After years of practicing, Rachel was finally able to achieve the ultimate goal of meditation; being nobody, in no place and no time. She left behind all that she was; wife to Paul, mother to Zoe, daughter of Jon and Christine. What she hadn’t expected was to have company in the void. Others in no place and no time. The difference between Rachel and her fellow nobodies was that they were unable to return. She knew this, without knowing quite how she knew. The same way she could sense they were there; in pure consciousness. When she was back to her material world, back to being Rachel and everything that came with it, she knew now what she would do.
Xander Friedman tired easily of his girlfriends. His current one was no exception. The natural thing to do, for any normal human being, would be to break things off. Xander couldn’t be bothered. Xander was no normal human being. He had found a way to circumvent the messiness and heartache of breakups. He made the women in his life disappear. The remarkable thing was he was able to do this without anyone missing them. He didn’t have to worry about being pursued by loved ones obsessed with justice. These women ceased to be, with no knowledge left behind that they had ever existed, save for Xander himself.
Ever since Xander was able to hone his unique talent, he had been with many women and had recycled his list of reasons for getting rid of them. Jealousy, nagging, or loss of physical attraction. Xander was naturally shallow, more so even than most men. Julie, his latest significant other/victim, was becoming increasingly difficult to entertain, always bugging him to take her out and then bitching about how they never do anything fun anymore. On this particular Sunday night, he had promised her they would go out, and suggested she go and take a relaxing bath and he would get himself ready. Which he did.
He started his ritual, laying a pillow on the floor and stripping naked, then donning Julie’s negligee; this was the awkward bit and Xander hadn’t been quite sure how essential this was to the process, but it never failed. He sat on his knees upon the pillow, put on some relaxing music and began. Within five minutes he was in the sweet spot. All he had to do in this Theta state was travel into Julie’s consciousness in her Alpha state. If she were alert in the Beta, it wouldn’t work. Lying in the bath she proved an easy target. Using his mind he would now overtake her mind, pulling it into his Theta state and leaving it there, and literally overcoming her matter, her very existence in time-space, returning his own consciousness into his body. Julie’s consciousness was all that remained of her, forever in no place, no time. Xander had never been able to physically witness the process play out on the body, and was always curious at how it looked when one ceased to be. Was it like a supernova, a climactic, glorious end? Or was it now you see her, now you don’t? The end result was always the same.
Xander wasted no time...just as Rachel had expected. Everything about him she took back with her from that void, the knowledge absorbing itself by the same unexplainable communication through which she had learned everything else. Xander got into his BMW, and Rachel, having been in wait in her own car, followed.
When the Beemer stopped at the valet in front of the night club, Rachel knew this would be a challenge. She’d have competition, but she’d been prepared. She was privy to all his turn-ons, his perversities and pet peeves, and would use them to her advantage. She followed behind at a distance up to the valet parking, which she would never use under regular circumstances, but she wanted to save herself from walking as much as possible, wearing ridiculously uncomfortable high heels and a dress so tight it hurt to breathe.
After handing over her keys and taking her ticket, Rachel walked to the entrance to her senses being assailed. She hadn’t been to a night club since her 20’s, and the scene had since lost its charm. She maneuvered her way to the crowded bar and was allowed access by two men who were ahead of her, stepping over themselves to let her by. She did remember that. There he was, across the bar checking the field. She knew he would eventually have to look across and see her. After checking out a couple of young college-age girls headed to the restroom he looked up to get the bartender’s attention, then saw her.
Rachel tried her best sexy eyes on him, trying to keep a straight face. She almost couldn’t do it, but it seemed to have been enough. She wasn’t sure whether to wait for him to come to her. In all the bars she had been to in her entire life, this was the first time she felt the predator and not the prey. She didn’t think she looked old enough to be a cougar. She wondered if people still used that term. While she was still making up her mind, he made his way over.
"Hey there,” he said. “I’m Xander.” Oh, I know.
"Rachel.” She saw no reason to make up a phony name. She wouldn’t be seeing him again. Ever. The usual asenine pickup spiel commenced, and Xander bought her a dirty Ketel One martini, and a Glenlivet neat for himself. At fifteen dollars a drink, she figured he was probably trying to impress her.
"Wanna get a table?” he asked.
"Gosh, it’s so loud in here,” she said. “How about someplace more quiet?” She winced inwardly, worried she may be overplaying it, not accustomed to picking up men at bars as she was.
"We could go to my place,” he said, harboring no such worries.
"I’ve got a different idea,” she said.
Rachel had the hotel room booked in advance. She’d told Xander she was in town on business, and he told her what a turn-on it was, her being a professional woman. Rachel had already known this, had been counting on it. He followed her in his own car and Rachel used this time to call her husband on her cell to check in, having concocted a story about going out with some old girlfriends. This gave her a severe pang of guilt. Paul trusted her completely after ten years of marriage, but there was no way he would understand.
As the two waited for the lobby elevator, Xander pinched Rachel on the ass, and she tried not to shudder from the rush of revulsion this invoked. The vodka swimming around in her belly threatened to make a return trip up her esophagus. She had known all along this was going to be difficult. She envisioned a vomiting session and a long, scalding shower in her future.
On the elevator ride up, Xander had tried to make out with her, and she was rescued when the elevator stopped on the second floor to allow one of the hotel’s housekeeping staff aboard. Rachel stepped happily aside to make room for the cart between Xander and her. She smiled at the housekeeper and looked straight ahead until the elevator stopped at the third floor and Rachel was abandoned, alone again with the Big Bad Wolf, if only for one more floor.
They alighted on the fourth floor and to Rachel’s room. She kept her hand consciously steady as she inserted the key card into the slot, almost missing it. “The martinis are catching up with me,” she said with a smile, and in they went. The room was all prepared; Rachel had placed candles all about the room and thrown a satin scarf over the lamp to soften the glow. A fine, relaxing ambience.
"Wow,” Xander said, admiring the setup, oblivious to the fact he was the one being set up.
"Have a seat,” she said. “I’ll get us a drink from the minibar.” She first took a box of matches from the credenza and went around the room to light the candles. She bent over deliberately in front of the fridge, the tight-waisted dress squeezing her diaphragm like a boa constrictor. “No Glenlivet,” she said. “Johnnie Walker OK?”
"Fine,” he said. She took the small bottle and one of Grey Goose for herself, and walked over to the bed, where Xander now lay reclining. She opened the plastic wrapped cups provided by the hotel, poured the two drinks and they touched glasses in a toast to the evening. To each other. She stifled a gag.
"Make yourself comfortable,” she said. “I’ll be a few minutes.”
"Alright,” he said, a broad, hungry smile across his face. Rachel put on the “Relaxing Ambient” playlist on her iPhone and placed it on the dresser. She went into the bathroom, where everything was at the ready. The first thing she did was struggle out of the restricting dress and punishing shoes. She lit another candle on the sink and put the pillow she had stashed aside on the floor, and sat cross legged upon it in her underwear. It was going to take a tremendous amount of focus to relax under the circumstances. She took a series of deep breaths, concentrating on the space behind her eyes, moving her focus to the pineal gland toward the back of her head, down into the space within her chest, and so forth. When she had moved to the space surrounding her, she was now pure consciousness.
Rachel was now no longer Rachel, she was nobody, no place and in no time. In her Theta state, Xander was in the next room still present in time-space, a sitting duck in his Alpha state, waiting to get laid. Rachel’s consciousness, bolstered by the consciousness of dozens of others trapped in the void, entered Xander’s unsuspecting consciousness. It was like netting a fish, or what Rachel imagined netting a fish to be like, having never actually done it.
His screams were not audible, but nonetheless perceived, as pure waves of energy. Nor were the triumphant laughs of the nobodies in the void, with their new guest, forevermore.
Rachel returned to her body, to her Alpha state. She took a deep breath making the transition into Beta, and dressed in the clothes she had in the bathroom cabinet, blew out the candle, and went back into the room. No Xander. Even his drink was gone, like neither had ever been there. Her mind had truly overcome matter. She’d wondered in passing what the transition from being to not being looked like. She would never know. She blew out the remaining candles and took her drink, which still remained where it had been, and finished it in a toast to the women who would sadly never return themselves. They had their dark victory. Xander would never again send others away, into the void, where he would be trapped. His own private hell; unable to escape his collection of discarded ex-girlfriends, wishing above all else that he could now break up with them.
Russell Guenther is an emerging fiction writer based in the Pacific Northwest, with a collection of darkly humorous short stories. His story, "The Trophy Wife," has been featured in The Stardust Review. Russell is currently seeking representation for his first novella as he continues producing other works.