"Matilda, what do you say we cut it 'quits' early and head back to the Hotel?" Jenny asked casually.

Matilda checked her watch. It was only about 1:30. They were eating lunch at Pluto's Dog House, and can you guess the menu? In two and a half days, they had nearly exhausted all the rides at Disneyland, including the little kid's ones. They had one more day left, before they would head home on a late flight tomorrow night. They'd planned it that way so that they would be able to sleep.

"Sure, no problem" she said, "But why?"

"I would like to do some shopping." Jenny said, with a broad wink.

Matilda blinked back. She didn't get it.

"Hmm, your birthday is coming up so soon, isn't it?" Jenny commented significantly.

"Ooh, I got it," Matilda said, getting it. "Fine by me. I was hoping to get a chance to check out the pool anyway."

"Perfect."

So that was what Jenny was doing now at a local Mall within walking distance of the hotel. She found Matilda some presents, yes, and found herself buying herself a new purse as well. As she was shopping she was thinking about all that Matilda had told her about how her telekinesis worked, especially about how it seemed to be connected to her eyesight.

That gave her an idea. While in a Macy's department store -- the same one, incidentally, where she found the purse -- she bought a black satin scarf. Then she went into a Toys-R-US Store and bought a two pound sack of marbles and a plastic pail to put them in.

She got back to the hotel room to find it empty. Matilda must still be down at the pool. She turned on the Television and started to flip channels. Eventually she settled on a marathon of an American show called House MD which had UK Actor Hugh Lorrie on it playing an acerbic and crippled diagnostician who seemed to want to bone his best friend, the head Oncologist. It was funny to hear Hugh put on an American accent.

At around 4:30 pm, Matilda arrived back at the room. Her hair was dripping wet and she was wrapped in one of the large fluffy white bathrobes that came with the room. Jenny had hidden Matilda's presents in her bag, but she had put the marbles in the bucket on the counter next to the TV.

Naturally, the first thing Matilda said was "What are the marbles for?"

Now Jenny found herself stuttering, something, as a teacher who talked spontaneously in front of children every day, she never did. "I was uh, I was uh…" She hadn't at all expected to have to explain this so soon, though in retrospect she should have done something else with the marbles. Finally, she settled herself. This wasn't embarrassing at all, she told herself firmly. She swallowed, and then started again: "I was thinking about what you said about your powers last night. I came up with an idea, while I was shopping that might be testable in a controlled way." She did not blush. It was a miracle.

Matilda did blush. Matilda had tested her powers in multiple ways before and never managed to be able to control anything, and while she knew that there was no way this test could be anything like 'those' tests, she had no idea how they could be different. Therefore, the blush.

"Go on," she said, horribly curious.

"You told me that your power comes from your eyes. You can only affect things which you can see."

"Yes, but I can keep things moving after I stop looking at them if I set a pattern in time and space."

Jennifer nodded, and added as an afterthought, "You know, you must have an immense ability toward spatial reasoning. That's supposed to be unusual for a girl."

"Yeah, I suppose so," Matilda said. She'd never really thought about it. She already knew she was unusual for her intelligence alone. She considered this as just yet another form of intelligence.

"But, what I meant is that you absolutely must see it first. You can't move anything by visualizing it with your eyes closed."

"No," Matilda said, firmly.

"So, what would happen if you weren't able to see?" Jenny said, seeing if her brightest student could follow her reasoning.

"Oh, no, I've tried that already. Eventually the pressure got to be so much that I had to open my eyes." She blushed again, and concentrated on not imagining any images at all. "You remember that time when I made the house shake like an Earthquake?"

"I remember," Jenny said evenly.

"That was when I tried that. But my power grew in me so much that I couldn't help it, I opened my eyes. I sort of just threw the power at the walls of my room, all at once, hoping that they would, I don't know, anchor it somehow. I wasn't thinking all that clearly at the time."

Jenny cleared her throat before talking. "Mm, yes. But I wasn't actually talking about just closing your eyes," and now Miss Honey drew something black and soft from her purse.

That purse is new Matilda thought, distractedly, and then she realized what it was that Jennifer was holding, bunched lightly in her hands. A black silk scarf. She felt her stomach flutter in nervous anticipation. She thought furiously - The hotel falling on top of us, people screaming, debris, crushed broken bones. It was no use. The beast behind her eyes had awoken. She searched furiously and saw a book lying on her bed, in front of which Jennifer was currently standing.

Jennifer. Ever since she'd told Jenny about her attraction toward her, her mind had started calling the woman Jennifer, something she'd never done in the past.

"This is a bad idea, Jenny." Matilda said. No, her body sang, this was a very good idea. "We don't know what might happen. I could hurt you."

"That's what the marbles are for, and whatever the case, I'm sure it will be perfectly safe."

For you, maybe but I think this might just break me, Matilda thought melodramatically.

"Alright, we just need to set the parameters of the experiment." An Experiment. Yes. The scientific testing of a hypothesis. It was the only way that Jenny could rationalize this plan. I just want to help Matilda. This might lead to a cure.

"Now?" Matilda squeaked.

"Do you want to do it later? After dinner maybe? You must be hungry, since you just spent the last couple hours swimming."

"N-no!" Matilda said, a bit louder than she meant. The anticipation would probably kill her by then.

"Ok, then. Parameters: I'm just going to touch you on your arm." She frowned and then asked, "That will work right?"

"Miss Honey, look to your left." was all Matilda could say.

Jenny looked to her left, and saw a book floating beside her shoulder.

"I see. Ok then. Good." She pulled a chair that came with the room near to her bed, so that she would be able to reach Matilda while she sat in it. "You just sit here. When you have to, tell me when you need me to stop, or I'll decide when I think it's gone on long enough."

Matilda sat. At this point, her brain had gone on a little vacation, leaving her on autopilot. She put her hands at her sides, then brought them together and clasped them in her lap.

Jenny put the bucket of marbles on the bed next to where she was going to sit.

But first she folded the scarf about 3 times, so that it was it was completely opaque. No light would be able to come through at all. As an extra precaution, she turned off the electrical lights and closed the window shades. She could still see, since it was daylight outside and some light still seeped in through the closed shades, but it was much darker in the room. Then she stood behind Matilda began to tie the scarf around her head.

Matilda, her eyes already closed, felt the silky soft material of the scarf slide against her face like a caress. Jenny pulled it tight and tied it in a firm knot.

"Matilda," she said; her voice rather soft, "drop the book."

Matilda found that small little place in her mind that still held the book up in the air and shut it off. Immediately, she felt the beast behind her eyes grow stronger, still bearable, but more noticeable.

"Open your eyes."

Matilda opened her eyes into blackness so pitch it was exactly the same as keeping them closed.

"Can you see the scarf?"

She was expected to speak during this thing? Had that been in the agreed parameters?

"No," she managed.

"Can you move it with your mind? Try and take it off."

Matilda tentatively tried to direct a bit of her power at the blackness in front of her face. But there was nothing to see. She couldn't latch it on to anything at all. It made her power restless though. She did not know when she had started to think of her power as a living being, but since it certainly wasn't under her control, she found the metaphor fit a little too well.

"I cannot." Matilda said clearly.

"I thought so," said Jenny. Technically, she supposed that she could end the test now. Matilda couldn't direct her power anywhere when she was completely blind.

And yet, the parameters of the test had been that she would touch Matilda on her arm until Matilda told her to stop. So, she sat on the bed in front of Matilda, and took one of her hands in her own.

"I'm going to touch your arm now," she said by way of warning. And then she paused. "I can't touch your arm through your robe. Slip your shoulder out."

Matilda, with a little bit of Jenny's help, managed to get her shoulder out off its sleeve. Matilda felt a bit as if she was burning up. She knew her whole body was blushing, as her heart pumped blood everywhere at a furious pace, determined that every one of the nerves in her body have all the nutrients they needed to send clear information to her brain.

Even though she had helped tug Matilda's sleeve off, Jenny had managed not to touch her skin at all, except for her hand. As soon as her hand touched Matilda's shoulder and lightly ran down it, Jennifer's mind could no longer trick herself into thinking this was anything except wildly inappropriate. She taught "Good touch, Bad touch" to her students, so she knew. Although this was supposed to be a test, she was in no way a doctor. This was definitely in the realm of bad touch. As her mind desperately tried to send signals to her hand for it to cease and desist, her hand blithely ignored them and continued its leisurely path up and down Matilda's arm.

From Matilda's blind point of view, she thought she might start hyperventilating soon. Jenny's hand, with the lightest most whispery touch possible, kept tracing a path from her shoulder down to her hand, and out to the tips of her fingers, than back up again. Jennifer, she knew, was without a doubt, attempting to make her insane. The Beast, as she had so nicknamed her power, was roaring to come out. Heat that was not exactly heat and pressure that was not exactly pressure was building up within her. It was like holding her breath underwater, eventually her mouth would gulp for air, whether there was some to be found or not, so she'd better come up and get her head out of the water before she drowned.

Then Jenny's hand came up and caressed her neck, tangling her fingers lightly in Matilda's hair.

Jenny had been watching the expression on the face of the teenager in front of her. Matilda's mouth of was slightly open and she was breathing in an out at a slow measured pace. This seemed odd to her. Though she had never seen somebody becoming aroused in real life, she'd read enough books and seen enough movies to know that breathing in at out evenly was surely not a sign of it. It had been entirely in the pursuit of science that she had crossed her self made boundary and touched Matilda's neck and hair.

Matilda gasped, shuddering from head to toe, her hands grasping onto the seat of her chair like it was lifesaver. "Jennifer, Jenny, stop! I need to see. I need to see!" she whimpered. Even as she said this, her head was leaning into Jenny's hand, chasing the sensation.

Jenny whipped her hand back, knowing without a doubt that she had crossed a line, but not knowing exactly when she'd crossed it. Was is just now, or was it back in the department store, when she'd stood fingering the scarf on the rack?

Matilda ripped the scarf off her head and threw it on the ground. She could see. What could she see? Somehow, she managed to keep the beast at bay for the time it took to locate the bucket of marbles.

The marbles burst out of the bucket together like swarm of bees. But Matilda was in control of these bees. She spread them out around the room and set them in a dance that was a fractal exploded into the third dimension, each marble obeying a code that was written only in her head. The marbles went everywhere, but they didn't touch the walls, the TV, the floor, or the windows. They neared, but never violated the space of the two people what that stood shock still within this maelstrom of glass. Finally, after what seemed like hours of motion, but was actually only minutes, the marbles suddenly stopped moving entirely. Then, as one, they all fell to the floor with a sound that was exactly like rain.

Matilda slumped in her chair, mentally and physically exhausted.

"Jesus Christ! I'm sorry, Matilda, I should not have done that." Jenny said.

"I'm OK," Matilda reassured her, rubbing her hand against her face. It was still flaming red and her hands, at the extremities of her body, were much cooler. "But I guess you were wrong about your theory. I wasn't able to control anything."

"Don't be stupid," Jennifer announced.

It was a phrase that Matilda had never heard from her before, and she could do nothing but blink at the command.

"You proved both of my hypotheses right.

"You had two of them?" Matilda asked. Genius though she was, she felt that she was failing Jennifer's command that she "don't be stupid" quite completely.

"A. When you could not see, you could not use your telekinesis at all. B. You didn't hurt me. You didn't even mess up anything in the room. You were in control."

Matilda looked at the marbles that were spread out across the breadth and width of the room and raised a skeptical eyebrow at Jennifer. Jenny's definition of 'in control' had to be one she had never heard of before.

"That's nothing. You didn't do anything destructive, is what I meant."

Matilda nodded. Then she realized how destructive 2 pounds of marbles being tossed around a room could have been, and paled.

"You shouldn't have been in here. That was way too dangerous! I could have killed you!" she scolded shrugging back into her robe angrily.

Jennifer grabbed her arm, careful to touch only the robed part, and said seriously, "I had complete and utter confidence that I was safe. I know you, Matilda, you wouldn't have hurt me."

Matilda pulled out of her grip, and went to sit dolefully on her bed.

"What was the point of this?" she asked. "After the scarf comes off, I'm still going to cause an explosion, pun most definitely intended," Matilda muttered.

"I've got a theory on that too. Don't worry, we won't test it," Jenny hurried to reassure her. "The reason your power is coming out in barely controllable spurts right now is because it's all bound up with a mental block in your head. It seems to connect best with emotions you are hiding, or are for some reason unable to express. When you were a child, the emotions it attached itself too were anger and boredom. Then it went away when you were no longer angry or intellectually stunted. Now you've begun going though puberty. That's a clue in and of itself as to why your power is choosing to show itself now after disappearing for 9 years."

Jenny looked into directly into Matilda's eyes, as if to search out any lie. "You've been hiding your attraction to me for a long time, right?"

Matilda could not hold the connection. She looked away. "Yeah, from myself as well," she said, "for at least a year."

"That's why your power is connected to your feelings of attraction and arousal."

"I know," Matilda said. And she did. She'd figured all this out ages ago.

"Then I think I know a way you could break the block."

"How?" Matilda asked in a voice devoid of hope.

"I think," and Jenny tried to figure out a way to say this that would not sound like it came out of a bad erotic novel (not that she read those, mind you) but failed.

"I am certain that if you ever reached climax without letting your power out, you'd break the block. Its bound up in emotions which you hide, so expressing those emotions, sating them, as you said before, should erase the block."

The conversation was too serious for Matilda to get embarrassed about the subject matter.

"How am I supposed to that?" she said crossly, "Even with the scarf, there is no way I'd be able to keep myself from ripping it off. When my power wants to come out, it has too. I could no more stop it than suffocate myself by holding my breath."

"Not if your hands were tied down." Jenny flushed deeply red as she realized the unintentional meaning of her words, especially when her mind perversely combined the image of Matilda made blind by the scarf with an image of her hands tied above her head at the same time.

Matilda was completely shocked, and even more turned on by words that she could not believe Jenny had had the audacity to say. But by now she was an old hand at finding things to do with her telekinetic power. She used it to pull all the marbles she could see into the middle of the room.

Jennifer politely ignored the marbles rolling off of her bed and onto the floor. "I guess you should probably try that with Shauna then, sometime after you get back."

The link to her power disappeared completely as Matilda felt an ill lurch in her gut. She had forgotten momentarily the crucial fact that Jennifer did not share her feelings. Then she closed her eyes and considered the facts closely and rationally. She imagined letting Shauna bring her to orgasm. Her power barely flexed. Then she shook her head.

"No, I'm afraid that wouldn't work at all," she said.

"Why not?"

When Matilda looked into her eyes, Jennifer recognized the challenge within.

"Because I'm not in love with Shauna. I'm in love with you."

From somewhere in her subconscious mind, Jenny felt a surge of fierce satisfaction at those words. But she knew she could not, ever, give rein to that feeling. Instead she spoke words that left her cold, words she wanted to take back even before they left her mouth.

"Then I guess you will just have to stop being in love with me."

Matilda looked and felt as if she had just been sucker-punched. She shook her head, ever so slightly. She could feel the tears that were trying to spring to her eyes, but she wouldn't let them out.

"I uh, I uh…" she looked down at herself. She was still in her robe and swimsuit. "I'm going to go take a shower," she finally said. She turned around and walked to the bathroom. Although she felt shaky inside, she would have been relieved to know that she projected a mien of perfect calm.

Jennifer gathered all the marbles she could find into the bucket. Matilda had managed to pull most of them to the center of the room already, so it was fairly easy. Then she went and turned on the TV to another House. M.D. episode. Somehow, she found it easy to not think of anything at all.