KISS YOU




"who pays any attention to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you"
  -- ee cummings


Don't laugh, Joe. Fifty dollars can ruin a man's life. That's what this
whole fucking mess is about.

We had dropped in at the Millers' party. I don't have much occasion to
go back to the neighborhood where I grew up, but Jack and Ellen Miller
were old friends. It happened to be one of Joanie's sleepover nights and
the two of us had decided to indulge in a bit of nostalgia. Some of our
old schoolmates were going to be there.

The snacks were pretty good, actually, and the party hadn't yet gotten
to the point that everyone was either bored out of their skull or
sloppy drunk.

The Millers had pulled out all the stops. There were even professional
entertainers. The blues singer sure knew her stuff, though the jugglers
were only fair, but the hypnotist . . . oh, man, that fucking hypnotist.

Posthynotic suggestion can make people do very strange things, Jack Miller
was telling me. Sometimes even things completely out of character. A
Bright Idea hit me just then.

I had noticed Tara Jameson sitting among a group of people watching
the juggling. Tara. She was an old flame of mine from high school.
Unfortunately, it had been a rather one-sided flame. I had been a grind,
an ultra-geek, a complete social zero -- about as far outside as it was
possible for an outsider to be. Meanwhile, Tara was playing Little Miss
Cheerleader and bucking for Homecoming Queen. The couple of times she had
condescended to notice me had been for purposes of taunting and bashing
my fragile ego. Just good clean fun, I guess. My dented self-esteem had
mostly recovered after twenty years, but the memories still hurt.

Tara . . . and the hypnotist. Bingo!

I sashayed over to that hynotist. He was a assistant psych instructor
from the state college, Jack had told me. And a little down on his luck,
by the looks of him. His suit was a bit shiny in the seat and showing a
little wear at the elbows and knees. In fact, he had the unmistakeable
aura of desperation about him. No wonder he was moonlighting in this
hypnotist gig. This guy could be bought. Probably cheap, too.

"Professor, I was wondering whether I might request a minor favor." He
looked up from his drink. "There's a certain woman here . . . and well,
I was wondering if . . ." A fifty-dollar bill was all it took.


"As we have seen, ladies and gentlemen, our two volunteers from the
audience have demonstrated the dark mysteries that lie hidden -- unseen
and unsuspected -- within the uncharted depths of the human mind. This
stalwart young man on my left held several ice cubes in the open palm of
each hand until they melted, and with no discomfort or aftereffects. This
lovely lady here on my right lay stretched rigid between chairs several
feet apart and supported the weight of two men standing on her midsection,
with no apparent strain. Yes, my good people, the borderlands of the
mind are an unexplored frontier.

"And now, to conclude this evening's performance, I will administer to
each of the volunteers what is known as a posthypnotic suggestion.
Triggered by the correct verbal cue, they will involuntarily execute an
action I will implant in their subconscious, an action completely out
of character for them.

"Bill, when you hear the word 'kangaroo,' you will begin hopping on your
left leg and be unable to stop until you hear me whistle.

"And as for you, my dear Tara . . . when you hear the word 'kiss'
from an old acquaintance, someone you haven't seen in years, you will
immediately throw your arms around him, embrace and passionately kiss
him. Yes, an intimate kiss, thrusting your tongue deep into his mouth.

"Now, when I clap my hands three times, you will both awaken, though
you will not remember the commands I have just given you."

With a ceremonial flourish, he clapped three times. The man and woman
seated on the "stage," really just a makeshift platform in the middle of
the Millers' patio, opened their eyes, and with a dazed look hesitantly
rejoined the applauding audience.

The festivities resumed. People began congregating in groups and the
background party sound effects -- chatter and laughter and tinkling of
ice in glasses -- once more filled the air. Finally, someone called
out, "Kangaroo." There was a minor commotion as a man began hopping
around uncontrollably. He was laughing and crying at the same time,
but seemed unable to stop hopping. Finally, the hypnotist ended his
agony by whistling. There were a few cheers and some nervous laughter,
but almost everyone was too absorbed in conversation to notice.

It was my turn. I casually strolled over toward Tara. Revenge is sweet,
I was thinking. Payback for all the times she had made me miserable in
my formative years.

"Hi, Tara," I said.

She turned around. "Do I know you from somewhere?" she asked.

"Calvin Coolidge High. Think back twenty years. I had a bad case of
puppy love for you, but . . ."

"Jarvis!" she squealed. "The class nerd! None of our crowd would have
been caught dead with you."

"Certainly _you_ wouldn't have, Tara." I paused. "Kiss."

A dozen different varieties of bewilderment crawled over her face before
her mouth went slack and her features settled into a blank mask. Then
her eyes got as big as saucers and . . . she had me in a bearhug and was
grinding her lips against mine. I opened my mouth to let her tongue enter.

There was dead silence around us. A few people snickered and someone
nearby hooted. Tara let go of me and blushed scarlet.

So, I had my petty revenge. I had humiliated her in public. For a brief
moment in time, I had been the bigshot and she the patsy. Somehow, though,
it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Tara turned and fled.

As Joanie and I were getting our coats on to leave, the hypnotist
approached us.

"I should perhaps have warned you, sir. In some subjects, a posthypnotic
suggestion may precipitate strange behavior. Sometimes they feel a need
to justify in their minds the actions that were implanted. For example,
that woman who kissed you might convince herself that she'd fallen in
love with you. I don't know. I'm starting to have second thoughts about
having agreed to your special request."

"It's a bit late for regrets," I said. "And you didn't seem at all
reluctant to accept my gratuity, Professor Mesmer."

I was wiggling my way into the passenger's side of Joanie's low-slung
hotrod. She's a classic sports car freak and had spent years and tens of
thousands of dollars restoring a vintage 1959 MG. There were shouts from
back of the house. Tara was running toward us, waving her arm. "Wait,
Jarvis, don't go! We have so much to talk about!"

In fact, we had nothing whatsoever to talk about. "Drive," I said
to Joanie.

"Now what was that all about, hmm?" Joanie asked me a few minutes later.
We were rolling up the Route 340 entrance ramp. It was only a half hour
farther to my house.

"Someone I had the hots for, way back when I was a sophomore in high
school. She wouldn't give me the time of day back then. I happened to spot
her tonight at the party, and then with the hypnotist and all, I got one
of my Bright Ideas. I slipped the hypnotist a few bucks to choose her as
one of his guinea pigs and feed her the posthynotic suggestion to French
kiss me when I said 'kiss' to her. And the rest, as they say, is history."

Joanie laughed. She'd had some run-ins with my brainstorms before,
and she wasn't the possessive type anyhow. We had known each other
for almost a year and she knew I still saw other women sometimes, and
I suspected she had other boyfriends. Yeah, we had a fine old time in
bed once or twice a week, but neither of us felt any particular urgency
about making a commitment. We were just fuck buddies, after all. Nothing
serious. But she had been starting to make possessive noises lately.
Biological clock ticking? Or maybe just a female thing.

Later that night I was lying in bed waiting for Joanie to finish in the
bathroom. We'd done it once already and, depending on her mood, might
do it again or just drift off to sleep in each other's arms. Either way
would be fine by me.

It's not as if I couldn't live without Joanie's lovemaking. Sure, it
provided welcome physical relief for me and she usually took care to
show an appropriate level of enthusiasm. But somehow, there was something
missing. With her, everything had to be done exactly by the book. And yes,
we did in fact have "the book" at our bedside -- _The Complete Scientific
Guide to Making Love_. It went into exquisite detail on the mechanics of,
well, fucking. Joanie and I had gotten as far as page 293, and she made
damn sure we hadn't inadvertently skipped a section. But afterwards, after
we'd made love, I couldn't help asking myself, "Is that all there is?"

There was a tap on the window. What the hell could that be? Probably just
the wind blowing a branch against the windowpane. Shit! I almost had a
heart attack right then and there. It was Tara outside, tapping on the
damn window. When she saw she had my attention, she began unbuttoning
her blouse. She had nothing on underneath. Nothing! That's all I fucking
needed. Joanie was due out of the bathroom any second, maybe expecting
to find me ready and waiting, and instead . . .

"Go away, damn you!" I mouthed the words as distinctly as I could and
motioned violently at Tara's bare breasts. She must have understood,
because she smirked lewdly, then scampered off into the dark. The bathroom
door opened and Joanie walked toward me, bare-ass naked and wiggling
that bare ass. She wanted some action, all right. I didn't know if I
was up to it just then, but I'd give it my best shot. What a fucked up
night this was turning out to be.

What had I gotten myself into? I was staring at my bleeding face
in the bathroom mirror early the next morning. Three times I had cut
myself shaving. What had been the purpose of that little stunt with the
hypnotist last night? Petty revenge? A practical joke? Well, it seemed
to have misfired badly.

Joanie had left for work at the crack of dawn and I was about to sit
down for a quickie breakfast of reheated leftovers before I started the
commute to my own job. There was a tapping sound from out back. Damn it,
that had better not be . . .

There she was. Spreadeagled against the sliding glass door to the patio.
Totally stark naked. Damn! I hadn't realized her boobs were that big. She
had shaved her pussy, and it was squashed flat against the glass like a
pink orchid with its petals spread wide open . . . and it was starting
to do strange things to me.

Careful, this broad is a fucking whacko, I reminded myself. Totally
stark raving insane. But . . . Joanie had left me hanging last night
after our second go-round. I was lying flat on my back at three in the
morning with a raging hardon and she had snapped at me when I tried
to nuzzle her awake. That raging hardon had just now returned with a
vengeance. And Tara did sort of look like a maiden in distress. . . .

I was an hour late to work. Whew! Tara was nothing, if not enthusiastic.
She had wanted me to take her in the ass, something Joanie absolutely
refused to do. "The Complete Scientific Guide" was ambivalent about that
particular practice, and Joanie thought it was out-and-out dirty. Now
that I'd tried it, I knew what I'd been missing all these years, and I
wasn't sure it was something I cared to live without any more.


It was all a matter of scheduling. Tara would visit me on weekends
and Joanie once or twice during the week. Fortunately, my house was
in a relatively secluded area, and at the end of a long, tree-lined
cul-de-sac. Pretty much everyone around there minded their own business,
so I didn't have to worry about gossip. Still, keeping two balls in the
air at the same time is a chancy business.

Word got out. It always does. Joanie had been giving me funny looks
lately. She'd been whipsawed by mood swings, alternately snapping at
me and being gushy affectionate. She even let on that she'd be open to
trying anal sex. Anything to make me happy, she said. Anything. Then there
were those teasing hints about making our relationship permanent. Once,
she even let slip the magic word. Marriage! That wasn't her style at all.

Tara was jealous. She had known since our first run-in at the party about
Joanie. Now she was making noises about how she'd like to have me all
to herself. She let slip that she wanted nothing more out of life than
to be a respectable married woman again. But, if she couldn't manage
it with four previous husbands, what made her think there was something
special about me? Crazy fucking broad!

This whole thing was getting way too weird for me. All right, I admit it,
I couldn't handle two women at the same time, and both of them starting
to flip out, too. The question was, what the fuck could I do about it?


Run. That's what I ended up doing about it. I'd had no idea just how
weird the thing was getting, and I'd be dead and buried if a cop friend
of mine hadn't clued me in.

Joanie had obtained positive proof of what I was doing with Tara. Some
incriminating and very explicit shots taken through a telephoto
lens eliminated any remaining doubt. Tara, too, had done her share of
snooping and found out, to her dismay, I was still boffing Joanie. Then
Joanie and Tara had gotten together and decided that they were really
sisters under the skin. Their mutual problem was that rat-bastard of a
boyfriend. Me. And they decided to do something about _that_. Something
to eliminate the problem.

Joanie has a lot of money behind her. I knew that when I met her and it
hadn't made any difference to me at the time. It does now. She's the heir
to the Mr. Hilbert Hair Oil empire and that means . . . that means she
has a squad of company goons -- ex-cops and retired military types --
to do her bidding. To track me down and then dispose of the body.

Tara Domenici's family hails out of Sicily a couple of generations back.
Now that doesn't necessarily mean Mafia connections, but, unfortunately
for me, in this case it does. So I've got Bruno and the boys after me now,
too. As if I didn't have enough on my plate.


So now I'm sitting here alone in a room somewhere in a town you never
heard of, writing all this down. Don't ask where, Joe. It doesn't really
matter. The important thing is that I'm still alive. In a couple of years,
I figure that Joanie and Tara will call off the dogs and decide to get on
with their lives. After all, it isn't worth devoting your whole earthly
existence trying to get revenge on a friggin' two-timing boyfriend, now is
it? After that, well, maybe I can get back to living a normal life myself.

You know, old buddy, what the worst part of hiding and being on the run
is? It's not being scared. It's not having to look over your shoulder all
the time and wondering if this guy or that guy is after your ass. It's the
feeling of being totally cut off from humanity. That, and not getting any
pussy. I'm lonely and I'm horny as hell. And all over a lousy fifty bucks.