Chapter Text
“Cipher.”
I am in my study. It’s cold and a bit musty and damp. I’m cross-legged in the middle of a circle of candles, almost burnt down to the tips, getting small and orange. A crystal prism sits beside me, bouncing a refracted rainbow upon the dusty carpeted floor.
“Cipher.” I say this to the wall.
The walls tremble a little bit.
“Cipher.”
Spiderweb cracks shoot through the wall in front of me. The wood peels, in one giant sheet, down, like a loose leaf of wallpaper. And on the other side of the limp section of wall, blinking up at me, is a glassy white eye. Like an eel, the eye slides across the wood and slips out into three-dimensional space.
The wall folds back up behind him. The cracks close seamlessly.
The eye blinks. His eyelashes wave.
“Play some chess with me, Cipher?”
The eye stretches to fill my entire periphery. I can only see white in front of me, and a skittish slitted pupil. “Call me Bill.” He sounds like he’s smiling. His voice is tinny and sounds like it’s coming from every wall at once.
“In the mindscape. Interdimensional chess.”
The walls melt like dripping wax from around me. They’re replaced by a field of stars. I’m suddenly weightless, and I can feel my toes lifting off of the ground and dangling above nothing. A hazy blue light fills and hurts my eyes.
I can see him now with his body as well as his eye. He’s around the size of my head, glowing yellow, surging with pulses of white every so often. He has inky black arms and legs. His pupil is looking right at me.
“What’s eating you, Smart Guy?” He pours me a cup of tea that floats in front of my eyes.
“I need you in my head for longer. I can’t get things done in short bursts.”
“Move first. Talk second.”
I see now: I’m playing White. I move a piece without thinking.
He says: “That’s the magic of it all! I’m always in your head!”
“I know. But when you take me over, it’s like I can see in - in the fourth dimension, or what –”
“You and I are gonna take over the world. Sixer. You’re fuckin’ smart. I’m even fuckin’ smarter. The two most brilliant powerful minds of this century meeting – touching like two charged lightning rods – the things we’ll make happen will knock your toupee off.”
“I don’t wear a toupee.” He doesn’t respond to it, but it feels like he’s silently chuckling. “Then tell me what’s on the other side.”
He moves a piece. “You’re holding me up. Your move.”
“You keep talking about this other world. What’s it look like?”
“Move, Poindexter”. He starts humming to himself. I move a piece. He’s humming a sweet little melody, like a 1940’s crooner ballad.
“I’m up so late, I’m drinking coffee, sleeping three hours at a time, barely aware of what I’m doing. I give you twenty-four-seven residence in my body, and you only use it to slip in and out when you can and give me all the grunt work. I just want a little taste of the other world.”
“No-can-do. Womp Womp.”
“Show me in the mind palace.”
“No hablo Ingles.”
“I’m exhausted. I can’t f–”
“Move a piece.”
I move. “I can’t see straight when I’m writing equations. I’m fucking exhausted. I feel like I’m running in place. The portal isn’t done. I’m doing most of the work and I don’t know what I’m getting from this.”
The blue haze, the chess board, everything blinks out of vision and is replaced by a searing red. Pulsing like a heartbeat. I feel Bill on the back of my neck. I turn around, and he’s there, three times the size as before, twirling a cane. I can feel the whoosh of the cane as it swings past my nose. “I can fix your tiredness if that’s the issue."
“What do you mean, you can fix my tiredness?”
“Use your dome, brainiac.”
“You can make me less tired.”
“The genius at work. Yes, Six. I can instantly vanish your exhaustion at will as I have absolute control over your body. And I can manipulate every single other bodily sensation and function. Yadda Yadda Yadda” He sounds bored, which scares me.
“Then by God – make me less tired! Make me energetic!”
Bill snaps his fingers. A tongue of blue flame wraps around his finger and fizzles out.
The exhaustion leaves my body. I feel like I’ve slept for ten hours on a bed of cotton. My body is humming. My blood is warm. My eyes are wide open. My vision is diamond-sharp. I feel like I could stay awake for months. My fingers feel strong. I have a metallic taste in my mouth. I want to run or jump.
He floats down to my eye level. “Better?”
“Better.”
“What now?”
“I need to write. I need to do something. Think about something. I think I can finish this week’s work by tomorrow morning.”
“Golly me.”
“But at some point you’ll tell me what I’ll get. At some point. What the world will look like.”
“How about you spend the day on some good old-fashioned work and see if you still want it after that.” He swings his cane. It nearly hits me in the eye.
…
I’m in my bedroom. Bill has vanished for the night, as he does. He never sticks around for a full twenty-four hours. He rarely stays during full daylight, even if we’re working together through the night.
The curtains are drawn and taped with duct tape around the edges so no one can so much as peek through. My books and my manuscript drafts and my scribblings are covering every square of floorspace. There’s red paint and splattered ink and a collection of pens and thumbtacks and trinkets and scrying glasses and masks from ancient tombs and curio shops and tufts of fur and bones and blueprints and diagrams and chalk and felt erasers covering my desk.
My heart is pounding. I feel caffeinated. My skin is tingling. I bounce on my toes. I feel like my eyes couldn’t close if I stapled them. I look over every single note I’ve ever written, my fingers absentmindedly creasing and tapping the pages, scratching the varnish off the floorboards. I feel so antsy. A couple hours go by, and I’m pacing back and forth across the floor. Calculations happen a million miles a minute. I haven’t picked up a pen yet. I know if I do, I won’t be able to write as fast as my mind is running.
I go outside into the daylight and jog a few laps around the creek. I’m sweating but I’m never tired. My calves are burning and I want to keep running.
I go back inside and strip off my clothes down to my underwear. The work is waiting for me. I scrawl some notes for pieces I’ll need to weld together. I can still feel my muscles twitching, coursing with blood and adrenaline.
I feel like I need to fuck, so I work my cock in my hands. It’s already half-hard. It’s been half-hard since Bill got rid of my tiredness. It’s sensitive and at attention. I think of anyone. Dew-dappled tits in the clear lake bobbing to the surface of the water. I’m lying on the wood floor, on top of my notes, underwear pulled down to my ankles. My feet are flexing and curling. I think about saliva-covered lips kissing the head of my penis. I think about wrapping my fingers in her hair and pulling her around me. The room is hot, and sweat is collecting on my back. I think about a soft inner thigh with my nail scratch marks worked into it. I am hard as a nail. Bright red with blood. I’m sweating. An involuntary moan slips out of me.
I cannot cum. I am on the edge. I feel my fingers choking my cock. My forearm is cramping. My thigh is cramping. I cannot cum.
“Bill,” I whisper.
No response.
“Bill.”
No response.
I stand up. I’m dizzy. My penis tugs at the skin on my stomach when I walk. It points up to the ceiling. I would do anything for a mouth on me. I would probably tear every piece of hair on my head out one by one in exchange for a mouth on me. I try to walk to the bathroom. My legs are shaking.
“Bill? Where the fuck are you?”
I beat my dick until my arm gets so sore that I need to let it rest. My hips twitch against naked air. And I cannot cum. I am wide awake, still caffeinated, unable to slow my breathing.
I scream again for Bill.