painfully what overload was.

A human body couldn’t withstand extreme heat, extreme cold, the vacuum of space, radiation—and in the same way, the body could be damaged trying to handle, or channel, too much energy, no matter how pure it was.

It had been a few days, just a few, of slight overload. It had been enough to delay my period. Had that been it, it would have been no big deal, but it also made me cramp like I’d never had before, shot my blood sugar and blood pressure down so low I’d been left unable to do anything but curl up into the fetal position, thrown into a world of mind-numbing pain where all that existed was a world-wrecking nausea that made me heave, a throbbing ache that tore through the center of my spine to my gut, only to pit through the heart of my thighs, and it left me open, wide open to every single thought, being, imprint on the Aethyr, all a chaotic shout in my head and body. Uncle Cort found me on the hallway floor where I’d curled up before I could get to my room.

“I’ll monitor,” he’d told Elizabeth, the only voice that was clear to me through the haze. “You clear the channels.”

The contact of his mind, his energy, on mine, sent the tear of pain into a scud down my body and back up to my throat and suddenly, Elizabeth, her hands, her face, so very clear before me, the concerned expression so
familiar
…It was a combination of physical and mental massage along the lines of my spine and kidneys that discharged the overflow, set the world to right again, and sent the pain and turmoil down to levels that were manageable. I slept for almost twenty-four hours straight afterward.

I may have winced at the memory and Elizabeth nodded.

“I know…I really truly do. That aspect wasn’t pleasant. Shut the channels for now,” she suggested, “so we can avoid a replay.”

It was easily done and I waited with an almost nervous anticipation to hear what would come next.

“There are several ways of avoiding a lot of that, though not all of it. Methods to discharge the extra energy, ground it out,” she said, “and the most effective
can
result in a binding.”

“Really?” I asked with interest.

“Do you have an idea of what any of those grounding methods might be?” She studied me with interest as I shook my head.

“No clue.”

She cocked her head to the side in a way I had come to recognize meant she was considering what to say even as she studied me. “Sex, Ann. Are you a virgin?”

Well that certainly distracted me from whatever I’d been thinking. However, the rather pointed question caught me short, and I choked on my tea as Elizabeth gracefully waited for my answer.

“Um, what exactly do you mean?” I asked in return when I could finally breathe freely without the danger of fluids pouring into my lungs. I was certain that the heat I felt in my neck and head were a very visible shade of red on my face.

“That’s what I thought,” she sighed as she took off her glasses and rubbed her temples.

“Is that something that matters?”

“In fact, it is. You know how to work on your own Astrally, you know how to work with another, as you’ve trained with Cort. But,” she hesitated briefly, “you don’t yet know what it means to be truly bound to someone, and there are some bindings that take tremendous amounts of energy to break and some that can
never
be broken.”

I found myself shaking my head again as I tried to understand what Elizabeth meant and she spoke to my confusion. “There are some that can take you from life to life, and there are bindings,” she paused and her words were measured, low, “bindings that can steal your heart, your soul, your life essence.”

Now I was really confused. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” I confessed. “In fact, I don’t know what that has to do with
anything
I’ve been doing. And…” I hesitated; I didn’t want her to think I was being sarcastic or disrespectful. “Elizabeth, I’ve had the ‘birds and bees’ discussion with my father.” There was something, perhaps it was the weight of the knowledge that Elizabeth carried, that projected itself in such a way that I picked it up and read it. It took me past nervous anticipation to downright edgy.

“And he would have had this one with you as well, when you were ready, as you are now. There’ll come a time,” she said, “when you’ll want to be bound to someone, or—” The skeptical glance I gave made her smile. “I know, I know, it doesn’t seem like that right now, but eventually, you’ll want to—at the very least—exchange the normal human closeness. If you choose to become bound to someone after your sealing, then they too either must be of a level equal to yours, or if they are not, they must become so, and bind themselves to the Light. This is Law, Annie—it cannot be gainsaid.”

That made sense in a rather abstract way. “But what in the world does that have to do with sex?” I asked, “Or if I’m a…” That was a little too uncomfortable to think about, never mind say. “What’s the connection?”

Elizabeth leaned forward. “Every aspect of the Material has energy—air, water, fire, wood, metal…skin, trees, sweat, blood—they each have a vibration. And then there’s the kinetic energy release connected to action—energy will disperse through movement, through sweat, through blood and the final release of sex, the act of—”

I held up an uncomfortable hand. “I know the word,” I said.

“Good—I didn’t want to have to explain it,” she said with a small grin, a grin I returned, relieved to know I wouldn’t have to sit through a technical discussion.

“It’s very simple, really,” she said. “You carry extra energy because of the work you do. Sex is a life energy, and a great way of releasing some of the surplus, and sharing it with someone creates a link. Combine that energy in any way with a life essence—blood, for example—and you create a bond. Depending on what’s in your head and heart, your
intent
at the time, that bond can be completely unbreakable.”

*

I couldn’t really hear the rest of what she said, couldn’t absorb or understand it, because I didn’t really want to
think
about sex at all, and the more I tried not to think about it, the more I felt the uncomfortable stir, that long-ignored aspect of my life wake with a churning need that made me choke on my tea again.

That was a good sign, I thought ruefully as I begged off from the rest of the conversation by claiming fatigue. It meant my body, and more, was vibrant, alive.

But still, the arousal was worsened by the intermittent water pressure and the sudden drop in its temperature when I took a shower, and after, the towel I rubbed myself down with felt coarse and rough against my skin. I readied for bed only to strip before I got under the covers. It was too much, much too much. I tossed, I turned, then tossed some more.

I didn’t want to think about what I’d just learned, because it took my mind to places I didn’t want it to go, an agonizing blank reach I didn’t want to make because I didn’t want to hurt. Oh I knew, because I’d just been told, that sex—by myself, with another—would literally ground the overload out, but then I’d have to…

What
did
I think about sex? Or rather, what did I
really
know about it, other than the straightforward mechanical realities involved with reproduction?

My first girlfriend, my best friend still, even though we hadn’t spoken in a few months, she and I…well, should I,
could
I call what had happened between us sex? We’d met as kids when I’d started swim team with the local club.

Her parents didn’t allow her to socialize much with the other kids on the team, but it didn’t matter—
we
talked anyway. Between us, we were Frankie and Sammer or even Sammy, even though in front of her parents, and later, in school, it was Fran and Samantha. Then, before either one of us really knew it, closeness became attraction, became a kiss, and then another, until finally kissing became…something different, more intense, a mutual exploration. And then we’d gone from intensity to rivalry, and back to friendship
again
. While Nina…she and I had barely even touched by comparison. There was, there’d
been
one beautiful kiss, many wonderful hugs—the usual physical exchanges made by close friends, by teammates, and I
missed
her,
mourned
her, wanted her still, kicked myself for not going home sooner, wished I’d done something,
anything
, differently… How different was that than being bound, as Elizabeth had put it?

My skin felt hot under my hands. There was no denying that Fran and I had a link, because I’d always known
she’d call before the phone rang, could always anticipate her moods, her feelings, because I felt them too, like a haze on my skin… There was magic, magic and power in sex, in the burst of energy that was the end result of—God! I finally kicked the damn sheets off in frustration and leapt out of bed.

I paced, not content with the lack of strain in the muscles of my thighs, unsure of where, how, to hold my hands, wishing like hell that I was running laps, or swimming them, racing them, pushing my body to the limit, while I prowled the wood floors of my room, stepping so deliberately it felt as if the oak gave under my feet.

What the hell am I doing, what the hell am I doing here?
I asked myself. My days…they were spent studying with Elizabeth, while my evenings were filled with martial arts and strange meditations. I now knew several dozen ways to disable a living being, spoke of imaginary places as if they were towns another block or so down. And while I was living in a foreign country, thousands of miles from where I’d been born, I hadn’t really seen anything but the house, the shop, a few of the local historical sites…and I knew no one, absolutely no one, outside of Elizabeth and Uncle Cort. Oh. And the hounds. Great. That was lovely, simply lovely.

I was old enough, I reminded myself, legally allowed to do all sorts of things in this country, an adult, and…I didn’t expect it, the wave that washed over me, the tide of longing that swamped my senses.

I missed my father, though that was now a familiar feeling, but the other pangs were new, surprising almost, in their sharpness. I missed my friends. I missed the guys I’d hung out with in the neighborhood growing up, I missed Fran and even my other classmates. I missed Nina.

I carefully put that thought away because it hurt, oh it hurt to think about her, through the throb that contracted my gut; and Fran…I wondered how she was, what she was doing. I wondered if she missed and hurt in the same way, for the same reasons.

I wondered what it had cost her to call me, to tell me what she had heard from Nina’s father, and an awful regret ran through me that I had added insult to injury, accused her of lying.

It had been—what, I mentally reviewed, early July?—when Fran and I had spoken last. The trip with Uncle Cort had really just started, but my plans had already been set: I’d decided to go home a week early, to surprise Nina and Fran, plenty of time to spend with both of them before I had to get ready for the move to the dorm before freshman orientation. Princeton was not only a phenomenal school, but I’d also been offered a scholarship, and it wasn’t too far from Staten Island, where Nina lived.

And it had been where she’d planned to go as well…

Fran. Fran was the one who called me to tell me she’d spoken with Nina’s father, and it started with a message she left during an afternoon when Uncle Cort and I were touring the countryside. “Hi Samantha, it’s Fran. Please call me as soon as you can, okay?”

From the tone of her voice, I’d known it was important, and I missed her on the return call. “Hey, Fran!” I recorded. “How’re you doing? I’m coming back in about two weeks—don’t tell Nina, I want to surprise her. What say you we all get together and do something?”

We finally connected on her next call. “…and Mr. Boyd asked that we respect the family’s grief and privacy—don’t call, send nothing.”

The words sent a blankness running through me. They made no sense, they were unreal, and I responded with what I thought was logic.

“I’m gonna call.”

“Samantha, don’t do it,” Fran insisted across the miles. “I told you what her father said.”

I was silent as I considered. That couldn’t be true, it simply made no
sense
, even though a prickling numbness, hot and heavy, crawled up my legs. I said the one thing that did make sense to me, that made the crawling numbness flash over into anger, the words I was now very sorry for. “I don’t believe you,” I told her flatly. “You’re just jealous because we used to date. You want her.”

“Sammy, Sammer, I’m just trying to save you some heartache,” she protested and I could hear the tears as she spoke. “C’mon Sam, you
know
me—I wouldn’t ever try to hurt you or her like that. You guys are my friends. I love you.” I heard her breathe, could feel the effort she made to not cry. “God, I
wish
I was lying.”

I breathed it in, her words, the emotions so clear to me across an ocean, and knew that whether I wanted to believe or not…

“I’m sorry, Fran, just, don’t”—I took another breath—“I didn’t mean to make you cry. I can’t believe you right now—I have to hear this for myself.”

I hung up and dialed another number, and a few rings later I got the confirmation I’d been seeking, though it wasn’t what I wanted.