Douglas Bunger's Blaze Of Glory

Chapter 13



 
 
 
    Brad pulled in the driveway of Melanie's place of business slightly after six thirty, knowing quite well that it would make him five minutes late. This was no accident, since he had been sitting in the parking lot of a nearby grocery store for half an hour. He could have waited at the house, but he felt that she might get the impression that he was interested in something more than her psychic abilities. It was true, of course; but that wasn't something that he wanted to make too obvious.
    He parked next to the blue Mustang convertible and noticed that the top had been put up since his earlier visit. The fact that the car had moved, proved his theory that Melanie did not live in the same house where she practiced her trade, which Brad saw as another good sign. If she could afford to keep an office and a home, it meant that she was good at what she did. Before he reached the porch of the house, Melanie opened the door, and Brad stopped in his tracks.
    In the time since they had last spoken, Melanie had changed clothes. She no longer wore the dress that had defined her waist and bust lines so perfectly, but instead wore a pair of slightly faded Levy's that had shrunk to exactly the right size (meaning one size too small). Her blouse was white cotton, had been meticulously fitted to accent every curve of her upper body, with about twenty small buttons on the front. The sheer number of buttons might have been enough to scare off any perspective suitor that might have thought of venturing beyond them, if it had not been for the way the blouse so sensually packaged its contents. As if to tease anyone that might allow the thought to cross his mind, Melanie had left the top six buttons undone.
    Again, Brad found himself wondering if Melanie could tell what he was feeling, but he quickly decided that any woman could sense lust, whether she was psychic or not. He had never been the type of man to catcall, or even whistle, when a woman walked by but Brad had never been above turning his head to follow a good-looking pair of legs. He tried to tell himself that the trip was strictly business, but his hormones were telling him something different.
    "So, are we ready to go?" asked Melanie, as she dropped her keys into her purse.
    "Ready when you are. I thought I'd drive, if you don't mind."
    "No problem. But... I do think we should take care of my fee, before we leave."
    Brad reached into his coat pocket and removed five fresh twenty dollar bills from the envelope that contained his expense money. He wasn't completely sure that the paper would except Melanie's fee as a justifiable expense, but if she provided him with some conclusive evidence, he might cover it himself. As things stood, he had thirty dollars left, which was hardly enough for tonight's hotel room.
    Melanie walked to the Mustang, placed the money in the glove compartment, and took a hand-knitted shawl from the back seat. She turned and walked toward where Brad held the passenger door of his Firebird open for her, but stopped when she noticed the front end. "Wow! What happened to your car?"
    Brad's lovelorn lustfulness instantly changed to disgust at the reminder of the days wreck, and the glow of his aura flashed through the spectrum to a color close to magenta. "Don't ask," was all he said before slamming the door and stomping around the front of the car to the driver's seat. Melanie suppressed a laugh as she watched Brad stare at the damaged front end during his trip.
    It took only a few minutes to reach the interstate from the house. Once on the open road, Brad set the cruise control, and turned to look at his passenger, only to find her eyes closed. He figured that she had either drifted off to sleep to rest for her assignment, or she was already trying to make contact. Either way, it was alright with him. For several moments he continued to drive in silence, until Melanie stretched her arms, took a deep breath, then exhaled. He turned to look at her and noticed a playful smile and almost mischievous look in her beautiful blue eyes.
    "Why did you smash into the gate?" she asked.
    The question startled Brad so much, he almost lost control of the car. He stared at her for as long as he could safely take his eyes from the road, and realized at once how truly gifted a psychic she was. While writing the article, he had seen several impressive demonstrations before, but never one as incredible as Melanie's guess about the car. It quickly became apparent that she hadn't been asleep at all; but undoubtedly reading his mind. This frightened him, not because he had someone else prowling around in his head, but because he was afraid she might see one of the many fantasies that were floating about in there. Considering she was the focus of them at this particular moment, it could make for an embarrassing evening.
    "Someone was chasing you," she continued. "You were in the desert, on a road with a gate, being chased by someone that you were afraid of. Let's see, it must have been the Air Force."
    Brad saw that she wore the same playful smile and decided to tell her what had happened in hopes that it would keep her from continuing her mind reading. Telling her the whole truth would not be a wise course of action, since he had only known her for a few hours, and the story was crazy enough that it might cause her to back out of their agreement.
    "It's a long story, but I'll try to cut it down to basics. I work for a Los Angeles newspaper. While I was covering an unrelated story, I ran into a man who said the Air Force was conducting experiments in..." In what? He paused while he considered his cover story. "... ESP. They were hoping to be able to read the minds of Russian scientists and second-guess their next invention. They found Roger several years ago and asked him to participate, but he refused, so they imprisoned him. Now they force him to use his ESP to spy."
    "Have you checked your source's story?"
    "Yes, I have. The evidence seems to point to its being true, but unless I can pinpoint this guy's location, the story won't amount to anything more than a bunch of hot air."
    "I understand. But, don't you think the Air Force has a good reason for what they're doing? I mean, national security, and all. It's their job to protect us."
    "Hey, if they're holding Roger against his will, then all the good reasons in the world don't count. He hasn't committed any crimes, and if he's dangerous, then the Air Force should prove it in a court of law."
    "Yeah, I can see your point. You were looking for him on the Air Force base then?"
    "No, the bomb range, near Alamo." Melanie nodded and Brad considered it a sign of approval for his actions. Another long moment of silence passed between the two as the desert landscape flew past the windows, and the car entered the long valley that led to their destination. The ridge to the west was just beginning to block the setting sun, but occasionally it would peek between the mountain tops and fill the car with a warm flash of light. Even with the sun visor flipped to the side, the strobe effect was annoying, but not nearly as distracting as the way the light bounced among Melanie's loose blonde curls.
    "You've got a nice car," stated Brad in an effort to move the conversation, and as such their relationship, from purely business to something closer to pleasure. "I looked at those Mustang GT's when I bought this car. They're pretty expensive, aren't they?"
    "Not nearly as expensive as a Porsche."
    "Yeah, I guess your business is doing rather well."
    "Well, I haven't had enough time to build a steady clientele. I'm still new at all this," Melanie explained.
    "Still new? How long have you been a pyschic?" asked Brad jokingly.
    "I've had ESP all my life. I've just been doing it professionally for about four months."
    "I understand. How does one get into the psychic business?" Of course, Brad knew the answer, he'd heard the story a dozen times when he was writing the article. His actual goal was less to hear the story than to hear her voice.
    "I first realized what being psychic meant when I was about nine. I'd always been a good guesser, but no one gave my ability any serious thought until that Christmas. My father had always joked about how I was able to see through the wrapping paper of my presents, so he handed me one that he had specially wrapped. I made my guess, unwrapped several layers of newspaper and aluminum foil, and saw that I was right. I knew the only way I could have known what was in the box was by reading my father's mind; unfortunately, so did he."
    "He didn't make that big a deal about it, but whenever I would make a guess about something, he'd tell me that normal people didn't do things like that. Eventually, I learned to keep my mouth shut, and my thoughts to myself. But things changed during my sophomore year at UNLV."
    "The psychology department wanted to do some tests to determine how much psychic ability the average person had, so I volunteered as a joke. I never realized how unique, gifted was the word they used, I was until they began giving me exercises to hone my ability. They taught me how to tune out the background noise generated by those around me and focus my concentration on one person. That alone doubled my accuracy."
    "By the time I was a junior, I had gotten involved with several groups that studied eastern philosophies and psychic phenomena, but never really felt comfortable with them. They always seemed offended, or maybe envious, that I could do the things that they wished they could do, but that I couldn't teach them to do it. They never understood that everyone had a limit to their psychic abilities, and that the best they could hope for was to reach that limit. As it turned out, my limit just happened to be higher than theirs."
    "I picked up some good information from them, but by Christmas, I stopped visiting the groups. Needless to say that thrilled my parents, because they said I was wasting my time and my grades were suffering. They said that a college degree would get me further in life than my unique gift, and that I should just forget about it and try to be normal. The next semester I had straight A's."
    "So, I guess they were right," said Brad.
    "Oh no, they were totally wrong. See, by then I'd learned that if I didn't know the answer to a question on a test, I could just scan the room and see what everybody else was putting down. Sometimes I got lucky, and was able to read the professor's mind." Brad couldn't help but laugh.
    "Did you get your degree?"
    "Yes. I have a bachelor's in marketing."
    "That doesn't explain how you got started as a psychic."
    "After college, I looked for a job, just like everybody else, but I couldn't find all those big money jobs the professors told us were out there. I ended up working the temporary services for a year, before I finally broke down and opened my business. Of course my parents were against it, but I had some money and spent half of it on the car and invested the other half in the business."
    "I see. Where did you get the money. I mean, it must have been a lot."
    Melanie paused, causing Brad to look at her and once again see her playful smile. She flipped her hair over one shoulder as she considered her answer. "Let's just say I got lucky in the stock market." Brad could imagine what that meant, and was forced to laugh again. This time Melanie joined in.
    For another hour, the car glided through the valley on cruise control, and Brad and Melanie talked and laughed. Brad was amazed that he was so at ease with such a beautiful woman on a first date, but quickly understood it was because it wasn't a date at all. The more they talked, the more relaxed he became, and the less he thought about Melanie's body. He began to appreciate her for her intelligence and wonderful sense of humor. By the time the night had fallen, and the lights of Alamo cast their faint glow across the desert horizon, Brad noticed that his attraction to the girl had left his pants and risen to his heart.
    He slowed the car to about thirty miles an hour upon hitting the city limits, until he saw a shopping center with a large parking lot to his left. The Firebird groaned through the turn as the wheel rubbed against a piece of bent steel, but still obeyed its master's request. Brad stopped the car in the dimly lit parking lot and shifted into neutral.
    "Is this okay?" he asked, but immediately saw that it was not.
    "I don't mean to be rude, Brad, but, no it is not okay." Her objection was made less pointed by the fact that she had called him Brad instead of Mr. Dartmouth. "What you've asked me to do is to locate someone that you can't get to by normal means. Well, that means one of two things. First, make contact and hope he knows where he is well enough to give directions, or second, astral project until I find him, then give you the directions I followed."
    "Astral projection is not a simple task-- if it were you'd do it yourself-- it requires a great deal of concentration and focusing. It is also dangerous."
    "Dangerous?" Brad asked in a surprised and unsympathetic tone.
    "For me to astral project, part of my mind, my consciousness, has to leave my body. That means my body is defenseless. If anything happens to it while I'm astral projecting, I might not be able to get back. Furthermore, there is the possibility that I might not be able to find my body when I tried to return. This may not be the easiest thing for you to understand, but if you think of my consciousness as my soul, and you consider what it means when your soul leaves your body, you might see my point."
    Brad grunted in understanding. "What do we need to do then?"
    "To do this I'm going to need someplace where I can relax, and feel comfortable that my body will be alright in my absence."
    What Brad understood her to say was that she need some place to kick off her shoes, put her feet up, and take it easy. She needed someplace quite, secluded, comfortable, and safe. It was obvious the car was unacceptable, a restaurant would be too crowded, a park was too open, and a bar would be too noisy. When he considered all the factors, there was only one place that would be acceptable. He had to find them a motel room.
    It had not been a lucky morning for Brad, with the Air Force chasing him and wrecking his car, but his luck had definitely changed as the day had waned. First, he'd met Melanie, then she'd agreed to go to Alamo with him, and now he had found a motor lodge just a few hundred yards down the road from where they'd been parked. The thought of checking into a motel room with Melanie was enough to move the aforementioned attraction from his heart back to its point of origin.
    The motel appeared to have been built in the fifties, but was well kept for its age. There were about a dozen small rooms built side-by-side, each with a door, window, and one space to park a car. At one end of the row of rooms stood a larger structure that served as the office/residence of the manager. In front of the office was a sign emblazed with a palm tree, and the name Bungalow Inn, and the traditional neon vacancy sign.
    Brad knocked on the door several times, saw a woman of between sixty and seventy enter the office from the residence. "Whatchu want?"
    "I need a room," stated Brad flatly.
    "Yeah, come in. What happened to your car?"
    "Had a wreck." It was a good thing the old woman couldn't see auras, too.
    "Twenty dollars." Brad reached into his wallet and withdrew his American Express. The old woman gave the card a disgusted look, ran it through the imprinter, then slid it and the receipt toward Brad to sign. When he was finished, she handed him his copy of the form and looked past him out the window. Brad turned to see what the woman was looking at, and saw that Melanie had stepped out of the car to stretch her legs.
    "I don't give refunds, if ya don't stay all night," she stated. "You use the bed, you pay full price."
    For a moment, Brad was incredibly insulted by the woman's innuendo until he realized that a minute earlier he'd been fantasizing what the old woman was accepting as fact. He wondered why he was insulted; he'd had several dates where he'd checked into a motel for quickie. Yet, somehow, this was different. It wasn't that he personally was insulted, it was the fact that the woman had insulted Melanie, that had gotten to him. Brad almost laughed when he realized how far off the deep end he'd gone, but he decided to give the old woman a taste of her own medicine.
    Brad took the key from the counter and stepped toward the door. "Can I get a refund if we do it on the floor?" The woman was so appalled by Brad's comment that she couldn't answer. Brad returned to the car smiling at his victory and thinking that if he was lucky, he might get his money's worth out of the room after all.
    Brad parked the car in front of the room, opened the door, and turned on the light. It was small by the standards of modern hotels and it had a traditional bathroom instead of the separate shower and sink. There was one double bed, a small table with two chairs, and an old dresser. Brad moved aside to let Melanie in, and watched while she sized up the room.
    "Okay, this is better," she started, then sat on the edge of the bed and removed her shoes. She scooted to the middle and folded her legs in front of her in a lotus position. "You might as well have a seat. I don't know how long this will take." Brad complied with her suggestion.
    For several moments, Melanie rolled her head from side to side as she went through a series of relaxation exercises. Occasionally, she would move her hands or her upper body in a slow and fluid motion best associated with a ballet dancer. The speed of her movement gradually decreased until her hands came to rest on her knees, and her chin on her chest.
    Brad sat on the edge of his chair for nearly ten minutes before the boredom exceeded his attention span. He rose from the chair and silently paced the room for another five minutes, but soon grew weary of that activity. It became apparent that the search might take quite a while, and Brad began to wonder what he would do to pass the time.
    At first, he considered exploring the town or simply stepping outside to get some fresh air, but he remembered what Melanie had said about her body being safe. If he were to leave, and something happened to her, he would have a hard time explaining it to the police. He wasn't as concerned about explaining her self-hypnotic state, as much as a way of clearing himself of the blame. After all, he would be the primary suspect if Melanie ended up comatose... or worst.
    He sat in the chair once again and looked at the woman before him. He watched as her chest rose and fell with each successive breath. As she inhaled, her blouse seemed to open ever-so-slightly to the point that Brad could see the lace edge of her bra cupping her tanned breasts. Brad watched silently, and felt as though the temperature in the room had gone up at least ten degrees.
    How helpless was she, he wondered? What if he leaned toward her and unbuttoned just one button on her blouse? Would it be enough to disturb her concentration, or was she actually so oblivious to her surroundings that she would never know? If he could unbutton one, why not undo them all? Perhaps he could even unlatch the clasp of her bra and fondle her perfect tits before she regained consciousness. She'd never know what happened.
    Brad fell back in the chair and let out a deep breath. It was hard for him to believe the thought had crossed his mind. It was even harder for him to understand why it had taken so much willpower for him to resist the temptation. To touch her was nothing short of rape. Violating her in this state would be no different then beating her into submission, than handcuffing her to the bed. Besides, he didn't know when her mind would return.
    After what seemed an eternity, but was actually only fifteen minutes, Melanie made a sound. Brad had been wearing out the carpet by pacing when he heard the faint sound from his companion. Not quite a cry, it might have been something between a whimper and a whine. It was followed by another sound similar to a cough or perhaps a snort, then another whine. Brad moved closed to Melanie, and noticed she was trembling.
    At first, Brad considered shaking her to bring her out of the trance, but decided it wouldn't be a good idea for the same reason you weren't suppose to wake a sleep walker (what ever that was). The tremble became a spasm, the whine turned to a wail, and Brad was instantly overcome by a fear of impending doom.
    Within a second, Melanie's head jerked upright and she let out a full fledged scream that curdled Brad's blood. Her eyelids snapped open, exposing only the whites of her eyes, and she shook uncontrollably. Brad backed further away from the woman in horror, unsure whether her head was about to spin around or explode. Her eyes dropped from below her eyelids, the scream stopped, and she fell flat on her back across the bed.
    Brad stood across the room shaking with fear, his eyes as wide as baseballs. He was afraid to move closer, yet afraid to run away. What if one of the other guests heard the scream? How could they not have heard it? Maybe they called the police? How could he explain what had happened? What if she were...
    His fear turned to panic and he stepped toward her. Her eyes were closed now, and her face was covered with sweat. He reached to touch her neck to feel for a pulse, but she slowly opened her eyes and looked at him. Relieved that she was unharmed, he let out a sigh.
    Melanie sat up slowly and held her head in her hands. Brad moved next to her to help her up. He reached to put his arm around her, but she leapt to her feet and violently slapped Brad across the face. "Get away from me, you son- of-a-bitch!"
    Brad recoiled from shock and shook his head to clear the stars from Melanie's blow. "What?"
    "Don't 'what' me!" she screamed, as she struggled with her shoes. "You're taking me home, and I mean now!"
    "Melanie... What happened? What's going on?" Brad pleaded, but Melanie was already out the door.
    Brad stepped out to find the audience of concerned bystanders that he'd been afraid of, and Melanie standing at the door of his Firebird. "Melanie, come back inside. Tell me what's wrong."
    "Go to hell!"
    "You want me to call a cop, babe?" asked the man in the neighboring room.
    "No... Everything's okay," Brad answered.
    "It doesn't sound okay," responded the man, whose wife had moved into the open behind him. "What about it, girl? You want me to call the cops?"
    Melanie stood, boiling with anger. "No, he's going to take me home, and everything will be alright."
    Without another word, Brad opened the passenger door for her, walked around the car to the driver's seat, and started the engine. For the first ten miles, Brad asked Melanie what was wrong a dozen times. By the time they had covered another ten, Brad realized that she had no intention of talking to him. For the next two hours, Brad was as good as alone-- Melanie didn't say a single word.
    When they reached her Las Vegas office, Melanie hardly waited for the car to stop before stepping out. Brad tried to say he was sorry for whatever it was that he'd done, but Melanie cut him off.
    "I trusted you! You have no idea how much trust it took for me to go with you!" With that, she slammed the door, and stormed to her own car.
    As Brad watched the Mustang speed away, he began to realized how much her words had hurt.


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