Jack to Evelyn: Concerning Psychics

E.,

Last time you tested me was when you were Peter Venkman.

The university faculty were all fed up with your profligate shenanigans and wholly unimpressed by your degree in parapsychology. The cumulative opinion was you should BURN IN HELL.

I met you in the basement to submit as your test subject. Previously stated requirements were for me to shave my genitals. The study purportedly concerned "the effect of negative reinforcement on ESP."

Once I was disrobed below the waist, you sat me at a wooden chair. You clamped rather cumbersome electrodes to each testicle, after a healthy application of conductive lubricant. A gleaming metal alligator clip attached to the tip of the main vein. I confided your hands were cold. You didn't comment. I described myself as a grower not a shower. You snorted - rather unclinically, I felt.

You sat across from me at a similar chair, a plain table bolted down between us. Your hands folded over a large deck of cards stacked facedown on the table. You lifted a card, held it up, the face turned to you, concealed from me - you said, "Just say whatever comes to mind."

Now, this wasn't much of a test.

I said, "Your clit on the cover of TIME magazine."

A slightly disappointed bead to your eyes, you said, "Correct."

You lifted a different card, said, "Next."

I replied, "Your clit wearing bell bottoms."

A tic of frustration, "Correct."

Next card.

"Your clit performing CPR on a Fox Mulder action figure."

Fluster bulged your eyes. You flipped the card to reveal the image exactly as I described. You said, "Correct - you can't see these, can you?"

"Only in my mind."

Another snort from you, this time decidedly unclinical.

I grabbed you by the hand and said, "This love, this connection, this ... fixation ... induces a psychic link to your clit. This test is an exercise in futility. Systemic and systematically boring. Unless ... I choose incorrectly."

I squeezed your hand to signify a pact of consensual electrocution. With a smoldering acceptance, your cheeks burned the flushed pink of hot loins.

I said, "Your clit eating a croissant. Your clit shot out of a cannon. Your clit on a postage stamp."

Wrong answers. A sadomasochistic lick of your lips and you flipped the switch. The jolt roasted my balls, shot up my spine, leapt across our hands and made you jump in your chair.

We spent the afternoon entwined (some might say romantically) in this circuit of the glitch. By the time we blew the grid for a surrounding city block, our eyebrows were singed off. A fingernail had melted to the back of my hand. A filling at the back of your mouth had exploded. The creed of our conjugal scorch hung a rank smokehouse stench in the air...

Our only sounds, heart and breath - the fuse blown lights around us gave no hope for life.

Our hands remained held in the defective dark.

Yours,

Jack

P.S.

I think Dr. Venkman might be Adam.