The Conglomerate
Chapter 2 - Daydream Believer
“Life is only a dream, and soon we shall wake up, and what joy, the greater our sufferings are the more infinite will be our glory….” -Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
Riding around these less savory parts of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, with Dr. Candy while listening to music hits from the 1980’s kind of made me feel like I was within a video game; specifically, the initial version of Grand Theft Auto (GTA). Also, at times I felt very much like I was in SEGA’s 1980’s hit Outrun due to the rising romanticism and sexual tension between this blonde bombshell and myself. And because we were driving quite clearly over the speed limit. Referencing specific video games representing virtual worlds whenever I happened to find myself in novel, unprecedented situations in my own real life has always given me a psychological means by which I could somehow make sense of things while keeping myself anchored in the lived experience I was having. Of course, I kept all these musings to myself as we sped through Philadelphia on our way to the fancy Italian place she had in mind. Admittedly, I wanted to talk so as to flirt some more but I felt doing so would most likely disintegrate this unique ambience. We drove past lots of decrepit buildings and houses and people who were down and out and yet the sun was still shining in full radiance. At a certain point in time, Dr. Candy decided to instruct Spotify to play Dua Lipa and Elton John’s joint hit Cold Heart on loop.
After about fifteen minutes more of all this, Dr. Candy or “mystery woman” as I like to call her at times received a phone call. The ringing noise was an odd synthesizer sound. She opened up her Louis Vuitton bag and pulled out her pristine iPhone.
“Hi, yes.”
“I’m doing great. How about you? Things are looking rather lovely today in the ‘hood.”
“No, that’s a definitive no! I mean it this time!” (raising her voice)
“I do think that’s quite possible but only if you guys can get your act together fast and finish up those damn tasks by next weekend.”
“Sorry, I just can’t talk anymore. He’s here with me….”
(These are the exact words she uttered but, of course, I had no idea what her interlocutor was saying to her. I assumed by “he” she was making reference to me.)
Dr. Candy: Eddie, there’s been a sudden change in plans. We can’t go to the Italian restaurant this evening.
Me: What do you mean? (feeling let down and surprised)
Dr. Candy: Something serious has come up. I can’t… I can’t go into details about it, as the issue happens to pertain to national security. We can go for a pizza if you’d like. But, first, I’ve got to take care of some essential business that I’d like you to help me out with.
I didn’t really provide informed consent but neither did I dissent. I instinctively knew I didn’t have any say in the matter and also, if I’m honest with myself, I was curious about where all of this was heading. I felt myself zoning out a bit, as I fell even a bit more under her seductive spell while listening to the hit Cold Heart that was reverberating through the car’s superb sound system. I glanced down somewhat furtively at her legs. She had a white mini skirt on and her shapely pale legs were showing. I felt this was strange, as I thought she was wearing designer white pants when she approached me at Starbucks. I didn’t make a big deal about it. I knew how memory works and how unreliable it can be at times, both short-term and long-term memory. Thousands of psychological experiments, after all, had been conducted on this topic not to mention other relevant topics such as projection, sexual attraction and daydreaming.
Dr. Candy: We’re going to go somewhere that’s really special to me, from both an intellectual and emotional point of view, but, for most people, it represents pure hell on earth.
Me: Ok, but what do you exactly mean by that?
Dr. Candy: I’m talking about Kensington Avenue. You know the dilapidated place where all those homeless drug addicts, freaks, thieves, prostitutes and drug dealers hang out. Have you ever been there before?
Me: No, never. It’s not really my cup of tea, as you can imagine. I’ve heard about it of course. It’s the butt of so many malicious jokes around town and especially on campus. People can be so cruel.
Dr. Candy: Yes, tell me about it. But what we’re going to do is drive over there now and then, at a certain point, I’m going to stop the car abruptly. The cars behind us are going to be caught off guard and they’ll start honking and the people in those cars will start shouting obscenities at us, perhaps even threatening us with extreme violence. But please ignore all of this. What I want you to do at this point is to get out of the car and walk briskly into the crowd. You’ll be approached by a tall, overweight woman with pimples. Her name’s Veronica but that’s beside the point. She’s going to hand you a crumpled paper bag and you’re going to give her $80 dollars in cash. No Venmo or anything like that. Then you’re going to come back to my car and get it. Then we’ll continue driving. Here’s the cash. Now, please don’t ask me any questions about this now. I’ll satisfy your intellectual curiosity later. I promise.
(They make a left turn at the next light and drive for about twenty minutes. Silence reigns. Eddie is becoming hungry and slightly panicky as they pass by so many people who are down and out and who seem frozen or are shaking their bodies in strange ways. And then the BMW comes to a halt. And reality unfolds precisely as Dr. Candy foresaw it. Eddie fulfills his task and gets back in the car. Dr. Candy speeds up and changes the song being played on Spotify to Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Rey. It’s on loop like the previous song.)
Me: That wasn’t so bad. What a truly sad sight to see though! I felt their pain and discontent. These people need help. Anyways, who’s this Veronica and what’s in the bag?
Dr. Candy: (speaking in a serious voice) I already told you that I would tell you later about all this, Eddie. Now just be quiet and enjoy the ride with me. Aren’t you having fun already?
(They drive for another twenty minutes or so through a series of tough neighborhoods, before finally arriving at a semi-decrepit brown motel.)
Dr. Candy: Eddie, we finally made it. Now just follow me.
Eddie: What the hell are we doing here? I thought we were going out to some nice pizza joint not some sleazy, run-down place like this.
Dr. Candy: Sorry but time isn’t on our side tonight. We’re going to order the pizza via Uber Eats, ok? I’ve already booked a room for us. We have a lot of things to take care of. Now follow me. I always stay here whenever I happen to be in town. Welcome to Motel Slumopolis, as I like to call it. It’s inexpensive, safe and close to where we do a lot of our psychological field work.
Motel worker at the front desk: Hey Mandy. Nice to see you again. Here’s the key to your room, the usual one of course.
(They walk down a dusty, dark hallway and enter room 42. It’s dim inside and smells of cigarette smoke.)
Me: This place is kind of undignified for someone of stature, don’t you think?
Dr. Candy: Get over yourself Eddie and stop projecting your phantasies onto me! I’m more down to earth than you think.
Me: What do you know about my phantasies and desires?
Dr. Candy: More than you’d ever guess…..
(Dr. Candy goes into the bathroom and closes the door while Eddie gets onto the large bed and stretches himself out. He notices a few pubic hairs next to him, which he picks up and tosses onto the dark green floor. He isn’t sure what to expect. Dr. Candy comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later after flushing the toilet. She’s wearing a New York Yankees t-shirt and somewhat baggy grey sweatpants. She looks slightly sloppy emanating strong middle-class vibes.)
Dr. Candy: I already know what you’re going to say so I’m going to explain it like this to you. I work undercover. I have multiple names that I use. Mandy is one of them. Some people also refer to me as “M”. That’s the simple answer. Now, the more intricate one is that I was brought up in an elite family where I received special training starting at an early age about nearly all aspects of Psychology as well as Philosophy and other subjects. On the surface, I was a normal person. The nice girl who got good grades and who was athletic and good looking too. But at home with my family I lived a second life, where I learned things that even you don’t know about as a newly minted holder of a doctorate. I grew up in Baltimore but people think I’m originally from the Upper East Side of New York City. Mandy and “M” are from New York City, for instance. Dr. Candy is from Baltimore. That’s all you need to know about my origins for now. Everything in my world is on a need-to-know basis and I need to know more about you, Eddie. That’s why we’re here together.
Me: That’s so fascinating. As for myself, I’m from the Midwest originally, from Toledo, Ohio to be specific. My family is kind of normal but a bit eccentric. I only recently found out that my grandfather’s late brother worked for the CIA in Japan. My sister who’s four years younger than me works at a vintage store in our hometown that happens to sell retro video games. I was always the loner at school. Studying helped me escape the nearly constant bullying.
Dr. Candy: Interesting. Based on that slice of personal testimony and what we already know about you, I would say you’re an L1N7O5.
Me: What the hell is that?
Dr. Candy: That’s your psychological designation or PD for short. This is a sophisticated, multifaceted psychological concept that I already knew about when I was seven. From that age onwards, I would secretly classify my classmates according to this paradigm. You see, Eddie, there is Psychology and then there is Esoteric Psychology. Esoteric Psychology isn’t taught at any of our universities, even our top ones like Stanford or Yale. If you’re lucky, like you are, then you’ll be brought into the fold a bit later in life. Your psychological designation means that your life is Level One, Narrative Seven and Outcome Five.
Me: Now, what does that mean exactly? This whole thing about Esoteric Psychology is indeed rather fascinating to me and I’d really like to learn more about what I’ve evidently been denied access to.
Dr. Candy: You tell me! (laughing). It’s your life! I’m not living it. Just live the questions as the poet Rilke suggested and you’ll find out what this PD denotes. You’ll learn what underpins this concept as you gain more experience and reflect. Now, Mandy would say, as a kind of vicious joke, just fuck around with your life and find out.
Me: That’s not so funny.
Dr. Candy: Well, what do you expect? Mandy never had it hard in life. Everything was always handed to her on a silver platter. Only those who deeply suffer ever develop a great sense of humor. And I can personally confirm that there’s a lot of humor on Kensington Avenue. It’s not all so “down and out” there. Trust me, I spend a lot of time hanging out there. Undercover of course.
(There is a loud knock at the door and Dr. Candy tells the person to come in. It’s a fat, bald Hispanic man carrying a large box containing a pizza. Dr. Candy takes the pizza and tells him she’s going to give him a big tip.)
Me: How did you know? This is crazy. How did you fucking know that I prefer pepperoni, sausage, onions and peppers on my pizza? And that I like it thin sliced.
Dr. Candy (smiling): There are so many ways of finding this information out. There are no secrets on this planet, especially in this age of social media. In this case, to answer your question, BITCH helped me out.
Me (while munching on a slice): BITCH? What’s that, another one of Mandy’s so-called jokes?
Dr. Candy (carefully going about eating a slice): BITCH is an AI that we’ve developed over at DARPA, to be precise in the department that I myself head. Not to brag but I was instrumental in its creation. I know how to code too, Eddie. BITCH stands for Better Imaging Through Controlled Hallucinations. BITCH can provide us with lots of information, information that we’d rather not share with or request from MI6, MOSSAD, the CIA and the other usual suspects. So we have this AI, in a nutshell, that can tap into and extrapolate facts from people’s auras or, in the parlance of Esoteric Psychology, their bio-energetic fields. BITCH can even do much more but I just want to highlight this one aspect for you. So that’s how I knew what you wanted on our pizza, Eddie. My iPhone isn’t even really an iPhone. It just looks like one. I have the BITCH app on it. I have other special apps too. I have a lot of information about you now. Like I said at Starbucks, I want to pick your mind.
Me: Wow, I feel weird. And very naked. What else do you know about me?
Dr. Candy: I know enough. Or almost enough. But things still don’t add up and that’s what’s particularly intriguing to me. Even BITCH can’t fully fathom you.
Me: What do you mean?
Dr. Candy: Let’s just enjoy our time together here and have the rest of the pizza. You know what’s cool nowadays among both undergrads and teens?
Me: No, what?
Dr. Candy: Vaping while eating pizza. For instance. We picked up two new vapes from Veronica. These ones are produced in the good ol’ USA. Can you believe it that we actually make things here besides high-grade weaponry?
Me: So that’s what was in the bag?
Dr. Candy: Exactly. Let’s do some vaping together. It’ll be fun, trust me.
(Dr. Candy comes closer to Eddie on the bed and Eddie starts noticing that he’s slowly succumbing to her beauty. He feels both queasy, romantically stimulated and yet very much at ease. Just about 10 inches separate them now.)
Dr. Candy: This happens to be the only room that’s designated for smoking in the whole place. So we can vape as much as we want to here. Now, which one do you want: the blue one or the red one?
Me: You’re really too much, Dr. Candy! I guess we’re kind of in the Matrix in Motel Slumopolis along with our good friend BITCH. Naturally, I’ll have the red one.
(Dr. Candy laughs and suggests that they count up to five and then inhale at the same time.)
Me: Wow, this is bizarre and relaxing.
Dr. Candy: Yes, indeed. Now, what do you see, Eddie? You know well that if two people see the same thing or experience the same thing at the same time then it can’t really be said to be a hallucination, at least according to mainstream Psychology.
(Eddie then goes on to describe how the room seems to be infected by a strange sort of fog that’s oozing out of the carpet on both sides of the bed. The walls have changed color and are now a light orange. On the large Samsung TV, there is a Twitch stream going on. As a matter of course, they are playing Fortnite and they’re talking about it and world politics and all sorts of other stuff. It’s the beginning of a new game. Some character with a uniquely designed, ostentatious uniform is parachuting onto the Island. At the same time, the two well-known influencers are playing together as a team in a mid-game phase. Dr. Candy looks like her college self. She’s wearing a grey sweater sporting letters spelling out the word YALE. Other things in the room seem to be morphing and yet Eddie isn’t totally sure if that’s taking place or not. He’s trying to focus on the commentary and gameplay. Dr. Candy runs her hand through his hair and smiles at him. His heart melts but he feels restrained and also locked in place. He honestly doesn’t know what to do.)
Dr. Candy: Don’t you want me now, Eddie? I look even sexier now as a junior sorority girl at Yale, don’t you think?
Me: What do you mean?
Dr. Candy: Am I speaking plain English to you or Machine Language?
Me: Well, Dr. Candy you do look…..
Dr. Candy: Stop overthinking. The problem is you have love hesitancy and you’re constrained by your so-called “traditional values.” But the main problem is really that you’re still in love with another woman. And you would never, ever betray her!
Me: And who could that possibly be? I’ve been single for years and you must know about my weak and declining libido, not to mention my terrible experiences with all those godforsaken dating apps.
Dr. Candy: Do you think BITCH is really that stupid, Eddie? Come on. Let’s inhale again and see how far we can go together tonight.
(They both count aloud up to five and then inhale and then exhale. Eddie looks at Dr. Candy and he finds himself both horrified and highly enthralled. She has morphed her form and now looks exactly like the notorious bitch vampire Alcina Dimitrescu from the hit video game Resident Evil, otherwise known as Lady D. She even has taken on the exact proportions of her and is now nearly ten feet tall. Her beautiful large breasts are mostly exposed and she is wearing an old-fashioned hat and a matching dress. Eddie had taken a liking to her, to put it mildly, the first time he had encountered her while playing that particular game, when he was supposed to be conducting research on Fortnite and the two famous psychologists he was studying. Sexually fantasizing about her was a great way to pass the time as he struggled with his dissertation and all the politics going on within the Psychology department.)
Lady D.: You little man-thing! Don’t you want to fuck me? Haven’t you been waiting the past four years for this very moment? It’s now or never! Ha!
(Lady D. lies down and Eddie mounts her. He starts sucking on her right breast like a child, as someone who never received enough love from women taken as a whole as an adult. Lady D. wraps her strong arms around him and he immediately gets a hard on. He doesn’t know what’s happening, whether this is really going on or not. She gently directs his right hand to a certain place on her body and then he starts fingering her through her Victorian garb. Then she starts French kissing him. A few minutes later they both find themselves inside the Twitch stream. They are playing Fortnite together as a duo. Somewhat later, they are running about on the Island, he as Eddie and she as Lady D. as virtual, ever so slightly pixelated beings. They are really kicking butt. They are looking at each other in pure joy as they comment on the gameplay and on world politics and on pop culture. Eddie never knew that live streaming could be so fun. Lady D., at a certain point in time, runs her left hand through Eddie’s hair and then suddenly they’re in the game itself. Eddie is confused but confidant due to the fact that Lady D. has got his back and is quite experienced in this video game. In fact, she’s unquestionably an expert while he is very good at best. At a certain point, after traversing a significant section of the Island and vigilantly going through a kind of abandoned house and eliminating several players, they find themselves standing outside on verdant ground, catching their breath. They both spot a giant, glorious rainbow. Lady D. takes his hand and gives the order to jump. They find themselves flying upwards somehow, defying virtual gravity, finally ending up miles above the rainbow that somehow found a way to manifest itself. A few seconds later, or what also seemed like a few minutes later or even much longer as in hours, Eddie is back on the bed with Dr. Candy eating pizza, as if none of the wild and unusual foreplay had happened at all not to mention the extraordinary excursion into the video game itself.)
Me (with a modicum of disbelief): “Impossible. That didn’t just happen! That didn’t happen that way.”
Dr. Candy (in a sultry manner, now in her middle-aged form, while looking into my eyes somewhat intensely): “I know what you’re thinking. Anything, and everything, is possible, Eddie.”
Me: “So what just happened then? A daydream at night of yours or of mine or one belonging to both of us that you somehow entranced me into via the vaping?”
Dr. Candy: “Well, yes, you could put it like that but also it was even something much more profound than that. We were over the rainbow. We were over the rainbow together, Eddie.”
Image: Unsplash: Doug Zuba, 2024
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