I do bow to you. Thanks for the review. haha

Most of this piece was actually born from notes I was taking on a completely different subject. I did some clustering, playing around with words and phrases.

I like your perspective here:

... for Melinda the mindreader was listening, his thoughts needed to remain occupied for his plan to work, ...

I didn't think of it like that. Neat. It helps the piece make better sense to me.