The Possessor

Dominic
“Where did they come from?” Quinn asks me. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor near my desk, absently rolling a magic eight ball from one palm to the other. We found it yesterday while cleaning out my closet. Quinn has started skipping class to come to my house while I’m suspended. Every day we do something around my house; sorting, mostly. The garage, the attic, my closet. I’m surprised to find I’ve been having fun with him. “The Possessors.” he says. “Do you know?”

I’m laying on my stomach on my bed, facing the foot of it, my chin propped on my palm and my elbow on the bed. “Nobody really knows.” I tell him. “There’s unfounded rumors, of course, about the first documented Possessor being a miner in Africa. But then, I’ve heard too that there’s monks in Tibet or something that have had them for years.” I hold out my hand and he hands me the eight ball. The thing amuses him for some reason. I shake it and flip it over. The answer is ‘no’. Just ‘no’. I snort and hand it back. “I know that they went mainstream about thirty years ago. That blues singer, Billy Crane?” Quinn shakes his head to show he has no idea who I mean. I sigh. “Billy Crane died like twenty five years ago. He got kind of famous, and he’s really the one who pushed for the Hosts to come out publicly. He claimed to have received his Possessor from an old man in New Orleans. Anyway, when he died, his Possessor was buried with him by choice.”

“So it committed suicide?” Quinn asks, and I nod. “What the hell for? I thought Possessors could find new Hosts.”

“They can.” I tell him, sitting up. “But some of them create such a strong bond with their Hosts that they don’t want to. I’ve read that it’s like being in love sometimes.” Quinn wrinkled his nose and looked away. “It makes sense, if you think about it. My Possessor and I, for example, have been together for so long that I can’t remember what it’s like to be without it. It’s young, too. I’m it’s first Host. We’ve grown up together, you know? We share a body, share lives.” I reach up and touch the crystal handing around my neck without really thinking about it, and feel my Possessor slip around my wrist affectionately. “If it went away, or if I lost it, I don’t think I’d know how to live anymore. I don’t know life without it.”

Quinn sighs. “It’s not like that for me.” he says. “This is new.”

“I know.” I nod. “You’ll get used to it.”

Quinn pushes a hand through his hair and shakes his head. “I’ve been doing the things you’ve been telling me to do.” he says. “Interacting, you know? It… it’s not changing, not getting better.”

“It takes time.” I tell him. “You wouldn’t trust someone who hurt you immediately again, would you?” Quinn thinks about this, then shakes his head. “It’s the same for your Possessor. You have to give it time.”

Quinn is quiet for a long time. Eventually, he asks, “And they don’t have genders?” I shake my head no. “Or names?”

“They have names.” I tell him. “But we can’t pronounce them. They have a language, but there’s only ever been one human that every learned it.”

“That blues guy?” he asks.

“No. There’s a girl that lives in North Dakota right now. She’s our age. She’s learned their language. It sounds like whales.”

“Wails?” he asks, frowning. “Like moaning and crying?”

I laugh. “No, like the animal. Like whale songs, you know?” he nods, understanding. “Anyway, they have names, like I said. I know my Possessor’s name, but I can’t say it out loud. They can speak it vocally, although they prefer to do so in their Host’s head or in each other’s.”

“What?” Quinn scowls. “They can talk to you through your brain? Seriously?”

“Yes.” I nod. “Their language is way more complex than the English language. More precise. They only use it when what they have to say is too important for them to risk being misunderstood by using our languages. They’ll talk to each other in their language, but we can’t hear them. It’s all… telepathic, I guess.”

“So they might be talking right now?” he asked.

I smile and brush my fingers against the crystal. “Are you talking crap?” I ask my Possessor.

“Yes.” it replies promptly. “While you’re playing the getting to know you game with the Host, I’m attempting to get to the root of the problem. I don’t much fancy watching a brother die, Dominic.”

“Fair enough.” I reply, and say to Quinn, “Yes, they’re talking to each other.”

Quinn is watching me carefully. “I could hear it.” he says softly. “But not the words.”

I nod. “I don’t know why it’s like that. If you have a Possessor, you can hear others, but only peripherally. You can’t understand them, but you can acknowledge that they’re speaking. If you’re just a regular human, you can’t hear them at all.”

“Don’t say it like that.” he says, scowling. “Like we’re not normal people.”

“We aren’t.” I sigh and get off the bed, sliding onto the floor to sit beside him. “I’m not normal, Quinn, and neither are you. We’re different, special.” I smile. “You should be proud.”

“I’m not.” he sighs and shakes his head. “What’s to be proud of when you’re a freak?”

I frown. “You were chosen, Quinn, don’t you see that? Not everyone can be like us. There’s something in you, something outside of the norm, that makes you better than humans.”

He studies me. “You think you’re past of a master race or something, don’t you?” he asks me. “You think you’ve evolved.”

“I have. Quinn-”

“Let’s talk about something else.” he says abruptly. “Something that doesn’t involve the Possessor. Please?”

“Okay.” I agree, shrugging. There is an awkward silence, and then we start discussing music. Over the last few days, I’ve been showing him the music I like, and he’s been showing me his preferences. I’d always assumed he was one of those typical kind of people, listening to whatever the radio played, but I was pleased to find he liked a wide array of off-the-path sort of stuff. He had a thing for textural, spacey female bands, like Android Lust and Fever Ray. I in turn showed him blues and old Motown music, which I inherited from my father. I have a tendency to sing along to everything, and he told me a few days ago that he thought I had a great voice. I confessed to him then my unspoken wish to be a blues singer, and since then he’s been trying to talk me into playing guitar for him. I’m not sure why I’ve always hidden the talent, but he’s been slowly wearing me down. We sit on my bedroom floor, talking and getting to know each other.

As he’s explaining to me a particular singer he’s rather fond of, it occurs to me that he’s becoming my friend. The thought is so abrupt, so strong, that it startles me. Last week I hated his guts. This week, I’m learning that he’s the closest thing to a real friend I’ve had since I was a very young child. It scares me a little. It’s not just the Possessor, not just that one thread that ties us together. I like him, I realize. He’s quick and has an odd sense of humor, and I like the way he seems so accepting of things. I wonder where the kid I’ve always known has gone, and I’m startled enough by all of these things that I actually bring it up.

“You’ve been pretending.” I blurt out, and he stops and stares at me. “With Alan and Mark. With Vic. That isn’t who you are.”

He looks away. “No.” he says quietly. “I thought it was, but…” he shakes his head. “No. It’s not who I am.”

“Why did you lie like that?”

He scowls, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. He rests his chin against his knee. “That’s what I do, Dom.” he tells me. “I’m a compulsive liar. I’m a coward. Haven’t you realized that yet?” he sighs. “I lie about everything. Who I am, what I want. It’s better that way. No one…” he pauses, swallowing thickly, and I notice how close to tears he really is. “No one would get it, no one would like me. I can’t be alone like that.”

“Quinn, if those dumb fuckers don’t like you for what you are, then fuck them. You don’t need friends like that.”

“But I need friends.” he points out. “I’m pathetic that way. Look at what I’ve done to my Possessor, Dom. And now I’m trying and I’m alone finally… you don’t understand-”

“Yes I do.” he looks at me, arching an eyebrow. “Until Jake, I didn’t have anyone either. I was the only Host in that school. I was the only one-”

“Now you aren’t. Now there’s me. You’re old news, man. Alan and Mark, they… they hate me.”

“Then fuck them. I’m here. Isn’t that something?”

He studies me. “Are we friends?” he asks. “Is that what you’re saying? I’m a freak like you so that means we get to be buddies?” he sounds so bitter, so angry, and it hurts. I don’t answer, can think of nothing to say, so I just get up and walk away. I leave him sitting there and go downstairs. Funny, how things go that way sometimes. I realize the kid’s becoming my friend and he immediately turns and fucks me like that.

I open the fridge, looking for something to drink. I find a can of Pepsi and sit at the kitchen table, drinking it and thinking. I wish I could make Quinn snap out of it. I wish he wasn’t so stupid sometimes. I wish-

“I’m sorry.”

I look up at Quinn, who is standing in the doorway. He looks sheepish, his hands in behind his back and his weight on one shoulder against the door frame. He looks at me, then looks away, then looks at me again. “Really. I shouldn’t have said that.”

I sigh. “It’s how you feel.” I tell him. “You can say whatever you want.”

“It’s not how I feel.” he says.

“Then why did you say it?” I ask him. He bites his bottom lip, looking upset, and I shake my head. “Look, Quinn, you’ve obviously got some pent up shit going on that you don’t want to talk about. Which is fine, I guess, but I really think that you should try not taking it out on me just because I’m standing here.”

He frowns. “Dom, are we really friends?” he asks.

I nod. “I want to be. I keep trying to be. But it’s really up to you.”

He looks at his shoes. “And if I said that we were, but I didn’t want to be?” he asks.

I sigh. “Then what are you doing here? Why am I letting you take shit out on me that has nothing to do with me if you don’t even want to be friends?”

He looks at me, his eyes careful. “But it has to do with you.” he says.

“How so?” I ask. “Just because we’re both Hosts, doesn’t mean-”

“Vic and I slept together.” he says, and I shut my mouth with a snap. “It was a secret. He didn’t want anyone to know about him being a fag.” he sighs. “And now he’s gone, and I think I might be-”

I stand up, seeing where this is going. “Quinn, listen. I know you’re at this really screwed up stage in your life, but I don’t really think I can help you figure that out.”

“Because of Jake.” he says softly.

“Yes.” I nod. “Because of Jake.”

“He’s just a mate.” Quinn tells me, watching me carefully.

“I care about him a lot.” I tell him, and he sighs. He comes over and sits down at the table, and after a minute I sit down as well. “I’m sorry Quinn. I really am.”

He nods his head. “I’ve never really been okay with it, you know. Being gay. I know it’s just who I am, and it’s another one of those things I need to learn to get over and accept, but…” he frowns again.

“Everyone I know is apparently gay.” I tell him, and he surprises us both by laughing. “I’m starting to expect Foxy to come out of the closet, too.”

“He’s good looking.” he says, and I raise an eyebrow. “Not really my type, though.”

The conversation slowly slides into something more comfortable, and I eventually relax. The idea that Quinn wants to sleep with me bothers me a little, because I really don’t need another complication. And his words… ‘he’s just a mate’… that bothers me too. I file both away for later consideration and just go back to try to be Quinn’s friend. He makes it hard to do, but I can tell that a lot of that is just his walls and insecurity.

A half an hour before Jake is due over, he gets ready to leave. I walk him out to his car, and he opens the door and then leans his elbows on it, so that it’s between us. He gives me a very serious, careful once-over, and then asks, “This is going to be a problem, isn’t it?”

“What?” I ask him, although I know exactly what he’s talking about. He knows that, too, and he just looks at me until I answer. “No. It’ll be fine, okay? Forget about it.”

“Easy for you to say.” he mutters, which irks me. He sighs and rests his chin on his arm. “I’m sorry, Dom. I really mean it.”

“I know you are.” I nod. “It’s fine. Really. Relax.” Without really thinking about it, I reach out and give his elbow a reassuring squeeze. The contact makes us both jump, and as I jerk my hand away as though he’d burned me I watch his pupils dilate, so large they nearly block out all the color from his eyes. There was something wrong with the contact, something not normal.

“What the hell-” I mutter, at the same time he asks, “Did you feel-” we both stop, staring at each other.

“Dom, your eyes…” he trails off, scowling. “What the hell just happened?”

“I don’t know.” I tell him honestly. Curious, I reach up again, the tips of my fingers brushing along his forearm, and it happens again. It’s like I’m feeling it twice, with two sets of nerve endings. Part of me registers this as a Possessor trait, but most of me is just astounded. It feels so alien, so strange, and yet it feels good too. I can feel it physically, the soft hair and warmth of his skin against the pads of my fingers, but I can feel it a different way too, in a way I can’t describe at all. It doesn’t feel physical, but my body reacts to it like it was. His eyes slide closed and he pushes his arm up towards my hand, and still not really thinking I wrap my fingers around his wrist.

My Possessor slides out, writhing like a snake, and reaches for Quinn. I’m too slow in stepping back, and I watch his Possessor stretch towards mine. They touch, so briefly it’s barely a brush, as I step away, but it’s enough. Quinn lets out a startled, guttural sound that comes low from low in his throat, and my vision blurs instantly. It’s like every single pore in my skin, every nerve ending, is on fire. My spine straightens painfully while Quinn seems to lose all motor function, and I watch him sit down hard in his car, his feet sticking out. He’s taking huge, panting breaths, his eyes unfocused, and I realize belatedly that it’s hard for me to breathe too.

Slowly, he lifts his head and looks at me. “Dom…” his voice is little more than a croak, and he licks his lips and tries again. “Was it just…” he takes a deep breath. “Just me, or was that-” he shudders, reaching up to press his palm against the crystal. “Holy shit.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. He’s still watching me, and I push my hand against my heart, which is pounding so hard I’m worried it’ll break my ribs. Eventually I can breathe well enough to try to speak again, but as I’m thinking of something to say he gets out of the car and moves around the open door to stand in front of me.

“They did that.” he says, meaning the Possessors. “They touched and it was like…” he stops, shaking his head. “I’ve never felt like that before.”

“It was strange.” I agree. “I’ll do some research tonight, and we’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?” he nods, looking somehow disappointed, and gets back in his car slowly. He gives me one more long, careful look before backing out of my driveway.

As I turn to go into the house, I hiss at my Possessor, “What the fuck were you doing?”

It wavers slightly, then slides around my neck. “It needed to be touched.” it says simply. “So I touched it.”

“Do you realize what that did to me and Quinn?” I ask it, slamming the front door. “That was the weirdest-”

“I’m sorry.” it says quickly. “I should’ve asked first, you’re right.”

“You’re damn right. After every today, I don’t need Quinn thinking that we’ve got some crazy connection through out Possessors, and I really don’t need you fucking this up worse.”

It makes a soft sighing sound and attempts to soothe me. “Don’t be upset. Besides, once we mate with Jake, perhaps you could explore alternative options. If my connection with his Possessor is an indication, I’m sure if you and Quinn were to copulate while myself and it were joined-”

“Shut up.” I snarl at it, reaching up to unlatch the chain around my throat. I drop the crystal on the side table by the door with a clatter and storm upstairs. I’m furious; not only at my own physical reaction, but at my Possessor. I take a very quick shower to rid myself of the feeling, then dress and wait for Jake.