Hits & Mrs. Read online

  “The pimple on my ass is a sign then too,” Claudia mocked.

  “We can even ask our loved ones to send a sign that they’re okay,” said Gil. “Invite them to come to you in a dream, or as an animal, and when you spot a sign, be sure to acknowledge it and thank your loved one. Encourage them to continue to communicate with you. If the dead think they’re being ignored they usually give up...”

  “I wish you’d give up,” Claudia said to him.

  “Gil, I’ve always wanted a psychic reading from you, but I know there’s a three year waiting list,” Jack said. “Can you give me a reading now to let everyone at home know what they’re waiting for?”

  “Yes, Gil. Give us a taste of what you can do,” said Bella as she shot him a saucy side-glance and plucked invisible fluff off his blazer. Gil never had fluff on his clothes.

  “Of course,” obliged Gil as he returned Bella’s look.

  “Oh, go get a room,” said Claudia.

  “Your energy has been very powerful for me this morning,” Gil remarked, leaving Claudia to wonder if it was a comment made to Jack or Bella. He closed his eyes for a few moments. “Hmm… You had a lot of anger as a child. You didn’t feel a sense of being wanted when you were a little boy and you never felt like you belonged.” Jack nodded emphatically. “I’m getting the impression you have two families… How interesting.” Gil paused. “…Were you adopted?”

  “Wow, Gil! Yes, I was,” Jack replied, impressed that Gil could know that. He’d only just found out a few years ago himself and he was still getting to know his biological parents.

  “There’s a woman standing next to me… Has your adoptive mother passed?” Gil asked. Jack nodded. She was the only member of his adopted family that he felt close to, and he had been a mommy’s boy. She died suddenly two years ago and he still missed her every day. “Mom is sending thoughts to me that are very strong,” said Gil. “I feel that she died of some sort of cardiovascular disease.”

  “That’s right!” Jack said in amazement.

  “You just told Gil that your mother died of heart disease!” Claudia screamed at Jack.

  Gil continued. “She’s telling me that her name begins with an ‘R’.” Is it Ruth? Wait… her hands are full of sparkling red-colored gemstones…they’re rubies. Her name was Ruby…”

  “Yes!” confirmed Jack.

  No wonder people waited three years to see this guy. He was good.

  “Mom says that she loves you and wants you to know that she’s still a part of you. She helps in your decision making every day,” said Gil. “…Now she’s showing me a baby. You have a young daughter?”

  “I do!” Jack brightened at the mention of his gorgeous baby girl.

  “Mom is still showing me rubies again… Was your daughter named after her mother?” asked Gil. “Was her name also Ruby?”

  “Yes!” Jack confirmed. “That’s incredible!”

  “I feel that she was born soon after mom died.”

  “Yes,” Jack whispered. Gone was his plastic smile and the mindless small talk he usually reserved for the woman with tips for lunch box treats. This was clearly a moving experience for him and he was still in mourning.

  “Mom has to go now, but she has one final message,” Gil said. He paused dramatically. “She wants to validate this reading by sharing something that I couldn’t possibly know if I wasn’t in contact with her… She’s showing me a bookmark with a quote written on it… It says, ‘There comes a time when you have to choose between turning the page and closing the book’. Do you understand that?” asked Gil.

  “Oh God. Yes, I do,” replied Jack quietly. This had been his mother’s advice to him several years ago when he and his wife were considering a divorce. They had grown apart due to their busy work schedules, and Jack’s philandering. He’d gone off the rails when he learned he had been adopted. With the help of some counseling, Jack turned over a new leaf and the couple chose to “turn the page” instead of parting ways. Nine months later their baby girl was born. This was the best decision Jack had ever made.

  “Mom says that she loves you, and love lives forever,” Gil added.

  The reading hit a raw nerve with Jack. He got all choked up and was unable to speak. This was an uncomfortable silence for a live show, so Bella flashed her professionally whitened teeth at the camera and swiftly took over the reins.

  “Thanks to Gil Godsend for his remarkable psychic insight!” she said. “Do go out and buy yourself a copy of his amazing new book, Messages From The Other Side.” She touched Gil’s thigh. “Do you have any final words for our viewers?” she asked him.

  “I want to remind everyone to pay attention to those signs,” Gil said with a grin.

  “I’m paying attention,” Claudia replied. “This is a sign that I need to watch you, Gil…”

  Jack was still visibly shaken so Bella continued.

  “Coming up later on Sunrise, we’ll be doing makeovers for women who want chic looks for the office, while our next guest will be sharing some fun ideas for quick and easy lunch box treats!”

  Theme music began playing as the producer quickly cut to an advertisement. Gil was ushered off-stage by an assistant and Bella followed, tripping in her red high heels in her efforts to get to him.

  “That was an incredible reading you just gave!” she cooed.

  Gil fixed his eyes on her and raised an eyebrow. “Just wait until I give one to you…”

  She smiled. “It just so happens that I’m on a short break now. Is there any chance I could have a quickie with you right now?” she giggled. “…A palm reading or something?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “I always have time to fit you in, Bella.”

  She dragged him off to her dressing room. She didn’t emerge for the rest of the show, leaving poor, emotional Jack to manage the makeover segment alone. Bella always disappeared on him like this when Gil was a guest on the show.

  While Gil was presumably reading something other than Bella’s palms in her dressing room, Claudia was busy doing some digging into TV host and former football player Jack Summers. Jack revealed that his mother died of heart disease and Gil fed this back to him blatantly, but Claudia suspected there was some information available online about Jack that Gil may have used during his reading. Gil’s game was too good. In the course of her research she came across many articles about Jack doing whacky and zany things for his morning show, including the time he fed a lettuce leaf to an iguana and it bit off the top of his pinkie finger, and a photo of him riding a unicycle, just seconds before he fell and broke his ankle.

  Claudia also uncovered lots of personal information about Jack, including an interview in which he revealed that he had been adopted and that he grew up feeling like he didn’t belong. Tabloids gossiped about Jack’s flings with various actresses. There were also reports that Jack and Bella had engaged in a brief but torrid affair. Another article revealed that Jack’s long-suffering wife had taken him back after some counseling, and that their reunion resulted in the birth of their baby girl, Ruby, who was named in memory of his beloved mother.

  Chapter 6

  “Your husband is here with us now,” announced Gil as he opened his eyes slowly and gazed across the table at his client. The widow swept her long black hair out of her heavily lined brown eyes and fixed her gaze back at him.

  “You’re good,” she praised. “My last psychic said he was in contact with my grandmother, but she wasn’t dead!”

  Gil shook his head in disgust.

  “You need to be careful,” he warned her. “There are many unscrupulous psychics out there…”

  “Well, you’re not one of them,” she said, her leather jacket crinkling as she leaned in towards him. “I’m a little bit psychic myself and I can tell...”

  “We’re all a little bit psychic,” he told her. “Now, Mrs. Cooper, I’m getting an “M” name that stands for either Mike or Mark…”

  “Yes, his name was Mark!” she confirmed as she hugged a cup o
f coffee with both hands, revealing fingers that were covered with silver rings and fingernails painted with black polish. Her skin was a very pale white. “But you should call me Abby. Mrs. Cooper sounds way too formal and makes me feel soooo old,” she said, her Celtic cross earrings jangling whenever she spoke.

  “Abby it is then,” he said with a grin. “Now, I’m going to validate my psychic reading for you by providing a specific description of your husband’s character and appearance, along with some personal information that no one else could possibly know. This is evidence to prove to you, and to me, that I’m in communication with him.”

  Okay,” she replied a little nervously. She was there to receive an answer from her husband to a specific question.

  “I see a man with a short, rough beard,” said Gil. “He has medium-length wavy brown hair that he hasn’t cut in months.”

  That was her Mark!

  “He wouldn’t wash it for months either,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “He was a tall and muscular man,” said Gil. “He liked to work out at the gym frequently.”

  “Yes. He had your height and build,” Abby said, although he wasn’t a sharp dresser like you, she thought. Gil was resplendent in a grey pinstriped suit, a lavender-colored shirt and a purple tie that day. He was cute, and a little older than her, just the way she liked her men.

  “Mark didn’t like wearing suits, he was a jeans and t-shirt man,” Gil said.

  It seemed like Gil was replying to her thought. She needed to be careful around him. After all, he was a mind reader!

  “Mark always wore a black leather jacket,” said Gil. “You wear it to bed at night.”

  “I do,” she said as she closed her eyes and pictured the jacket laid across her pillow. Sometimes she wore little else. “It’s the closest I can get to having his arms around me as I sleep,” she said sadly. The jacket used to smell like a heady mix of Mark’s deodorant and his skin, but it had faded over the years. Nowadays she had to breathe in deeply to catch a faint memory of the scent.

  “He had several distinguishing features about his body,” said Gil. “I see a small mark just below his lip. It appears to be a scar from a piercing of some kind.”

  “That’s right!” she said. “He had a lip piercing. His boss forced him to take it out when he met with clients. One day, he got fed up and just took it out and left it out.”

  “I also see a tattoo of a girl’s name on his ankle,” said Gil. “But it’s not your name. It begins with “P”.”

  “Um, noooo. I don’t think so,” Abby said with a frown. She’d kissed every inch of Mark’s body, but she’d never seen a tattoo, much less one with another girl’s name on it.

  Gil was insistent.

  “Speak to his relatives about this. You’ll find out that I’m right,” he said confidently. “He’s also showing me that he had a large red birthmark or scar on his right hand, that’s shaped like a crescent moon.”

  “Now I know that’s right,” Abby agreed. “That was a scar from a motorcycle accident.”

  “And it was such an accident that took his life one day.”

  She looked out the window, lost in thought.

  “Yes. It was…”

  Gil closed his eyes.

  “Abby, I’m receiving a very clear vision... I’m there the day that Mark passed... I hear the roaring engine of the motorcycle… I’m feeling the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, and an incredible sense of freedom... The road twists and winds as it clings to a coastline of sheer, rocky cliffs… I see the waves are beaten into white froth against the jagged rocks below… I think I’m riding on Highway 1 along the central California coast.”

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “He was driving on Devil’s Slide. It’s a very dangerous road.”

  “It’s narrow and treacherous with many sharp drop-offs into the ocean,” said Gil. “I’m starting to sense impending danger so I’m staying alert... Fuck… I see another car coming from the opposite direction but it’s on my side of the road... It looks like it’s full of teenagers trying to pass a slower vehicle... I’m feeling angry, not scared at all. Fucking little punks. I swerve to avoid the oncoming car...”

  He drew a sharp intake of breath.

  “I hit something! Oh, shit! …I feel like I’m falling… I’m thrown onto something hard and sharp and everything turns black…”

  Gil opened his eyes. There were tears in them.

  Abby nodded furiously. “That’s exactly what happened. Mark swerved and hit another car parked by the side of the road. The impact catapulted him off his bike and straight into a cliff face.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Don’t worry,” Gil said kindly. “He didn’t suffer. It’s well known that people who die in car accidents leave their bodies before impact.”

  “Is he still seeing this blackness?” she asked in fear. “Is he in limbo or the void?”

  “No, he chose the light and has crossed over,” Gil assured her. “Mark survives in the world of spirit. He watches over you and protects you. He says you haven’t always done a good job of taking care of yourself.”

  She sighed. “Boy, is that the truth!”

  Gil appeared confused.

  “Mark tells me that you were once known by another name, but not a maiden name or nickname. I think he’s talking about an alias of some kind. I see a pair of beautiful brown eyes, just like yours, and some sort of black-colored gemstone that looks like onyx or jet…”

  “Jet Brown…” she whispered in disbelief.

  How could he possibly know this?

  “That’s it!” he said. “But this isn’t your real name.”

  “No,” she said, looking at the floor. “It was my pseudonym. I, um…I… worked in the sex industry,” she admitted with a cringe. “But I wasn’t a stripper or a phone sex worker. Jet Brown was my screen name. I was an adult actress. A porn star,” she blathered. “My first producer came up with the name for me because my hair is jet black and my eyes are brown. Maybe you’ve seen a film I’ve starred in?”

  Gil sat back in his chair and scoffed a little.

  “No offense, but with my lifestyle I don’t have much of a need for that kind of entertainment,” he said.

  Abby was relieved. She didn’t like the kind of guy who watched those kinds of movies, even though she appeared in them.

  “I get recognized on the street all the time,” she said. “Guys don’t say anything to me though because they’re with their wives or girlfriends. They just stare at me. They know who I am and they know that I know they know.”

  Gil shifted in his chair, looking uncomfortable.

  “Forgive me for this. Mark insists I validate the reading by saying something to you that’s… quite explicit.”

  She wondered what could be more explicit than the fact that she’d been a porn star.

  “Well, I want to hear everything Mark has to say,” she said.

  Gil paused.

  “He says that you and he were into…kinky sex.”

  “That’s right,” she said as a light blush crept over her face.

  “But we’re not talking fluffy pink handcuffs and feather play. You two were into the hardcore stuff, like BDSM, and rough play…”

  She smiled to herself. Only Mark would want to talk about sex from beyond the grave.

  “You’re definitely in contact with my husband!” she said.

  “He says that since his death, you haven’t been able to find a lover who can please you,” said Gil. “You like a man to be…aggressive. He says you have…” Gil cleared his throat. “…He says you have a rape fetish.”

  She nodded. This personal information definitely validated the reading for her.

  “I, um…still want to try that sometime,” she admitted. “But as Mark used to say, acting out a rape fantasy is just roleplaying. It’s still consensual. It’s not rape. We never knew how to make it real while keeping it safe.”

  “Abby, you need to be carefu
l what you wish for,” Gil said in a fatherly way that turned her on a little bit. “Now, Mark says you’re now out of the…movie industry,” he said, changing the topic.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m working in an office for an accounting firm. It’s not as “exciting” as the porn industry, but it pays the bills and allows me to save some money.”

  “And you’re trying to save enough to attend nursing school.”

  “That’s right!”

  “I see you working with small children.”

  “I hope so,” she said with a sigh. “I really want to work in pediatrics. I just love kids.”

  “I see you finding the money to be able to afford college very soon.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” she said as she ran her fingers through her hair nervously. “I made a bit of cash shooting pornos, but that’s running out fast. Just before he died, Mark told me that if anything ever happened to him, I’d be taken care of. What did he mean by that?”

  “He had a premonition. He knew he was going to die,” Gil explained. “Mark wants me to say that you have money owed to you that you don’t know about. He had an insurance policy you need to claim,” Gil revealed.

  She clasped her hands to her face in shock.

  “Oh my God! Thank you, Mark!” she said as she began to cry into the sleeves of her leather jacket.

  Gil slid a box of tissues towards her.

  He was silent as he let her cry for a while.

  “Abby…I’m starting to lose my connection to your husband,” he said as his eyes darted around the room. “Mark says goodbye, for now, and that he loves you… Our session has come to an end,” Gil announced gently as he reached across the table and placed his hand on hers. “I hope my reading gave you some comfort and closure.”

  “It sure did,” Abby said as she handed him her donation for the reading. “By the way, I heard that some psychics can channel the dead. Is that true?” she asked.