Chapter #5Possess Yumi by: Seuzz   Despite your excitement, you put off calling Yumi until the next morning after church. Delay proves wise, for you discover a few more things about yourself during the night.
The first is the interior drama that unfolds after you've gone to bed. You are exhausted from the day's attempt to act the part of Dana, but sleep eludes you at first. So imagine your surprise when you feel Dana herself fall asleep, even though you are awake. That is nothing, though, to the shock you feel when you find yourself slipping down deeper into your mind. It starts as nothing more than a sinking sensation, and then everything flips upside down. Where before you had only difficult access to her thoughts but easy access to her senses, all that reverses. Everything fades from her eyes and ears, but her mind comes into full focus. Things like stars hang before you, and as you touch each one you find the fragment of a memory or sensation. Gathering them together, you find yourself coming into direct, unimpeded contact with more and more complex thoughts and feelings. It seems to take the full night, but as you gather more and more of the nearly uncountable items to yourself, Dana's complete mind—not only her memories but her habits and dispositions—become integrated into your own. By the time you are done, you don't have to "search" any more for what she knows and feels: Dana Pak is almost like a shadow self wound up inside your own mind.
The second discovery comes when her alarm goes off. That personality you acquired during the night comes to independent life, and you feel her looking around groggily and wondering why she feels so exhausted. You watch curiously as she wakes up and starts getting ready for church and planning the day ahead. You find you are able to read and even change her thoughts as they form, even though you can't control her body directly. Then, with only a light effort, you grasp the nearly infinite strands of her mind and find yourself once again looking out of her eyes.
You are standing in front of the bathroom mirror in mid-brush stroke. You stare back at yourself for a moment, then almost without deliberation you finish stroking out the hair and pull it back in just the way that Dana would want. Sarah will be banging on the door in a moment, you find yourself thinking; better hurry up and get that eyeliner on.
And so the morning and early afternoon pass easily, without any of the effort and mistakes you had made on Saturday; you are now not only part of Dana, she is part of you. You hardly have to pay attention in order to play her perfectly in character. And during church, when you are feeling bored, you find you can "turn" Dana back on: you slip back down inside her mind and let her senses fade, so that she can be bored by the sermon while you hum happily to yourself down in the tendrils of her mind.
* * * * *
These discoveries make you even more eager to test out your new "multiple possession" power, so you spend the early afternoon after services coughing out bits of yourself to discover how much you need to put inside a human host in order to control them. You're gratified to find that it takes only a decent sized "worm" the size, maybe, of two fat fingers, to keep Dana firmly under your power. After calling Yumi and setting up an afternoon get-together, you take an orange soda from the refrigerator and booby-trap it with a worm.
"Here's a little something to help pay for gas," you tell her when you jump into the passenger side of her car. She smiles at the soda and tucks it down next to her. "What are we gonna do?"
"How about a movie?"
"Sure. But can we go by the mall first? There's a skirt I've been keeping my eye on, and I wanna see if it's gone on sale."
She agrees, and soon you're at the mall and exclaiming over the adorable tops and skirts and accessories. Yumi buys the cutest scarf, but you content yourself with only a couple of small bracelets. Afterwards, at the food court, you split an order of chili fries. You pull another orange soda from your purse; Yumi follows by pulling her soda from her purse.
"So tell me what's new with you, Yumi," she ask, mimicking Aunt Kiku. "Have you started seeing any nice boys recently?"
Yumi winces. "Please, I'm happy you got the brunt of it yesterday."
"That's why I have to share it," you laugh. "Come on, are the guys at Westside as cute as the ones at Eastman?"
She makes a face. "I guess." She takes a pull at the soda, big enough that you can slide your worm down her throat without her noticing. "Most of them are jerks."
"Don't think I mean anything nasty, but doesn't that kind of go with being a cheerleader? I mean, getting leered at and stuff?"
Yumi starts to reply, but the light goes out of her eyes and her mouth hangs open. You watch her carefully for signs of toppling over: you are trying to be very careful in moving into her, but she still sways a little.
And then a hard tingle washes over your skin.
Except it's not your skin. The tingle comes from outside you, and then you feel a pressure, like gravity pulling you down. The food court swims for a moment, and then the same kind of double vision you had with the cat yesterday opens up to you: you are looking back into Dana's concerned face.
Carefully, you put both orange sodas down on the table. Yumi's mind is lifeless—not dead, just numb. You knead at it, pulling up what thoughts you can. At the forefront of her head is one Jason Lester, captain of Westside's baseball team; apparently free association on the word "jerk" has pulled up thoughts of him.
You swallow down the rest of her soda a bit at a time as you continue to massage her mind. When you feel like you've got it unfrozen you cast about for some way to get down into her subconscious. Somehow you manage to hit on a trick that gives you entrance. All sensation from Yumi's body vanishes, and her mind opens up to you from the inside.
Yumi, in control of herself once again, takes a sharp breath and looks at you. "What were we talking about?"
"Just boys," you shrug. "Let's go see a movie. Oh." You stop her as she starts to rise. "I got another treat for you." You hand her another orange soda. "For later, maybe." Inside her head, you flick away the sense of puzzlement she feels as she puts it into her purse.
* * * * *
Getting control of Yumi's mind during the day is harder than it had been with getting Dana's, probably because she is using it. You've got a good hold on her by nightfall, though, so that it doesn't take long to make her your own after she has fallen asleep.
You're awake the next morning and enjoying a little feel-up when the pounding on the bedroom door starts. "Shake a leg if you want a ride from me!" It's Mochiki, Yumi's college-aged brother. With a grimace you rise and start to get ready. At least Dana, on the other side of town, gets to sleep in a little longer.
So it is as two girls that you spend your first Monday back at school, and spend it at two different high schools. Dana's day is uneventful, though you keep an eye out for Caleb without spotting him. You do set up a study session for Cussler's history class for that night, though, with two of your other old friends, Matt Isaacs and Kevin Keighley, and they might rope Caleb into it. You don't ask about "David," though.
Over at Westside, though, there is major drama.
* * * * *
"Why don't you just take your shirt off in the hallways and shake your boobs at him!" Chelsea Cooper screams. She's a small thing, but so is Yumi, and you actually feel buffeted by the waves of fury that roll off Westside's head cheerleader. Luckily, her anger isn't directed at you.
"Hey Chels, is this your hair clip?" Maria Vasquez looks around her gym locker door and holds up a small sapphire-colored object. As usual, Maria's eyes are totally unfocused.
Chelsea doesn't even look around, she just snatches it from Maria and shoves it into her own bag while continuing to glare at Lin. For her part, Lin bites her lower lip and stares evenly into her own locker. "I'm not interested in your boyfriend," she says quietly. "I just asked him for a ride home."
"Well, Gordon thought you were coming on to him," Chelsea shouts. "And how come you were 'needing a ride' anyway?"
"I was trying to get away from Jason," Lin says, and the color is now rising in her own cheeks.
"So why couldn't you get a ride from Steve? Why ask Gordon?"
"I think this is the other one," Maria says, holding up another hair clip.
This time Chelsea ignores her. But you notice that Lin's eyes have darted over Chelsea's shoulder to light briefly on Maria. "Steve was into someone else," she mutters.
"Oh, and I'm not into Gordon, is that what you're saying?" Chelsea is shrieking like a steam locomotive now. "So you think you can just pick him up from under me? Right?"
Lin's taken about enough of this, you think, so you decide to interrupt. "You did leave him waiting for an hour before the party, Chelsea" you say. You've got most of Yumi's stuff together for first period, so you can beat a quick retreat if you have to.
Chelsea turns on you, eyes blazing. "Oh, you notice everything, don't you, Yumi? Was it your idea, getting Lin to ask Gordon for a ride back from the lake?"
"No, but it was my idea to ask Jason for a ride home." Lin's face softens into a grateful smile—the same smile Yumi received on Saturday night when she'd intervened and distracted Lester from Lin. Chelsea opens her mouth to retort, but is momentarily stuck for some nasty implication, so you just continue. "Anyway, if you'd think for a moment, you'd see that Gordon is just trying to make you jealous."
Chelsea almost rips herself in twain, Rumpelstiltskin-like. "He doesn't have to do that!"
"No, I guess he doesn't have to try to make you jealous, does he?" you softly reply. Lin hides a smile. "But I bet he gets a lot of fun out of trying to anyway," you add. Before Chelsea can say anything, you turn and glide out of the gym locker room.
* * * * *
It's the start to a hellish day. Lin winds up in a screaming match with Andrea Varnsworth between first and second periods; in third period, Steve Patterson ostentatiously turns to you and, within earshot of Chelsea, makes crude and dismissive criticisms of Maria; at lunch, Steve and Jason Lester loudly discuss the respective charms of the swim team while the cheerleaders listen in freezing silence—except for Chelsea, who canoodles affectionately with Gordon directly across the table from Lin.
Yumi is not exempted from the ill-starred day. Lester pinches you on the ass after fourth period, and leers at you when you squeal and wheel to glare at him. In the following class that gay dickweed, Charles Hartlein, asks you point-blank if Lester's cock is as small as rumored. When you hotly declare that you'd have no way of knowing, he affects a puzzled glance and says he heard you'd measured it with your tongue. (Your palm, at least, makes a satisfyingly loud sound against the side of his face.) It's actually somewhat of a relief to get to sixth period and find Paul Davis—sweet, dorky, clumsy Paul—looking for you with puppy-dog eyes and asking what you're doing after school. You try not to be mean as you brush him off, but it still leaves him with a stricken expression.
And yet, for all the horror and aggravation that Yumi feels, and which you feel with her, you are oddly exhilarated by it all. Your own social circle at Eastman High has none of this drama: you are part of a small group and far from the dizzying heights of social splendor to which Chelsea (head cheerleader), Gordon (captain of the basketball team), and the others at Westside cling to so precariously. Nor is Eastman the site of so much bitter rivalry and backstabbing amongst the elite: the athletes and social stars at your own school are a mostly friendly and decent bunch. Moving from Eastman to Westside is like moving from a suburban park to the darkest heart of the blackest jungle.
"Lin, dear, do you think you could get your legs up a little higher?" Chelsea is being oleaginously polite to her fellow cheerleader at after school practice.
"Well, if you can get your ankles behind your ears I suppose I can," Lin smiles back poisonously.
"That's the spirit," Chelsea says with achingly fake enthusiasm. "We'll get a boy to notice you yet."
In fact, there are a lot guys—mostly freshman, it's true—hanging off the outdoor bleachers and watching practice raptly. You don't blame them, though you think you're having more fun at practice than even they are having watching it. The stockings and crisp blouse feel wonderful against Yumi's tight body, and you love the way the short skirt drapes across your thighs. Over at Eastman, you are conscientiously trying to coordinate study plans for the night, but at Westside you are blissfully conscious that a good portion of those hormone-addled fifteen-year-olds must be gazing directly at you, with eyes watering from not blinking.
Their lust probably turns to jealousy when Patterson saunters out to stand only a few feet away and watch with a soft smile. Steve is Gordon's best friend and a fellow basketball player. Of course, you didn't say anything to Maria about what Steve said in biology class. But then, Steve was certainly talking for Chelsea's benefit. Sure enough, it's not hard to spot a stiffening in Maria's posture when she comes out of a tumble and sees him. You glance back over to see Steve's reaction. His smile widens. He is wearing shades, but you don't need to see his eyes to realize he is looking at you.
You step over to your bag and take a sip from your water bottle. Yeah, you remembered to pack that bottle of orange soda you passed on to yourself at the mall yesterday. Steve wants to play. The question is, Do you?  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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