Repossessed (5 page)

S
haun's first class was World History. I already knew everything about World History, so I decided to spend my time thinking about Lane Henneberger instead.

As the teacher talked about ancient Rome, I came to the realization that Shaun couldn't just go up to Lane and ask her to have intercourse. A lot of human beings—females in particular—frown upon that.

Hmm. This might be a problem. I didn't want to spend a lot of time on achieving a sexual experience. Didn't want to build a relationship, especially not one built on trust. I didn't want to hurt anyone, because I didn't want to be around any more hurt.

So far, I felt I
hadn't
hurt anyone. I'd had no more impact—negative
or
positive—than I did in my regular job.

Now I just wanted to have a go at sex in Shaun's body without creating any bad feelings whatsoever.

Perhaps Lane wasn't the best option after all?

I thought again about the large-breasted girl Shaun liked.

No. Unfortunately for Shaun's taste, she just wasn't an acceptable candidate. Even if I was wrong and she did know who Shaun was, I felt sure she would think him beneath her. I remembered her comments about people who didn't have her commitment to fashion.

Really, there weren't many options at all, not for Shaun. A few girls at school seemed sexually adventurous. I knew who they were. But they didn't know Shaun, and I wasn't sure they'd want him if they did; he certainly hadn't been very attractive to females thus far.

In this body, I did not have access to prostitutes. Rape was not a consideration.

No, Lane Henneberger would have to do.

With a start, I realized that the teacher was calling Shaun's name.

“Would you like to join us?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. “In what?”

The class laughed.

“In paying attention.”

“Oh. Of course. Sorry,” I added, thinking that now would not be a good time to point out that the notes on
the board behind her were wrong, that the emperor Nero did
not
order the burning of Rome; apparently the teacher had been reading Suetonius, who had many axes to grind when he wrote his histories.

When the bell rang, I tucked Shaun's books under his arm and headed into the hall. Really, this place wasn't conducive to learning. It was a factory designed to get the most products through the assembly line with as little trouble as possible. A product that wouldn't quite fit through the premanufactured machinery—a product like, say, Jason—was doomed to be chewed up and spit out.

The primary lesson in this place, I thought, is to move according to the sound of bells, to sit still, and to be quiet. And if you can't do all three of those, you're going to be considered a failure in one way or another.

This is what I was thinking when I saw Lane.

I saw her and immediately was hit with a flood of Lust.

The human mind is an odd, flexible, vivid thing; I had never
seen
Lane, not through physical eyes, but now I immediately imagined her naked. I pictured her ample hips, her small breasts that had never been touched by anyone except herself, her willingness to be splayed in various positions by Shaun.

If she really knew Shaun, I thought, she might not like
him very much. He didn't seem to have much to recommend him.

But I liked
her
, tremendously. I liked the way she treated her family—unlike the way Shaun treated his. I liked her interest in the things she learned in class. I liked the way she tried new foods in ethnic restaurants.

Now, looking at Lane Henneberger walking down the hall with her books clutched in her arms, I wondered if I was experiencing love.

From the human standpoint, it often starts like this: with a chemical attraction, a physical reaction of the body's hormones. Sometimes it smoothes out into an attraction of mind and soul. Sometimes the attraction fades, but that doesn't necessarily mean the love itself was never there. Each case is different.

In this case, I knew Lane, I liked her immensely, and I was fascinated with her color, her shape, and her textures, as well as the nuances of her body's movements and what they might say about her thoughts and feelings.

I followed her down the hall. Sometimes, when she was close enough, I thought I caught the faint scent of perfume. Then we'd be separated in the crowd and I'd have to jostle to catch up. Once I walked right behind her, close enough that if I'd leaned forward, I could have touched Shaun's lips to her hair. It was beautiful, even Shaun would have to admit that—long, a color that I
imagined compared to toffee or honey, soft and luscious looking. I wanted to wrap it around my fingers, feel it against my nose and lips, nuzzle it aside to sniff her bare flesh.

By this time Shaun's body was showing the effects of my thoughts, and, as Shaun did, I held his books in front of him. And kept walking behind Lane.

I
am
in love,
I decided.

Her hair was so bewitching, I reached out a hand to touch it—just one finger—and oh, it was as glossy-smooth and soft as it looked.

At my touch, Lane stopped and whirled around. Her eyes were wide—perhaps with fear?—but the moment she saw who it was, her lovely face softened.

Shaun, you idiot—were you
blind
?

“What were you just doing?” she asked.

“You've got beautiful hair,” I told her. Her eyes were beautiful, too—a light brown. She blinked, surprised, and her lashes swept her cheeks.

“Thanks” was all she said. But a quick smile slipped out before she hid it, and I felt Shaun's heart give a little throb in his chest.

I could not think of a thing to say.

“Well,” Lane Henneberger said, “I guess I'd better get to class.”

I wanted to say,
No, let's leave school and go outside to
make love on the grass
. But I managed just to nod.
Whatever you desire, my sweet.

But when she started walking again, I found that I was walking beside her. We stayed side by side in silence down the entire length of the hall.

“Why are you walking with me?” she asked as we turned the corner together.

“Because I want to,” I told her. “Do you mind?”

She shook her head, and neither of us said anything all the way to her science classroom.

At the door, she slowed and then stopped, as if unsure whether to go in.

Finally, she turned to face me. “You're different today.” I watched her lips part and move, and pictured them slightly damp, sliding over various parts of Shaun's body. “I mean, besides talking to me and all.” Her words came out fast, uneven, and I wondered if she was nervous. “Which I mean, you know, you never really do. Talk to me. But aside from that, you seem, um, different.”

I stopped watching her lips and focused on her eyes. “How so?”

“Well…for one thing, you're smiling. You hardly ever smile.”

Was
I smiling? I put Shaun's fingertips up to feel his face. Yes, there were certainly teeth revealed, and Shaun's cheeks were pushed higher than usual by muscular con
tractions. “It's because I'm happy,” I explained to Lane.

“You're really cute when you smile,” she said. Almost before the words were out, her face turned a lovely pinkish shade, and she ducked her head and fled into the classroom.

She would know if I was different. She watched Shaun all the time.

Lane Henneberger,
I thought,
you are no fool
.

B
ailey and I went to lunch together after Computer Applications. I heard him talking about his PowerPoint presentation, but I was thinking about Lane, who had geometry this period.

“You all right?” Bailey asked as we got in line.

“Yes.”

“You're acting kind of weird today.”

“I'm in love,” I told him.

Bailey snorted. “Oh yeah? Who with?”

“Lane Henneberger.”

A laugh that sounded like a bark burst out of him. “O-
kay
,” he said, shaking his head. “Whatever. Looks like pizza today,” he said, standing on tiptoes to see over the
shoulders of the people in front of him. “Pepperoni,” he added.

I shut my eyes to see if I could bring the scent of Lane's perfume back into my head. No, not quite. But it made me happy to think of it.

When I opened my eyes again, Bailey was staring at me.

“You're not serious, are you?” he asked.

“I'm very serious.”

“You can't be.”

“I am. I love her.”

“Dude,” Bailey said, and he wasn't smiling at all now. “She's a
dog
.”

“Not at all. You're blinded by the prejudices of this tiny little society called high school. She's quite attractive.”

“She's
fat
.”

“As I said—uh, like I said, dude. You're prejudiced.”

“You've gone off the deep end.”

“The only deep end that I'm going off is Lane Henneberger's.”

“You mean…” The line shifted around us, but Bailey didn't move; he eyed me as if he was trying to figure something out. “What
do
you mean?”

“I'm going to plunge myself into the expanses of her many charms. The line's moving, Bailey; scoot up.”

Bailey scooted up. Then he turned back to me. “You're
saying…you mean…you're going to
do
her?”

“That's one way to put it.”

Human eyes are amazing. Bailey was looking at me, but something about his expression was far away, and I felt sure—just from visual observation!—that he was working this out in his head, perhaps weighing the idea of sex with Lane against his only fulfillment of lust, which involved manga comics and a bottle of lotion. He had been caught off guard, I could tell. But now it seemed to me that he was rethinking. Considering.

Finally he focused on me. “Dude!” he said with a grin. He held his hand up, palm toward me.

I knew he had accepted and approved of my quest, and wanted me to slap his hand.

So I did.

“You know she lives up the street from me,” said Bailey.

“I know.” I looked down at the steel bars that lay like a flat shelf along the front of the food line. Their burnished gleam seemed to beckon to me. The net-headed ladies behind the counter would soon give me a food-filled tray, and I'd get to slide it along that shining length.

Only it turned out to be not as much fun as I thought. I was hemmed in by Bailey in front and another boy behind, and could only slide my tray in short spurts. I wanted to give it a shove and see how far it would go.

I stopped and let Bailey go on ahead.

“Move,” said the boy behind me, but I waited till Bailey was far down the line, reaching for a small bottle of chocolate milk. I didn't want his hand to get pinched if my tray did make it that far.

I eyed the distance. Put a hand on each side of the tray. Pulled it back, and…

Whoosh!
One shove sent the tray flying down the silver rails.

“Hey!” said one of the net-headed ladies. “None of that!”

The tray slid to a stop as Bailey set his milk down. He moved on without even looking around.

“Having fun?” the boy next to me drawled. He didn't seem to want an answer, though, because he turned to talk to another boy behind him.

I paid for Shaun's meal, followed Bailey to a table—he and Shaun always sat in the same place—and set to work eating.

The pizza was not quite what I expected. Chewy. “Rubbery” might have been the word. Next to it were some whitish bulbous things in a clear sauce or juice; when I bit into them, they were soft yet grainy.

“What are these?” I asked Bailey. “Potatoes?”

“Pears, duh.”

“I think I like them.”

“That's good to hear, dude. I'm so glad you told me. Hey, my mom got me Tectonic Warriors 2 last night. We can try it out after school.”

“Okay.” As I tried to get a fork into my slippery second pear, a thought hit me. “Hey. Maybe Jason could come, too.”

“Jason who?”

“Jason, my little brother.”

“Oh. Right.” Bailey stuffed the last of the pizza into his mouth. “Are you, like, babysitting or something?”

I shook my head. “Jason's too old to be babysat. It's just that he's pretty good at Tectonic Warriors. The first one, anyway.”

“Okay. Whatever.”

“Are you going to eat your pears?”

“Doubt it.”

“Can I have them?”

He pushed his tray at me. “They're all yours.”

“Thanks.” I stabbed them and transported them, dripping, to my own tray.

When we were finished eating, we carried the trays over to a window cut into the wall between the cafeteria and the kitchen. They certainly had an efficient system set up; I dumped the leftover liquid and ice from my cup into a large garbage can with a screen over it, threw the used paper goods into another can, and then put the tray
itself on a stainless steel counter.

“Silverware in the tub,” growled a different lady with a net. They all wore white and had nets, but their sizes and shapes and faces were different.

I pulled my tray back and, removing the fork and knife, placed them carefully in a rectangular container filled with soapy water. Then I pushed the tray forward again. Then I waited, but this particular net-headed lady did not say thank you.

Bailey now attempted to drop his silverware in the water, but before he could do so, another boy shouldered him aside. “Move it,” the boy said as Bailey shuffled to keep his balance.

The boy who had shoved Bailey dumped his tray and moved away. Bailey ignored the whole incident and went about his business.

I watched the other boy walk over to a group of his friends. He was one of those sowers of pain, as I thought of them: the type who plant fear, self-doubt, and self-loathing into others who aren't strong enough to resist. Some sowers of pain do it on purpose, but most do it thoughtlessly, as a matter of course.

I'd seen thousands, millions, of these beings. I'd spent too many depressing eons with them after they were dead. After they were weighed down with guilt over the hurt they'd caused others.

So
this
was what they were like in person. Sandy hair. A few pimples. Many of the men and teenage boys I'd seen so far seemed to have broad shoulders and a body that tapered downward, like a carrot, but this sower of pain—his name was Reed McGowan—was shaped rather like a can of soda.

I knew Reed had his own troubles. Insecurity piled upon insecurity. I knew I should feel sorry for him.

But just looking at him made me tired. People like Reed spent eternity torturing themselves—torturing
me
—because they were too thick to take control of their behavior when they'd had the chance.

I was watching him when it hit me.

Here, in this physical body, I might
finally
be able to have an impact on one of these types.

Face-to-face with him while he's still in the flesh! And me with the ability to access spoken language!

Yes, with a well-chosen word or two, I just might be able to save us both some suffering in the eons to come.

“Hey!” I called. “Reed McGowan.”

He looked around.

“Tend to your own life,” I told him. “And—word of advice—you'll do better in the long run if you start trying to appreciate what's all around you rather than picking it apart.”

Reed's mouth hung open rather unattractively. Then
he shut it.
“What?”
he said.

All his friends had turned and were staring at me. “Believe me,” I told him, “later you'll be sorry that you spent so much time tearing other people down.”

Then I realized I wasn't talking like Shaun.

“Or whatever,” I added, and turned away.

Bailey and Shaun always went outside after lunch. As we headed across the cafeteria together, I saw a look on Bailey's face that I thought I could interpret.

Are you crazy
? it said.

He didn't say anything, though, just accompanied me through the door and outside, where groups of students were clustered.

“Next time you want to commit suicide,” he mentioned as we stepped off the concrete steps onto the asphalt, “please don't do it when I'm with—”

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, asswipe,” Reed said as he spun me around to face him.

I knew his modus operandi, as they say. He had followed me out here where there was less supervision. Where he had more of a chance to be physically intimidating.

What a waste of his time and energy.

Continue to be patient with him,
I told myself.
Be understanding. There's fright behind his meanness.

Most of his insecurities were petty and normal. But there was one in particular I thought I could help with.

“There's no need to be afraid,” I told him, trying to keep my voice low. I knew this wouldn't be something he'd want others to hear.

“Oh yeah?” He laughed—no, actually it was something halfway between a laugh and a sneer. “What do you think I'm afraid of? You?”

“No,” I told him, still very low. “You're afraid that you have a small penis.”

Bailey heard. His eyes grew so wide, the whites of them showed.

Reed's face had gone pale.

But I
knew
him. I knew he measured himself over and over with a ruler, knew that he searched the Internet for information on penis size, looking at porn not for sexual but for comparative purposes.

“Actually,” I tried to assure him, “there's nothing to fear. Your penis may be shorter than most when it's flaccid, but when it's erect, it's well within the average range. So there's no need for this blustering—”

That's when Reed's fist smashed into me.