Read Online Dreamer by Steven Harper - Free Book Online Page B

Lon. He looked nervous.
    “What about him?” I asked.
    “He asked if I knew anyone for a three-way. Pays fifty each. You in?”
    I grabbed the kesh from my hat and thrust it at Jesse. “Forget it.”
    “Come on, guy,” Jesse said. His thumbs didn’t leave his pockets, so I was left holding the kesh. “I haven’t had a jobber all day, and he won’t do just me.”
    “No.”
    “It’s not like he’s gonna fuck you or anything,” Jesse said. “All you got to do is lay back and relax. I’ll do the work.”
    “I’m not into guys, okay?”
    “What’s that got to do with it? It ain’t sex, Sejal. It’s money. M-O-N-E-Y.” He glanced at my hat. “You been busking here all day for that?”
    “Yeah,” I admitted.
    Jesse sidled closer. He smelled like sweat and cheap leather and suddenly I flashed on him. I do that sometimes. It started about six months ago, and it isn’t anything I can control or shut off. It scares me shitless. It’s hard enough dealing with my own feelings without someone else’s crowding in, and right then Jess was a real jumble-up. He was hungry for food and he was really hungry for jay-juice. He was nervous and he was hopeful. One thing he didn’t feel was lust. The flash faded.
    “Listen,” Jesse said. “This guy’ll give you fifty kesh for half an hour. He probably won’t even last twenty minutes.”
    My mouth had gone dry and I snuck another glance across the street. The guy was still there. I tried to sense what he was feeling, but the flash didn’t work. It never does when I’m trying.
    “Fifty kesh, Sejal,” Jesse repeated. “You ever earn fifty kesh in twenty minutes?”
    “No,” I answered, but not as loud as last time.
    Jesse gestured at my flute. “You’ve been playing the wrong instrument, man.”
    I looked at him. In that moment I could have pushed him away with my mind. That’s something else I can do, and it always works. It’s like I’m reaching out and pulling strings that make the other person dance, and I can do it to a bunch of people all at once. I’ve been able to do that for about three months now.
    The first time was by accident. I was on my way home from busking with two kesh in my pocket when a big guy grabbed me and another one put a knife to my neck. A third one was with them. I was too scared to even think. I just shoved at them with my mind. I’m not sure how to describe it. It was like I could feel this... place around me, and I reached through it to them. I reached hard at two of them, and they just froze where they were. The third one got scared, and I reached through that place and flipped his switches and make him really scared. He ran away.
    I haven’t told anyone about that, either. Not Jess or Grampy Lon, and definitely not Mom. I don’t know if it’s related to flashing on what people feel. It probably is, but who can I ask?
    “Listen, just help me this once, okay?” Jesse said. “You don’t like it, you don’t have to do it again, but you’ll still have that fifty. Twenty minutes, man.”
    I looked at the guy. His hair was lighter than mine, almost brown. At least he wasn’t ugly. Jesse had told me about some jobbers who were really fat or who didn’t wash, but this guy looked okay. Fifty kesh. More than a month’s rent.
    “What’s he want us to do?” I asked.
    Jess grinned and lead me across the street.
    At least the guy didn’t want anything strange. Jess was right—all I had to do was lay there with my eyes shut. I didn’t know whose mouth was on me or who was making the bed shake. The hotel room was stuffy and musty-smelling and the sheets were a little damp. The mouths and the motion seemed to go on and on, and I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
    And then I reached out with my mind the way I did to those two guys. I didn’t want to touch this guy like that, but I did. I reached through that place and found him all hot and horny. I flipped his switch and gave him the mother lode of all orgasms. He