Queen of Freaks
an excerpt

“I can hear other people’s thoughts.”
Sure you can kid, and I’m secretly a millionaire. “Really and how long have you been able to do that?”
The leather of the couch peeled away from the backs of my thighs as I rolled over to look at the psychiatrist. His glasses were sliding down his beaky nose. He pushed them up with one spindly finger, eyes pointed at me but glassed over. Ah, what the hell. If I have to spend an hour with this guy I may as well make it interesting. “Probably about as long as you’ve secretly been a millionaire,” I glanced at the name placard on his desk, “Hugh.”
He went slack jawed, tongue nearly lolling out on one side like a dog, eyes bugging out wildly behind his glasses. Calm down Hugh. You’re just hallucinating because of that [pill] you took.”
“Tut, tut, tut, Hugh. Writing yourself prescriptions?” I wagged my index finger at him. “You could lose your license for that, you know. Besides, if you were hallucinating, would you really have the clarity to tell yourself that?” I rolled into a sitting position and rested my elbows on my knees. Hugh sank back in his chair, watching me like I might leap at him at any moment. At least he had remembered to close his mouth.
It had been about a minute after I told him and I hadn’t tried to kill him. Apparently that mad me trustworthy. He relaxed a little, still guarded with his arms folded tightly across his chest, but no longer quiver in anticipation of the attack he imagined me committing. “Really though, how long have you been able to?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess I was about twelve. It wasn’t strong then, I only heard bits and pieces. Mostly when people got really emotional.”
“And now?”
“When I was fourteen I started to hear everything, all the time. I couldn’t stop it. It gave me really bad migraines. They aren’t so bad now; I usually don’t get them more than once a month. Now I can kind of tune it out, but not completely. That’s why I wear these,” holding my palm out so he could see the pair of earrings I had been clutching while we talked. “They block it out totally.”
“Your earrings do? Are they, I don’t know, special or something?”
I laughed softly. I couldn’t believe I was actually telling someone other than my mom about this. I had never told anyone but her, not even my friends. But she had been gone so long now and it was comforting to say these things out loud instead of keeping them locked away, my lips guarding against their escape. I leaned forward and tucked my hands underneath myself, the earrings biting into my palms where they closed around the posts. Everything my mom had given me before she died was special. But I knew what he meant. “Not really, not like that anyway. My mom taught me to use them to focus on blocking it out. I don’t have to think about it when I wear these, I just do it. It’s the only pair I’ve ever been able to do that with.”
“You mom, did she have, you know,” he swallowed, struggling to force himself to say it, like the word itself was a contagion for the plague, “Powers?”
“Nope, just me, I’m a freak all on my lonesome.”
“Mr. Duncan?” The secretary’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Your wife just called, said it was an emergency at home. She would like you to call as soon as you can.”
Probably needs more money for redecorating the damn house. She’s bleeding me dry. Hugh’s thoughts smacked me with an overpowering mental image of the secretary’s very large, clearly fake, incredibly naked breasts. What a great investment.
“Oh my god, GROSS! Keep that shit to yourself!”
Hugh flushed a bright red. “Oh, oh my. I’m so…I’m so sorry,” he said, tripping over words almost as much as he did his own feet as he stumbled to the intercom on his desk. “If she calls again tell her I’ll call her after this session.” Face still beet, he practically laid across his desk, huffing. I hoped the poor guy didn’t go into shock. The last thing I needed on my conscience was man-slaughter. “Sorry,” he mumbled again stumbling back to his chair. “So,” he asked sinking into it, “can you do anything else?”
“Yeah.” Everyway I could think of to explain them sounded loonier than ‘I can hear people’s thoughts’ by far. “But I don’t really know how to explain them.”
“What about your family, do they know?”
“They should have noticed by now, even if I didn’t tell them, but no, they remain blissfully unaware.”
“Well, we’re going to need to tell them.”
“No.”
“We’ll need them to sign permission forms, Lily. We need to study this.”
The ceiling lights dimmed and flickered repeatedly, filling the room with a soft buzzing noise. “I said no.”
“But think of all the good studying your gifts could do.”
All the bulbs in the room went out at once with a loud pop, the mirror hang on the wall cracked, and the computer hissed like and electrical line before turning off. I doubted it would turn on again. The room was darker but enough light came in from the window on the far wall to see that Hugh’s eyes had gone wide. I leaned forward, watching him as his fear took over wiping away all conscious thought and leaving behind the low buzz of fright. “I am not your guinea pig, High. Or anyone else’s. You won’t breathe a word about me to anyone. Patient confidentiality and all that jazz. Besides,” I gestured to the mirror, now hanging off-kilter, its glass spider-webbing. “Do you really want to risk finding out what else I can do?” I was not about to get locked away in Area 52, pumped full of drugs and tested like a lab rat. I knew all this was my fault, this was exactly why I never told anyone beyond my mother, but it was just something I needed to say. Besides, he was a psychiatrist; he was used to listening to crazy people, right? And I was there to get my ‘issues’ off my chest anyway.
I couldn’t actually do much to Hugh other than break some glass or fry his electronics if I got pissed, not that I could even do it on purpose. Or I could tell his wife about the affair he’d been having with his secretary for the past three years that he hadn’t stopped trying not to think about since the lovely mental image he blasted me with earlier. Not that Hugh knew that’s all I could do. Helpful in getting him to keep my secret. Maybe in return I should tell him that things people try not to think about are the things they end up thinking about the most, and by trying not to think of his affair he was thinking of it even more. Nah, how many times in his life was he likely to come across someone who would even know.
“Can I trust you not to tell anyone about me?” He nodded emphatically, each jerk of his head tugging his glasses further down his nose. They had nearly fallen off before he stopped and shoved them back up. “Good, because I have a bad temper and I have to work real hard to keep it under control. I don’t like losing my temper, I do things I shouldn’t when I lose my temper.” His thoughts thrust an image of himself, bleeding to death in the parking lot from a gunshot wound, into my head. Hello, I have super powers. I just fried your computer and broke your mirror with my mind. Not that I did it on purpose, but you don’t know that. Why would I shoot you? “Look, Hugh, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t want to hurt you and I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just needed to tell someone, you know? I haven’t talked to anyone about it since my mom died. It’s just that I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect myself.” Part of me really wanted to come back and talk to him again, to not feel so alone all the time. I knew it was selfish. That didn’t keep me from wanting it. The little voice in my head kept nagging me, telling me to think of myself. Sadly I made the well thought-out and reasonable argument that I was thinking of me, of my safety, to myself. Who argues with themselves? Crazy people, that’s who. I was beginning to think I was a nutso. Reminding myself of the terrible things that could happen to me if people found out did seem to quell my desire to visit again, a bit.
Not sure what else I could possibly have to say after having threatened the poor man that I’d thoroughly freaked out, I got up and left without another word. I didn’t look at the secretary on the way out and tried really hard to keep the image of her fake boobs out of my head on the way out. I really hated people whose thoughts often included vivid images. Too often the made me see things I really didn’t want to see. Plus, lots of them are perverts.