Kitty’s Cookies — Chapter 9
by Redsliver
* * *Marie and Dove watched me as I hurriedly got dressed. Dove pointed out where my socks had ended up. Marie gave me a sniff by the bathroom door.
“You definitely smell like sex, but I don’t know if he’ll be able to smell both his sisters on you,” she said.
“Right…” I looked longingly at the shower. I could hear Kitty excitedly running down the stairs. I zipped up and stepped square into Marie’s hand. “What now? Oh god, you want a turn?”
“Wow, way to make a girl feel pretty,” Marie said.
“Her too?!” Dove asked in a harsh whisper. She was zipping up a hoodie over her bare tits. She was probably commando under her emergency shorts as well. Her mind was a slow turn once again. I glared at her, not even reaching for her mind, unsure of how it turned against Marie’s nine. Dove grimaced. Her mind rolled up to a four.
“Good,” I said.
“Anyway, what I wanted was you to throw this in the trash behind you,” Marie turned my hand over and placed her yogurt cup in my hand. She cleaned off her spoon with her mouth and saluted with it.
“Right,” I said, watching her ass leave. I tossed the cup, and gave myself a once over in the mirror.
I half expected to see me look cold, pale, and skeletal. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. I looked eager and healthy. I rushed out of the bathroom. Dove was in the kitchen, getting her own yogurt. Marie was on the staircase. I followed her down, it was a small corridor to the basement, I couldn’t pass her until the bottom.
“Jordan!” Kitty was bouncing on both knees on the couch. Fox slumped miserably. “I was just telling Fox that we finally got together!”
“I think he figured it out,” I said.
“I didn’t know about Dove,” he countered. I staggered to a stop at the corner of the couch. “Girls, can I talk to my best friend alone?”
“Oh my god, no!” Kitty squealed. “I am so happy you introduced us and—”
Marie grabbed Kitty by the hips, dragging her away from the couch.
“Give the boys a minute,” Marie said.
“Fuck…” Kitty crossed her arms, and rolled backwards over the arm of the couch, clubbing Marie with her shoulders. I rushed over and backed up Marie to keep the pair of them from ending up in a heap on the hardwood.
“Kitty, go!”
“I didn’t even tell you about his superpowers yet!” Kitty said.
“Maybe he should get to tell his friend about his superpowers,” Marie said.
“Oh,” Kitty hopped up, brains spinning at very different speeds, “I never thought of that.”
It made her miserable for me to take the reveal from her. Or maybe she just felt guilty for stealing it. She felt bad. I smiled.
“We’ll be right upstairs in the kitchen.” Kitty burst out of Marie’s hands. I smiled at Marie, her eyes were brown.
“No contacts? Do you really need glasses or do you just like the color change?” I asked.
“She needs glasses,” Fox said.
“Yes I do, indeterminate blob number 4.”
“Oh,” I said. She picked my hands off her waist and headed for the stairs. There was an extra swing in her hips. I forcibly ignored it.
“I have no idea how to handle this,” Fox said. “Kitty is completely nuts.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” I said.
He did not look at me. Somehow, I knew to shut up.
He took a long deep breath.
“She seems happy. She even said you made Dove happy,” he said, pulling his hair.
“I didn’t expect to have you walk in on us,” I said. “I came over to see Kitty. I seriously didn’t know she liked me until we met at Pizza Corner. I didn’t think things would go this, uh…”
“Good for you?”
“In a word? Good works,” I said, frowning. “Though I think well is the right—”
“Shut the fuck up...” he said, groaning. He threw his blond hair back from his face and turned his face to me. “Dove too? Lynsey? Vickie? Did you mention anyone else?”
He popped an elbow up on the back of the couch and looked upstairs.
“I think Marie was giving you the eye,” he said. “I know you literally came over here when I asked you not to. You wouldn’t steal my girlfriend?”
“No,” I said, sharply.
“I sucked at having friends,” Fox said. “Physics major, I have to be a total nerd.”
“Really? I met a few of your classmates and not all of them are total—”
I shut up.
“Dude, Marie is perfect,” he said. “I love Kitty and Dove. You gotta work with me here. What’s going on? Why does Kitty think it’s a superpower?”
I took a moment. I think that short breath of time was torture for Fox. I could perceive he had a mind. There might’ve been spin, but maybe it was like what Marie had just said: indeterminate blob number 5. I shook my head.
“I’ve been feeling capable since I recovered from Kitty’s cookies,” I said.
“Oh my god,” he fell back. “This is some near death thing? Now you got to live like it’s your last? You’re going to hurt so many girls.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to hurt Kitty though,” I said. “She seems indestructible.”
“She’s incredibly fragile.” Fox shook his head. “Even with Dove there, it might seem like... Kitty thinks you are her true love. In her mind, you’re gonna get married, have a dozen babies, and die together under a beautiful sunset in your 90s. Anything less is going to be catastrophic.”
“But, she liked… Dove…” I sighed. “A sex talk about your sister seems weird.”
“It’s much worse for me,” Fox said. “You know, Dad texted me that you were here with her?”
“What?”
“Yeah, he said ‘Your sister’s got her man. Jordan’s a good guy, finally.’” He showed me his phone.
“Finally?” I thought I was first.
“You’re not her first crush,” Fox said. “But… You are her first guy… Boyfriend?”
“Is there an answer besides ‘yes’ that you want to hear?”
“If it’s no,” Fox said. “I hope you’re ending it. Rip it off like a band-aid.”
I looked back to the stairs. “It’s not that simple.”
“Lynsey? You have to decide between them?” Jordan said.
“There’s more to it,” I said. “I can sort of push their brains. I think I really have superpowers.”
“If you’ve got X-ray vision, every girl we know is gonna get breast cancer,” he said. We both needed the joke.
“Listen, the girls, because I can’t hide it from them…”
“Girls?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Kitty, Lynsey, Dove. Vickie?”
“Yeah, and Ira, Avril, and Paula.”
“I don’t know Ira and Avril,” he said.
“And Marie.”
“Why does she know? What does she know?”
“If you stop interrupting, I could fucking tell you,” I said, growling out the words. I stopped myself from apologizing. “I need a friend for a moment.”
“So do I,” Fox said. “Prove yourself.”
“Right,” I took a deep breath. “When I ate those cookies, I was wrecked. Vickie, I think it was Vickie, wanted to get me into an ambulance but I insisted on sleeping it off. Maybe it was Marie.”
“She got you to Gerard, she didn’t go in with you,” Fox said.
“Right, night’s a mess in my mind,” I said. “Anyway, sweat out buckets. Stomach pains. Worst night of my life. And then I wake up. Still dizzy, but better. And I can literally feel brains around me.”
“Feel brains?”
“The girls claim it’s their hearts, but hearts just pump blood. This is like their feelings and wants and stuff. Brain stuff.”
“You’re a romantic,” Fox scoffed.
“You too, huh? Anyway, think of a brain as like a bunch of plates spinning on the top of a stick.”
He looked at me impatiently.
“Right, so each brain is like these spinning plates, and they mostly go together, but they can tilt, away from me or towards me and some brains go clockwise and some go counter clockwise. I even have like a speed thing for them. One to… I haven’t seen a twenty-one yet and it doesn’t feel safe if the brain goes above a fifteen.”
“And what?”
“Well, I know when a girl’s excited or interested in me. 100%.”
“That’s a pretty awesome superpower,” he said. “But how do the girls know?”
“If I speed them up, yeah.”
“Speeding them up… You can increase a girl’s interest in you?”
“That’s what I’m saying, yeah,” I said. “I didn’t know what I was doing when I woke up with Lynsey, but I’m getting the hang of it now.”
“You woke up with Lynsey?”
“I woke up and Lynsey came by my room to check on me,” I said. “I didn’t have sex with her for about an hour or so after that.”
“And you used this power on my sister?”
“I didn’t have to!”
He stared at me flatly.
“Dove? Um, yeah, totally.”
“Jesus.”
“Dude, they like it! They act all tingly when I get in there and do it to them! It’s a trip!”
“Still seems sketchy,” he said. “Marie knows?”
“I kinda jumpstarted her everytime she looked at you over at Pizza Corner,” I said.
“Oh my god! I remember seeing her face change!” He slumped into the couch. “Oh my god... You’re not just full of shit!”
“Dude, psychic powers are real!”
“And all it took to prove them was for my sister to get a crush on a guy and bake for him?” Fox laughed. I laughed. We both sounded pretty sarcastic when we started. A few minutes later, unable to stop, we were cackling madly. I was bending over, gasping for breath. He clubbed the heel of his foot into the coffee table.
“You boys feeling better?” Kitty came down with glasses of pop. Marie carried a plate of cookies.
“They’re Oreos, you’re not gonna die,” Kitty said.
Fox looked at Marie. “Kitty? You saved those special cookies, right?”
I flinched and grabbed my stomach at even the thought of them. I turned green. Kitty frowned and put the glasses down on the table. Marie kept the plate of cookies and ate one in front of us.
“You OK?” Marie asked, chewing loudly.
“I don’t know,” I said. I wiped sweat from my brow. “I really don’t want to see or smell those again.”
Kitty’s mind jarred down, both of them, she ran off.
“Fuck!” Fox leaped off the couch and chased his sister.
“If you’re into cookies,” Marie said, watching Fox ascend the stairs four at a time and somehow not keep up with Kitty. Marie put the plate down and straddled my lap. I flashed my eyes to the stairs.
“He’s already fucked up about Kitty,” I hissed at her. “Keep it quiet until we both get back to the dorms.”
Her mind was humming at a warm ten. She’d have sucked my dick right then and there. I didn’t need the power to know that.
“Warn me when you’re gonna be around,” she said, getting off of my lap and falling down on my side. “I don’t want to be wearing contacts next time.”
“Fox! Give those back! He doesn’t like them! I hafta throw them out!”
“Goddammit! Kitty! Go downstairs and play with Jordan!”
“Really? But—’
“Go!”
Marie pushed herself off of my side and scooted her butt over to the far end of the couch. I frowned at her.
“I don’t want to be caught in whatever splash damage she’s going to cause,” Marie shook her head.
“Smart,” I agreed and took a throw pillow and put it over my cock as a cup.
Marie and I stared at the staircase, expecting Kitty to fly down at speed. Nothing. I looked over and Marie shrugged. That’s when we heard the blender.
I got off the couch. Marie followed quickly, she squeezed my ass as she ran by and up the stairs. I followed behind. The smell hit me as I hit the landing. I grabbed the jamb of the kitchen door and leaned hard against it.
“What are you doing?”
My eyes were watering as I looked in. Marie frowned.
“He’s trying to kill himself,” Dove snorted. I closed my eyes, focused on the minds. All four… Wait there was Fox’s fifth. It was faint, quite hard to make out, especially with how… Bright? Loud, let’s go with loud. The girls’ minds were incredibly loud. One of Kitty’s was bumping around at a seven, the other three were practically zeroes.
“Don’t… Dear god!”
“It’s fine I dumped enough ice, yogurt, and chocolate syrup to cover the taste,” he said.
“You should’ve went with hot sauce,” I said. “Burn the taste buds off your tongue.”
“Oh my god!” That was Dove. Marie and Kitty grabbed me, leading me into a slow collapse into one of the kitchen chairs. I covered my mouth, spasmed, but kept the retch down.
“Jesus, at least close the tin,” Dove stormed across my vision. I wiped the tears away with the back of my hand. She hammered her fist down and closed the can.
“It smells like disinfectant…” Marie shook her head. “How the hell did you manage to eat one of these?”
“It’s just half a cookie,” Fox said. He took the pitcher off the blender and grabbed a steel beer mug from the cupboard.
“I wasn’t asking you,” Marie said, I noticed she was looking at me only when she brushed my hair from my forehead.
“He was afraid the pretty blonde teenager wouldn’t smile if he told her the truth,” Dove said.
“What?” Kitty said. “But… He didn’t like me until today!”
“Fuckin’ not true…” Fox laughed.
“But…” Kitty hit me with a hug that compressed my lungs as I gasped out over her ear. I picked her up and set her down on my knee.
“Yeah, boys are terrible stupid creatures,” Marie said. She was smiling brilliantly. “But aren’t you supposed to be smart for one? Why are you doing this, Fox?”
He moved the steel cup towards his face and flinched. He looked up.
“I saw your face when he played with your mind at Pizza Corner,” he shook his head. “You never once looked at me that way before. When were you gonna tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“That we weren’t meant to be…”
“I, um, I was still trying to decide whether I should work up the courage to sleep with you first,” she said. “Maybe sex might make up for the rest of it.”
“Well then...” Fox said.
“It took three cookies for him to get his powers,” Dove said.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why all of the chocolate syrup.” He said. “Keep me from developing an aversion in case this isn’t enough.”
“I…” You know I smiled. “If it does work, I’m not the one who fucked up your sister.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Dove growled.
“Yes you did. You were my first!” Kitty whispered in my ear.
“He’s turning green,” Marie said. “I’m gonna get him home. We’ll… We’ll talk about everything tomorrow? Don’t die, Fox.”
“Listen,” he said. “You’ll be happy to see me next time.”
“This is all about her?” Dove weighed and measured Marie.
“You’ve never seen her look at you the way she looked at me…” Fox frowned… “And Jordan today. It’s worth it.”
“Dammit, Marie wait. I’ll drive the pair of you to the dorms.”
“Can I come?” Kitty asked.
“No,” Fox said.
“Why do you get to say yes or no?!” Kitty pulled her claws out and I pulled her hips closer to me.
“Your dad said you had to talk to him tonight,” I reminded her. “He was nice enough to leave us alone. Let’s not ruin everything.”
“Hey, Jordan,” Fox said. “If this works. Help me with Marie? I’ll back you up with Vickie and Lynsey?”
“What about Kitty?”
“He promised me an Asian girl first,” Kitty said to her sister.
“Alright, get your little stegosaurus butt off me,” I said. “I need to get away from the smell.”
“I love you!” Kitty twisted and headbutted me in the right eye. It was the sweetest goodbye kiss that had ever concussed me.
I laughed it off with a moan. I stood her up. Marie held my belt as I staggered out into the porch and stepped into my shoes. She stuffed my head in my toque. Dove helped me slip into my parka.
“Fox, get that shit away from him,” Dove snarled.
“Jordan?” I turned to my best friend. He raised his cup. “Cheers.”
“Bottoms up,” I said, “You don’t want to taste anything.”
He nodded, put the rim to his mouth and pulled it away quick.
“Hot sauce?”
“Turn that bitch fire hydrant red,” I nodded. He went back into the kitchen. I stepped out in the fresh cold January air. I breathed in a couple of snowflakes.
“Bye Jordan!” Kitty said from the door. Dove was still pulling on her red parka and trying to navigate around Kitty.
“Bye Steggy,” I waved. Marie led me down the steps. Dove click-unlocked her car. I was feeling better when I landed in the passenger seat. Marie got in the back.
“Motherfucker.” she muttered, closing the door. “If… If Fox’s thing works, will you take me from him?”
“If he can make it as good as I can,” I said. “Why would you be against it?”
“I don’t want two guys playing with my heart,” she said. I looked over the shoulder of my seat and into her arm. She warmed from a four to a five.
“Aren’t all romance stories about a girl having to pick between two guys pulling at her heart?” I frowned.
“Yeah, but they’re trying to be someone’s one and only,” she said. “Kitty, Dove, Lynsey, Paula… And who knows what tastes Fox has.”
“Great taste,” I said, looking into her eyes. “I wanted to make things work for you and him earlier today.”
“And then you made the right choice,” she said.
Did I?
Dove got in the driver’s seat.
“You got a single room, Marie?”
“I do.” I volunteered, but Marie answered the same at the same time.
“Alright, let’s go get laid.” Dove said. “You guys need me to buy you alcohol or anything?”
I frowned. She was still at the zero she had been when she was watching Fox make the psychic-smoothie.
“I’d like—”
“No,” I said, interrupting Marie. “I can take care of our inhibitions.”
“Wow,” Dove said. “That is a crazy superpower.”
“I’m a fan,” Marie said. “Though I still like drinking.”
“Drinking’s pretty awesome,” Dove agreed. I didn’t but I kept that to myself.
I sunk back in the seat. I took a deep breath of air conditioning. No smell. I wasn’t sweating anymore. I was feeling good. I frowned.
Fox’s smarter than me.
Fox got Marie to go out with him without using the power. It might not have been working out perfectly, but still…
Who did I attract?
Kitty? OK, but she was cracked. I couldn’t see it before, but how else would you describe someone with two minds?
Lynsey and Vickie? I didn’t get anywhere with them without my powers.
Everything that made me powerful and special was gonna be in the hands of someone more capable than I was.
I tried not to be too miserable. I was in the car with Dove and Marie. We were going to fuck.
But Fox loved Marie. He was doing what he needed to.
She didn’t love him right now. Was it OK to keep her warmed up for him? She didn’t want to be shared by two guys.
“Paula’s gonna meet us,” Marie said. “Apparently Lynsey’s having a fit.”
“Fuck.”
“What?” Dove flicked her eyes at me.
“I let that fester all day,” I said. “Maybe this isn’t the best time for—”
“I thought you wanted a threesome with Paula?” Marie said. “Look, I’m glad you had a great blowjob, but I haven’t cum today.”
“You wouldn’t take and leave me like that?” Dove asked. She squeaked up to a three. Marie was hovering at a four. “Damn! It was only a couple of days ago when you let Kitty attempt murder.”
“Would you have waited?” Marie asked, preening and rolling herself up to a seven. Dove flicked her eyes to the rearview.
“Yeah,” Dove said. “I don’t think I could play with someone’s heart like he does.”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Don’t you get tips from guys?”
“That’s not the same,” Dove said, cooling down to her consistent zero.
“They’d fuck you as hard as we’re gonna fuck him,” Marie shrugged. “How many of those guys’d fuck you if you let them?”
“It’s not the same because sex is just a thing,” Dove said. “What he’s doing for us is beyond sex.”
For us.
I grinned at that. I shook my head. Flashes of Lynsey, Vickie, and Fox were attempting to ruin my night.
“O’Brian then,” I said. “It’ll be better to talk to Paula before I dive into the Lynsey/Vickie shitshow.”
“Good,” Dove said. “You don’t think Kitty’s gonna tell Dad we had a threesome, do you?”
“Your sister literally walked out of a threesome to brag to her brother,” Marie said.
“Um… Jordan? Reach into my bag and turn my phone off.” Dove smiled at me. “You don’t want our night cut short, do you?”
I nodded, beaming as I fished out her iPhone. I tossed it dead back onto her bag. It slid into the back and Marie put it into the bag for me.
“Oh my god, a parking spot!” Dove said, gleefully a block up on Morris Street. I flipped up my hoods. Dove cut the engine. Marie was sort of close, but I had my focus straight on Dove.
“What are you doing?” Dove frowned at me until she happily melted into a ten.
“Now get out of the car,” I said, unbuckling and turning to Marie. As soon as Dove disappeared on my left, I met Marie’s brown eyes.
Rap, rap, rap. I didn’t get to jumpstart Marie. I turned to look out my window. Vickie waved her white mitten and beamed her smiling face.
“Well then,” Marie said. “We’re gonna need a bigger bed.”
* * *