-4-

The next day while Davey was eating breakfast, Jonathan slid through his ears. The reaction was as violent as it had been before and when Davey vomited, Davey lamented Pippa’s absence. What a waste. Jonathan was not as fatigued by doing this as he had been the day before, but he was still unable to repeat the feat. The sight of Davey having to mop his floors was invigorating and, a few hours later, he felt sufficiently recovered to try again. He didn’t do this immediately, letting Davey and Pippa have their last two hours of piece together.

Jonathan then began experimenting on Davey, who proved a most entertaining guinea pig. Jonathan was limited in how much he could try by his exhaustion, but, as they days passed and he got better at invading Davey’s body, Jonathan’s recovery period shortened. Jonathan discovered that rapid taps did not exhaust him at all, but these resulted in spasms and gasps of discomfort from Davey.

Once Jonathan entered Davey’s brain more slowly than he had previously and he was filled with nausea. His perception of the room also changed and he realised later that he had shared what Davey saw and felt. Inspired, he began experimenting with slow entry. He discovered that by changing his gaseous body into a long spear and then slowly injecting himself into Davey’s ear, he could get a clearer glimpse of Davey’s thoughts. Davey convulsed as though jolted by electric current when subjected to this treatment. It was delightful. And these were just Jonathan’s first discoveries.

Following his first success, Jonathan began tutoring himself in the art of body possession with Davey’s body acting as his college campus. It was an intensely enjoyable class, especially when Jonathan managed to complicate Pippa’s life. Whenever she visited, Jonathan drove Davey into fits and attacked him with waves of nausea at opportune moments, such as when the two were making love.

Pippa was surprisingly supportive of Davey during his ailment. She took him to see a doctor and the doctor was unable to figure out the cause of Davey’s symptoms.

Jonathan screamed, “You should have taken him to see an exorcist,” in Pippa’s ear.

Other than this and a number of other small triumphs however, on the whole, Jonathan was unsatisfied. Even making Davey’s detestable bobbing into convulsions was becoming boring. He needed more.

What I really need to do is actually possess him.

He had got small glimpses of what Davey was thinking when he dashed through Davey’s head so he knew actual possession was possible. This became his new, primary field of study. He first began allowing himself to pause for a few moments in Davey’s head before dashing out. He increased this time periods in small increments: from a few seconds, to half a minute, then, a minute. He also learnt that if he enveloped Davey like a cloak, and then slowly entered his ears from both sides, he could stretch this time to five minutes. If he went in very slowly, Davey did not even react to the intrusion.

Now, I just have to alter what he thinks.

He tried for the first time when Davey and Pippa were together. As soon as he entered, his mind was filled with extreme love for Pippa. He found himself wishing he could hold her for all eternity. He dove out of Davey’s head immediately. He hadn’t expected his feelings to be influenced. Remembering the experience Jonathan was slightly perturbed by the magnitude of Davey’s love for Pippa. It was far more than Jonathan’s had been, for Pippa or anyone. The right term for it was not love. It was obsession. He adored everything about her and it seemed that his cliché declarations of love were not just the act Jonathan had thought they were. Davey actually believed the words he said.

Over the next few days, Jonathan tried again many times. It was useless. He had succeeded in making Davey do small things, such as dancing in the middle of the street and, singing Celine Dion songs in an out of tune warble wherever he went, even though looking into Davey’s mind revealed that he liked alternative music and disliked Celine’s ballads. These small successes were a lot of fun because there are lots of foolish things one wants to do in one’s own body, but never does because of common sense. Jonathan did all of these. Some were little things such as making Davey fondle the breasts of voluptuous women in the metro, then exiting Davey’s body before the slap or kick in the groin that followed. Most satisfyingly of all, Jonathan sent Davey to his editor’s office, where he made Davey fling a can of Pepsi in the face of the man who called Jonathan’s last book ‘senseless fuzz’. Jonathan also learnt that if he thought of doing something, and dashed out of Davey’s body, the suggestion would linger like a bomb on a timer, and he could watch Davey perform these actions from a different vantage point.

However, whenever Pippa entered, Jonathan became powerless. Davey’s love for Pippa overpowered every attempt Jonathan made to change his attitudes toward her. He tried for days and was about to give up when one of Davey’s ridiculous declarations of love gave him inspiration.

“Every time I go to sleep I dream about you, but it still feels like pain because nothing I can imagine compares to you.”

Really, Jonathan thought. Then maybe you’ll be more pliable asleep.

That night he seeped into Davey’s brain when he was fast asleep. He immediately found himself in the middle of a battle. People who had laughed and teased Davey during his youth surrounded him. With physics defying kung-fu moves he was pulping them into whimpering, apologetic, slugs.

I guess that didn’t work, Jonathan thought and started to pull out. Before he left, he suddenly was no longer in Davey’s dream, but still in his mind. That must have been his subconscious.

Now that I’m here. What do I do?

Davey’s body answered this question for him, for, Davey’s hand rose and scratched his forehead; a physical response to Davey’s musing.

I have control of his motor functions! Jonathan realised. He immediately raised himself to a sitting position and lifted his arms. He made Davey’s lips curl into a malicious leer as he reached for Pippa’s throat. It was so frail and pale. Finally, he thought, resting his palms against her warm flesh.

He was about to strangle her, when it occurred to him how unsatisfying it would be to kill her in her sleep. He would be robbed of seeing her in agony. He was about to wake her up, when he further realised that even if he strangled her when she was awake it would be unsatisfying. She would die and then...

What?

Jonathan was disconcerted. He’d dreamt of this moment for so long and now, just as he was about to be revenged, he was having doubts. Why? He wanted to strangle her so badly.

But then what?

And would he truly be revenged? All he would have done was kill her. She had humiliated him by murdering him for the love of a repulsive dwarf. That she had fallen in love with Davey still confused him. He had watched Davey and Pippa together for weeks and he still couldn’t see the root of the attraction.
What could possibly have led Pippa to prefer Davey to him?

He realised that he could find out. All he had to do was go into Pippa’s mind. At least if he knew why, he wouldn’t feel that she had the upper hand on him. Jonathan seeped out of Davey’s ear. His body slumped back to peaceful dreams of justice via martial arts. He then enveloped Pippa and trickled through her ears. He immediately met great resistance but he persisted. Pain racked him and he felt as though he were being shredded. It was far more pain than even the first time he had burrowed into Davey’s brain and despite his willpower he was expelled from Pippa’s body. He regained his bearings and when he looked at her he saw that he really had been shredded in two. Beside Pippa, was a mass of gas.

It suddenly moved of its own volition. Jonathan was terrified. The irony of a terrified ghost failed to impress itself upon him. He moved backwards in fear when he saw that the gaseous fog was a different colour from him. It was pinkish-red. What the hell? It moved towards him again and he realised it was another ghost.

“Who are you?” he demanded frenetically. The other ball of gas paused and after a few moments of silence he asked. “Is that you Pippa?”

The ball of fog trembled and within it, a mouth appeared. “Jonathan?”

“Yes. Pippa?”

“No. I’m not Pippa.”

“What?”

“Don’t you recognise me?”

“No.”

The fog slowly coalesced into a female form and began solidifying into features. When the eyes and lips emerged from the fog, he recognised who it was.”

“Martha?”

“Yes, what are you doing here?”

“Well that’s my wife and...”

“I should have realised what was happening,” Martha said to herself.

“Excuse me?”

“When Davey started getting sick.”

“What! You know Davey?”

“Of course I know Davey you idiot. I met him in your Creative Writing class.”

Jonathan was confused.

“What’s going on?”

Martha now looked at him as though he was disturbed. “Please tell me you’ve figured it out by now.”

“Figured what out?”

“Oh, you really are a simpleton. What did I ever see in you?”

A disturbing idea hatched in Jonathan’s mind. “How long have you been in Pippa’s body exactly?”

“How long do you think Jonathan? Months.”

Things Jonathan had never noticed now began to make sense as he distilled what Martha had just told him. He remembered Pippa’s sudden illness and looked at it now in a different light. That had been Martha trying to get into Pippa’s body.

“So, you killed me?”

“Of course I did.”

“But why?”

“I can’t believe you have to ask that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well you led me along for weeks then you slept with me, only to dump me the next day. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, a month later you introduced me to your wife. Can you imagine how painful and humiliating that was for me? Having to be in the same room with the reason you looked at me in disgust every time you saw me.”

“I didn’t look at you that way.”

“Don’t try to deny it. You were so guilty about what you had done that every time you ran into me, you looked at me as though I were a cockroach. If it wasn’t for Davey I don’t think I would have survived.”

“Davey?”

“Yes. He comforted me and took time to work on my writing with me like you never did. That was when I fell in love with him.”

“You fell in love with that?”

“Yes. But he was not interested in me at all. He told me that he was in love with your wife. ‘Philippa Orlean this.’ ‘Philippa Orlean that.’ She was all he talked about. Even when I wasn’t with you, you still caused me pain indirectly.” It was torturous to love two men and yet have neither.”

“But if you loved us both, then why did you kill me and get together with him?”

“At least he came to my funeral.”

“What?”

“You did not even respect me enough to come for that one ceremony.”

"I didn’t know you died.”

“What? Did you think I stopped coming to your class because I was sick.”

“No. I thought that you stopped coming because you were awkward around me.”

“I was, but do you think I would withdraw from a six hundred dollar course.”

“I didn’t know you were dead.”

“You just didn’t care but don’t worry. I only got to know Davey because of your indifference.”

“Speaking of which,” Jonathan demanded. “Why him? He’s a disgusting little dwarf.”

“And you’re Prince Charming? I hate to be the one to tell you this Johnny, but the years haven’t been all that kind to you. You may have been a stud back in nineteen sixty whatever, but now you’re a wrinkled old fart. The reason that I loved both of you was your writing. You are such geniuses.”

“Why thank...” Jonathan began, but then he realised exactly what Martha had just said. “Both of us?”

“Yes.”

Jonathan brought to mind Davey’s romantic drivel and realised that this wasn’t a compliment. It was an insult.

“You like Davey’s writing.”

“Of course. It’s like the two of you are two sides of the same coin. He is the romantic you. Both of you use words so well, and you’re ideas are so original. I confess, I liked you a bit better, but at least he pays attention to me.”

“In Pippa’s body!”

“Yes. But he loves me, not just the surface. Before I took her body he’d never actually talked to your wife. He loves me more than he does her body.”

“Yeah right,”
Martha’s eyes filled with rage and she seemed about to attack Jonathan. Before she could act, Pippa spoke. She had woken up.

“Where am I?”

A light came on. Then Pippa screamed.

“Who are you?”

“Philippa relax,“ Davey said groggily, awakening and reaching for her. “You must have had a nightmare.”

“Don’t touch me! Who are you?”

“What do you mean who am I? I love you.”

“Don’t you say that. I don’t know who you are, or where I am.”

Pippa had fled from the bed and retreated to the wall. Davey followed her, getting up.

“Don’t you say that Philippa. I know you love me.”

“I don’t love you! I don’t love you, you disgusting runt! Stay away from me. I could never love someone like you.”

Jonathan recoiled at this for in his mind he could recall a memory that was not his own. It was the memory of Davey being teased in high school with the word ‘runt’ by some of the people who he had been pummelling in his kung fu dream. He approached Pippa and grasped her shoulders.

“Don’t say that. Please don’t say that,”

She was thrashing now, and he put his hand over her mouth.

“Please stop playing whatever game you’re playing, please...”

Pippa bit him and when he let go screamed, “Get away from me.”

His hands wrapped around her throat. Jonathan froze. He must have left some residue of his desire to strangle Pippa in Davey’s head? Now, Pippa had catalysed the impulse. He ran forward and dived into Davey’s mind but the mixture of love and hatred was so strong he could not even enter.

Davey was weeping now, and as Pippa crumbled to the floor Jonathan reeled in despair. He had no control over what was happening. Out of Pippa’s ear, he saw wisps of fog slowly pour out until her body became inert.

“Jonathan!” the fog said immediately on seeing him. It turned into Pippa’s form.

“I don’t know what happened?” She was crying. “I promise you that I didn’t do anything with this sick man. Please believe me. I don’t even know how I got here. The last thing I remember I...”

Pippa stopped speaking abruptly. She was looking straight at Martha. “Wait a minute,” she said, her voice metamorphosing instantly to rage. “Aren’t you that girl who...aren’t you...”

She swerved to face Jonathan. “I can’t believe you betrayed me like this. You promised me that you would never see her again. You son of a...”

“No. Pippa. I can explain. It isn’t what it looks...“

“I don’t want to hear it!” Pippa screamed, storming out. She did not even know she was dead.

To the background sound of a wailing and screaming Davey - who was holding Pippa’s corpse in his arms - Martha turned to Jonathan and spoke. “Now look what you’ve done.

THE END