Free Deja Who by MaryJanice Davidson Page A

anyway.”
    â€œYes, but—”
    â€œSo in my next life I was super careful, followed all the rules, did everything I was s’posed to—and got screwed again! Without getting screwed! Again!”
    â€œAll right, but—”
    â€œThe only thing following the rules got me was unjustly executed again. So you, and society, can fuck
right
off. Next you’ll tell me if I’m a good girl for the next six or seven lives, I’ll come back
rasa
.”
    â€œWell—”
    â€œHonk the other one.”
    After ten minutes of cajoling, threats, pleading, threats, and lectures, Marcia sullenly agreed to an outpatient program and no jail time, provided she could . . .
    â€œKeep my nose clean?” her patient suggested, her good humor restored now that she wasn’t going back to jail.
    â€œIt’s not your nose I’m worried about.”
    â€œHa! Good one, Ms. Nazir.”
    â€œI wasn’t joking!” she shouted after her, but now she was shouting at a closed door. “Dammit.”
It’s a cliché, but won’t someone think of the children?
Several were traumatized—or at least hopelessly confused—by the sight of Marcia’s rake-thin thighs wrapped around her date’s head like a bony muffler. On the other hand, prisons all over the country had no room at the inn for serial rapists and pedophiles, never mind a rich exhibitionist, so locking Marcia up seemed wasteful at best, and ineffectual at worst.
    She knew her eleven thirty was there before he spoke; she sighed as she gestured for him to come in. “Harry, now really.”
    â€œI can’t help it.” Harry Aguan scratched his thick beard, the bristly hair several shades darker than the hair on his skull. He was a trim brunet of average height immaculately dressed in a spotless sky blue short-sleeved button-down, pressed navy slacks, socks that still had the sale sticker on them, and new black loafers. And it was all a waste of time and money, because Harry smelled like seagull shit on fire. “Every time I get in the shower—gaaaaah!”
    â€œBaby steps.”
    â€œWhich reminds me, the kiddie pool idea didn’t work.”
    â€œThen we’ll have to come up with something else,” she said firmly. “Because you certainly can’t go on like this.”
    â€œI can’t drink coffee on the street anymore,” he complained. He stretched, then plopped into the easy chair across from her desk, and the motion stirred enough body odor around to make her eyes water. “People keep dropping money in my cup.”
    â€œWell, you do reek to the heavens, Harry,” she said kindly.
    â€œYou say that like I don’t know it.”
    â€œI say it like you aren’t trying as hard as you could to overcome it.” There was that niggle in her brain again, the
    (oh look who’s talking—you’re just killing time until your murder)
    annoying voice pointing out that she was, at best, a hypocrite, and at worst, a terrible human being. Deb had reminded her of that with her usual cheer (“Yet another dissatisfied customer and if you were a restaurant, critics would give you minus stars.”) just that morning.
Am I terrible out of self-defense? Or laziness? Are all Insighters in the wrong line of work, or is it just me?
    â€œYou’re actually ahead of the game, Harry.”
    â€œThat must be why all the ladies want me,” he snapped.
    â€œWe know the root cause of your ablutophobia. Some people never find out why they’re afraid.”
    Or they do, and they don’t care. Like you, Leah!
    â€œThat’s enough.”
    â€œSorry, Ms. Nazir?”
    â€œNothing, just scolding myself.”
    â€œDoes it work?”
    â€œHardly ever. Your paralyzing fear of bathing and washing is perfectly understandable.” It certainly was; in 1819, Harry’s stepbrother had drowned him in the upstairs bathtub when