CHAPTER 2: SPECIAL
“What kind of issues?” she’d repeated to Doc. Kathleen was hanging back from the bar, still listening, suspicious. She ignored her.
“Many and various. Let me run through a few things.” Doc had looked at her seriously, then, like a real doctor. Perhaps he was a real doctor, for that matter. He’d even begun to tick off the key points on the fingers of his hand. “One. For example, do you ever feel you lack a sense of self-worth, or confidence, that you suffer from uncertainty?”
“Um, yes. Sure.” Anna thought: what a bizarre conversation. But she was intrigued. It was true. She had always been a bit shy and unsure of herself. Such a daddy’s girl, Kathleen called her, and that was saying something, coming from her.
“Well PCL-R—Peachy Yellow, most people call it—addresses such insecurities in spades,” Doc was explaining. “You will feel more confident than you’ve ever felt before. Special! Like the world is at your feet!” He’d paused, sipped at his drink. “Two. What about feeling that you aren’t in control, that you can’t always go after what you want, you can’t get people to do what you want, you always end up putting their feelings first? Trying to please them?”
“Sure. Who doesn’t?”
“This stuff helps get rid of all that. It’s a real upper.”
In the bar, that Friday night, Kathleen had tugged mournfully at the sleeve of her friend’s blouse. Anna shook her off, irritated. “Pack it in Kath. Why’d you always have to be so lame?”
“Three,” continued Doc. “What about guilt? Do you feel trapped, burdened by responsibility, by society’s norms and expectations?”
“Often.” No shit. She’d been a veritable basket of good-girl hangups, before.
“Dealt with. No negative feelings at all. And four, by the way: do you find you repress your impulses, rather than follow them?”
“It sounds like you know me very well.” Anna had smiled girlishly at that. “I blame my upbringing.”
“There you have it. There are lots of other positive effects too.”
“Anna. Who is this guy? Is he trying to sell you drugs?” Kathleen again. Anna felt herself beginning to simmer. Could she go nowhere, do nothing, without having to report to somebody?
Anna turned, looking her friend in the eye. “Kath, for heaven’s sake, stop being such a, such a prig! Aren’t I allowed to just talk to people?”
Kathleen quailed slightly, her face falling. “You don’t know him. And you’re supposed to be out with me.”
“Who’s your little friend, Anna?” Doc asked, archly.
Anna felt anger and frustration flare. “Nobody. Just nobody,” she snapped spitefully, no longer caring about her friend’s feelings. “You’re nobody, okay? You’re just a pain in the ass. I don’t care about you. Just leave me alone.”
The other young woman’s face crumpled in hurt. “Anna, please! Why do you always do this? Why take it out on me? Why do you always get so nasty?”
The honest answer, she’d thought, was that Kathleen was the only one she felt she could be nasty to; the whipped puppy, always coming back for more. She always had been, always would be the doormat. And while expectations said that there was no bad bone in Anna’s body, Anna knew differently.
“We’re supposed to be friends. You stole Stephan from me,” shouted Kathleen. “And I even forgave you that.”
“Jesus, Kath. You only went out with him once. It wasn’t my fault.”
Doc was just looking on, interested.
Kathleen spun on her heel, giving up now, and wanting no part of this. Anna shouted goodbye at her retreating back, promising to call tomorrow, knowing this to be a hollow promise, and turned back to Doc.
“And there I was just thinking how nice and sweet you are,” he said with a grin. “Just that frustration coming out, I guess?”
Anna sighed. “Yes. Just that.”
He was holding out a small white pill. Anna took a deep breath. Well, why not, she’d thought. What was the worst that could happen? She’d hesitated before taking the pill from his hand. Don’t take sweets from strangers. It sat innocuous in her palm.
“And PCL-R stands for…?”
“Doctor Hare’s checklist. The one that inspired this stuff. Just call it Peachy Yellow. You’ll see why when you try it.”
“Thanks,” she’d said, swilling it down, and indeed, she felt instantly good, more vibrant, more—present. The world seemed to brighten around her, to intensify. Peachy coloured.
It had kicked in quickly, and Anna began to feel amazing. Completely in control of everything. It was as if shrouds and layers of anxiety and pressure and constraints and conformity were just peeling away, and her own true self was exposed, bright and invulnerable. She was fearless, confident, assertive, alive.
“Whoah. Peachy yellow everywhere,” she’d exclaimed. It was true. “Where’d you say you got this?”
“Military sources. Allegedly.”
Anna buzzed with strength and joy.
Anna snags herself a booth at Red’s and a couple of rum and cokes just to maintain an even strain. While she remembers, she logs onto Citi and cancels that stupid monthly donation. There’s better things to be spending her money on than bloodsucking charities and bleeding heart goodwill-mongers for the lame and incompetent. Like, for example, something ‘appropriate’ to wear.
She idly scratches her new tramp stamp. It’s still a bit itchy. Anna is delighted with the wording though: concise, unequivocal, and a clear manifesto for life. She would make sure it was on full display tonight.
Anna eyes herself in the mirror behind the bar. She likes what she sees—although she also knows she’d have felt very differently about that a few weeks ago, back when she was weak and timid. The drink is taking the edge off now, and loosening her up nicely. Thoroughly turned on by her own gorgeousness, she logs onto Cocksuckr and idly swipes through a few candidates for instant gratification. No, no, no, no—ah. Nice; a big one. Well, she’s in the mood. She’s always in the mood for something, these days. She swipes ‘yes’, and is shortly connected to her target of the day.
What an excellent app, she thinks, for the select few who have no interest in the mealy mouthed fakery of conventional impulse control. Just half an hour later she would be down on her knees in the back room of Red’s with a nutritious mouthful of sweet anonymous man.
Anna feels a lot better for that, and decides to do a little shopping. She manages to slip out of Red’s the back way, without paying the check, and as an extra bonus grabs a crisp handful of tens from the tip jar in passing. A last swig of JD gets rid of the cock taste in her mouth, and she chucks the empty bottle idly into the road. It smashes satisfyingly in front of some chubby kid cycling along with her mom, and Anna quickens her pace as she hears the tyre blow, the crash, followed by the predictable scream of mommeeeee as the kid goes down among the shards.
Anna’s glad she’s not the maternal type.
Later, shopping, Anna even manages to snag a few very appropriate items when the store guards aren’t looking. Nobody could have stopped her, anyway, she thinks. Fact: nobody, but nobody, is as smart as her. A perfect day, so far.
A night of fierce joy, that Friday, the best night of her life; but the comedown, the Saturday morning after the night before, had been terrible. She’d gone to bed feeling on top of the world, peachy-coloured, superhuman; she’d woken up crying, feeling just like any other average person again. And that was the thing; it was the stark feeling of averageness that was crushing. Everything was so ordinary. Just like Kathleen.
It was the worst downer in the world. There was nothing special about her at all, she felt, and that meant she was just the same as millions of other women like her, drudging their way through average colleges and average careers and average boyfriends and average husbands and average children and, and, and—
- and now she knew there were other roads to travel.
So the first thing Anna’d done, that Saturday morning, was text Doc. Of course he would meet her. Of course he had more Peachy Yellow. Of course he would look forward to seeing her later. Here was his address. And there she was, at nine-thirty that night, outside his door; and there he was, opening it and inviting her in. He had company, and she was welcome to join the party. Would she like a drink? Of course she would. And what about a little pick-me-up to go with it, hmm? No, it’s definitely not addictive, not at all. Just don’t take too much, that’s the trick.
She’d gulped down the little white pill hungrily. She would not be average.
She is #here now, at the appointed time, dressed, she thinks, entirely ‘appropriately’ in her new purchases, fully herself from the get-go, and dressed to impress. She’s particularly pleased with the sheerness of the crop top, which makes her nipples stand out fetchingly. Her new stretch miniskirt is barely recognisable as clothing in the conventional sense—indeed, it is barely present at all—and it leaves an appropriately limited amount to the imagination. She’d toyed with wearing a little flash of Agent Provocateur, underneath, but why compromise? And of course the heels. Always the heels.
The guys are positively goggling at Anna, and all the women are giving her the stinkeye. Good. Let the jealous bitches stare, trapped in their inhibitions and neuroses. She turns slowly, making sure they all read the words on the small of her back and that they get at least a glimpse of the forbidden fruit between her legs. Such power she’s acquired! It is becoming, though; the least she deserves.
Fact, she thinks: I am the most beautiful and powerful person in the whole world; unique, brilliant, special beyond your capacity to appreciate; women should quail, and men should worship and beg. Fact!
Right on cue, up saunters Doc. He’s grinning at her. “Hi Anna! Glad you could come, man,” he said. “You’re looking very … appropriate. Loving the tat. And I see you’ve bleached your hair too. A brave departure. How are you doing with the Peachy Yellow?”
“Hey, Doc,” she replies, beaming, turning on her best superficial charm module. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” She moves close and sticks her hand down his trousers, grabbing something warm, caressing, and rubbing her breasts against his chest. She can make people do anything she wants them to do, now, she thinks. “I’ve never felt better. You got some more Yellow for me, right?”
“Sure thing.” Of course he does. She knows how to get what she wants. Anna always gets what she wants, she thinks. “Let’s go out back.”
She extricates her hand and follows him to the fire exit door.
Outside, warm evening air. Doc hands her another little plastic bottle, and Anna takes a pill there and then. You should only do one per day, he’d insisted, or the effects could be very different from expected. But needless to say, thinks Anna, the normal rules don’t apply to special people like her.
The rush goes through her at once, peachy colours better than ever, and she knows exactly what she wants, right there, and she’s suddenly wet and hot and ready. Anna turns around in front of Doc, spreads her legs and bends over. She feels the mini skirt ride up over her bottom in just the right way. She’s glad she hasn’t bothered with panties or any other such inconvenience. She hears Doc unbuckling behind her.
“Come on Doc,” she pants, impatient, wiggling her ass temptingly. “Payment in kind. I know you want it, and I want it, right now.”
“Instant Gratification,” he says, reading her tramp stamp out loud. She can hear the smile in his voice. “How very now.” And then he is pushing into her, deep and hard, and she raises her ass to receive him, taking what she wants, what she deserves, as always.
Fact: this stuff is a revelation, and that weekend of discovery had been a revelation; a memory to cherish forever as the defining moment when she finally shuffled off the mortal coil of average for good.
She recalled her pathetic faintheartedness at the time. What a conservative jelly she had been, before. “I’ve never been into drugs,” she’d said. But of course, that was because she’d been a contemptible little wimp, before.
You know what? If I’d met myself then, I would probably have punched myself in the face just to teach myself a lesson, thinks Anna, remembering her old self as Doc thrusts inside her. She rolls her hips to encourage him. Come on Doc, I haven’t got all night, she thinks.
In the moment, Doc pushes harder, deeper still, and she feels the beginnings of something interesting building. She rolls with it, enjoying the thrust and slide. From behind, like this, he could be anyone, she thinks. He is anyone. Just another faceless man to be taken whenever she wanted.
Doc is on his game now, and he has a firm hold of her hips. Instant gratification beckons.
She feels Doc spasm inside her, colours swirling at her peripheral vision, and she spasms in return, coming hard and fast, hanging onto the fire escape for leverage. Instant gratification, duly achieved. Anna wonders if anyone is watching. She hopes so. She deserves to be seen; she’s special.
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