TIME WARP: Age of Majority

Sean Neville was a man of his word. As such, when Sidra Cotton’s 21st birthday came and went, he checked the alumni listings and then booked a flight down to Atlanta. He’d invited Josh, who had looked at him as though he’d grown a second head and informed him that there were plenty of places to drink that didn’t involve several hours on a plane to somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. Josh promised that if he cheated on him, it wouldn’t be in the bedroom, and Sean warned him that if he came home and found that their friendly poly group had become a quartet, he expected visitation rights.

There were many reasons he loved Josh, but that was one of them.

His arrival in Atlanta was hardly spectacular; he found a taxi and went to his hotel room (since he wouldn’t make Sidra tend to his lodgings). Then he’d eaten a sandwich and donned more appropriate clothing before seeking her out. His greeting of “Belated happy birthday. Do you remember my promise?” Was taken about as well as expected.

If she were Emma, she would have teleported them immediately. Sidra had seemed a bit more reluctant, but she had taken him out. To what was evidently a fetish bar.

He gave her points for trying.

He also increased his mental shields a bit when they entered the club. He drew the line at experiencing the pleasure of other people when he wasn’t participating; he wasn’t a college student and those days were behind him. He also felt as though he was dressed inappropriately, since his leather jacket and patched jeans were better suited to the clubs he typically frequented. Not this.

Perhaps he should have worn more leather. Although he supposed he got points for the Bear shirt.

“An interesting choice,” he remarked, his voice remained the same tone it always had. He followed her through the area, looking around to study the decor and the people. “Do you come here often?”

The worst part of the club is that Sean wanted alcohol and there was none, which was common fare at such clubs. He would make do, of course, but clubbing in his book was traditionally a means of drinking with new and interesting people.

Still, there certainly were interesting people here.

The 21-year-old Sean would have reacted to her proclamation quite differently, because it was blasphemous. The Sean getting a little closer to 60 every day merely twitched his lips, though he had no fangs to reveal via a toothy grin.

Hearing someone call their safeword, Sean fortified his mental shields just a bit more; it would be one of those nights.

When they came to stop in front of another station, the telepath focused on the costumes involved, and he smiled softly to himself. He’d had a jacket like that once.

At her question, he turned his attention from the people acting out their scene to the young woman beside him. “Not particularly, actually,” he admitted to her. This wasn’t new to him, because of past relationship experience, but he hadn’t sought it out on his own. He then asked a question not intended to be patronizing. “Have you ever given consideration to what it is to be a telepath? Humans think about sex all of the time, and I’ve been a telepath for more than forty-five years.”

She should at least know why she had failed to get a rise out of him.

Sean’s tone didn’t change from his usual patient register, but he did correct her as he met her eyes. “Hammel taught me more than adequate shielding.” There were two types of mental shielding; his shields were strong enough to keep out other psychics from unwanted invasion, and if he needed to put himself on lockdown from all background noise, he could. He didn’t, not completely, because it was akin to wearing a blindfold or earplugs, and it was disconcerting. Better some degree of background noise, even if it resulted in his awareness of every student’s fantasies at one time or another. “And I don’t say it to complain about boredom; just to tell you what you were up against.”

The telepath heard her realization of an unfortunate truth about his childhood, which was a deeper realization than many others reached, not when they had only known him as an adult. Sidra had always been perceptive, when she wished to be.

He could have gone insane; without intervention, he would have gone insane. It was the reason that, even when dating someone who had been much into this scene, he’d drawn the line at straightjackets. It was the reason he was forever indebted to Hammel.

Turning his attention back to the interrogation scene at the sound of a slap, he said, “I do give you points for creativity back then. You did go above and beyond.”