I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life when I got out of college.
OK, so I flunked out of college. Is that anything new?
But my history was clean enough for me to get a job with the TSA-- the Transportation Security Agency-- as a security screener.
In hindsight, especially after talking to people in other lines of work that impinged on mine, our training was woefully inadequate.
All right, so learning how to spot people acting oddly isn't something anyone off the street could be easily taught.
But, then, I have an unfair advantage.
You see, I discovered that I'm a freak. I've had to hide it from the beginning because no one else around me seemed to share my odd sensations.
You see, after my first period I could "hear" people without them having to speak. I could even get some idea of how they were feeling about things and when asked questions, whether or not they were lying. I really wished to have been a real mind reader but that wasn't the gift-- or, as I felt at the time, an albatross-- I had to live with.
The main reason I flunked out of college was from the kinds of things I'd over-"hear" from my fellow students and from the instructors. It seemed that most people didn't hold out much hope for their future, which, really, had me spending a lot of time depressed.
Hell, many of the "todays" these people were living weren't a pile of roses, either. And don't get me started on the hangovers I suffered through just being around these people.
What's funny is that I don't have to deal with quite as much physical misery in this job.
What I seldom realize is how my "gift" could become a danger to me given the paranoia that pervades this job. You see, I can't usually explain in objective terms why I feel someone was acting "hinky". Often enough there wasn't a real threat because emotionally disturbed people are a lot more common than those who desire to be destructive. I seemed to have a knack for telling the difference between those with criminal intentions and those who are just having problems living.
And, let me tell you, few people aren't having problems living. The little anti-depressants that a lot of these people were taking were just keeping a lid on a lot of pent up rage over the stupidity of the world in general. I never could quite explain to anyone how I could recognize an actual threat from someone who was acting out.
And, of course, I could always recognize the ringers that we get tested with. It didn't take long to realize that a perfect record was a problem when I was being tested.
But, yeah, I could read people who were, deep inside, of a more criminal bent. Sociopaths are immediately obvious to me, for instance, and many of these sociopaths were either religious leaders or corporate executives. Mind you, I came to the conclusion that the more religious folks, regardless of the object of their faith, were among the most dangerous.
Oh, sure, I often "hear" one or another talk to themselves about me and them in, well, positions that I'd rather not be part of. I don't like pain, for instance, and I sure do not like it rough, either.
And not being able to find a reason to detain a murderer or serial rapist weighed heavily on me... though I did find a way to slip hints via anonymous tip lines that brought down a couple of these folks.
Being cursed with an ability to read a person's emotions and any subvocalized speech is not always pleasant, you know. I wished there were more people passing by me that had some semblance of empathy.
Given my performance on the job my assignments tended to drift around and it was embarrassing to not be able to point at anything that a trainee, lacking my one hidden advantage, could be taught. You either can feel what another person is feeling or you can't.
What is laughable is that they tried to screen me for psionic abilities. I learned that I couldn't be a "real" mind reader and none of the tests covered the gifts I did have... and certainly, as part of the screening, I knew to have less than a stellar record. At the same time I knew that I had to get some of the answers right, too, because a 0% hit rate would have been seen as suspicious.
I suspect I would've been shown as an empath if any useful tests had ever been put together that weren't total bullshit. I came to the conclusion that the folks looking for telepathy and the like had no idea of the reality I was living so they were looking for the wrong traits.
Which meant that I slipped under their radar.
So I did my job, used my knack, maintaining a rep as someone to consult on confusing subjects.
And then I met my match.
Or, perhaps, he met me.
All I knew at the time was that a man walked into to the lane I was supervising, put down his laptop, backpack and the little crap in his pockets and then walked through the magnetometer.
Oh, he was clean and he had no questionable "vibes" but my pussy, after so many years of drought, drenched my panties. You see, there was something special about him, something I couldn't quite put my finger on at the time.
Now, really, he wasn't that unique. I have felt people who had the same "aura" like he did, combining better readability of not merely his feelings and thoughts but also some of his deep thinking, edging towards the point where I could browse through his memories, but none before had ever ignited my sexual interest half as much as this one did.
Oddly enough all of the others had been women and my bread just hadn't been buttered that way. I was thinking, all of a sudden, that maybe I had missed something important, before.
After he headed off to his gate I took a break, used the ladies room to play with myself, and, once satiated, stalked that man who held my soul by the crotch.
I sat down to talk to him which he found surprising.
Gawd, now that I looked at him closely, he was old enough to be my father. My pussy didn't care how old he was, she wanted him.
Now don't laugh but I was horny. I decided, on the spot, to lead him to a closet where I then fucked him... twice.
Fuck! He was suddenly, out of the blue, just like me! He could read me! I could read him! Our eyes were more than a little bit open as we gazed into the other's, our thoughts, memories and feelings spilled into each other. I learned a lot from him as he learned from me, happy to learn that we were telepaths.
And then, despite our desires, he had to leave.
I got a call from him at home that night. We talked and talked and exchanged so much more now that we'd had some time to consider his awakening to abilities like mine. My own abilities, after we'd coupled, seemed even stronger, too.
Every night we'd talk.
When he returned I joined him at his home and lucked out: His wife who had the same vibes he had, pre-sex. His oldest son was there and even he had the right vibes and so...
I was glad when he awakened his wife as I awakened his son. It was especially sweet that his wife accepted what I had done in awakening her husband. I also had someone I could now marry, too, given the meeting of our minds having been part of sweetly meeting our bodies.
It took a month before I stopped taking the Pill and my husband and I made love to make a baby every chance we had. It was sweet to realize that, awakening him, I had dragged my husband out of his own depression so he could find his future... in my arms, for the most part.
Meanwhile, I still work for the TSA... but do some work on the side. I wear a lead apron to protect my child, on the job, but, with my knack being even sharper, my side work consists of discovering others who have the "right" vibes, collecting any contact information so they can be brought in to our family of telepaths.
Given the scarcity of men, though, my husband and his father have already accumulated something of a harem, yet I, and my mother-in-law, are happy. Her, because she's too old to have more children, and me, because I'm the right age to have a bunch.
I just hoped that I'd make a lot more, just like us. One way or another we all wanted telepathy to become an evolutionarily successful trait.
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Author: Jack C Lipton Title: Jumpstart: Sifter Part: Universe: psi phi Summary: Hinky, not Kinky Keywords: MF (preg) Revision: $Revision: 1.4 $ Archive: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/CupaSoup/www/ Mailing List: FAQ: RCS: $Id: sifter.x,v 1.4 2007/02/21 14:08:27 cupasoup Exp $