The New Me nosleep

I'm not who I used to be. The old me never enjoyed talking about herself, for one thing, let alone bragging to strangers, but that's exactly why I invited Tony back to my place last week. I wanted an audience.

We were chatting on the couch when suddenly he pulled me into a bear hug and started kissing me and groping me. He's a very big guy, and I'm petite, so it was all I could do to fend him off.

"Tony, stop! Let's have a couple of drinks first. Okay?"

"Sure," he said, like he was doing me a favor. "Fine, a couple of drinks."

I gave him a submissive thanks, disentangled myself, and got up to mix the drinks. As I moved past him he gave me a hard spank, and I nearly tripped and fell.

“Sorry,” he laughed. “Didn’t realize you were such a lightweight.”

He was right. I’d lost nearly 12 pounds, a lot for someone my size, using the same diet that had never quite worked for me in the past. But I was more disciplined now and, as a result, far prettier. I could attract men like Tony without trying.

We continued our conversation while I was mixing the drinks (a Whiskey Sour for him and a Sea Breeze for me), and Tony gratified me by expressing an interest in my work.

"You said you were a therapist?"

"Used to be. Why?"

"It's surprising is all," he said. "You don't seem like the type."

"You're right, I'm not. Not anymore."

"Something happened to change your mind?"

"You could say that."

"Well?" he said. "What happened?"

I carefully finished mixing his drink. I carried it over and handed it to him, and sat down next to him with my Sea Breeze.

"You really want to know?" I said, with shy, downcast eyes.

"Sure, why not."

"I'm not sure I want to tell you." I couldn’t resist teasing.

“You’ll tell me,” he said, “or I'll give you a spanking you won't forget."

"Sounds exciting."

"Tell me."

I hesitated. Tony grabbed my arm hard enough to hurt me and pulled me closer, almost causing me to spill my drink.

"I said tell me." He wasn't kidding around. He had a real mean streak.

"Okay. Please let go."

He gave my arm a warning squeeze which felt like it would leave a bruise (it did), and released me. I put my drink on the coffee table, and I took a deep breath. And I told him.

*

My patient's name was Michael Warner.

Michael was a research scientist at the University Medical Center, an admirable person who cared more about helping people with his work than he did about exploiting it for personal gain. I liked him, and if the truth be told, I had a bit of a crush on him, which is an occupational hazard for therapists.

His problem was severe claustrophobia. He lived in terror of being trapped in small places. Cars, bathrooms, elevators. To just walk into a building from outside was becoming difficult for him. And it just kept getting worse.

We tried everything, psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, beta-blockers, but nothing helped. He began to get desperate. Like a thorough scientist, he searched for every option, every possibility, no matter how absurd it might seem. And finally, as I had feared he would, he presented me with a last resort.

"I want you to supervise," he said, standing by the open window and looking out. He no longer lay on the couch or sat in the chair during our sessions. He could barely force himself to enter my office, and insisted that we leave the door opened. I knew he was approaching a crisis. Even so, I couldn't agree with his plan.

"Michael, it's a terrible idea."

"I can't live like this," he said. "Panic attacks all the time. I can't take it anymore. I really can't."

"We can try-

"We've already tried everything. This is the only thing left."

He took several deep breaths, and turned around and walked closer to me. He sat down in the chair, then stood up.

"I've got a friend named Geiger at the University," he said. "He runs the sleep disorders lab, he's got an isolation tank."

“You’re not ready for that,” I said. “Even if you could force yourself to get in the tank, it would be incredibly dangerous.”

For someone like Michael it would be more than dangerous. He’d be risking a psychotic break. But I should explain.

An isolation tank is a coffin-shaped chamber, filled with salt-water at such a high concentration that the human body floats effortlessly on the surface. In darkness, in insulated silence, in a condition of quasi-weightlessness, the mind experiences the closest possible approach to total sensory deprivation. The boundary of the skin seems to dissolve, producing a bodiless, almost astral freedom. A feeling of transcendent peace is possible. So are hallucinations of a violent intensity exceeding any drug-induced delirium.

A session in an isolation tank can be a transformative experience. But not for someone with severe claustrophobia. For Michael, the tank would be a torture chamber. Like being buried alive.

Which was the point.

“I’m doing it,” he said. “I’ve read about it, it’s my best chance. Face my problem at its worst. Overload the fear response and it may burn itself out. Desensitization. It can work.”

“For mild cases, yes. Maybe. But first you need to be able to control your fear enough to-

“No,” he said. “I just need to live through it. Geiger has ways to help me get in the tank and keep me there without flailing around.”

He took several deep breaths, and managed to control himself enough to sit down. But he was trembling.

“I’d feel better if you supervise. I trust you. Geiger’s an excellent scientist, but he’s… a bit cold. I want you to be there. Please.”

I felt his desperation. I couldn’t say no. But I was terrified for him. He was taking a horrible risk.

*

Professor Geiger’s sleep disorders lab was located all the way at the end of a long corridor in the basement of the enormous Medical Center research complex. When I knocked at the agreed-upon hour, I heard a curt “Enter” from deep inside. I started to push the heavy, steel door opened, and felt it seized from the other side and pulled out of my hand. Geiger was already standing there, impatiently, saying, “Come in, come in, you’re late!”

“I’m late?” I said, intimidated by his intense look of disapproval. He was very tall, with pale unblinking eyes and thin bloodless lips pressed tight together. His long lab coat was bleached so white it practically glowed. “I don’t think I’m late…”

But he was already striding off, saying, “Just stay out of the way. And don’t touch anything!”

There was nothing to touch. I was alone in a small waiting area, as in a doctor’s office, which opened onto a narrow hallway down which Geiger was disappearing. I hurried after him, wondering whether Michael would be able to force himself to walk the long basement corridor to the lab. Or even take the stairs or the elevator down to basement level. I had my doubts, as I was already feeling claustrophobic myself. And Geiger was more than intimidating. With one look he’d given me an ice-cold churning in the guts, and the sense that he’d enjoyed doing it. I knew I’d be relieved if Michael simply didn’t show up.

But he was already there, floating in the tank.

Geiger had him doped up, in twilight sleep. He didn’t respond when I said his name.

“I’ll bring him fully alert when I’m ready to begin,” said Geiger, fussing with a mass of wires that projected from the head of the tank to a large circuit board on the wall.

We were in one of the several observation rooms, the only one with an isolation tank instead of a bed, and lined with racks of monitoring equipment and a long table with computers. There was also a portable refrigerator with some empty vials and syringes sitting on top, and a medical cart with supplies and an IV pole that had been dragged next to the tank.

Michael was in the tank, floating silently on his back. He was wearing black swim trunks that emphasized the whiteness of his thin legs, and the top half of a black rubber wetsuit including a cowl that left only his face uncovered. His eyes were opened, but wandering and unfocused. IV tubing snaked out from his arm, EKG wires from his chest, and EEG wires from his head which was immobilized in a wire mesh cage secured to the inside of the tank. Fitted to the mesh cage was a thick black plastic cylinder pressed firmly to his skull, like a big gun to his head.

“TMS,” said Geiger, in response to my question about the black cylinder. “Transcranial magnetic stimulation. Feedback.”

“Feedback? What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about panic,” he said, making eye contact with me for the first time. “It’s detectable as gamma band fluctuations in the local field strength, even at a distance of meters. Understand?” he said, getting excited. “These are fluctuations in non-local consciousness itself. It’s impersonal, we all just sample tiny fragments of it, but this is the thing itself. I’ve seen it, detected it with nightmares and night terrors, but it’s not strong enough. Too much noise. Not enough signal.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No,” he smiled. “You wouldn’t.”

“What does this have to do with Michael?”

“He needs instant, overwhelming panic to flood the fear response. I’m going to give it to him. The EEG reads his fear. The TMS gun feeds it back to the fear circuit via timed potentiation of cortical input pathways to the amygdala. A positive feedback loop. See? Little becomes big. Big becomes gigantic. Michael gets what he needs, and I get what I need. His fear may fill this room, quite literally. If I’m correct, if my theories are correct, we may feel it ourselves.”

“This isn’t an experiment, this is a man suffering from-

“Suffering is the point,” he smiled. “A cure for his weakness. In any case, we’ll get some fascinating data.”

“As soon as you wake him up, he’ll panic, rip all the wires out and start-

“He won’t,” said Geiger. “I’ve used CD39, it’s a recently synthesized curare derivative. Not really a paralytic, more of an extreme muscle weakener that spares the diaphragm so he can breathe on his own. Quickly reversible, too. Excellent drug. At the moment he doesn’t have the strength to twitch a finger. He’ll give us no trouble.”

He grinned down at me, drinking in my dismay.

“You’re not to do anything until I talk with Michael,” I said, trying to project authority. But my voice was trembling, and Geiger laughed.

“Of course,” he said. “I’ll wake him up.”

He picked up a loaded syringe from the medical cart and injected the contents into Michael’s IV line. Then he turned and headed over to the computer bank, saying, “Talk. You’ve got about a minute.”

I leaned over the tank, looking down at Michael. His eyes closed, then fluttered and opened. He stared blankly up at me for a few moments.

“Michael,” I said. “You don’t have to go through with this. I’ll tell Geiger, we can stop this right now.”

I think he tried to say something, but he was too weak. His eyes darted left and right.

“Geiger,” I said, standing up and turning to him. “He’s panicking.”

“I know,” said Geiger, staring at the EEG read-out on the big monitor.

“He’s too weak to talk!” I said

“Most likely,” said Geiger, moving from the computer back to the tank.

“Well how am I supposed to talk to him if he can’t talk?!”

“Good point,” he chuckled.

From inside the tank came Michael’s voice, badly slurring his words: “Geiger… She’s right… I think we better-

“Nonsense, this will be done in a few minutes,” said Geiger, leaning over the tank, reaching up for the lid to shut the chamber.

“Remarkable energy,” he was saying to me, completely unperturbed. “He shouldn’t be able to talk at all.”

I reached up to grab his arm and stop him from shutting the tank.

“You can’t do this!”

He shoved me effortlessly away, saying, “Interfere and I’ll throw you out.”

Then he closed the lid and sealed the tank. He hurried back and sat down in front of the big monitor. I recognized the EKG trace and the readout. Michael’s heart rate was accelerating past 190, past 200. His EEG traces — his brain waves — were meaningless to me, but not to Geiger.

“Fascinating,” he said.

“Please stop,” I said.

He looked at me for a moment, grinning. “Now the amplification, and we’ll really see something.”

He swiveled back to the computer and typed in a series of commands.

The response was immediate. From inside the tank came screaming.

Michael’s nightmare panic at being trapped, paralyzed in a lightless coffin, showed on the EEG monitor like a massive seizure, like a neuro-electrical hurricane spinning up, its power growing as the TMS gun fed it back to itself, amplifying the nightmare with its own power.

“Remarkable,” said Geiger, his eyes glued to the readout.

I felt Michael’s overwhelming fear, and not only from empathy. It was in the air, like the twisting tension of a lightning storm, spinning, spiraling around me. I was suddenly lightheaded, nearly stumbled and fell as I moved to Geiger, shouting, “You’ve got to stop this!”

Michael was screaming inside the tank.

“Fascinating,” said Geiger, ignoring me, ignoring Michael’s screams. “Look at this,” he said. “It’s…

His voice trailed off, as he stared, fascinated by something on the screen.

“That’s not possible,” said Geiger, staring at the traces, then stood abruptly and turned to the tank.

I turned and looked.

Somehow, impossibly, Michael was standing next to the tank.

It remained sealed shut. The screaming from inside hadn’t stopped. If anything, it had intensified, coming in convulsive, choking waves.

“How…?” said Geiger.

Michael seemed lost in thought. His eyes wandered and eventually settled and fixed on Geiger.

“How did you…”

He took a step toward Geiger, who backed away warily. Michael staggered, reaching for Geiger, and I moved instinctively to help catch him if he fell.

Michael fell forward, grabbing me and Geiger at the same time. At the moment of contact there was loud, snapping electrical discharge.

The lights flickered.

The EKG alarm bell went off, as the screaming from inside the tank became staccato, like a skipping record.

Michael dissolved into our arms, literally dissolved, in a blinding flash of light and a mass of piercing static shocks like a million bee stings all at the same time, all over my face and body, and then the lights went out.

Or maybe I did.

And then…

I was standing there. The lights were on.

And I was curled up on the floor, my eyes clamped shut, screaming in terror.

And I was in darkness, floating in the tank. In excruciating agony, my heart bursting in my chest.

And I was afraid. More afraid then I’d ever imagined was possible.

And fascinated.

And horrified.

The fear somehow grew. It grew beyond imagining. And the agony in my chest exploded to static, like white noise, like digital snow, except that every grain of light, every particle of sound, every mote of darkness, was pain, and horror, and fascination, and pleasure, mixing together, dissolving, separating.

And a dark, giant, hungry shape, spinning, growing, gathered it all in. And examined it all, merciless, mote by mote, fascinated, thrilled with cruel pleasure, taking it all in until there was nothing left except itself.

And I was standing there.

The lights were on. I was next to the computer table. The monitors were dead.

I was myself, but I wasn’t myself. Something big had changed, I knew that right away.

I heard a high-pitched keening sound, like a tea kettle at the boil. I looked down.

Geiger was curled up in the fetal position, at my feet. His mouth was thrown wide open as though he were bellowing, but only the high-pitched tea-kettle sound was coming from somewhere deep in his throat.

Michael was gone. The tank remained sealed shut, and silent.

I looked down at Geiger, curled up like an infant, keening in terror. And I felt an enormous grin spread across my face. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

*

I realized I was grinning the same grin to Tony as I told him the story. He seemed flushed, a bit dazed.

“Michael was dead in the tank,” I continued. “His heart had exploded in his chest. Remarkable, the pathologist had never seen anything like it. Professor Geiger lived only a few days in an institution. They literally couldn’t sedate him, not with any medication. Fear beyond fear. A stress response beyond anything they’d ever seen. It was fascinating.”

Tony looked at me with blank eyes.

“Would you like another drink?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “No, I’m… I don’t get it.”

“No,” I smiled. “You wouldn’t.”

“But what happened?”

“I happened,” I said. “Because Michael’s fear got amplified by feedback beyond a critical magnitude. It created a distortion in the field of our shared consciousness. Geiger was right. Except we didn’t only feel Michael’s fear, we were caught up in it, like in a whirlpool. The feedback loop caught all three of us, and twisted us around. And mixed us up. See?”

“No,” said Tony. “I’m not feeling too well.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” I said. “I put CD39 in your drink. Professor Geiger’s paralytic. Or not really a paralytic, more of a muscle weakener that spares the diaphragm so you can breath on your own. Remember?”

“What’s happening?” said Tony, and he tried to rise from the couch, but he couldn’t. His empty glass slipped from his hand and tumbled to the floor and rolled.

“I was saying that Michael’s fear found a home in Professor Geiger. It was so big it couldn’t really fit inside of him, so it killed him. Eventually.”

I rose from the couch and went to the cabinet and knelt down and opened it, saying, “The really interesting thing is that Geiger was a sadist. A monster, really. And that got amplified by the feedback loop. It fed on Michael’s fear, and it grew bigger than everything else. And it chose me. Now it is me. You can’t even imagine how big it is. But don’t worry, I’ll show you. I’ll try to help you understand.”

Inside the cabinet I keep my helping tools. I’ve started collecting them, and I already have many different kinds, even some medieval antiques.

I selected one of my favorites, a particularly wicked needle blade, and sat down next to Tony.

He was paralyzed now, or, strictly speaking, merely weakened to the point where he could only move his eyes. I slid him off the couch, and onto his back on the floor. I straddled him, riding his chest as it rose and fell, my weight making it a little harder for him to breathe.

He stared up at me, and I smiled down at him, unblinking, until his eyes began darting back and forth in wild panic. I drank it in like nectar. My lust rose like a black sun.

I touched the tip of the needle blade to the delicate skin under his right eye.

“I’m ready now, Tony,” I said. “Let’s begin.”

Submitted June 19, 2016 at 10:36PM by aj55555 http://ift.tt/28ORLu3 nosleep