Chapter 18 #2
Ryker dug in, closing his eyes in bliss at the first bite. “God, I missed this. Mom’s cooking is great, but our Thai place is the best.”
“I know, right?” I savored my curry, reveling in the perfect balance of spices. “Hey, want to watch another episode of Ghost Therapist?”
Ryker perked up. “Always.”
“Perfect.” I used the remote to navigate to our streaming service, finding where we’d left off before spring break.
The show featured Dr. Vivian Shade, a self-proclaimed paranormal psychologist, and her sidekick, Marty, as they traveled to allegedly haunted hotspots across the country. Instead of exorcising spirits, they claimed to help them “process their emotional baggage and cross over peacefully.”
Their method consisted of Dr. Shade speaking soothingly to empty rooms while Marty waved his homemade “Emotional Energy Detector” around doorways and corners. His fancy tool was unmistakably a modified toaster decked out with dollar-store Christmas lights.
Each episode followed the same predictable formula, where a homeowner or small-town historical society would describe the standard repertoire of phantasmagorical bullshit of footsteps on the stairs and moving objects.
Dr. Shade would then declare, “Just because you can walk through walls doesn’t mean you should keep your emotional walls up, too. ”
The team would then spend forty minutes in near-total darkness, jumping at every house-settling noise and furnace click, while having one-sided conversations with the “Victorian child trapped on the staircase” or the “murdered woman still seeking justice.”
The show’s dedication to taking itself completely seriously while presenting zero actual evidence was what made it one of our guilty pleasure shows.
“What’s it gonna be tonight?” I asked, hovering over the season three menu. “The episode where they help the basement ghost confront why she’s still haunting the laundry room?”
“While ‘Spin Cycle of Grief’ is a classic, I don’t need the reminder of my laundry pile,” Ryker groaned between bites. “Dr. Shade spends twenty minutes trying to commune with a washing machine. Even for this show, that’s excessive.”
“Fair point.”
“What about the ‘Mummified Emotions’ incident?” I suggested. “Dr. Shade tearfully pulling out her scissors as she explains her plan to ‘Remove the metaphorical and literal wrappings of trauma’ as the curator rips her a new asshole is epic.”
Harley did a perfect impression of the poor curator. “‘I have four degrees and dedicated my life to preserving history, and you want to destroy it for an episode of your pseudoscientific garbage fire of a show? I’ll turn you into a mummy before I ever let that happen!’”
“What about ‘Paranormal Buck Fever’ instead?” Ryker suggested. “The one where they investigate that hunting lodge in Michigan?”
I snorted. “Oh my god, yes. Two men in a tree stand making out between hunting sessions while Dr. Shade tries to convince them the ghost of a twelve-point buck is stalking them for revenge.”
“The way Marty kept pointing his toaster at deer droppings and declaring them ‘ectoplasmic residue from the spirit realm’ was nothing short of brilliant. Meanwhile, those guys were more interested in each other than any paranormal activity.”
That reminded me of another one of my favorites. “Oh! I know.” I clicked through to season four. “Let’s rewatch ‘Spectral Study Session.’ The one at that college library where Dr. Shade tries to create a therapeutic space in the restricted archives for the ghost of a grad student.”
“Who could forget Marty using his toaster detector to scan a microfiche machine, dropping it, and breaking both?” Ryker snickered. “My favorite part is when the librarian loses her shit on them and forgets to be quiet as she tells them off.”
“Ghost Therapist at its finest.” After I selected it, the melodramatic theme music filled our apartment as we ate dinner.
As the episode started, we fell into our usual routine of eating, mocking the show’s outrageous butchering of pop psychology, and quoting our favorite lines. The only difference was now, there was a new awareness that made the simple act of our knees touching feel like a major event.
I bided my time until Ryker was fully engrossed in the show before reaching over with my fork to steal a piece of his chicken.
“Hey!” he protested, although his grin betrayed his amusement. “Some things never change.”
“Why would they?” I shot back, popping the stolen morsel into my mouth. “Everyone knows food tastes better when you steal it.”
“You say that every time, yet you never order the red curry yourself.”
“Because then I’d have nothing to steal from you.” I flashed a cheeky grin before I bumped my shoulder against his. “Besides, you love it.”
To my surprise, he retaliated by snatching a piece of chicken from my container. “Two can play that game.”
“I’m corrupting you already,” I said with a laugh. “Next thing you know, you’ll be swiping my clothes and using my expensive shampoo.”
“I already do,” he confessed with a sheepish smile.
It was adorable he thought I was oblivious to his little secret. “Why do you think I keep buying it?”
His expression softened, and for a moment, I thought he might kiss me. Instead, he turned back to the TV, shifting closer to press our thighs together.
We polished off our meals as the episode reached its climax.
Dr. Shade arranged library books into a makeshift podium while the librarian scowled disapprovingly in the background.
“We are gathered here today to pay our respects to Minerva’s ethereal learning journey with a spectral academic validation graduation ceremony,” she announced with exaggerated solemnity.
I nudged Ryker. “Oh, this is my favorite part!”
He snorted in amusement. “I’m well aware.”
Dr. Shade spoke as if she stood in front of an entire auditorium of living people instead of being shushed by the irate librarian who clearly didn’t agree to filming.
“We are very proud to announce that Minerva is graduating magna cum laude with a double major in mortality transcendence and post-corporeal emotional phenomenology, along with a minor in liminal existential reconciliation from the School of Spectral Self-Actualization.”
“And I thought my degree was pretentious,” Ryker joked.
Dr. Shade continued. “We are pleased to announce her forthcoming posthumous dissertation is titled Hermeneutic Oscillations in the Post-Mortal Consciousness Landscape: The Dialectics of Spectral Being and Interpretive Hauntology as Praxis-Oriented Resistance to Ontological Finitude in Academically Adjacent Spaces, which represents a paradigm-shifting contribution to paranormal phenomenological studies. Her methodological framework of trans-dimensional textual analysis has already revolutionized how we understand intersectional thresholds of academic liminality within this discipline.”
I laughed until I couldn’t breathe. “That’s the absolute pinnacle of pseudo-intellectual paranormal gibberish jargon,” I wheezed. “Where do they even come up with this shit?”
Ryker wiped away tears from the corners of his eyes. “Can you imagine if they actually wrote her dissertation?”
Dr. Shade maintained her lofty demeanor, exuding the arrogance only a self-appointed ghost therapist could muster.
“In the spirit of fostering better communication between the ghostly intelligentsia and mere mortals, that translates to How Ghosts Challenge Our Ideas of Life and Death: Understanding Hauntings as a Way to Resist the Finality of Existence in Intellectual Spaces. I admit it’s a bit of circumlocution, but that’s essential for the depth of the topic. ”
I hit Pause, freezing Dr. Shade’s smug expression mid-sentence. “What the hell does ‘circumlocution’ mean? I’ve never bothered to look it up before.”
Ryker shrugged. “No idea. It sounds like something you’d need antibiotics for.”
I pulled out my phone and typed the word into the search bar. The definition was, “The use of many words where fewer would do, especially in a deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive.”
It explained so much as I showed Ryker my screen. “Wow, she used the fanciest term to admit she’s being unnecessarily verbose. That’s like apologizing for talking too much with a forty-minute lecture about brevity.”
Ryker chuckled. “I can’t believe she managed to apologize, ‘Sorry for being long-winded,’ in the most pretentious way that makes her sound even more long-winded.”
“Exactly! I love how she needed a special term to explain her inability to speak plainly.”
“The irony is delicious. Almost as much as watching you try to spell ‘circumlocution’ as ‘circumlotion’ first. Were you thinking of lotion for some reason?” Ryker’s cheeky grin made me laugh.
“Hey, not everyone can spell weird words they’ve never seen before.”
Ryker chuckled. “Fair enough.”
“I bet Dr. Shade uses circumlocution during sex,” I mused, a wicked gleam in my eye. “Instead of saying, ‘I’m coming,’ she probably goes, ‘I am approaching the zenith of physical and emotional stimuli, culminating in a physiological response characterized by rhythmic muscular contractions and—’”
Ryker swung a pillow at my head. “Stop! I’m going to have that mental image stuck in my head forever now.”
“I’m only practicing my circumlocution skills, snookums,” I grinned, dodging the blow. “Why use three words when thirty will do?”
“If you ever start talking like Dr. Shade in bed, I’m breaking up with you,” he warned, struggling to keep a straight face.
I crawled across the couch toward him, my voice dropping to a seductive whisper. “Are you suggesting you prefer direct communication regarding my intentions toward your esteemed personage, rather than labyrinthine musings on my carnal desires?”
“I would greatly appreciate it if you could momentarily cease your linguistic acrobatics and instead redirect that oral dexterity toward a more physically expressive interaction with my lips,” Ryker joked, grabbing the front of my shirt.