This is a chapter from I Hear You Watching, my novel based on my experience with hearing voices and paranoia.
But you can jump in here! The “previously on” will get you up to speed.
Previously on I Hear You Watching…
Alex joined an adult hookup site to meet people and get over his sexual hangups. His interactions have been fruitless and uncomfortable. The most recent interaction was some flirty banter with someone claiming to be a Black woman in her twenties named Lili. The fact that she’s Black made Alex (white) feel strangely proud to have been contacted by her, and then disgusted with himself for feeling that pride. Alex and Lili have planned a date.
She requested white wine, so I bought some on my way home yesterday morning. Then I realized that even her name connotes lilies and lily-white—maybe she prefers everything white…
I find myself glaring at the bottle or averting my eyes when I open the fridge.
In my profile photo I’m wearing the Robert Johnson T-shirt. Robert Johnson was Black. Two of the three prostitutes who’ve messaged me their prices were Black. The woman seeking a husband was fairer-skinned but from Madagascar. Had these women read my shirt as a coded indication of preference?
It’s racist to think so.
I should sleep.
I smoke a bowl and listen to the foil crackle and cars pass outside.
I feel strange looking at her picture. Her eyes stare back, daring me not to think of this as some kind of new experience. Of course, it’s really me staring from her eyes, daring myself. I look at her picture long enough to remember it clearly, then I lie in bed and imagine a scene in which we have sex. It’s a dress rehearsal, to prove I can go through the motions without saying or doing anything stupid.
It’s ridiculous, like steeling myself against walking into a grocery store and shouting “cunt” or “faggot” at the top of my lungs—something I’ve never done. But in a grocery store I don’t have to say anything. Conversely, time with Lili will be one-on-one, and whenever she isn’t speaking it’ll be my turn to say something, and each of those moments will be a chance for me to slip.
My brain outdoes itself conjuring such scenarios. They start innocently, with her knocking.
Then I open the door and say, “Get your Black ass in here.”
In another version, I greet her with, “Nigga please.”
In the next, I say, “You can start with the dishes.”
My eyes clench tighter with each of these purges.
I never get hard. The buzzing warmth I cultivated looking at her picture dissipates. I finally let go, because touching myself during this ugly montage feels like a desensitization exercise.
Still, I’m determined to see one go right, so I restart the scene.
But now I ignore her knocks and leave her waiting at the door while I listen from the other side. A neighbor asks what she’s doing here. She mentions my name, but the neighbor doesn’t recognize it because I don’t know any of my neighbors by name. They assume she’s lying and came to rob the place. I hear the scene escalate and do nothing to intervene, until the police are called and she’s taken away in handcuffs. Or they shoot her, strangle her, or beat her to death.
These scenarios are coming from somewhere in my mind; it’s my fault they’re happening. When I try to end them they get worse. Am I about to spend the evening swallowing back insults and slurs like stomach acid burps rising from my subconscious?
Are these the thoughts of a good person?
Minutes before our date, she calls.
“Hello?” I wonder if the same terrible scenarios occurred to her, and she’s calling with an excuse to cancel.
“Hi,” she says, in the voice of a woman about the age she claimed to be. “Can I park anywhere on the street? No weird rules like ‘ten minutes only’ or whatever?”
“Just street sweeping.” I smile. She probably hears it. “But it’s done for the week.”
“Okay. See you in a minute.”
Was that a genuine question about “special rules,” or did she call to make sure I wouldn’t bail on our evening? to save herself the trouble of knocking and waiting at the door? and possibly other worse things? Maybe she imagined them too, after all. Or she’s already lived them.
I’m drowsy from spending the day thinking about how I couldn’t sleep. My eyes burn. I successfully masturbated, which was important to accomplish before her arrival. I found an animated GIF and focused on that—no “people,” just moving parts like factory footage. Now, having showered and brushed my teeth, I’m as clearheaded and calm as my exhaustion will allow.
The taste of toothpaste is still fresh, like I’ve scraped ugly language from my tongue. It’s also good for the possible kisses Lili and I might share but admittedly not great for drinking white wine.
I go outside and down the stairs, and see her walking down the sidewalk. I smile. She smiles. A first date at my place with someone I’ve never met before. I think, a new experience, and the phrase turns my stomach.
I wait so I don’t have to shout. Then I say, “Hey, there!”
“Hey, there.” She puts her arms out and we hug, relieved that we’re both who we said we were. I get a whiff of her hair, soft on my cheek—tea tree. It burns like blue-green ice behind my eyes and dissipates my lingering fog.
“Nice to meet you!” I say.
“Nice to meet you too.”
I lead her up. The living room window is cracked, and a breeze pushes through the apartment like a slow school of fish.
“Something to drink? Wine? Water?”
“Water, to start. It’s warm out there. AC’s busted in my car.”
“I know how that goes.” I fill two glasses at the sink. “My old car didn’t even have AC, just fans that moved the hot air around.” I give her a glass and join her on the couch, the width of the middle cushion between us. “Still, it was better than what I’ve got now.”
“What do you have now?”
“Minivan. Bought it from my folks.”
“Hot.” She curls a sneer that feels familiar from our messages.
“Not hot at all, thank god, it’s got AC.”
Her eyes roll. “Well, your ‘dad joke’ game is on point.”
“I guess that’s from all the time I spend driving around picking up kids.”
She tilts her head. “You’ve got kids?”
“Oh! Sorry, no, I was making a pedophile van joke.”
She almost spits back into her glass. “Wow, dad jokes and pedophile jokes. You’ve got range.”
We sit for a moment. Lili puts the glass against her cheek and closes her eyes.
The scoreboard in my mind dings a point, because people don’t close their eyes around perceived threats. “Do you want ice in that?”
Her eyes open halfway. “No, thank you, it’s perfect like this.”
“Good, because I think the tray in the freezer has totally evaporated. But I can fill it now for ice later.”
She laughs and holds up a calm-down hand. “I’ll be okay. Thanks.”
The hand signal works; I am calm.
The bottle of wine is a welcome third wheel. The water rinsed the toothpaste flavor from my mouth, so when I tap my glass with Lili’s and sip, the wine tastes as it should—buttery and tart.
I think about how instead of Lili sitting here now it could be the man who propositioned me. We’d be making small talk and possibly finding things in common, as Lili and I are, but all the while I’d wonder what it’ll be like when he brings up our agreement and puts me in his mouth.
Or if I’d gone to the older couple’s place, their strappy sex swing staring me down from the corner of the room, the wife in a day dress that presses her stretch-marked breasts into a jiggling mass, the husband in a T-shirt tucked into khaki shorts, scratching his beard and asking me, “Alex, wouldja like somethin’ to drink?”
Or if I’d taken a prostitute up on her offer I’d feel guilty making small talk, like chatting up a pizza delivery person while they’re on the clock. And which prostitute would I have chosen, Black or white?
I realize that since Lili’s arrival I haven’t once thought of my earlier apprehension. Then I focus on the glass in her hand to keep that thought from seeding.
She puts the glass down, touches her fingertips together, and says, “So, I didn’t tell you this before… because I didn’t want you to judge too harshly…”
Roller coaster cars sink past the point at which gravity takes over. Is she married with kids? Does she have an STD? Was my weirdness about the wine correct, and she’s using me as some sort of white fetish object?
She tilts her head back. Her brown eyes widen and cower behind the hills of her cheeks. This is hard for her.
“Go on…” My own confessions prepare to draw straws. Do I tell her about my encounter with the Skype scammer? my twinge of animosity about her choice of wine? the terrible things I imagined this afternoon?
“I’m a virgin,” she says.
“What? You—” An AC unit shudders on outside and the corrugated sound tremors through my body.
“I’m just playing with you.” She smiles, her dimples deepen.
“Jesus, you threw me for a second.” The roller coaster cars inch further down the crest. “So what’s the real thing?”
She lowers her head, then winces and bites her lip. “I… worked on a reality show.”
Deadbolts shriek in the basement door of my mind—Keep your straws, all of you! Back under the stairs! False alarm!
Aloud I say, “What show?”
“All by Myself. Heard of it?”
“I’ve captioned it.” I try not to react. This coincidence would be welcome if I hadn’t spent the last week thinking about the world watching Number Eight in his box, and if I didn’t just now remember being seen through my window, and if I hadn’t been recorded by a blackmailer, and if Lili mentioning this show didn’t make me feel like these things are somehow connected. But now I feel small.
“I’m sorry.” She winces. “Do you think less of me?”
“Of course not.” I pour us more wine.
“It was just one day, to fill in for my friend who’s a PA.”
“Did you meet the contestants?” If she mentions Number Eight, this isn’t a coincidence. My palms are cold.
“Only Jeremy. Number Four.”
I take a hard swallow of wine and a bubble grates in my throat.
“I had to go pick him up and bring him to set, ‘cause the whole thing was like this big, secret operation. They gave me a fat envelope with paperwork for him to sign and—get this—blindfolds.”
“Blindfold-s?”
She nods. “Two of them. Kinky, right?”
“What? One for him and one for… you?”
“No, they were both for him!” Her hands curl into claws under her face. “Alex, I need you to understand how sketch this was.”
I like hearing my name on her voice.
“My specific instructions were to put the small blindfold on him, which was like a sleep mask, and then tie the other bigger blindfold on over that to make absolutely positively sure he couldn’t see where we were going. And he had to sit in the backseat of my car so I could watch him in the mirror and make sure he didn’t peek.”
“Did you know any of this when you agreed to replace your friend?”
“No! I signed an NDA and they were like, ‘Pick up this dude, blindfold him in the backseat, and bring him to the drop-off point.’”
“Drop-off point?”
“The warehouse. I had to unload his stuff and hold his hand and guide him in because he couldn’t take his blindfold off until he was in his pod. So I’m cruising up the five with this dude double-blindfolded in my backseat, praying I don’t get stopped by the cops.”
“At least you had the paperwork to back up your crazy story.”
“If they would’ve even looked at it! Brothers and sisters get shot down for less.”
My sip of wine goes sour. “They do.”
She leans back and rests a hand on her forehead. Then she shrugs. “And for what?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean why? How is that part of the plan?”
“The police’s plan?”
“God’s Plan.”
I watch her eyes for the hint of another joke. “Dunno. You think God’s racist?”
Her face hardens. “Whoa. Okay.”
“No, wait, I’m sorry. I thought you were kidding, so I made a joke.”
“Cold fuckin’ joke, Alex.”
This time hearing my name doesn’t feel good. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” The shockwave of my mistake ripples across my skin. Of all scenarios, I hadn’t anticipated this one. How could I have? We just met. I know nothing about this woman, including whether she’s religious. She could be a total lunatic.
I ask, “You believe in God?”
“You don’t?”
“I never really thought about it,” I lie.
“Maybe you should.”
I’m still not sure if she’s kidding.
“Well,” I say, “if my tiny life is serving a bigger purpose, I’d love to know what it is.”
“That’s between you and Him.” She’s serious.
Now it feels like there’s a third person in the room—her omnipotent Imaginary Friend pulling both of our strings in some grand, unknowable scheme.
I shrug. “I’ve just never felt like my decisions were guided by anything but myself.”
“You don’t have to feel that for it to be true.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Do you know your purpose?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea, yeah.”
“What is it?” I finish my glass.
She takes the bottle from the table and refills her glass, then reaches over and refills mine. “At the moment, it’s making you help me finish this bottle so we’re both nice and warm.”
My cheeks heat up. She’s about to laugh and admit she was kidding about the God stuff.
She drinks.
Any second now…
Eventually I break the silence. “I’m already pretty warm.”
“Then I’ve got you right where I want you.” She gives a flirtatious smirk, but now it feels naive. There’s a glaze in her eyes—it could be the wine, but I read it as surrender to her Imaginary Friend and His Plan. I project forward to a version of things wherein we become an item, with more talk of divine supervision and manipulation. The idea makes my lungs tight.
Admittedly, our shared purpose was prewritten, by us, in both of our profiles: clean fun. She can’t expect any more from this than I do.
I realize time is passing and it’s my line. “I like you, Lili.”
“I like you too, Alex.”
We smile as the timer ticks. “I’d like to kiss you.”
“I think you should.”
I put my glass on the table to avoid spilling it.
I took the foil down earlier, which revealed my sooty safety glass window. The foil is folded under my shirts in the closet; I’m not sure why I hid it. I also changed the sheets so they’re crisp and clean.
This is not my bedroom, it’s a guest-friendly version.
I stop by the bed and remove my shirt, drop it to the floor. She removes hers, which I drape on the back of my desk chair. I’m struck by her dark skin, now seen against her light purple bra, and I get the impression that I’m somehow more naked, that even when she removes her bra she’ll have the cover of her skin, like a wetsuit or a unitard she’ll unzip and step out of, revealing a true base layer that’s pink and raw and finally “nude.”
My body tenses against the thought in a way I hope isn’t obvious.
I motion to the bed and she lies down. I lie next to her. We kiss with our eyes closed.
Eventually our pants come off. I remove my glasses, kneel over her, pull her purple underwear from her legs. I lie between her legs, kiss her breasts, dark nipples, then her stomach, inner thighs, and finally I nuzzle against her pubic hair. I lick her.
I have only done this with two other women. I’m aware that the flora and fauna of each person’s body is different, which creates an individual flavor. Lili tastes of rich leather, or the first pungent waft from a freshly-opened pack of rolling tobacco. I close my eyes and focus everything on my tongue, challenging myself to make associations unrelated to color. But this is how she tastes to me.
She holds my head and moans, says my name. Then shouts my name, draws it out, chops it to pieces with her breath.
I would enjoy this, but instead I wonder if she senses my distraction and is using my name as a mantra to ground me. My neighbors can probably hear her, which wouldn’t bother me except for the fact that when I greeted her outside I had said, “Nice to meet you.” Anyone who heard me say that, and who now hears her shouting my name, will likely make disparaging assumptions about her.
But I say nothing for fear of embarrassing her. I close my eyes tight and lick harder, which makes her shout louder, and eventually she quakes and clamps my head in her thighs and it sounds like we’re underwater.
I take my shirt from the floor, wipe my face, and lie next to her.
She turns to me. Her fingers trace through my chest hair. “Now what do you want?”
“A bit of the same?” I know I’ll be quiet. I usually am. And she’ll be less likely to continue shouting my name.
She kisses me, then kisses my chin and my neck, my chest, my stomach, and eventually puts me into her mouth.
Does she think I taste like a white person?
I clench my eyes to swallow the thought, but it doesn’t work. I want to stop her, to apologize and ask her to leave, but the “it’s not you, it’s me” excuse would be offensive if left unexplained or far worse if I’m honest.
She holds my testicles and gently kneads them. No one has done it this way before. It’s new and thrilling and—don’t say “exotic,” you piece of shit. I wasn’t going to, but my brain is like a car backfiring in a closed garage.
Lili is miles away across the blurry dunes of my torso, and I’m marooned in my head.
With my last girlfriend I used to make contact by stroking behind her ears and gently holding the back of her head.
My hand drifts over and meets Lili’s tight, springy curls, and I realize my mistake. Jerking my hand away would indicate surprise or reinforce the idea that my goal was to touch her hair, so I commit to the movement and try to maneuver my fingers to stroke behind her ear. But I have to push her hair aside. I stroke behind her ear for a moment, and she doesn’t seem to react either way.
When I decide I’ve done all I can to cover my tracks—because the damage is already done—I slide my hand down her neck and stroke her back. A neutral zone.
Though historically, it hasn’t always been a neutral zone…
Beyond all logic, I’m still hard.
I withdraw from her and say, “I want you.”
“I’ve got a condom in my purse.”
“I have one here.” I take a condom from my desk drawer and put it on.
She lies back, and I lie on top of her. With her face in sharp focus so close to mine, my eyes in hers, there is finally only us. For a brief moment it doesn’t matter who we might be, or who anyone else has ever been.
Next on I Hear You Watching…
Impatient to read the rest? Two options:
Here’s a complete list of posted chapters.
Got a question about the book or my experience with hearing voices and psychosis? Don’t be shy! Join the chat and…
This drew me in. I'm gonna go back to the start. You've definitely got something here with the narrator. Comes across very sharply and realistic and compelling.
Hey, I enjoyed this. It felt very real to me. It was brutally honest storytelling. I must admit a couple of times I was shocked by its explicitness yet very intrigued by where the story is going as well as Alex's thoughts about race and difference. “and a breeze pushes through the apartment like a slow school of fish.” beautiful. I love similes and I can just see it.
I am very curious to know more about his mind. What are the voices and what are him? So will read more.