Free The Mentor by Pat Connid Page A

Rocket” vibrator poking through the folds of the duvet.
 
    Not ideal.
    I’d
certainly never get close enough to him to use it and would need at least two
or three minutes, if experience were any guide, before it had any sort of
brief, debilitating effect.
    Had to find
something heavy.  Or sharp.
    I went to
stand, pushing the covers off my body, but my visitor shook his head and gave
me a tsk-tsk-tsk .
    “No, no,”
he said.  “This would be easier for both of us if you didn’t move.”
    “What if I
don’t want it to be easy?” I shouted, in part because I had hoped it
might wake up Laura.  I could have used the backup.
    He moved
around the room so fast, I lost sight of him and covered my head to protect it
from a blow.  He chuckled from a dark corner.  We both knew how this was going
to end.
    “What do
you want from me?”
    “Dex, I
don’t want anything from you,” he said, his voice smooth, even playful.
 “Just a man putting in a hard day's work.”
    “What?”
    “Listen,
now.  Air velocity can be judged by relative objects on the ground—“
    Oh.
 Damn.
    “—but don’t
rely on their size as any sort of barometer because often you don’t know their size.  Instead estimate their distance and use static objects for your
computations.”
    I screamed
at him: “Man, I don’t need this!”
    “You
understand the Archimedes' principle, and you’ll need that if you want to survive.
 Also, the emotional response will be a problem.   Your instincts…
you’ll have to fight that because that would be your downfall,” he said and I
could see movement in the corner of the room, flashing again.  Terrified, I
pressed my back against the headboard and craned my neck, trying to see down
into the square below me.
    “Goddamn
it, help me!”  
    No one was down
there this early in the morning, and mine was the only apartment on the block.
 
    Despite my
yelling, Laura hadn’t stirred, and I was sincerely worried about what he’d done
to her.
    “You know
Newton’s second law of motion, his most powerful, and it will allow you to
perform necessary quantitative calculations of dynamics,” he said and I saw a
wide set of teeth.  “A little while back, some Japanese eggheads believed
they disproved parts of that theory— theoretically — using electrolysis
upon a molecule in a specially prepared liquid.  But, trust me; you won’t
be applying this within liquid.”  He chucked again and the strange winking
light in front of him stopped for a second.  “You hit liquid, and your
skin will boil off your bones, Dexter.”
    Then he was
right there, right in front of me, dressed all in black again, and briefly I
saw a silver or gold ring as his hands came toward me, then the golf club,
which landed between my right cheek bone and my ear with a thwack!
    Purples and
blues swirled, the world folding in upon itself, my body falling back into the
bed, my head buzzing loudly… and through that din I heard:
    “Lesson
begins.”
     
    I'M TOO
SCRAMBLED FOR Ruthie’s funeral, and I hate myself for secretly not wanting to
go.  I can take pain.  My whole body’s been on fire for a week
and I've got these headaches that roar in then retreat just as fast.
    What I
can't take is the pity.  The look of it.  The smell and the stain of it. 
    And, I don’t
deserve it even if I could.
    “Dexter,”
the young nurse says as a greeting.  “How’s the head?”
    “Fine.
 My guts got scrambled not my head."
    "Good,"
she says.  "Then your memory's coming back?  Such an amazing
gift, it'd be terrible if you lost it.  Terrible."
    "Oh,"
I say.  "Yeah, slowly.  Bits and pieces."
    "Good
because they're coming for it," she says, her painted-on smile unwavering.
    "What?
 What are you talking about?"
    She looks down
at her wrist watch casually, as if she hadn't heard me.
    “You want
me to dial up the church?  Service starts in a few minutes.  You
could listen to it on speaker phone if you’d like.”
    If