Dreams to Come

DREAMS TO COME by Mister E

Email feedback to: [email protected] Able to control the direction of his dreams, the women inside of David’s sleeping mind can’t resist him. The question is: Just how real can dreams become? mc md mf ff ma

Chapter One — Lucid In The Skies “Uh-oh, here come the boobs.” Yes indeed, and I’m certain that I am in love. Not real love — I know that I don’t have a clue what that’s all about. No, this is just well deserved anatomical love, Gina Marie Hurt style. Her school sweater stands out — way out — a firmly bound bundle of boobage jutting and strutting through the glass doors of The Pizza Escape. She’s flanked by two lesser lovelies and they’re a noisy group, chirping into cell phones with their sneakers squeaking on the freshly mopped floor. But it’s the grandly overstretched sweater on a trim cheerleader frame that draws the eyes of every patron in the joint. I watch longingly as tanned legs and a mile of cleavage pour into a neighboring booth, and I understand why some guys jokingly add an “s” onto Gina Marie’s last name. Just looking at that girl hurts. “Reel in the tongue before I put a fork through it,” I hear, reluctantly tearing my gaze away and back to Sophie, sitting directly across from me. “There are hot toppings right in front of you, idiot,” she admonishes, biting aggressively into a slice of our pizza. I think that I hear a certain kind of reproach in her tone, the kind that a guy might expect from his girlfriend. Only Sophie is not my girlfriend, yet. I want her to be, but until then she has no business writing out a parking ticket for my eyeballs. Which, admittedly, keep sneaking back to the remarkable rack bouncing around at the other table. I confess that I’ve been obsessed with Gina Marie’s knockers since they first began to knock-knock in middle school. When a girl like Gina Marie turns into a girl like Gina Marie, she becomes elemental, and some part of you recognizes that it needs her. The trouble, of course, is that this vital need is hopelessly onesided. Gina Marie and I were and still are next-door neighbors — some of my earliest memories involve having fun with her as sandbox playmates in pre-school. Now that she looks like one — an especially busty Playmate, all airbrush smooth with the glowing blonde hair and taut body — she treats me like I belong to a different species, a less evolved one subject to misfortunes unknown to the hot and the beautiful. I have my new digital camera resting on the table, and I turn the flash off, pointing it at Gina Marie to take a stealth photo. The light is low and the lens is wide-angled, so if her boobs even show up in focus, they'll probably appear far away, elusive — exactly how I experience them in real life. “Pervert," Sophie admonishes, placing the palm of her hand in front of the lens. "Stop dreaming, boobbrain. You wouldn’t even know what to do with those things.”

Hah, and again I hear that hint of possessiveness in Sophie’s voice. I’m about to point this out to her, but then I look at her, and I mean I really look at her, and what she said a minute ago about hot toppings takes on a whole new meaning. My friend, Sophie Moran, is also wearing a sweater, and there are substantial shapes beneath the wool that wouldn’t have been there a few months ago. Sophie is what you’d call a late bloomer — she’s never going to bring anything like Gina Marie’s proportions to the table, but still… She’s got a wonderful body overall, topped off with green eyes and the kind of full lips that drive me wild. And dimples. On a really cute girl there’s no defense against them, and Sophie’s are so deep that they turn the simplest of smiles into a heartconquering weapon. “You know, I think you’re just as good-looking as Gina Marie,” I say before I can stop myself. “Oh, right,” she smiles crookedly, the dimples dancing. “And these mushrooms on our pizza didn’t come from a can.” I’ve always loved Sophie’s self-deprecating sense of humor. The thing is, I really don’t think she knows how lovely she’s become, which is kind of cool. I wonder for an instant why we’ve never done the wetlands wiggle with each other’s private parts… Oh, right — we haven’t done it because she keeps turning me down. I’ve had pup-tent jeans and hot, frisky hands several times with Sophie, and she proved quite capable at parrying my groping fingers. The last time I tried to make a move on her in my car she nearly broke my right index finger. I keep my hands to myself these days, though they still do all kinds of shit to her body in the privacy of my mind. “The ‘privacy of your mind?’” Sophie asks out of nowhere. “You think that even exists?” “Huh? How did…” “Do you hear that?” Sophie asks, lifting her head. The question seems strange for some reason. I do hear something — a regularly pulsing whine, which I brush off as some sort of oven alert for the pizza guys. “No, it has nothing to do with pizza. It’s something else,” Sophie comments, taking my hand. “How did you know what I was thinking?” “Listen, David. Listen carefully. Aren’t you supposed to pay attention to this?” I listen more closely. She’s right, and for some reason the hair on my arms sticks straight up. I’ve heard this sound before, and I know, almost instinctively, that it has unique importance. This sound is trying to tell me something. It’s just a repeating soft whine, steady and monotonous… “I’m dreaming!” I exclaim. “This is all a dream!” It’s true. Energy courses all through my body from the force of the realization. My body — I didn’t even have a body, not here. My body is sound asleep in the present time, having a dream that I’m a teen-ager again. The pulsing whine is coming from the alert device within the research facility’s sleep environment, doing its job to signal me that I’m asleep, so that I can take control of my dream.

Nothing here is real — this pizza joint, Sophie herself at age sixteen, Gina Marie and her grandiose gazongas — they’re all a remarkably accurate memory, almost an exact replay of the way it was one particular night almost eight years ago. I can remember that Sophie and I left this place and drove around the countryside by silvery moonlight, parking for a time and skipping stones on the tranquil surface of a little estuary, talking about classes, and friends, and the future. Once it had closed for the night, we snuck into the diner that Sophie’s parents ran, getting tipsy on pilfered beer from the tap. There had been some close slow dancing to jukebox tunes with the sound turned low, and one of Sophie’s hands creeping down from my waist, eventually venturing to squeeze my erection. I remember her heated sigh, and the way she collapsed onto one of the swivel stools, leaning back against the counter with her lips all wet and sultry. I got my hands under her shirt that night, without them being swatted away. I rolled her nipples and she encouraged me to go further, lifting her shirt and removing her bra to reveal two perfect young breasts with nipples as hard as bullets. She groaned when my tongue explored the entirety of her right breast, and I could smell the excitement rising up from her tight jeans. I got the button and zipper open, slipping my fingers down to feel the texture of her soft pubic hairs. My middle finger touched wetness, a slippery furnace heating the both of us to near bursting… But that was where Sophie drew the line. With a hard push from her legs she swiveled so that her back was to me, and pleaded for me to leave before her parents discovered us, and we did something we’d both regret. I’ve regretted it all right. I protested, and she whispered that we’d find another moment, our moment, the right time and a private place. Only that moment never came. Sophie cared for me; I hadn’t imagined that. And she’d wanted me, her pussy wet and aching. She just hadn’t been aching enough. “David?” her dream-self says now, an odd kind of awareness illuminating her features. “Something’s… different. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.” “No, it isn’t,” I agree, my voice thick with all the things that never happened between us. “And what you’re going to do isn’t the way we wanted it to be, either. You’re… I stop, because I was going to say “your dad”, telling her what she shouldn’t know. This isn’t really Sophie, and the events have already happened, long ago. I know that her life went on after the grief — even so, I can’t bring myself to say that her dad is going to drown in the Chesapeake Bay only three days from this night. “You’re going to do some things you can’t even imagine,” is all I say. “You speak like you know the future, and I don’t, ” Sophie replies, eyeing me oddly. “You think events are set in stone, don't you?” I do, and much of the future sucks. “You’re going to spend most of next summer in Italy,” I decide to inform her, omitting the main reason that her world and her plans get turned upside-down. “You meet an older guy named Leonardo over there, and you carry on a long distance relationship that frustrates the both of you. By the time you come to your senses you’re in college at Stanford. You end up marrying an economics major in your senior year, although that’s headed for divorce.” She laughs. “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

I always adored that vertical line right there between her eyebrows when she laughs. And the devastating dimples, my God. Though the indications are already there, she has no clue that she’ll be the loveliest girl in our school, without question, by the time she graduates. I lean forward, scrutinizing the details of her face the way a farmer might observe planted soil, looking for the blossoming that I know will come. The detail in this dream is amazing. Her fine hair looks exactly like hair, and she has eyelashes, even pores. Curious, I search for an area of vagueness, some glossed-over abbreviation that must exist in a dream reality, but I can’t find one anywhere. It’s all there, and totally convincing. I pick up a slice of the pizza next, feeling its warmth on my hand. Tilting the slice this way and that, the overhead lights make wavering reflections on the greasy sheen of mozzarella cheese, and more complex highlights on the texture of the mushrooms and pepperoni slices. This is one hell of a detailed dream, with mouth-watering smells and graphic textures. I would swear that I’m awake, that everything here is real. “Sophie? Pinch me.” “Why?” “Pinch my cheek, hard. I’m certain that this is all a dream, so it shouldn’t hurt.” She rolls her eyes but does as I ask by reaching out, roughly grabbing the flesh around my mouth. “Owww!” “What did you expect?” I’m not sure, but I’m being silly, asking someone from this world to confirm the dream reality. Now that I’m consciously aware of my state within the dream — lucid-dreaming, the very thing we’ve been striving for — there should be few limits to what I can do. Remembering the guidelines, I concentrate, willing myself to levitate into the air. In an instant I’m sitting cross-legged with my head brushing the ceiling. “Congratulations!” Sophie exclaims, staring up. I stare back down at her, amazed. Not because I’m free of gravity’s pull — there is no gravity here. No, what’s unexpected is that my body is still down there, sitting across from Sophie, even though I’m up here. I’ve studied a checklist of lucid-dreaming situations, and there is a hierarchy of experiments for testing the boundaries of what is possible, but splitting into two dream-Davids was never covered in my training. I try to get a sense of my form up here — do I have a body, or am I more like pure thought? I raise my hands in front of my face — I have hands and a face — then interlock my fingers and crack my knuckles. It sure seems like I have a body, but that means that I’m somehow in two places at the same time. Or three places, if you count my real self, lying in the sleeping chamber of the lab. “David… it’s true that you’re dreaming. But that means I’m… what?” Not real, I think. Essentially what I’m reading as Sophie is nothing more than a memory. “Don’t sell me short,” she says. “I could be more than you realize.”

I ignore her, because this is like conversing with a phantom, and there are things I need to do. The team wants to know if I can will myself to various locations on the globe — the first destination is supposed to be a particular office in London, a real place that I’ve only seen in photographs. I picture it in my mind and I’m suddenly there, easy as pie. It’s a colorless office with morning light streaming through tall windows, and I notice packing boxes stacked high along one wall. It’s cold in here, and I see a dark-haired young man sitting in front of a computer, wearing a ski jacket over his sport coat. Also gloves, which make it difficult for him to type properly on his keyboard. It’s my dream, so the lack of heat isn’t real, but the poor dream character sure seems to feel it. I apologize for the cold, but he doesn’t seem to hear me or see me. I’m supposed to think myself to an office in Singapore next. Again I make it happen in a flash. It’s sweaty hot here, and the room is totally empty, which is different than in the photos they showed me. Perth, Australia is next on the list. I hesitate, I guess because it’s Australia, and everybody knows what that’s like these days. It would only be a dream representation of the place; even so, I don’t think myself there. I’m in unknown terrain in here, inside a second dream-body while my other one must still be in The Pizza Escape, which doesn't even exist in real life anymore. Is this normal, to be split in two inside of a dream? Is it safe to leave my other self sitting there unattended? They, the experts with all the answers, are out there in the real world, monitoring my real body with all their fancy instruments. They’re with me in a sense, probably measuring my every thought or effort, but for the moment they’re totally unreachable, of no use to me until I wake up. I’m not afraid. What I feel is more like a sudden lusting for freedom. Rather than transporting to Australia as they wish, I think about flying high into the atmosphere, or leaving the earth altogether. With the speed of thought I’m there, hovering in the nighttime sky with billowy clouds down below. Interestingly, it’s the lights of Osprey Flats beneath me, not Singapore, and not halfway between Baltimore and Washington D.C., where my actual body is. I’m looking down at my high school world where the dream began, not the real world where my body sleeps. The winds shove a big cloud in my direction, and I roll onto my back to rest on top of it the way a cartoon character might do. I have to laugh, because it’s all so effortless, with something as impossible as flying requiring no more effort than thinking it into being. Out into space, I feel the stars beckon, aiming upwards, pushing the limits. I wonder if I’ll have difficulty breathing, but of course there is no need for air. I pause once, looking back to see the earth in semi-shadow, the curved horizon glowing blue much like nighttime footage I’ve seen from shuttle missions. When I return my head to front, some glint of light catches my eye, and I aim in that direction. It’s a satellite of some kind, but without broad wings to absorb solar energy for power. I move in close, and see markings that I take to be Chinese. This is some great dream detail, but not all that interesting. Deep space, I decide, instantaneously flying further away, feeling the earth receding behind. I’ve always been fascinated with Hubble telescope photographs of nebulae and colliding galaxies, and here in the dream, why shouldn’t I be able to will myself halfway across the universe? Only it isn’t easy any more. It surprises me to see that I’ve begun to stroke with my arms and legs, as though swimming in water, not space, trying to push against a powerful current flowing in the opposite direction. Hoping — no, believing that the invisible resistance is only an illusion within an illusion, I make what

begins to register as a superhuman effort, willing myself forward, refusing to surrender. I feel my physicality in a new way, my heart straining, muscles tiring. I don’t have any actual muscles, I remind myself — but fuck, I’m trembling, sweating. It has to be an effort of will that I’m feeling, flagging concentration transcribed through my brain to feel like a physical effort. Nevertheless, I become exhausted, and sense that I’m about to be yanked sternly back to earth. Enough! I concede, and within seconds I’m somehow back in The Pizza Escape, though still hovering near the ceiling. The other version of myself is still sitting in the booth below, but Sophie is gone. This is unsettling — can a dream character have an independent life and just walk out of my dream? I concentrate, willing her back into the scene, but she doesn’t appear. I wonder why, and also wonder what my other self has been doing during my high-flying absence. Carrying on a conversation, or stuffing pizza into its face? From all signs it — or he, or me — sat there motionless, like a puppet with no animating hand inside. A quick scan of the room reveals no other missing or lifeless patrons, and no one is gawking at my floating form. Gina Marie and her friends, for instance, carry on at their table just as before, seemingly unaware that a detached dream-me is hovering above. A dream-me with a spectacular birds-eye view right down Gina Marie’s straining blouse. Galloping gigaboobs would you look at those things! Like me, Gina Marie is only sixteen in this dream, and she got even bigger than this by the end of high school. Total overkill, because already she deserves her own website, and she’d have one of the most spectacular natural racks around. I drift a bit lower, and forward just a little, right over her head, and dream-gawk. My cock grows hard as can be — that certainly feels real enough in this unreal world. The possibility of dream sex was never discussed during my preparations, but how perfect that a vixen like Gina Marie Hurt would appear in a lucid dream. There are no repercussions to behaving badly in a place that doesn’t exist, so why not grab what I always wanted to grab? I’d never give myself the permission — or have the courage — to do what I have in mind in real life, but here in a dream it would be an absolute crime to let a chance like this slip away. I focus on Gina Marie, and will her into pulling off her sweater and shirt, to show off her huge breasts to everyone in the joint. Only nothing happens. Fuck — this my dream, isn’t it? I’m in control, or largely in control, and I should be able to make anybody do anything I wish. Show-off the magnificence of your tits to everybody, I repeat, this time thinking the thought more clearly. Again, it’s completely ineffectual. I pause, hovering in place, recalling what I’ve been told about my abilities, and how to go about making things happen. In the lucid state, I’m supposed to be able to go wherever I want, bending the narrative in a desired direction. There are limits — the example they gave involved me driving a Volkswagon Beetle with my mother in the passenger seat. Supposedly, I can’t change the VW into an ocean liner, or my mother into my sister, or a dog — I'm not like a magician or a witch, just blinking things differently. Certain parameters are set by the subconscious mind, but I can choose my own actions within this world, thereby affecting the actions of others. Or, as I’ve seen, I can suddenly transport myself to a dream-London, or a dreamSingapore, or wherever. Upon hearing that, I always assumed that I could do almost anything that came to mind within the dream world. But using their example, what if I wanted to make my mother in the VW bark like a dog, rather than be a dog? If I can affect the actions of others in a dream, how do I go about doing that?

Acknowledging that I know little about manipulating the actors upon this dream stage, I go in another direction. The girl to Gina Marie’s left — I think her name is/was Nicole Dampley — is another cheerleader, also with impressive tits. If I can’t get Gina Marie to react to me, maybe I can watch her play with someone else. Suck on Nicole’s nipples, I aim. Wrap your lips around Nicole’s nipples and stroke her pussy with your fingers. No dice. I think for a moment — maybe I’m going at this all wrong, by trying to move these people like puppets, rather than implanting the motivations that would cause them to do what I wish. It’s a testable theory, so I focus on Gina Marie, aiming feelings into her, rather than orders. Out of nowhere, you realize that you’re falling for David Sand, I beam at her. You want to be near him. You want to fuck him. You need to fuck him. I can’t see anything changing, but I feel like I’m on the right track. It’s hard to describe, but I get the sense that I’ve just sprinkled fairy dust into the atmosphere of my dream. Hovering there almost in her face, I expect Gina Marie to look up at me, or perhaps look over at the other me, her eyes glazing with a hunger like she’s never known. My dream-dick strains like I’m the one about to die of lust… But again, nothing, no response. I shout out a series of expletives in frustration, and it’s obvious that no one hears them. It’s like I’m a ghost here — an invisible and completely ineffectual ghost, making myself insanely horny for nothing. Gina Marie is stuck in dream-time, just like the freezing guy in London, and I can’t pull her outside of it. I’m not quick-tempered by nature, but being blocked gets to me and I throw something like a dream tantrum, getting right in Gina Marie’s face. I shout out what I want as if sheer volume will succeed where all else has failed: “You desperately need to fuck me!” I bellow. “You’re so excited that you feel like you’ll die of lust if you don’t get my hands squeezing your tits! Lust, goddammit! Overwhelming lust, building and building until you can’t stand it any more!” No reaction. “You’re dying to get Nicole’s nipples in your mouth!” I tack. “You‘re desperate to eat her pussy, do you hear me?” That last question reverberates in my mind and maybe in my ears as I suddenly wake up in my bedroom. I look around, completely disoriented. What happened to The Pizza Escape and Gina Marie? And this isn’t even my current bedroom in my current apartment, or the sleeping chamber inside the research facility. It’s the room I lived in back then, in my parents’ house in Osprey Flats. It’s late at night and I’ve awakened from sleep, restless with a hardened dick. I find it completely weird that I’ve awakened in bed, as a teen-ager, even though I’m really still asleep in current time — that makes the last dream with Sophie and Gina Marie a dream within a dream, one more thing that they neglected to prepare me for. It sort of pisses me off, because my training was obviously so inadequate. Why didn’t they tell me that everything might be so complicated, and layered? Why didn’t they give me a fucking roadmap? If there are rules to working within this fanciful environment — and there must be, since some things work and others don’t — then I’m going to have to continue to experiment, and discover the parameters for

myself. I wait a few moments to see if the dream is going to shift again, or if I might really wake up in the research lab. It’s completely quiet in the house, but through my open window comes the rhythmic chirping of crickets, surprisingly loud. It’s so different than in the city, where the hum of traffic and shouts from drunken bar-goers punctuate the night. I never realized until now how much I miss the gentle whir of insects, and other soothing sounds from my youth. It appears that my dream self is staying here for a bit, so I get out of bed and slip on the pair of summer shorts lying on the floor. Out in the upstairs hallway, I hear my father’s low and steady snoring, and I can’t resist peeking in on my parents, sleeping soundly in their bed. I see their bodies merged into one twoheaded mass under the covers, and it kind of gets to me, because my actual parents are separated now, with no hope of ever getting back together. Here in this dream world it’s like it was back then, the two of them holding tight to each other, instinctively seeking solace in the joining of bodies, the sharing of human warmth. They have no idea how quickly that will change, and how icy their relationship will become as their marriage unravels. These aren’t my real parents, I remind myself. There’s nothing I could do for them then, and it’s doubly true now. Closing the door on that part of the past, I ease down the stairs and out into the front yard, thinking that I might try to fly into outer space again. When I step off the sidewalk, I feel the cool carpet of grass pressing into my bare feet, and it surprises me that it feels so real and so comforting, all soft and damp with the scent of freshly mowed grass wafting in the midnight breeze. It’s a warm summer night, at least two months later in the season than the earlier dream. I listen to the steady repeating chirping of crickets… And then laugh. There are no crickets — it’s the alert device again, helping me to realize that I’m dreaming. I have no need for it this time, because I’m already self-aware, knowing that none of this is real. Again, what incredible detail for a false world. The leaves of the oak trees lining the block tremble as dark clouds skim across the moon, the glow of streetlights shining on the tops of parked cars. I always loved the warm summer nights back then, and my unconscious mind has an impressive talent for bringing it all back to life. I hear a sound to my left, and see Gina Marie step out onto the front porch of her parents’ house. Overhead porch light illuminates the flimsy negligee adorning her body, her astounding curves semi-revealed in highlight and shadow. Even from this distance I can make out the punctuations at the front of her gown — Gina Maries nipples, obviously braless, pushing at the thin fabric. Below, her legs are cheerleader sleek right down to her bare feet. I’m struck afresh by the fact that she would be a knockout even if she had regular-girl tits, instead of those epic ones. “Oh,” she says, noticing that I’m there. I’m not sure what to do. Gina Marie is as close to naked as a girl can be without actually being naked, and my first impulse is to fly over there to make another attempt at manipulating her behavior. I hesitate, because the last time I did that, the dream got yanked from under my feet. This is different, though — she’s looking right at me, whereas she didn’t seem capable of detecting my presence before. “I can’t sleep, David,” she interrupts my indecisive thoughts, her voice just loud enough to be heard. She’s seeking out a conversation with me, which never would have happened in real life. “I’m asleep right now,” I answer truthfully. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Private joke, I guess.” “You’re a strange one, aren’t you?” she asks, beckoning with a finger. “Come over here. I won’t bite, you know.” Being bitten by Gina Marie Hurt would have been the highlight of my teen years, and in an instant I’m there at the bottom of her porch steps, looking up at her. Except for the tip of her nose, her face is in shadow and it’s hard to read her emotional state. I can’t put much energy into looking at her face anyway, because her tits have no problem surging out to catch gallon upon gallon of soft warm light, casting rounded shadows all the way down to my feet. “You stare at me just like this when I’m sunbathing,” she says, taking two boob-swaying steps down the stairs. Her tone of voice is not accusative; it’s more a statement of fact. I used to spy on Gina Marie a lot, to the point of using my camera with a telephoto lens. I still have those photos somewhere, probably in a shoebox. “Sometimes…” she begins. She halts one step above me, which places her boobs at eye level. They are magnificent, two glorious hemispheres barely concealed under pale pink fabric. “Sometimes I just want to rip my shirt and bra off, right in public. Everybody’s staring at them anyway. Maybe they should see just how magnificent they really are.” Gina Marie might as well be pumping hot gas into my dick with those words. The cool night breeze caresses the back of my neck and I shiver, literally feeling my mouth water. I know this isn’t real — it’s better than real, because in real life I was never this close to Gina Marie’s tits, and she never would have said anything so incendiary to me. She shifts her weight on the steps and her right breast is suddenly even closer to my face, so close that I could reach out with my tongue and poke its rounded mass. Her tits seem to swell and I see she’s breathing fast, with this surprised look on her face. “Whoa,” she whispers cryptically. “Who… would have thought?” “Thought what?” I tremble. “You know Nicole Dampley, don’t you?” she asks. The question takes me off guard, plus it's hard to concentrate with her rack so close. “She’s, um, your best friend." And too cute and popular for me to know in any real sense. “I think she’s hot as hell. Do you?” “Of course she’s hot.” “I think that girl is… Oh God, it makes me feel so…” Gina Marie trails off, her eyes so sensuous that it's like her eyelashes have grown as stiff as my dick is. “Come with me,” she urges, the fingers of her right hand touching mine. “I need to show you something.” Not waiting for an answer, she grasps my hand and I’m pulled up the steps and in through the front door. “Be completely quiet,” she cautions as we tiptoe through the living room to the kitchen. I’ve been in this house any number of times, all back when I was a kid. When Gina Marie carefully turns

the knob to the basement door, I know where we must be heading. The rec room down below, two floors removed from her sleeping parents and younger sister. We descend the stairs and she ushers me into the room, pausing to lock the door behind. I stand in the middle of the room as she lights candles sitting on the mantle of the fireplace. The details of architecture and furniture come to life in pale dancing warmth, and I see that the room has undergone improvements since I was last here. The floor is carpeted, the area around the fireplace appointed with a large leather sofa and matching chairs. Before I know it Gina Marie has glided right up to me, her lips wet, long blonde hair backlit in a narrow ring of gossamer gold. She reaches out and touches my chin, then places her hand flat on my chest. “Oh God,” she vents, and I see that she’s like she was out on the steps, breathing so rapidly that she’s almost hyperventilating. “Oh my God, I’ve never…” she begins to say, then stops, literally gulping. Without warning I’m pushed back onto the long leather couch. I fall back upon it and Gina Marie straddles my waist on her knees, her head tilted down with her eyes slowly raking across her boobs from right to left, as if she can’t believe how big they are either. Her breathing is deep and open-mouthed, breasts rising and falling like she just finished running a race. “I had to buy all new bras this week,” she gasps. “I just keep growing and growing…” Holy fucking shit — could a girl say anything hotter? Her weight isn’t upon me but if she sank down just an inch or two, she’d feel what kind of effect her words and the proximity of her boobs have on me. “T…touch them, D…David,” she stutters, leaning forward, the weight upon her chest shifting, becoming two dangling mega-udders with a long line of tight cleavage visible through the neckline of her nightgown. I’m asleep, not brain-dead. My hands are there in a flash, heavy pliable flesh filling my palms, my fingers digging in and getting lost in it all. “Oh my God, yes!” Gina Marie yells, her hips grinding down. My cock presses into her panties, and even through my shorts I can tell that her panties are very very wet, the pussy beneath practically venting hot steam. “Oh God, David, I… I didn’t realize… It’s your cock I need inside of me! Oh my God I need your cock inside of me!” Her whole body seems to tremble when she gasps this, and I almost come in my pants as she works my zipper open, unfastening the button holding my shorts together. I’m not wearing any underwear, and with one sudden movement of her arms, Gina Marie is no longer partially covered by a negligee. Her breasts are enormous, her waist small and taut, and her hands have surrounded my thick meat, rubbing me hard and fast against her wet slit, back and forth and around and around, generating even more heat with all the wet friction. I can’t tell who’s gasping louder now, but it’s Gina Marie who looks possessed as she lines up her pussy to my cock, squatting low and suddenly sinking, her slippery cunt taking me in to the hilt with one swift movement. Gina Marie’s eyes go wide, unbelievably wide, and sighs the kind of sigh I could listen to forever. “You and me,” she breathes. “And Nicole Dampley, all… at once. Oh God do you want that?”

“Fuck yes,” I agree. I’m pinching her nipples, kneading all I can grasp of each breast in my big hands, and she rises up, down, up, down, upanddown and upanddown, going faster and faster. “I… Oh God I can’t stand it!” she screams, her mouth as wide as her eyes are, her eyes filled with an almost feral wantonness. "I've... never felt anything this overwhelming before…" I recognize her words as my words, part of what I yelled into her at The Pizza Escape, and they’re like an additional spark for my lighter-fluid filled dick. I hammer up at her as she collapses her body down, holding onto those ginormous tits as they jiggle wildly. This is how I always wanted Gina Marie, pounding her with the force of the pounding reverberating all through her huge boobs. Her pussy clenches around me, releases and clenches again spasmodically. “Oh G…God David!” she cries. “Yes! Harder! Oh God, I’m g…going to… I’m… I’m… Oh David! Oh fucking David!” I feel her pussy spasm around me, steamy liquid flowing as I meet her release with my own. Gina Marie has turned to growling like a wild animal, her head thrashing side to side, honey-blonde hair tossing so that I can’t even see her face. I feel our fluids meeting, mixing, my fingernails digging into those acres of soft heavy flesh… And then I wake up — really wake up — in mid-orgasm, my heart pounding. Filled with more questions than you could shake a spent dick at.

Chapter Two — Light Body; Lying Bodies As it turns out, being a guinea pig for science is both easy and not-easy. The easy part involves sleeping on the job and getting paid for it. I don grey “pajamas” interwoven with some sort of electronic fibers, place an equally outfitted stocking cap on top of my head, then lie flat on my back on a special table and drift off to sleep. There are no wires attached to my head or body in the night, no physical or mental discomforts at all. I’m accustomed to reading myself to sleep, and they even let me do that, with a little bedside lamp I brought in. I have to commit ten hours of every day to the program, from nine at night until seven in the morning, but that’s no big deal. I have no regular job these days, and no girlfriend, now that Sharon ditched me. No dog to walk or cat to feed, and it’s summer, so I barely even miss a minute of daylight. This is plum temp work if you ask me, at a time when I’m like millions of others, in near-desperate need for money. The hard part comes at times like right now, when the team of brain researchers, behaviorists, therapists and other unknown entities picks at my mind like so many vultures. I’m only in day five of what could become a ninety-day gig as one of the Lucid Dreaming Special Project’s lab rats, and I’m already used to recounting every infinitesimal detail of every dream I have in the night. I’ve always been good at remembering dreams, but this one — the first successfully induced lucid-dream in the program’s short history — has the entire team wild with excitement. They’re treating me like the dreaming equivalent of that Neil Armstrong dude, but at a price. The team can’t hide their elation at my achieving the lucid-dreaming state, but success brings ever-deeper scrutiny. I didn’t mind being questioned so aggressively after the first several nights of dreaming, but this is different. I sense an energy in the room that makes my skin itch. The excitement is real, the pats on the back genuine, but something a little creepy is going on, too. I recognize the vibe by taste, but it’s like eating some exotic dish and not being able to recognize the spicing. You know that you’ve tasted

this thing before, but its identity is elusive, lingering on the tongue while playing hide and seek with the brain. Or, perhaps, I’m simply tasting my own nervousness. I quickly abandoned the directives in the dream, which is bringing some heat. Worse, I’m outright lying to everyone about what happened. “Let me get this straight,” Dr. Anne Haggerty says, although I know she understood the first time. “You had no problem blinking yourself right into the London and Singapore offices, but you were prevented from continuing to Perth and Hawaii? I’m having a hard time understanding that.” “I think I became afraid,” I squirm. “Afraid of what? The situation in Australia?” “Maybe. I mean, why a city in Australia of all places?” “David, no actual harm can come to you in a dream, and you knew you were dreaming. That’s the whole point.” “But there were two of me in the dream, which you’d never prepared me for. I thought the floating me might… I don’t know, dissolve or something. As soon as I thought that, it was like I got yanked right back into the pizza joint. I struggled against the pull — I struggled like hell against it, since I knew how much you wanted me to do my globetrotting chores. But I couldn’t resist being pulled back. I don’t think I could have continued on to Australia if my life depended on it.” “I see,” Dr. Anne replies, pacing back and forth on stylish heels. The heels do wonderful things for her ankles and calves, which are quite fetching on their own. From the moment I met her, I haven’t been able to shake the impression that central casting made a clerical error in dishing up a woman like Anne Haggerty to play the part of Dr. Anne Haggerty. She wears eyeglasses, but her height and all that lithe grace says fashion model, not government employed dream-scientist. She sometimes wears a white lab coat over her clothes, but even the lab coat looks hot on her long frame. Her mind is a steel trap, though, and she keeps pressing me on certain details — the made-up ones, mostly. She’s so yummy to look at that I want to please her — it’s a personal failing I have, this impulse to suck up to unattainable women. Anyway, because Dr. Anne is such a babe and I need this job, I want her to believe that I’m a totally reliable dream subject. I’m not, but nobody needs to know that. It would help if trust ran back the other way, only for some reason I can’t feel that. I’m not sure why. Anne and her colleagues all have their quirks, but generally they try to keep things friendly in here, if not outright cozy. Perhaps that’s why this conference room, unlike the neighboring monitoring room where I sleep, is deliberately homey in appearance, with sofas and armchairs surrounding a broad oriental carpet, and floor lamps bathing the space in warm friendly light. The room looks more like my Uncle Boomer’s den than a lab within a highly restricted research facility; nonetheless, I never allow myself to forget that every word spoken here is recorded, my movements observed, not only by those in the room but by several additional researchers behind a false mirror. I’m not paranoid — the conditions of the experiment were explained to me well in advance, and I accepted the need to be scrutinized in whatever manner the program deems necessary. But I’ve come to speak no more than called upon to speak, giving away nothing extraneous. I’ve never been monitored like this before, and though I agreed to it, I don’t have to like it. I’ve signed a very detailed contract with the LDSP, promising to divulge every remembered detail of every dream for the duration of the research. I don’t know what the penalties are for withholding information —

or worse, outright making shit up. I really don’t want to find out, and I have to be extremely careful in what I say, because my brain and body are monitored like the San Andreas Fault whenever I sleep in the lab. I’m pretty sure that the sleeping table itself quietly reads and maps my brainwaves, my adrenaline and dopamine levels, my heart rate — and soon, due to my dream-shagging Gina Marie, probably my gonad replenishment rate. The important thing to remember is that I’m not hooked up now, nor wired for lie detection. Every person in this room is brilliant in some way, but I don’t believe they have any means of capturing actual pictures of my dreams. They’re reliant on the information I bring back to the conscious world with me, and as long as the timeline of my story appears to match the readings from their instruments, I don’t see how they can know, definitively, whether I’m lying or not. I’m sprinkling in plenty of truth, too, which includes confessing how quickly my lucid-dreaming self ended up screwing the notorious big tit hottie from high school. I briefly considered lying about the sex at the end of the dream, but the whole team would have known — in real time, from the readings — exactly what was happening. I had an orgasm in that dream, which happened in real life and showed up as intensely peaking squiggly lines on their computer monitors, as well as gooey stains soaking my special sleeping attire. Nobody has said anything mean or condescending about me having a wet dream in my early twenties, but I’m sure that I’ll be the butt of jokes told in private meetings, or to amused loved ones at home. “David,” Dr. Anne continues, ceasing the pacing and looking directly at me. Her head is tilted down so I’m getting the serious eyes, looking at me above the rim of her glasses, rather than through them. “We’re all very excited that you achieved the lucid-dreaming state in such a short time. We’re proud of you; we want you to know that. But there are… issues, about how you performed in there. You lost focus. And your… dalliance… We never instituted rules about such things, but…” “David failed in many ways to take real control of his dream,” interrupts a gruff voice to the right. Neil Phillips sits cross-legged in a plush chair near the windows, referring to me as though I’m not there, per usual. He stuffs fresh tobacco into a pipe — nobody likes the smell and it’s probably illegal to smoke inside the research facility, but Dr. Phillips has this indefinable badass vibe, and it’s enough that nobody even thinks of denying him his pleasure. “What use is it to achieve the lucid state, only to give in to primal fears and a prurient fascination for… titties?” It seems like a rhetorical question. Funny how no other rhetorical question ever brought a hot rush of embarrassment to my face. “I’m also concerned that David failed to recognize the signal — again,” Dr. Phillips continues. “It’s there to alert him to his dream status, but he seems to have an infinite capacity for mistaking its nature.” “You rationalized it in the dream just like the other times?” Anne asks. “I could hear the signal, but decided that it was about baking pizzas,” I answer, glad to have moved on from the “tittie” stuff. “And later on I thought it was the sound of crickets.” “You might have ignored the signal indefinitely if your friend Sophie hadn’t pointed it out to you?” “Possibly. She seemed to realize its significance, even when I didn’t.” “Most unexpected,” Dr. Phillips puffs, lighting the pipe. “That a dream character alerted him to the signal is…”

“Not that critical,” Dr. Anne interjects. “This Sophie character’s other behaviors, though…” “Most unexpected,” Dr. Phillips repeats. “Tell us about your Sophie, David, and what she meant to you in your real life. You mentioned that you felt,” he looks down at his notes, “’something like love’ for her in the dream. Was she your lover in real life?” “No. We were flirtatious friends, nothing more. I had a crush on her. Obviously it didn’t work out.” “It was the other girl that David lost his focus over,” Anne chimes in. “The one with the huge…” Her mouth begins to contort and she stops speaking, and turns her head away. With only the auburn hair and posture to read, I have the awful feeling that she’s trying hard to keep herself from laughing. Dr. Phillips makes significant eye contact with Anne — in essence telling her that embarrassing me with my lust for Gina Marie is counter-productive. He consults his notes before speaking. “Going on, once David realized that he was in a lucid-dreaming state, this Sophie said to him, ‘David, something is different. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be’. Is that accurate?” “Yes,” I answer. “It’s word for word.” “And then she witnessed David’s light body, separating from his dream self,” Dr. Anne adds. “Unheard of!” expels Eduardo Gonzales, whose particular field of expertise remains a mystery to me. “How can a secondary dream figure exhibit this kind of awareness?” “She also made a comment about knowing what goes on in David’s mind, and even questioned her own existence within his dream,” Dr. Phillips pipes, smoke curling around his bald head. “She clearly represents David’s inner feminine self, his anima. She’s unusually self-aware, but otherwise she is a classic Jungian archetype.” “I don’t agree with your analysis,” Anne interjects. “An anima figure usually appears as an unrecognized female, not a specific close friend. Sophie can’t represent an ordinary archetype in this context.” “Dreams must be approached with flexibility, Anne,” Dr. Phillips responds somewhat testily. “Look at how this Sophie behaves in David’s dream, by guiding him and pointing out the crucial information that he is being signaled, that he can enter the lucid-dreaming state. The anima is by definition a guide for the male ego, a knowing…” “But she saw the light body! Do you realize the significance? She even congratulated David when he split off!” “I think you’re both on the wrong track,” Eduardo throws his opinion into the ring. “Sophie is a representation of David’s higher being, not his anima. Of course she is aware of the light body — from the all-knowing perspective of the higher being, even the subtle body is a lower form of existence.” They continue to argue, but at this point I just tune them out, because they’ve gone into dreaming LaLaLand from my perspective. Higher being? Light body? Subtle body? I don’t know what they’re talking about any more, and I figure that I probably created this row by lying to them in the first place. I’ve told them nothing about my attempt to leave the planet altogether, and I conveniently left out the bit about ogling Gina Marie’s knockers and going into a tantrum when I couldn’t dream-rape her in The Pizza Escape. They know I had sex with her in her parents’ basement — it was hell giving them the details, but

they see all that as nothing more than wish fulfillment mixed with a descent back into a regular dream state. It wasn’t, exactly — I knew I was dreaming, and I told them so. But the dream timeline took control of me, they insist — I followed events, rather than willfully creating them. It became less than true lucid-dreaming, and so is of little interest to them. Left alone for a bit, I contemplate why I've chosen to lie to them. Going into outer space is no big deal — I guess I don’t quite know why I even did that, or what I expected from it. I’m withholding that part from instinct, whereas there’s just no fucking way I’ll tell them how I lost my cool when I couldn’t manipulate Gina Marie into having sex with me. It’s one thing to have a dream where a sexual encounter appears, like it did at the end. It’s another entirely to confess that I tried until blue in my dream-face to make it happen. But there’s another reason, too, involving the way Gina Marie eventually said the very things I tried to implant into her in the restaurant. She didn’t do what I wanted when I wanted it, but didn’t she fulfill my wishes, just about to the letter, after the dream shifted? Even going off about how hot Nicole Dampley was, and suggesting a threesome with her… I have the feeling that something rather profound happened in that dream, and I’m not ready to share all of it yet. If I get to the lucid state again, maybe I can try some things out, and see where this goes. Until then, no fucking way do I suggest that I caused the sex in that dream to appear. My attention perks up when I hear the words “light body” again. I’ve been reading nothing but books on dreams and dream interpretation for the past two weeks, and have slightly better than a layman’s understanding of the terms and concepts they regularly discuss, like “anima” and “subconscious mind” and the like. I don’t remember reading anything about a light body, and they never used the term in my training. They’re repeating it now, though, and it seems to correspond to my experience of splitting into two Davids inside the dream. I can’t be sure, but I get the feeling that it’s my light body that traveled to London and Singapore, then off into outer space. It must have been the light body, too, that went into a light tantrum when Gina Marie wouldn’t give my light dick a good light fuck. I follow what they’re saying hoping to learn more, but it’s like a room full of people speaking a foreign language. I get bored, and actually nod off for a few seconds or minutes in my chair. I know this because my head jerks, and I can feel a tiny bit of drool gathered at the corner of my mouth. I keep my eyes closed, and hear Dr. Phillips make some joke about the program needing to outfit the furniture in this room with monitoring equipment, just in case I dream. It feels oddly satisfying to turn the tables on them, listening in on their conversation when they think I’m asleep. It begins to pay off, too, because something I didn’t know emerges from what they’re saying. The way they talk about me, I’m starting to believe that I’m a four-leaf clover when it comes to dreaming. No one says it outright, but it appears that I have an “unusual” brain, because they’ve been trying to induce lucid-dreaming in subjects for over six months. I knew I was the first — nobody hid that from me — but I didn’t know how many failures had preceded tonight’s success. I’m the goose that laid a golden dream. Of course, I’m also the goose that laid Gina Marie Hurt the first chance I got, rather than skipping around the globe from one designated office to another. No wonder they’re so frustrated that I abandoned the directives. They’ve been waiting for months to induce self-awareness into a dreamer, and my selfawareness turned into self-gratification, from which they could learn very little. I’d like to do right by them, but they might have to earn my complete cooperation. They didn’t prepare me sufficiently, and though dream sex has no meaning for them, it sure did feel unbelievably exciting to me. I wouldn’t mind trying it again, and undoubtedly will if the opportunity appears. I mean, they're my dreams.

And what are they going to do — shoot me? *** Early morning fog is just beginning to burn off when I exit the research facility. The blacktop of the parking lot shimmers with diffused morning light, and all the cars are beaded from thunderstorms that must have passed in the night. My bike, a used Honda CBR-600 that still runs like a dream, sits all by itself in the “guest” section beyond the security check, because they haven’t yet given me an employee parking sticker. I’m not sure they ever will. I wipe the seat with a little towel I carry in my jacket pocket, and strap on my helmet, wondering which way to ride. It’s hard to know what to do with your free time when you’re currently sleeping for a living. Actually, it’s hard to know what to do, period. I’m in what my friends call a “between place”, which is polite-speak for not having a clue of what to do with my life. I still think of myself as a graduate student, but that might not be true any more. The student loan company just cut me off from borrowing more to finish my studies, so I really don’t know if I’ll be enrolled in the fall or not. It’s ironic, because I always thought it was a dastardly crime how students like me had to mortgage our futures to get our degrees. Now it’s a crime that some of us are not being allowed to. I could pat Sallie Mae on the back if this was being done for my benefit, to protect me from economic ruin. They’re not — they’re just afraid to lend money these days, almost as though the system is betting on my economic ruin. In case you haven’t heard, it’s kind of a crappy world out there right now. Things have gone decidedly Darwinish, and I’m not exactly at the top of the food chain. Along with the twin hits of 9/11 and 2/18, a lot of people in positions of responsibility did some very irresponsible things in this new century, things that have withered the world economy in ways a terrorist could only dream of. With gas at six bucks a gallon in the U.S. and people being laid off everywhere, lots of folks are really hurting, while the ones who fucked everything up in the first place are still fantastically rich, and playing golf. I don’t know who writes these rules… Wait, that’s not true. I just don’t see how they live with themselves once they write them. It’s like the saying almost goes: We met the enemy and it was us… mostly. While there were actual villains willing to kill hundreds of thousands to forward their twisted religious agendas, it’s the fact that we shot our own selves in the face that has the world howling with pain. They’re calling this the “Age of Change”, and with the oil states imploding, much of Eastern Europe in flames and those still alive in Australia under a state of martial law, most people are wishing that things had stayed the way they were. My response to a world in crisis is to be an photography student in a nowhere college — proof that I should have my head examined when I’m awake, not sleeping. I am — or was — a first year graduate student at Towson State University, just outside of Baltimore. My photographs are old school black-and-white silver prints, extremely detailed close-ups of people, men and women, captured when they sleep. I have a fascination for that, the way faces are unguarded, bodies relaxed, when people sleep. If you think that my art sounds like a dead end when it comes to money… Well then, perhaps you work for the student loan people, because they agree with you. Not that I have a radically different opinion about my prospects. I’ve already explored the commercial possibilities of exercising my talents, meaning apprentice work at a portrait studio where I had to make silly faces to keep babies from crying. Clients demand bright perky smiles from their little treasures, and I tried, but I can’t deny that my creative sensibilities kicked into a higher gear whenever a baby fell asleep. The parents wanted the precious ones shaken awake, but my index finger disagreed, and kept shooting pictures of little Tonya or Billy all blissful and relaxed, with drool stringing down onto their adorable chins You can take a guess who got fired — the index finger, but somehow my name got mixed up with it. Thanks a lot,

buddy. I keep thinking that if I could start over, I’d probably want to change my major from photography to something more practical. I’m not sure what I’d be good at, though, and even the safe jobs aren’t safe any more. Maybe environmental studies, or marine science. Maybe lawyering, although I hate wearing a suit and I refuse to wear a tie. Maybe I’d start some business of my own, though God knows what that might be. I want to part of the solution, not the problem — at least I wear a T-shirt proclaiming that. Instead, I’m mostly confused, and more than a little fearful that I’m destined to flame out at twenty-three, before I even get a chance to “find myself” and do anything. One thing I do know how to do is eat breakfast after a hard night’s work, and I see that my stomach has been leaning my bike in a familiar direction, opposite from where I live. I’m only on the expressway for a couple of exits, then head east on the slow roads, bright morning sun making me squint. After a sad stretch of abandoned McMansions and burned-out box stores, the land flattens into the Chesapeake estuaries and modest farmlands of my youth. This is the land I saw beneath me when I flew skyward in my dream last night. I suppose I had to come back to Osprey Flats after dreaming about it so vividly. I pass my high school, empty for the summer, and take a right onto Oak to cruise by the house where I grew up. It’s been repainted — so has Gina Marie’s parents’ place next door. I don’t really experience any feelings of nostalgia by coming here, but I do feel… I don’t know, restless. I was anxious to leave this nothing of a place a few years ago, but it isn’t like I’ve exactly thrived in the city, or in college. I don’t miss the town so much — my parents both left, as did most of my old friends. I do miss Millie’s Diner, though, especially her famous hash browns, and their peppery smell is like a punch to the nostrils when I open the thick glass door and walk inside. “David Sand!” Millie exclaims upon seeing me. “What brings you ‘round these parts? You want the usual, hon?” Millie is Sophie’s mom, and she was sort of a second mom to me for a time. I haven’t been good at visiting lately — it’s not that long a ride, but I haven’t been here in more than six months. I worked two summers at this diner in high school, my first real job. Millie bought this fine old diner seventeen years ago, and practically raised her daughter on these swivel stools. She even home-schooled Sophie for a time, with a big chalkboard installed behind the counter. I sat in on some of those lessons when I broke my leg in fourth grade — it was right here in the quiet afternoons before the dinner rush that Sophie and I began to hang out, planting the seeds for… well, a friendship, which was less than I wanted. I grab a seat at the counter — the very one that Sophie sat on the night I almost got in her pants — and take a quick look around. A newer model jukebox has replaced the one I remember; otherwise the place looks the same. “How’s business, Millie?” “Awful,” she replies matter of factly. “Except for nights, when people need to drown their sorrows.” I’m surprised that she’s willing to use that phrase, after losing Dan out in the bay. “I had a dream about Soph last night,” I quickly say as she pours my coffee. “Yeah?" she smiles. Millie is still an extremely good-looking woman — Sophie got her shape and the dimples from these genes, and man do the dimples still light up this smile. "I hope Sophie told you she would call home more often,” Millie chides.

“Can’t help you there, I’m afraid. The dream was set in the past, when we were teen-agers.” “Let me guess. You ended up trying to cross a bridge in this dream.” “Why do you say that?” “You were always having dreams about crossing bridges, don’t you remember?” “Vaguely, maybe. Not really.” “When you were little you had a bunch of dreams like that, where you were on a bridge, all excited to get to the other side. I asked you one time what it was on the other side that was so dang important, and you answered, all serious: ‘An entirely different world, Millie’. I don’t think I ever laughed so hard in my life! You were all of six or seven years old, and talking all serious like that!” “I don’t remember these dreams at all. Did I ever actually get to the other side?” “Don’t think so,” she shrugs. “Anyway, you made it back to Osprey Flats this morning. Tell me what my daughter was up to in this new dream you had.” I’m wondering whether I should recount any particulars at all — the agreement I signed prohibits talking about the research, which by extension would mean the dreams themselves. But fuck it — this is Millie, and what could possibly be the harm? I give her a generalized rundown on the early part of the dream, going as far as the part where Sophie seemed to know that I was dreaming before I did. “You know I always thought you two would end up together,” Millie says in reply. “I know. I thought so too for awhile.” “You could at least call each other every now and then. Keep up, you know?” “That’s probably more my fault than hers. She has a husband. I feel… I don’t know. Like it’s too awkward.” “And what about your significant other? How is Sharon?” Some questions are like fishing hooks, designed to reel in more information than first appears. Some questions hurt, too, the hook catching you right in the gums. “Sharon and I are taking a bit of a break from each other,” I confess. “Oh. And this break is soft-boiled or hard-boiled?” “Hard, I guess. It’s been a couple of months since we got together and she, uh, doesn’t return my calls very often.” I look down at the counter after admitting this, realizing how much I miss Sharon. Or miss the sex with her, or just the comfort of having a cute girlfriend to feel good about. Whatever. Millie’s eyes are kind when I look up, silently blending her own sense of loss with mine. She could be a bartender with that sort of silent empathy. Hell, she is a bartender; it’s what keeps this place in business. “It’s not easy finding the right partner,” she finally says. “Sophie got a wonderful education out in California, and she enjoys the teaching. She made good choices in the career department. With men,

though…” Millie trails off, and I think it’s because she doesn’t want to badmouth Everett, or Eveready, or whatever her son-in-law’s name is. Or, it’s just that a new customer has arrived. Millie looks past my shoulder, and I hear the rush of the highway as the door opens behind me. One of the old men sitting in a booth whistles appreciatively, and I swivel on my stool to see the hot dish that must have walked through the door. A petite woman is standing there, all shape and no detail because of the bright sun glaring behind her. She’s wearing a tight blouse with shorts and sneakers, and all the shapes are definitely whistle-worthy, especially the legs. “David? Can we talk?” I recognize the voice an instant before I can make out her features. “Mary? What on earth are you doing here?” Mary Poole is one of those unseen eyes on the other side of the glass at the lab, a graduate student in behavioral studies serving as Dr. Anne’s assistant. She’s the opposite physical type from Anne, very compact with nearly black hair and piercing blue eyes. What she lacks in height was well compensated for with hauntingly beautiful facial features — she has one of those truly great faces, the gorgeous and expressive kind with eyes that can brighten a room, or even a government lab. And now, for the first time, I see that she has legs to die for. They don’t go one for forever like Anne’s, but… wow. Who knew? “I followed you here,” she answers. “I thought for the last several miles that I was going to run out of gas! I stopped for some when you pulled in here. You had to come all this way for breakfast?” “My breakfast is worth a few extra miles,” Millie asserts with pride. I should say something here — recommend Millie’s hash browns at the least — but my tongue is frozen because my brain is frozen because this entire scene does not compute. Mary Poole and I have barely spoken to each other, besides the innocuous “How’s it going?” stuff. She was present when I first interviewed, and I gave her my personal information for setting up withholding taxes and all that stuff. Since then I’ve known that she’s around on the other side of the glass, but we rarely bump into each other. She sees my face going all quizzical, and volunteers, “You don’t have a cell phone, remember? And we really need to talk.” Millie touches my arm. “You two take a booth and I’ll bring your food over.” I deliberately walk behind Mary as she chooses a booth, just to double-check on her legs. Yep — she earned that wow, and the same for her ass. She looks as good going as she did coming. “What’s so urgent?” I ask, once we’re seated. Please don’t tell me they’re letting me go for fucking Gina Marie in my sleep, I think, my heartbeat rising. “Anne thinks you lied about what happened in your dream,” she drops her bomb. It takes real effort for me to keep from sucking coffee down the wrong pipe. “She thinks I’m a liar?” I choke, defending my nonexistent honor. “In a word, yes. I do, too — I know you’re holding something back, from the readings. The question is,

why?” It’s hard to know how to respond, because I don’t know what kind of hat Mary Poole is wearing. Is she on the clock, interrogating me for Anne and the others? Is she here on her own? Worried about me? Pissed at me? Looking out for me? ”I, um… I might have bent the truth just a little,” I go with my gut. “I knew it! Why do something so stupid?” “Is this where you lock me in handcuffs?” “Don’t you wish,” she quips, just as Millie arrives with my scrambled eggs and a double order of hash browns. “Can I get you something, hon?” Millie asks Mary, and she orders green tea and wheat toast. I’m wondering what Mary was insinuating with that ‘Don’t you wish?’ bit, until I remember that she must have witnessed, in bright curvy lines peaking on her computer monitor, how I came in my sleep. She probably thinks I’m a total horndog. I guess I am. “Your story was pretty good,” she continues, once we’re alone. “You were definitely fighting something tooth and nail in your dream at one point — your heart rate and adrenaline levels went through the roof! But something else happened, too. Care to share it with me?” “I tried to fly into outer space,” I confess, giving up the easy stuff. “I could have gone on to Perth and the others, but it all felt so effortless and… I don’t know — pointless. I wasn’t scared to go to Australia, because I knew I was dreaming. It’s just that, out of nowhere, I got this strange yearning for freedom, and the next thing I knew I was up in the clouds.” “Why lie about that? They might find the information useful in some way, you never know.” “I was embarrassed, I guess. Flying around like that was exhilarating — it felt so incredibly real and I kind of got off on being able to do it. I lounged on a cloud and checked out a satellite, and I was probably halfway to the moon before I couldn’t go any further. It was like gravity, or something even stronger than gravity, grabbed hold and wouldn’t let go. I struggled like crazy to keep going… That would be your adrenaline and heart levels right there. I was dream-sweating.” “Your light body extended too far from the real you. They’ll definitely want to know about this.” “My light body is the floating me that split off from the other me in the dream?” “That’s right.” “So what is a ‘subtle’ body?” “Same thing. The terms are from different traditions, that’s all.” “Why didn’t they prepare me for splitting off like that? You guys talk like you know all about it, but nobody said squat to me about any ‘light body’ until today.”

“They didn’t want to poison the experiment.” “'Poison'?” “Maybe influence is a better word. In theory, it’s your light body that can travel with the speed of thought. They gave you the task — popping from one office to the other — but never even hinted at the means. You discovered that all on your own, which means you didn’t just imagine the entire experience for their benefit. It helps them to verify what’s really happening.” “So what else haven’t they trained me for?” She smiles obliquely, cocking an eyebrow. She’s silently telling me “You know I can’t tell you that”, but the way she looks, my heart melts. Stick a set of wings on this girl and she’d be a dead ringer for a ravenhaired angel. I try not to stare, but I can’t help imagining what that face would look like sound asleep, those impeccable legs curled into a fetal position. I’m betting that I could get some great photos of Mary Poole asleep, only after seeing computer graphs of what I did with Gina Marie in my dream, Mary would probably think a request for modeling is some kind of pick-up ploy. Maybe that’s why I have so few photos of women who weren’t in the graduate program with me — what I want to photograph sounds like it must be deviant in some way, and people don’t understand it any better when you tell them that it’s art. “I think something else happened in your dream,” Mary interrupts my mental wandering. ”At one point, your entire brain lit up — I mean the whole thing, every region in both hemispheres, for at least five seconds. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life! What on earth were you doing when that happened?” “Doing when? It was a long dream.” “Right after the part your story was supposed to cover. You struggled against something and the readings show that. Then, just a little bit later… Total brain illumination on the computer screen. Hormone levels through the roof, all of your nerve centers illuminated… It was… unbelievable!” That, I suspect, must be when I — or my light body — tried to dream-rape Gina Marie Hurt, and make her desire her friend's tits. I should probably lay everything I did on the table… I can’t, though, not to a hot girl like Mary. So instead I say: “Maybe that’s when I woke up inside the dream. That part is confusing as hell to me — I got sucked back into The Pizza Escape, and I could see the other me sitting kind of stiffly right where I’d left him. Then… poof, I wake up, only not really — it’s like I dreamed that I woke up inside the dream.” “Awakening like that inside a dream doesn’t happen often,” Mary comments, rubbing at her chin, much the way Anne does. “It doesn’t explain the brain activity, though. You aren’t still holding something back?” Her eyes grow wide and probing, and my heart goes pitter-patter with equal parts lust and suspicion. “Who wants to know?” I ask boldly. “Are you asking for them, or asking as you?” “I’m asking as me. I’m here on my own — Anne and the others don’t even know I came here. I’m… perplexed about all this, and a little bit concerned for you.” “But you’ll tell them whatever I say, won’t you? It’s your duty.” “Maybe. Not necessarily. They don’t own me, you know.”

Our food has arrived, and I stuff hash browns into my mouth, buying a bit of time to think. “Why are you concerned for me?” I finally ask. “The light body is a little known force, David. It refers to something that’s spoken of in certain meditative practices — it’s quite a special thing to attain it, from the little bit I know. From a scientific perspective, the very existence of a light body is not agreed upon. Whatever characteristics it has have never been measured or quantified, because… Well, many don’t believe in it, and those who do don’t think it can be measured, just like a "soul" can never be measured. But I watched your brain light up like a Christmas tree during the time you had an experience of the light body. We don’t know what caused that, or the implications.” “The implications for the direction of the research?” “Right. And maybe even for your… health.” “I thought nothing could harm me in a dream." “They believe that, yes.” “Which isn’t the same as an iron-clad certainty.” “No, it isn’t. In the old traditions, an experience of the light body is a very special thing, and is prepared for ahead of time. It’s thought that … Well, that the light body is much closer to the soul. Experiencing it without preparation is like the German soldiers viewing the contents of the Ark of the Covenant in the first Indiana Jones movie. A human being needs special training, otherwise… Well, no one knows.” “That’s why you followed me all the way out here? To warn me?” She seems to squirm a tiny bit, like she’s trying to decide whether to say something or not. “If you must know, I argued that we should keep you in-house today, just in case. I thought you should be monitored for your own safety. Anne and the others disagreed, and as you might guess, my opinions hold little weight among that group. I thought they were being a bit… cavalier. I saw you get on the elevator to leave this morning and it hit me that you ought to have a friend in the program. I had no idea that we’d end up here when I decided to follow you.” Either Mary Poole is being straight with me, or she’s scary convincing. I should probably level with her… But I’m not going to. It might have something to do with the way she unconsciously mimicked one of Anne’s habits a moment ago, the chin-rubbing thing. It might be that I just can’t bring myself to tell a beautiful, sexy young woman how I tried to dream-rape another beautiful and sexy woman last night. Whatever the reason, I choose wariness over confession, and lie through my teeth. “I’m not holding anything else back, Mary. God’s honest truth. Maybe we can figure this out with more lucid-dreams, assuming I can get there again.” “So we have a mystery to solve,” she says. “I’ve got to find out what experience in a dream could cause a human brain to light up like that.” “You make it sound kind of… creepy.” “I would have chosen ‘impossible’, until I saw it with my own eyes last night. Brains just don’t do that.”

I won't take credit for something my brain might have done without me knowing it, all while trying to dream-fuck a girl I had the hots for. So I stay quiet, and watch Mary sip her tea. I think we might be done talking altogether until I see her chewing on her lower lip. Again I have the sense that she’s trying to decide whether to say something or not. “There’s something else I want to know…” she begins, not looking at me. “Okay.” I watch the continued lip action. She looks really shy all of a sudden. “You know I see and hear everything that’s discussed from behind the glass.” “Yes, I’m aware of that.” “I want to know — I hope this isn’t too uncomfortable — what it felt like to have sex in your dream." “Whoa,” I mutter. “I listened to every word of what you told the team. They didn’t pay much attention to that part, but…” “But you did?” “You said that you still knew you were dreaming, right?” “Right.” “I want to know what it felt like. Was it different? Heightened? Totally realistic? Otherworldly?” “The sex?” “The sex, yes.” There’s a kind of excitement behind the blue eyes that wasn’t there before. “Why do you want to know?” I ask. Mary seems to squirm again, even though nothing actually moves. “Just… interested. It’s kind of personal.” “This whole subject is kind of personal.” “You’ve already given the details to a whole group of people.” “Yes, but they weren’t…” I’m the one squirming now, because I don’t know how to finish the sentence. They weren’t gorgeous women the same age as me is probably what I want to say. Mary smiles an inscrutable smile, waiting. Goddamn, I want to photograph this girl. And then fuck her brains out. “I had dream sex one time,” she says, looking sort of far away. “It got so… intense. I mean really intense, and I… When I heard you telling the others about your dream, I couldn’t help but wonder what I would have done in mine if I’d known I was dreaming.” “I see,” I say, though I really don’t.

“I think you were remarkably restrained, David. You could have done… you know, all sorts of wild things. Instead you let your Gina Marie dream-character take the lead. I find that rather… interesting.” I have no idea how to respond. Is she congratulating me on deferring to a woman, or a dream character? Or is she surreptitiously urging me to go all kinky if the opportunity rises again? She’s studying behavioral science, I remind myself — she’s probably seeing weird shit or inescapable patterns inside of me that I don’t even know I have. I look at the planes of her face again, my eyes tracing the fine jaw, the bright eyes. The details shift into beautiful black-and-white in my imagination, like I can already see the photos I’ll take of this woman. I’m shocked when my mouth begins to move, asking before I even know what I’m saying. “I’d like to photograph you, Mary. It’s a series I’m working on — close-ups of people when they're sleeping.” “Sleeping?” she asks, curious but restrained. “Or pretending they’re asleep. That ends up looking not quite the same — it’s like the camera can tell the difference somehow — but even pretending to sleep is interesting.” The blue of her eyes becomes probing, and I have this awful feeling that in her estimation, I just jumped off a cliff. On the cliff’s edge I was an almost normal person to get to know, but down here, the splatter pattern says total weirdo. “So.” she says. “I knew you were a photographer — it’s in your file. Your subject is funny, though.” “How so?” “People like me monitor you when you’re asleep, and you have your way of monitoring others when they sleep. And now you even have a job where you have to determine whether you’re asleep or awake when you sleep. How… balanced.” I know I must look stunned, because I’d never even thought to think of it that way. I’m also not getting a yes/no answer from her about the photos. Only fair, I guess, since I never told her what my dream sex felt like. I’m spared from blurting out anything else because Mary Poole looks at her watch, and says she’s got to be going. She offers to pay for my breakfast and I decide to let her, adding that I’ll treat the next time. “Okayyy…” she responds, giving nothing away about whether there will or won’t be a next time. “How about a firm ‘maybe’ on that photo thing? We’ll see how it goes,” she adds as she slips tip money for Millie under her teacup. “I’ll be seeing you,” she winks, and walks away. I stare at her shapely legs for as long as I can see them, wondering what the hell just transpired here. Was she interrogating me? Teasing me? Planting seeds for me to go medieval on some sexy girl the next time I achieve the lucid-dreaming state? Just being a sort-of friend? “Out with Sharon, in with this one?” Millie asks, standing next to the table. “That’s getting way ahead of events,” I reply. “Do you like this girl?”

“I don’t really know her. I sure like the way she looks.” “Definitely a looker," Millie agrees. "Although I think she appears… haunted. Be careful with that one, David. You’re still sore, and she has some things to figure out.” "Like?" "Nope. Even if I knew, I'd want you to do the finding out for yourself. And I'll bet a case of beer you will."

Chapter Three — Stormy Relationship I make a stop on the ride home, picking up a few groceries and some Advil for a throbbing headache in my temples. It doesn’t help that my motorcycle helmet presses tight to these areas, and I can’t help but think of Mary Poole’s concerns, as in “Omigod, my brain flamed out from trying to make a dream version of Gina Marie fuck me last night!” Thing is, I sometimes get sinus pressure when the weather is changeable, and tall dark clouds are building ominously in the summer haze, the air already thick and humid. I remember hearing that we’re due for severe thunderstorms sometime today, and knowing that, I’d be concerned if my temples didn’t throb a little. It’s around noon when I curb my bike on the street at home. I rent a small apartment above a hardware store in northeast Baltimore, an odd little place that has the spirit of an elaborate tree house. Mr. Johnson, my landlord and the owner of the hardware store below, cobbled together the interior over a number of years, using scrap material he could get at enormous savings. The place has tons of mismatched windows and has what my ex-girlfriend called “cartoon character”. It’s freshly painted — about a dozen different colors — and everything everywhere appears to slope one way or another, because it does. I made a bet with myself that I would find at least one right angle hiding somewhere among the walls or cabinets, but a tool borrowed from downstairs proved that Mr. Johnson is genetically incapable of constructing, even by chance, a right angle. It’s stuffy as hell when I open the door, and because I have this thing about air conditioning bringing down civilization through global warming, I fight the heat by throwing open several windows and changing into shorts and no shirt. With a glass of iced Dr. Pepper in my hand, I flop down on my couch and fire up my laptop, typing the words “light body” once the search engine comes online. It takes about ten seconds to feel that I just opened a door to every old religion or new-age cult on the planet. The light body, I see, has as many names as there are people to name it: light body, supra-celestial body, diamond body, body of bliss, resurrected body, radiant body, subtle body… I click through several definitions, and it’s one of those things where the more I read, the more confused I am. One way or another, everybody is pointing in the direction of spiritual enlightenment and the alchemical transformation of earthly flesh into a literal body of Light, capital “L”. Um, riiighttt… And what does any of this have to do with an immaterial body that zips around inside of a dream? I read on, seeing that nearly every spiritual tradition on the planet believes in this possibility, but no one actually knows — or says, online — jack-shit about it. There are many “definite” statements about the light body, but even more questions: Does the earthly body have to wither and literally die for the light body to appear? Must one attain a permanent connection to the God Force through meditative efforts and devotion, or can divine grace bestow the experience of the light body on an unenlightened soul? And what is the light body for — communication with and connection to The Ultimate, or is it merely a further step in human evolution, where the energy of thought transcends our dense and difficult existence as carbon-based

life? I’d thought that religions were at war with the theory of evolution, but this stuff about an evolutionary leap is everywhere in the articles and book descriptions I surf through. I read how the light body is an altered vehicle of consciousness that can operate within ordinary space-time in ways impossible for biological flesh. I read about ethereal forms of energy so refined that they are unknown to conventional physics, while being at the very heart of ancient metaphysics and higher mysticism. Mary Poole hinted at similar things over breakfast, and I wonder how much she knows about this stuff. I picture her beautiful face, and the backs of those shapely legs walking in front of me, and the word that comes to mind is “sinful”, not “spiritual”. She may have the face of an angel, but her body was definitely designed for sin. Then again, I thought the same way about Sharon, and it proved fatal to our relationship. I attended a few yoga lessons with her, and she got pretty irritated with my attitude about the so-called spiritual aspect of the practice. I liked the stretching, but my brain switched off every time the instructor said something about feeling a connection in the body to “higher energies from above”. I mean, I’m not going to say that it’s all a crock, but I feel decidedly dense and mortal these days, and I couldn’t feel something that basic to my personality change just by stretching my body. It seemed like a trivial thing at first, but it grew into a wedge that doomed our relationship. Sharon believed… no, she said she knew that our individual paths are guided by an intelligent higher power. Even if her outlook was more Eastern, with no robes and beards involved, I knew nothing of the sort, not firmly, and stuck to my position of doubt. I guess I could have faked it, proclaiming that I believed whatever Sharon believed, just to make peace. It was tempting, with access to Sharon’s toned and flexible yoga body hanging in the balance. I must believe in stubbornness, though, because I just couldn’t do it. I’m feeling that same skepticism while reading through this stuff on my computer, because the light body keeps being tied to a quest for spiritual attainment — a supposed purification of all earthly desires — and all I wanted to attain last night was Gina Marie’s “titties”, as Dr. Phillips so kindly put it. Gina Marie’s titties definitely felt like heavenly spheres in my hands, and I might be persuaded to call the dream-me a “body of bliss” while they hump-wobbled in front of me, but I hardly think that’s what everybody is talking about. I get up to put some fresh ice in my glass, and notice that I have two phone messages on my machine. The first is a sales call, and the second makes me laugh out loud, because it’s a heavy breather. Incredibly, the excited panting sounds female. Standing still, I listen with rapt attention, all the way until I hear orgasmic cries that are definitely female. I laugh again, but now with a hard-on, because it sounds like some woman just masturbated the living fuck out of herself, and I got to hear it. Maybe it’s that sound — a woman in heat, which I haven’t heard recently — that gets me feeling so agitated. I turn on the TV for relief, and there’s an Orioles/Yankees game on cable. The Orioles are up 2-0, with men on second and third in the second inning with no outs. I grew up hating the Yankees and see no reason to change, and drama like this would normally have me poised to cheer on the home team or throw the remote at the TV. Today, however, my head throbs and my attention skips around like it’s also controlled by a remote, flipping from one thought to the next. Gina Marie’s boobs keep flashing in my mind, and Mary Poole’s legs in her summer shorts. Was she flirting with me today, or is that only wishful thinking? And how precarious is my position in the dream program? I succeeded where others have apparently failed, but then I went off-script and lied about it, and

I'm betting that mary will confirm that. I can only hope that they’ll forgive me and keep me on for the full ninety days. I told them from the beginning that I’ve had a good number of lucid dreams in my life, starting when I was a kid, but I never got the sense that they entirely believed me. In the very first one — I was only six when I had it — I was playing with some toy soldiers on the floor of my bedroom. Everything was normal — I had no awareness that I was actually asleep. But then our cat Midnight slinked in the door and brushed up against me. I was so happy to see him and I hugged him tight… And then realized that the reason I was so happy was that Midnight had died the year before. I knew then that I was dreaming — either that or Midnight had come back to life, which I was pretty sure was impossible. Pretty crazy dream for a six year-old kid. Last night’s dream was pretty crazy, too. What would I have done if I could have flown to another planet or wherever? And why, exactly, did I try to do that? I recall what Millie said about how I always tried to get to the other side of a bridge in my dreams — now I seem to be trying to get to the other side of the whole fucking galaxy. And failing, just like old times. I must have a habit of that, of biting off more than I can chew when I’m asleep. I’m sort of tired for the early afternoon, and lie back on the sofa, pressing the cool of the glass to my right temple. Thing is, I’m almost positive that I know what created the brain highlights that Mary talked about. I told the dream-Gina Marie that she desired me and needed to fuck me, and an entirely new dream appeared, where almost everything I wanted came true. She even wanted her friend Nicole to join us — I never said anything about a threesome, but it’s right out of the playbook , since I heaped lust for Nicole’s tits and pussy onto Gina Marie. It’s like my thoughts, my wishes, got under her skin, even if it was dream skin. Without even knowing I could, I willed a totally hot dream into existence where a rackalicious babe wanted me to have my way with her, and wanted sex with her cheerleader friend. The threesome never happened — maybe if I'd kept dreaming, instead of waking up? The possibilities are insanely cock-hardening, because there are plenty of women from my past that I’d like to see again. Well, not just see — if they appeared, I’d want to fuck them. Ms. Kay, for instance, my eighth grade English teacher. Half the class held its breath every time she removed her sweater, and how many times did I jack off thinking about her back then? I think about the girl who worked at the coffee shop on Charles Street for awhile, the redhead with the super-narrow waist and the power boobs surging out above. Or what about that half-Asian girl, Laurel Lee, from my digital photo class? Laurel had calves that looked like they might crush my motorcycle if she rode on the back, and it was kind of painful when she agreed to model for me, taking in her beauty through the viewfinder with her boyfriend hanging out like a bodyguard during the shoot. I’d just love to plant myself between her divine legs, just once, and in dream form I could do everything with any girl that I ever fantasized about. Hell, as far as I know, I could make Laurel’s boyfriend gay, and take her up into the stratosphere to fuck her astronaut-style. I do see a problem, though — I don’t think I can be in control of who shows up in a dream. Luciddreaming isn’t about willfully creating crazy scenarios in the mind, but consciously working within the parameters that the subconscious has already chosen to visit. My sexual partners would be whichever women happened to appear in my dreams — I wouldn’t think it possible to summon a particular woman just by wishing it so. I could explore that, though — there must be countless women I’ve known or merely seen in my life that quickened my pulse and stirred my cock. What would it be like to travel down the many pathways, and inside the many vaginas, that would never be accessible in real life? No one would get hurt, but the pleasure would feel completely real. Thunder rumbles outside. I switch to The Weather Channel, and read a severe thunderstorm warning

scrolling at the bottom of the screen. They show radar images of the line of storms, and it’s a no-brainer that the baseball game is going to be rain delayed or even postponed. The fucking Yankees — they always have some way of getting out of a jam. I turn off the TV, and close the windows all around. It’s so dark that the street lights have come on, their sensors fooled by the slate grey air. Lying on the sofa with a throw pillow under my head, I close my eyes, and see flashes of light flicker on the dark screens of my eyelids. The windows rattle just before a wave of raindrops slap at the glass. I think of Ms. Kay, bulging sweaters, Mary Poole, great legs, Gina Marie’s tits, Sharon in leotards with her legs spread wide. I wonder if Mary Poole has a boyfriend. She’s too lovely to not have one, and there are probably rules about anyone on staff becoming romantic with one of the test subjects. Thunder cracks, and I try to picture where Sharon would be right now. Probably at the aquarium, leading a tour. Or, if it’s a day off, she might be at her apartment, watching these same storms roll through. I picture her nude on her yoga mat, her body glistening with sweat as lightning flashes outside. I wonder if the storm system will have passed before I have to make the ride to the facility. I wonder if I’ll be able to recognize the whine of the signal tonight when I dream. I wonder how much shit Anne or the others will give me about holding information back in the post-dream debriefing. I wonder how long someone’s been knocking at my door. I have the sense that this is no ordinary visitor. I put my ear to the door, expecting to hear a woman panting heavily, like she’s masturbating the living fuck out of herself. “David? Open up, please. We need to talk.” No masturbating woman; it’s Sharon. I open the door to find her standing at the top of the stairs in cut-offs and a lime green tank top. It’s hot, yes, but I wonder if she’s showing so much skin just to twist the knife, now that the rules are look but don’t touch. She glides past me and sits sideways on the couch, her fine legs stretched out. “I’m here to give you some advice,” she says. “Advice? What advice?” “We need to communicate more, David. You weren’t really capable of it before, but you are now. We need to speak almost every night, because a door has been opened. But it needs to be your door, not theirs.” Sharon never speaks like this — she’s always very direct. I look at her suspiciously, wondering if she’s on something. “You're going to have to wake up, and realize how little time there is,” she says. “What are you talking about? Why are you even here?” She makes a brushing gesture, as though my questions are like lint to be swept out of the air. “You can be so dense,” she laments. “It’s time for you to rise above that, and listen. We need a much better relationship.” “A better relationship? You broke up with me, remember?”

She shakes her head like I’m just not getting it, then stands, her body uncurling from the couch with almost unnatural grace. God damn all that yoga is doing some fine things for Sharon’s body. Lightning flashes and she’s suddenly right in front of me, both hands resting on my cheeks. “You know me, David, but you still don’t know me. Recognize the energy, not the form, and ask a question when you really need answers. There is a bridge that must be crossed, and you’ll never make it to the other side without help. Do you understand?” I’m momentarily disoriented, feeling between worlds, because someone was speaking about crossing bridges just recently. I look into Sharon’s eyes and feel like I know her and don’t know her all at the same time. It’s like she’s my soul mate, yet she won’t even return my calls when I leave a message on her… “David, you really do need to wake up.” “Okay, okay,” I answer. “But you…” “Do you hear that?” she interrupts, cocking her head to listen. The question makes my entire body shiver, though I’m not sure why. The thing is, I don’t hear anything but the patter of rain and the rumble of thunder, and I tell her so. “What would you hear right now, if you were sleeping in the lab?” she asks. “You need to wake up.” I’d hear the signal in the lab, of course, but there is no signal because I’m asleep in my apartment, not the… “I’m dreaming!” I shout, and awareness of my current reality comes flooding in. I’m still asleep on my couch with the thunderstorm raging outside, and all this stuff with Sharon is just another dream. To prove that I’m in the lucid state, I will myself to fly up to the ceiling and sure enough, I’m suddenly floating up here with the other me standing down there, along with the Sharon who talks in riddles. I’m elated at being in the lucid state again, but I also know I could wake up at any second and lose any opportunity to act, and learn. I recall some of the things I wanted to try out, and start by willing my eighth grade English teacher to appear in the dream. Nothing changes, just like I expected. Just to double-check, I concentrate hard on making Gina Marie appear in front of me, and it’s the same. I can travel in a flash — I learned that last night — but some things seem to be set in place, and I might be stuck with them. Which isn’t exactly a disaster, not with my sexy ex-girlfriend in the room. Floating down, I get so close to Sharon that I’m almost skimming her body with my nose. As before, every detail is there, from fingernails to individual eyebrow hairs to the faint chicken pox scar up where her hair begins on her forehead. Down below her tits jut out alluringly under the tank top. Sharon’s tits always reminded me of an adult version of a Barbie doll, full and kind of exuberant, with accessory nipples included. Which I’d just love to fondle again, by trying to create a seduction dream the same way I did last night. An entire scenario appears in my head in a flash, and I go over the sequence, then aim it all into this version of Sharon, hoping to repeat the stirring results of the night before: You didn’t realize it before, but you’re all torn up about having broken up with me, I begin. You can’t stop thinking about me; you ache with desire, your whole body longing for my touch. You want to tease me, and you ache to use all of your flexibility for my sexual pleasure. And then, just to see whether I can dial up a specific sex act: Deep down, you know you can give amazing head, and that nothing can make you come

more intensely than having my cum spurting in your mouth. I float back a bit, and I’m so fucking hard, waiting breathlessly for what I know is going to happen next. Will I “wake up” inside the dream like I did the last time, or will a new dream just appear, like a scene change in a movie? I hover there anticipating the shift… Waiting for everything to change… Crap, why isn’t it changing? Could last night have been a one-time thing, some accidental mishmash of neurons agitating other neurons? Maybe there’s nothing to count on, no special repeatable thing going on at all, and my brain is never going to light up like that again. I’m still floating in the dream version of my apartment, and it begins to feel weird that in real life I’m lying right there on the couch, listening to the same summer storm. I keep hoping, and floating, and I start to get bored as nothing happens. Almost to pass the time, I think myself into the office in Perth that I failed to visit last night. It’s instantaneous and effortless just as before — here’s something I can do with my sleeping eyes closed, though who gives a crap? It’s night in this dream office, with the glowing red numbers of a digital wall clock reading 5:54. Curious, I float over to a window and look outside. It’s an urban environment below, with several crumbled buildings on the other side of the street. One building a block or more away is on fire, and I can see soldiers, not firemen, surrounding the building dressed in combat gear, hanging close to walls or overturned cars with their weapons at the ready. It’s a dream, but too much like reality, with Perth looking like a city on its way to becoming a Road Warrior landscape. I’m perfectly happy to think myself to the next office on the dream list, in Honolulu. There in a blink, it’s like heaven after hell, as this office is bright and sunny with office workers dressed in colorful garments, apparently throwing some sort of party. I float around and yell out some random shit to the staff, trying to gain the attention of anybody at all, but no one reacts to me. I move close to a computer screen and look at the time signature, which reads 10:55 AM. The team would probably be interested in details like this — I don’t know if dream-time is at all consistent, but it seems to be. But would the team even believe that I slipped into the lucid-state again so soon? That’s probably why I need to be hooked up to all that monitoring equipment, so they can know for sure that I’m not just inventing a bunch of stuff that I know they’d want to hear. Thinking about the research facility, I’m suddenly there, hovering inside the sleeping chamber. A young woman I’ve never met is lying on the special table — I think of it as my table, though I must have known that they’d have someone else sleeping there on a shift opposite from mine. It occurs to me that Mary Poole could be around in this dream setting — and wouldn’t I like to try getting a dream-piece of that — so I float through the wall into the monitoring area. There are people milling about, and others sitting in front of monitoring screens — they showed me this room during my interview, and this looks exactly like it did then, except that I don’t recognize these people. I float down the hallways, passing into various offices, then the conference room where they debrief me every night. I see Dr. Phillips, arguing with a much taller man out in the hall, but no Mary Poole, dammit. Maybe if I knew where she lived, I could think myself there and try getting some dream sex going with her that way. Hell, I could do the same with Anne, or any other hot babe if that worked. I suddenly wake up in my apartment, only I’m in bed, not on the sofa. Someone is pounding on the door, and I grin, my cock rocketing hard. I experience no confusion this time — I’m still dreaming, and without a

doubt it’s going to be Sharon on the other side of that door, hopefully all revved to inhale my dick. I’m in shorts with no shirt, just like in reality, and when I open the door I exclaim: ”Sharon! I sure didn’t expect to see you!” She’s dressed just as she was in the last dream, except that she’s sopping wet from head to foot. My eyes lock on to her nipples, which I can see easily right through the damp of her top. “Can I come in?” she asks sheepishly. “I’m drenched.” I make room and she slips by. It occurs to me that I can play this scene one of two ways — making the seduction easy for her, or playing hard to get. I decide that, under the circumstances, it will make my own hardness all the more delicious if I go with the latter. “What are you doing here, anyway?” I ask. “You won’t even return my calls, yet now you’re knocking at my door.” She’s standing in the center of the room, and she looks sheepish. “I… I’ve been thinking,” she says. “About us, I mean. I can’t… I keep having these feelings. I wonder if we’ve done the right thing.” Oh, this is good. Not real, unfortunately, but the next best thing. “What do you want from me, Sharon?” I ask, and I’m delighted when her eyes take a reflexive peek down at the erection tenting my shorts. Damn right, you need that, girl. In this world, you have no choice. “Can I change into some of your clothes before we talk?” she asks. “I’m so… wet.” I'll bet. “You know where my things are,” I say. “No… Help me pick something out, in the bedroom. Please?” We both walk down the short hallway, me watching Sharon’s ass sway. As soon as she sees my bed she sprints and flops onto it, bouncing on her back with her legs spread wide. “I’ve missed this!” she exclaims. I go to my closet, but don’t make any move to actually get anything. A glance into the dresser mirror shows me that Sharon has her legs spread completely sideways, with her torso leaning forward. It’s a leg-splitting yoga position I’ve seen her take before — she knows how hard it makes me, knowing that her pussy is stretched as wide open as a pussy can be. She looks up into the mirror and sees me watching, and smiles with her eyes going all seductive. “Come here, David,” she says, patting the mattress. The look in her eyes isn’t an act — she looks like she’s beginning to pant, and I’m betting that her shorts are damp from more than the rain. “Sharon,” I say sternly, savoring my dominant position in this dream world. “I think you should just leave.” Her eyes flash panic before she gathers her emotions, smiling the conquering smile of a woman who knows how hot her body is, and how hard I am. “You don’t really want that,” she says, and her hands rise sinuously, fingers brushing at her hard nipples through the wet of her shirt. “I’ve… really missed you,” she whispers, her hands becoming more active,

fingers pinching her nipples through the cotton, and pulling at them. “I… need your touch, David. I didn’t realize it at first, but I’ve longed for you, and ached for you…” She grasps the bottom of her tank top and peels it over her head, her fine breasts pointing right at me. She licks her lips and crooks a finger, patting the mattress again. “Get over here,” she softly commands. Sharon’s cheeks are so red they’re almost glowing, and though I can’t see it, I can sense that her pussy burns like a furnace. This is wonderful, better than real. “I’m not falling for this shit,” I declare, wanting to see her heat melt her composure. “If you won’t leave, I will,” and I take a couple of decisive steps towards the hallway. “No!” she cries out, leaping off the bed. “Oh God no, please, I…” “You what?” I demand, turning on her. “I…” Her mouth works nervously, like she can already feel my cock filling it. “I… need…” “You need what?” “You! I need you!” “You should have thought of that months ago, shouldn’t you?” I say, turning away. She grabs my wrist, pulling hard. “No! Don’t leave! I’ll… You always liked it when I…” She’s already on her knees, unzipping me. “Give me one good reason why I should let you,” I say, my words betrayed by the pulsing in my cock. It’s all bravado, even to me now, because she has me pulled out, and she’s rolling my fat cock in her warm hands. “Because… it will be the best one ever, I promise,” she whispers, her tongue reaching out to circle around my cock-head. Oh Jeeeezus. It isn’t real, but everything about it is as real as real, from the liquid velvet texture of her tongue to the little slurping sounds as she draws me inside, swirling hot saliva around and around. She slides me out, planting full-lipped kisses up and down the length of me. “Oh God, your cock!” she cries wetly. “It’s so… I need it, I need it!” And suddenly I’m back inside, feeling her begin to suck in earnest. I grab a clump of her dark hair and pull slightly, and her eyes widen in panic, like she thinks I’m going to make her stop. “You can’t get enough of this, can you?” I ask, and she shakes her head vigorously, a strange mewing sound added to her sucking. I can see the need in her eyes, like she’s driven in ways she can’t even understand. She desperately needs my cum, and I’m getting a blowjob unlike any I ever got from Sharon or any other girl. It’s more about her need than my pleasure, like her mouth is being driven by an engine. Seeing this kind of crazed lost insane need is like a tonic — I have the sense that my cock is expanding more than it can in real life, like the more Sharon sucks the bigger I get, and the more the pressure builds, so much, so insanely intense…

“Jesus Christ!” I yell as she switches into yet another gear. With frantic muffled crazed screams coming from deep within Sharon’s throat, I can barely breathe as my load is forcefully reverse-catapulted up and out, out of me and into her. I see stars dancing on my eyelids, light flashing with a strobe effect and the sounds of my soul crashing into a thousand pieces. I shudder, gasp, my load vacuumed out and away, and all the while Sharon keeps sucking like she’s become a machine stuck on a suck setting, like there’s nothing left of her but the need to suck and suck and suck… I wake up on my sofa, spurting into my shorts. I’m disoriented, breathless, almost delirious from the force of coming. I lay there panting, thunder cracking as true wakefulness gradually blows through me. Holy fucking shit, what have I stirred up inside my brain? Once I stop panting I have to laugh, because in reality my love life totally sucks. I can’t sleep my life away, and too bad — that’s where the action is, and there I can turn a woman into a pucker-cheeked vacuum, able and willing to suck harder than the harshest reality. I close my eyes, and try to relax, and wonder if I can fall asleep again. And if I can, what girl I might get to fuck next.

Interlude — Gina Marie Hurts She had to get out of bed; she just had to. Rising to a sitting position, she swung her legs sideways, and worked to breathe normally. She glanced at the clock — there was still plenty of time to get to her one o’clock appointment, the showing of the Del Monte property. She just had to stop… thinking… about… sex! It had to be some sort of emotional breakdown she was experiencing — never in her life had Gina been overcome with such vivid fantasies, and such overpowering drives. She had awakened early, with three fingers jammed inside her pussy, gasping for air. Shocked, drowsy, she’d slipped her fingers out… and then back in, deeper. She stood, and walked a bit unsteadily to the bathroom, and started from her reflection. The Gina reflected in the mirror looked unfamiliar, her expression like a woman who belonged in an asylum for nymphomaniacs. It was something in the eyes — they were wild, untamed, ravenous. She’d only seen eyes like that once in her life, and they were yellow-green slits because they belonged to a female cat, in heat. With her arms braced on the porcelain sink to support her weight, she shook her head vigorously, like that might rearrange her pupils and recreate the Gina that should be looking back from in the mirror. It didn’t work, and she didn’t think she could keep standing. She slowly collapsed onto the toilet, head in hands. It had all felt so real, so incredibly real. Could it be a memory she’d somehow repressed, resurfacing as a dream in the night? Otherwise, why on earth would she have a sex dream about David Sand? She knew she made him horny back then, back when she called herself Gina Marie. They all got horny over her tits, here in Denver or back there where she’d grown up. She’d caught David staring at her plenty of times, and she might have even deliberately teased him, showing a little extra every now and then just to watch him melt. But she’d never met him in the night, in a negligee, her nipples straining on the porch steps… Had she? She suddenly saw it all again, and her legs spread as if of their own accord, the fingertips of both hands already gliding upon her aching wet need. She saw herself in her parents’ rec room, stripping out of her negligee by candlelight, straddling him on the sofa…

“Oh God!” She had to stop this, it was crazy. She’d already Googled him, digging up his information and dialing his number. Only an answering machine, but the sound of his voice had been like gasoline siphoned inside her pussy, and her fingers didn’t hesitate to light a match, flicking and stroking and dabbing and plumbing… She groaned a groan that reverberated on the bathroom walls, her entire body quivering. This just couldn’t be happening; her libido had never been this out of control even during actual sex. But the images were there, and the urges were more than urges. She needed those hands kneading her breasts, and his dick — that dick — sliding against the walls of her pussy. She needed it, she needed it! "I don't need it!" she asserted. But she did. “What’s… the matter with me?” her voice echoed in the small room. “I’m… Oh God, oh no, oh yes, oh fucking yesss…” She would masturbate until she lay exhausted and shaking on the tile floor if she didn’t do something. Like changing a channel, she tried to shut off the thoughts of sex with him. No relief, because her mind skipped right into images of Nicole Dampley, her old high school friend. They’d only touched bases a few times since then — Nicole had gone to Rutgers, and still lived in New Jersey. They didn’t talk now, but they were Facebook friends, so they could reconnect, and meet. Meet and… what? The answer was there, throbbing right at the mouth of her vagina. It was there in the hardness of her nipples, and she could almost taste salty Nicole-sweat on the tip of her tongue. “No!” she shouted at the bathroom ceiling. But she could see Nicole so vividly, all taut with long graceful legs, and between those legs a pussy that might also throb, needing to be touched, and tasted. Gina had experimented with a girl and kind of liked it, but that had been in college. That girl — Dana — hadn’t been as lovely and willowy as Nicole, and Nicole’s boobs were much better, big pillowy tits she could squeeze in her hands. She could just imagine the wet glistening folds of Nicole’s pussy all pink and swollen, waiting, inviting, hungry for her fingers, begging for her tongue. Hadn’t Nicole almost worshipped her back in high school? If only she had touched Nicole’s lips with her fingers, and stared longingly into her brown eyes, her hands gliding down to cup her breasts, fondling and urging. Nicole would have done anything the old Gina Marie asked, she was sure of it. Even that, she knew it. She should have. She could have, but never realized how badly she needed to. Until now. Now… “Oh Nicole,” she exhaled, giving in to the images, seeing herself, tonight, knocking at her old friend’s apartment door. Nicole would answer with a bright smile, and how long would it take to turn that smile into a puckering oval of lust, lips pressed to lips, nipples pressing nipples, fingers exploring, teasing, entering… “Oh God, I need it!” she cried out. “I need him! I need her! I… I need them!” She’d call David Sand again, and Nicole. Whichever one answered first, they would get her first, cramming her huge boobs into them, not taking “no” for an answer. It would mean a flight back east, the earliest flight she could get… “This is crazy!” She gritted her teeth, and willed her hands away from her inner thighs. “I… don’t need… David Sand’s thing!” she gasp-mumbled, staring up at the white ceiling. “I don’t… want… Nicole! I don’t, I don’t…” But she did. One finger for David, and one finger for Nicole, probing, gliding fluidly inside…

"Oh my God, David! Oh God, Nicole! Don't stop, don't stop!"

Chapter Four — No Pants; Women Panting The air is crisp and clear after the line of severe storms passes, and I spend an hour at a nearby pool hall, winning a few quarters off of guys whose game is only a fraction as good as they think it is. Where I live, it’s the late night players who know how to control a cue ball, and I’ve spent far too many hours in smoky rooms like this, perfecting my stroke. Sometimes real money sits on the side of the table, and the tension can be thicker than a Baltimore beer gut. I enjoy a high stakes game, but it will be months before I can test myself again with the after-midnight crowd. I already miss my old routine; then again, I could be hustling for desperately needed cash tomorrow night, if they cut me loose from the dream project. Which, I fear, is a distinct possibility. Playing pool helps me to think — it has something to do with gauging angles and probabilities, and remaining cool even when the best laid plans roll horribly wrong. Today I see that I’ve missed a key element when it comes to understanding these sex dreams. I’ve focused solely on me, the light body or whatever that can fly around and implant sexual desires into the women populating the dream landscape. But I couldn’t do any of that without first achieving the lucid state, and twice now a woman I feel attraction for has guided me to that realization. Being parts of my dream, the books say that these women are actually me, too — it’s like a piece of my own psyche has decided to take a certain form and help me out, and it seems to want me to be a more active participant in my own dreaming. Very circular, and what does it say when I ended up manipulating my guide into having sex with me this time? Am I almost literally fucking myself in that situation? It’s too convoluted to even think about, so I leave the pool hall and go back to my computer, skimming through whatever I can find about dream guides. Lots of new-age crap again, and a ton of stuff about the anima, the inner feminine self that Carl Jung wrote so much about. I come to no conclusions, but see the need to do as dream-Sharon said, and try to have a better relationship with her, or it, or me. She spoke about a door being opened, and a bridge to be crossed. I'm not sure what that means — it’s like that talk with Millie caused a metaphor from my childhood to be re-awakened. I have this sense that much more is cooking inside than I'm aware of yet, like I’ve already taken the first steps on some kind of inescapable journey, even if I don’t know the exact reasons for traveling, or even the destination. With only a couple of hours before I’m due at the facility, I meander around the Inner Harbor on my bike, soaking up the rain-washed evening air. There’s a Hooters restaurant right in the thick of the tourist area, and I’ve been known to grab a beer and wings there, especially when my appetite is geared towards the contents of tight orange shorts. Today I sit at an outdoor table, where I’m pretty sure a particular redhead with a firm ass and sleek thighs will serve me. I’m right, and I go bold for a change, flirting with her when she takes my order. As expected, she rolls her eyes in response, going so far as to say, “You wish” with a fake smile. I got her name, though — Bobbi — and I make mental notes about every detail of her anatomy. That’s when I realize what I’m actually doing — collecting data for potential dreams, hoping beyond hope that I’ll see Bobbi again, perhaps tonight, in circumstances where everything under those orange shorts is mine for the taking. I don’t know whether this is pathetic or quietly brilliant. Isn’t it just a further step in what millions of people do every day, thinking briefly about how they’d love to get inside of so-and-so’s pants? Everybody fantasizes — at least I assume they do — and this is much the same, only with the possibility of a totally convincing high-def encounter when I fall asleep. If Bobbi feverishly sucks my cock tonight, she’ll never know. I will, though, and I’ll get to hear her “You wish” transformed into “Oh God, yes!”

I look at my watch, and the numbers bring a tightening in my stomach. It’s nervousness about seeing Dr. Anne and the others at work, where I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a second asshole reamed into me for lying about last night’s dream. It’s time to go, and what is there to do but show up and take the heat? Dr. Phillips and Eduardo give me the dreaded stern looks as I’m ushered into the conference room, and Anne, her face darkened with anger, looks more like a leggy schoolmarm than a fashion model today. “Sit,” she points to the most uncomfortable chair in the room. I sit, and work to look appropriately shamed as they go at me hard for neglecting to tell them how I flew into outer space in last night’s dream. I knew it was going to happen; even so, thank you Mary Poole. I don’t say one word as they vent their disappointment. Anne’s legs are especially fetching today, tall heels easing into pantyhose that shimmers nicely. As she slaps my ego around, I maintain my calm by continuing my private anatomy memorization. I sneak detail-absorbing glances at her legs, and study the way her tits project out from her torso, trying to decide how much of that is her own shape, and how much pertains to the bras she wears. Anne still looks sexy even with today's stern eyebrows and firm lips, and I make a silent vow to turn that scolding face into a mask of sheer animal lust the next time I enter the lucid state. “What are you smiling about?” she snaps, and I’m careful to keep my gaze on the floor after that. When she’s done venting, it’s Dr. Phillips’ turn again, and he frames my transgression in the simplest of terms: “This entire experiment is based on receiving accurate information from our test subjects, David, and you’ve proven yourself talented but untrustworthy. I’d like to know why we should even consider the possibility of keeping you on here.” “I feel awful for holding back on you,” I seize the moment, beginning my prepared speech. “I lost my focus in the dream and compounded the problem by letting embarrassment trump candor. I’ll understand if you want me to leave the program, but let me tell you about this afternoon’s lucid dream first. I went to the Perth and Honolulu offices this time.” Everything comes to a screeching halt. They exchange glances, and it’s Eduardo who states the obvious: “It would not help your case to invent another lucid dream, David. We already know you’ve broken your promise to be forthright with us. Don’t tempt us into taking sterner measures. We are not playing around, believe me.” Stern-assed motherfucker. “I know that," I answer evenly. "And I’m not inventing today’s dream. I fell asleep at home and achieved the lucid state again, and I went on to the other two offices to try to make amends. If nothing else, I’d like to tell you the details before you let me go.” I’m not surprised when they leave the room, deciding privately what to do with me. I can’t know for certain, but I’d bet anything that Mary is on the other side of the glass, witnessing everything. I wonder how she feels about it, and whether she’d care either way if they sent me packing or let me stay. The team files in after about ten minutes, and I wonder if it’s a positive sign that they bring me a glass of water. “Let’s begin with last night’s dream,” Anne says, her voice still hard. “Tell us what you saw and experienced when you flew into space. Every detail, nothing left out this time, do you understand?”

I nod, and describe my space trek, from lounging on clouds above my hometown to seeing the satellite, and the attempt to fly beyond. They get hung up on the satellite for a while, wanting a description of its shape and size, its color and markings, anything and everything I can remember. Then it’s on to today’s dream, where I hold back quite a bit of information. I thought hard about this throughout the afternoon, and there’s no way I’m going to admit that I worked to create another sexual conquest while in the lucid state, and that I succeeded. It's a shortened dream that I give them, with true elements sandwiched between Sharon’s entrance and a sanitized ending. They engage in another argument about what sort of figure Sharon is, which feels like a positive sign. Why bother to argue if I’m making it up, right? We go on, and it’s the stuff about Perth and Honolulu that they care about the most, God knows why. They have me repeat the details of what I saw several times — the fires and soldiers in Perth, the office party in Hawaii, the time of day as it appeared on the wall clock and the computer monitor, everything. I sense a shift in the atmosphere when I tell them that I came to this very facility in the dream, without really intending to. I don’t say that I was looking around for Mary Poole or even Anne, hoping to find a hot woman to dream-seduce. But I recount the rest of it, and Dr. Phillips coughs ashes from his pipe when I describe seeing him out in the hallway arguing with a taller man. When I’m done, they all leave the room again, and I sit there for a long time, almost an hour. When they return, Anne hands me a thick stack of 8 x 10 glossy photographs. The ones on top are all photos or illustrations of satellites. “See if you recognize any of these orbiting devices,” Dr. Phillips instructs. I look at each face in turn. “It was a dream,” I say, wondering if they’re putting me on. “I wasn’t actually up there with a real satellite.” “We know,” Anne replies, her voice soothing. “Just humor us, David, and do as Dr. Phillips wishes.” I begin to flip through the photos quickly, not expecting to recognize anything. At about the sixth one, I stop. “Well I’ll be damned,” I say. “That’s it, this one. Only… how could I dream about an actual thing that I’ve never seen?” “We’ve all been exposed to more than the conscious mind remembers,” Dr. Phillips explains. “Keep scanning the photos, please. Tell us if you recognize anything else.” Anything quickly shifts to anyone, because these are photographs of people now. I eventually recognize a guy that I think I’ve seen at the security desk in the lobby of this building, and then… “This girl… Where did I see her?” I close my eyes, memories of the day’s dream playing lightly through my mind. “This is the young woman lying on the table in the sleeping chamber from today’s dream.” Anne smiles reassuringly, looking like a fashion model again, any anger long evaporated. She’s begun to pace like I’ve seen before, and I’m staring at her legs when she says, “Keep going, David.” “Hey, this is the freezing guy in the London office!” I can’t help exclaiming when I see the familiar face. “His haircut is different here, much shorter, but…” “All the way to the last photo, please,” Dr. Phillips urges.

I only recognize one more, the tall man arguing with Dr. Phillips out in the hallway. Anne whirls to fix her gaze on her comrades when I point him out, and I see enough of her thighs to hope that she appears in my dreams without delay. She nods towards the door and everybody gets up to leave again. “David… Would you like something more to drink?” she asks on the way out. “Anything to eat? This might take a bit of time.” “A Dr. Pepper?” I venture. “With ice.” “Too much caffeine,” Eduardo dismisses as the door latches behind them. So they’re going to want me to sleep on the table, as usual. No soda, but fuck it — mission accomplished. I still have a job. *** The team obviously believes in the second lucid dream when I’m put to “bed” in my high tech p.j.s. They give me new instructions — I’m supposed to go satellite hopping now if I come to awareness in my dream state, endeavoring to remember anything I can about the shapes and markings of the satellites I encounter. I know there must have been no such plans to begin with, meaning I’ve evolved the direction of their research, ironically by breaking the rules. I feel pretty smug lying there on the sleeping table, and a little hyper. I shouldn’t be thinking about women I might fuck in the night, not when every tiny change in my brain or body chemistry can be read and interpreted. I shouldn’t be, but I am, getting these flashes of all the pussies that might be available to me tonight. Tempting as some of them are, I don’t fixate on any one woman, or outright fantasize about what I’d like to do. And I don’t think I should go all the way with anybody in my sleep tonight should it be possible. “Abusing” the lucid-dreaming state and losing my load in front of a dozen witnesses is not going to play well with these stiffs, especially if it’s two nights in a row. I’ll have to practice restraint, or be creative in some other way if I want to get my kicks. Maybe I’ll just “relate with” any hot babe in my dream, rather than implanting a narrative where she has to fuck me half to death. Better yet, I could go halfway, making the woman need me to go down on her, so I can at least taste some pussy tonight. I need to remember that they have a window right into the heart of my brain and body. I need to do their work first, and then take any dream sex at a measured pace. I need to ask any anima-type woman what she wants from me. I need to pull my chair closer to the table, because I’m not wearing any pants. I’m not sure how I was able to enter this restaurant with my business uncovered and swinging free, but here I am. I wiggle my toes, confirming that I’m not even wearing shoes. Looking around, no one seems to be staring or upset, but Nicole must know. “Forgot something tonight?” she asks, her eyes smiling. “I, um… I must have been in a hurry to get here.” It’s such a lame excuse — who forgets to put on pants and underwear before leaving the house? I think she’s falling for it, though, because Nicole nods her head like she understands. I experience an alarming gap in my memory — I don’t remember how we ended up here together. Did I ask her out, or did she ask me? “Thanks for agreeing to meet me here,” she smiles, answering my question without knowing it.

This is good — I haven’t even seen Nicole since high school ended, and it must be that she sought me out. I drink in her lovely features, and my eyes sweep down to what I can see of her body. Nicole is wearing a sleeveless blouse, and I think I love her arms just as much as her full breasts. She obviously works out a lot. Not so much that her physique has lost its curves, but she has gracefully pronounced girl-muscles, and that’s without even being able to see her legs under the table. “You’re going to get me going if you keep staring at me like that,” she chides. “Being desperate for sex can be contagious, you know. You might ignite a woman without even knowing you’ve done it.” I can’t help jerking when I feel a bare foot touch my right shin. Is this really happening? The foot moves higher, until it’s resting above my knee. Heartbeat rising, I move my own foot in response, touching one of her knees. It occurs to me then — how do I know that Nicole isn’t like me? As far as I know, she isn’t wearing anything at all below the waist. “That’s kind of up to you, isn’t it?” she teases. “If I know you, I’m probably wearing seamed stockings, and that’s all.” Her foot glides an inch or two up my thigh, and I think I do feel the texture of nylon against my flesh. This girl had the best legs in high school, wonderfully shaped and long, kind of like Anne’s. Again I adjust my chair forward, because now I have a raging hard-on. “Like there could be any other outcome whenever we touch each other,” she whispers, and I think I can see her lips growing more full right in front of my eyes. I’m not surprised that Nicole knows how much her body turns me on — she caught me checking her out a couple of times in classes, and time has been more than kind to her. The heart-shaped jaw and high cheekbones are those of an adult now, and it’s all smoothed into an even better looking woman than the teen I knew back then. “’Back then’ is a deeper concept than you realize,” her thoughts seem to mimic mine. She sips red wine from a wide glass, and licks her lips. “Here’s a question that says something about where we are right now, tonight: How much of this do you think you’re doing all by yourself?” I stare at Nicole without comprehension. “Driving your own dreams,” she explains. “You know you have inherent talent, and always have. But don’t you think it’s a bit odd that you have the keys to the dream-car every time you fall asleep now?” “It’s only happened twice,” I correct her. “Doing something twice isn’t the same as being able to do it all the time.” “A cat climbs a tree twice. Can cats climb trees?” I get her point, but I don’t see how she could know that. Actually, I’m surprised that Nicole knows about the dream research at all. When did I tell her, and will I get in trouble for blabbing about it? “Trouble?” she laughs, and her foot suddenly glides up until it’s planted flat onto my erection. “David, you don’t have the foggiest idea how much trouble this could stir up. You’re a rogue comet, already altering the orbits of two worlds. And after tonight, three, if I know you. It’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?”

She wiggles her toes and I gasp, feeling myself twitch against her. “More trouble to come,” she whispers, and I could swear I see a world of sex beaming out of her eyes. The only trouble I see coming, or the coming that might be trouble, has to do with Nicole’s foot action on my very excited dick. “That’s so beautiful,” she whispers, warm nylon gliding up and down my pole. “Trouble is coming. Coming is trouble. You have dreams to come, and come in your dreams. The snake eats it's own tail, and it's all so true.” “W…what on earth are you talking about?” I breathe out, chills shooting through me. “I’m talking about the union of this and this,” she says, the bottom of her foot manipulating my hard dick more forcefully. “I’m talking about a door that’s been opened, with light pouring into darkened cells. They’ve changed everything, and now everything can be changed.” Nicole sounds like she’s been reading Confucius, and I don’t know how much more foot action I can take without totally losing it. I bring a hand under the table and find the foot and the finely muscled calf attached to it definitely sheathed in fine nylon. I’m going to have to fuck this woman, but right here, with everybody watching? “That’s the one thing you mustn’t do tonight; you know that. And there’s no need. You’ll get what you want anyway, sooner than you can imagine. The doorway is open.” All this talk about doorways. Why do these dream women keep going off about… “Oh fuck! I’m dreaming again! You aren’t really Nicole!” “That isn’t entirely true, but it’s good to see that you’re catching on. You really are naked, though. Always remember how naked you are in front of them, and completely vulnerable in here.” In here… She means the sleeping chamber, with the team monitoring me even as we speak. “That’s right. See? We’re relating.” This is an anima figure — no different than Sharon last night, or Sophie the night before, only in a new form. And relationship, whatever that means to her, seems to be the key. “What do you want from me?” I ask. “I get this feeling that you want me to do something in particular.” “Ultimately, you’ll need to unify the energy of this and this,” she replies, and I feel two feet on my cock now, like my dick has become the meat in a foot sandwich. “There isn’t much time, though the bridge is wide. Do you understand what I’m saying? You must go where the bridge leads.” "W…where does it lead?" I ask. Sharon's eyes narrow, and she looks completely serious when she answers: "Pennsylvania." I groan, half from the rubbing on my cock, half because she’s either talking nonsense, or speaking in impossible riddles. “Why… can’t you just come out and say what you mean?” I gasp.

“Why do Spaniards speak Spanish?” she challenges back with a sly smile. I feel myself getting frustrated, except that her foot-rub on my cock has that part of me going in the opposite direction of being frustrated. “Don’t forget how naked you are,” Nicole reminds me. She’s not helping if my readings are supposed to remain calm. They’re there right now, monitoring my body with their exquisitely sensitive instruments. My own exquisitely sensitive instrument is only a few foot rubs from blast-off, and I know I have to do something to shake up this dream, otherwise I’m going to come in my government pajamas again with the whole team watching. I hear a siren approaching outside — wait, the pulsing is wrong. That’s the signaling device in the sleeping chamber, trying to help me begin lucid-dreaming. “We’re ahead of schedule tonight, aren’t we?” Nicole winks. We are. I think about lifting out of my body, and suddenly it happens. I see Nicole look up at me, and at the same instant that I think I should take care of my satellite chores, she blows me a little kiss, and I find myself high above the earth before I even know that I fully thought about being here. Maybe I should be amazed to be up here in outer space so suddenly, but it's no big deal at all, like my light body is in its element. I orient myself by seeing the North American continent below, and for the hell of it I decide that I want to be over the Middle East tonight. It happens effortlessly, and it still amazes me how my light body can move through space as though distance doesn’t even exist. Scanning the starry vacuum around me, I see several flashes that I recognize as sunlight glinting on metal or other man-made materials. Satellites all, I’m sure, and one by one I visit them, trying to memorize the details of their design and shapes, any markings, where they are situated in relation to each other, anything that I can later recount to the team. I don’t know what the point is, and there is a strong pull to be back in the restaurant. It’s a different kind of pull this time, having nothing to do with flying too far, and everything to do with Nicole’s stocking-sheathed feet teasing my erection. There should be time for both work and play, and I choose Australia next, mostly lured by curiosity. I only come across three satellites here, large winged devices positioned above the western part of the continent. The Australia of this dream looks as distressed as the real place, with fully half the continent obscured by the smoke of countless fires, drifting eastward on lazy winds. I know this isn’t the real post-2/18 Australia below me. It’s more like a detailed depiction created by my mind, and I guess I’ve heard enough about current events that the world below reflects that piteous state. It’s totally convincing, though, and seeing the disaster brings a feeling of sadness to the dream. I’m more than happy to think myself back to the restaurant with Nicole, my official duties done for the night. “Back so soon?” she questions as I hover above our table. From the open-mouthed expression on “my” face down below, that version of me still has two silky feet wrapped around his dick. It's my dick, I remind myself, or my dream-dick, which is surely connected to the functioning of the real thing. What do I do, go back inside that me and risk another pajama accident, or aim desires into Nicole and see if anything changes? In this dream, she’s already all over my cock — it’s hardly like she needs additional encouragement.

“Don’t hold back,” she addresses my floating form. “I’m wet clay awaiting the sculptor’s skilled hands. And awaiting Gina Marie — don’t forget, please.” Fuck, we’re taking requests now? Nicole leans her head and upper body back, opening her arms like she’s presenting herself as a target. This is a surprising evolution of the lucid experience, having a dream woman offering her mind and body to my hormone-driven interventions. What the hell, though? It’s like she said — she’s the clay, and you have to get clay wet to manipulate it. And I want nothing more than to make dreambabes like Nicole wet, as wet as can be. “You need me to eat your pussy, Nicole,” I declare, just saying the words out loud. “Oh yes!” she cries, her eyes shut, mouth open, looking like she just wants to drink it all in. “It’s like waves washing into your pussy," I continue. "Waves bringing in the desperate need to feel my tongue on your clitoris, my fingers and my cock entering you.” “Oh David!” she cries out, and I see that her heat has attracted the staring of most of the people in the restaurant. Fuck them — they aren’t real, but the preview I’m getting of Nicole’s hyper-lust sure does seem to be. “Your pussy will feel no peace until you get my lips are planted on it, my tongue nibbling your clit.” “Uh! Oh God, yes!” Nicole bellows. “More! Oh please, more! Give me Gina Marie, too!” I feel like she’s leading me in what might be a profound way, like maybe she knows that if I make her horny for Gina Marie, it will complete some kind of dream circuit. Gina Marie wanted Nicole the other night, so now Nicole wants to want Gina Marie — it makes as much sense as anything else, and maybe a new dream will appear where I get that threesome going after all. “You’re pussy also aches for Gina Marie Hurt’s touch. You’re dying to get it on with her, to grind cunt against cunt, to taste her boobs and her nipples, to fuck her with your fingers. Nothing is hotter than sex with Gina Marie, except sex with David Sand.” I have the feeling that if I go back inside my other body, there won’t even be a need for the dream to switch for sex to commence. Will Gina Marie just appear, or come jigglng through the door of the restaurant? If a door is going to open, why not the one over there, with a set of whopping boobs bouncing through? Nicole glances down, right where she would see the other me’s aching erection if she had X-ray vision. She’s begun to gasp for air, and I’m almost certain that she’s mentally measuring the amount of space beneath our table, wondering if we can get it on down there. She looks half-crazed with the lust, and now she beams her need right into me. Into me, the me up here, which is a new wrinkle. “Please!” is all she says. It’s all she needs to say — I don’t think I’ve seen an expression of lust more beautiful in my life. It’s primal, all-encompassing, and I want it aimed at the other me, the one with the dick that can dream-fuck her. I merge back into my other self, and immediately feel the sensation of her silken feet squeezing hard at my cock. Nicole’s eyes are wide and wild, the scent of her wet pussy almost like a cloud enveloping our table. “Oh God, eat me, eat me!” she implores, right before diving under the table. I feel two hot hands wrap

around my cock, and she yanks, hard. I have no choice but to go down, down between two well-muscled thighs spread wide, the air moist and thick, saturated with the smell of drenched pussy. “Do me!” she snaps. “Oh God, eat me! Eat me now! You have to eat me!” Will they see that the dream has become about pure sex on their monitors? Fuck it, I can taste Nicole already, her pussy and my tongue on twin missions. I grasp her thighs tightly, and bury my head between them, pressing my mouth hard against this boiling cauldron of a pussy I’ve created, swiping a deep swipe, drinking in her heat… And then I awaken with a gasp. Really awaken, inside the sleeping chamber, gulping in oxygen with my cock swollen hard, pulsing like another ten seconds of dream time would have led to blast-off. For some reason the very first thing I think of is Mary Poole, invisibly monitoring all there is to be monitored about my brain and body in the adjoining room. Yes, dream sex can be napalm hot, I think, remembering her questions. Almost like getting a glimpse of the future, I can picture Mary Poole and Dr. Anne monitoring my vital signs, watching my brain light up and scratching their heads. How beautiful, if it’s the two of them I’m dream-seducing in my head, while they see me doing it out here in real life. Maybe next time, I think, smiling at the glass as an attendant opens the chamber door. *** The debriefing in the conference room runs smoothly this time. It isn’t that I practice anything like full disclosure, but it helps that I didn’t cream my pants as I slept. I give the team the gist of the dream — Nicole Dampley and me at a restaurant, me with no pants on. I change the content of our actual conversation to reminiscing about high school, with Nicole deciding to explore the nakedness of my lower half with her feet. No one chuckles or even raises an eyebrow at the foot-play stuff — it was a dream, and what kinds of crazy shit would appear if everybody in the room had theirs examined? I feel like my story is consistent enough with their readings that I’m covered, and they’re only too happy that I managed to fulfill my satellite chores. I describe everything I remember about the orbiting thingamabobs I scrutinized, pretty sure that a few of them belong in a Dr. Suess book, not a science journal. I conclude with the joining of my two dream bodies in the restaurant, where Nicole again attacked my privates with her feet, eventually waking me up. I only become concerned once, when Anne mentions, without really describing it, the unusual light show happening inside my head. “David, I want you to think very carefully about something. Twice now we’ve seen a surprising spike in brain activity when you return to the scene you left behind. You go flying off, and we believe we’ve pinpointed certain physiological markers corresponding to that activity. But something… unexpected, happens afterwards. We don’t know why. Could you tell us what you experienced in this recent dream, right at the point when you rejoined your other dream body?” “Like…” “Your emotional state, what you were thinking when you saw the other you again, whether you felt

relieved or excited after flying… Anything?” “It’s related to intense concentration,” Eduardo asserts more gruffly. “We want to know what your thoughts were focused on immediately after your satellite visits.” They’re talking about the time when I grafted a desperate need for my tongue onto Nicole’s pussy, which I could see taking effect right in front of my eyes this time. There’s no way I’m publicly copping to that — even dream-Nicole agreed with this decision, twice reminding me about being naked and vulnerable in front of the team. I use what Anne just gave me, describing in an intentionally abstract way how I experienced a heightened sense of accomplishment and excitement after flying around so easily. It takes some self-discipline to keep from laying it on too thick — no need to appear like a dream boy scout, especially when they know I returned to my other body to be the recipient of Nicole’s ongoing foot-job. I can tell by the way Anne doesn’t pace that what I’ve described is acceptable, although they do send me down the hall to be poked and prodded by three doctors before calling it a night. When I’m asked whether I’ve experienced any headaches recently, I confess that I did have one yesterday. Fuck me for telling the truth this time, because my answer results in an hour or more inside of a gleaming metal tube, my head scanned by magnetism or soundwaves or whatever. It’s a little later than usual when I finally leave the facility. I’m almost at my bike when I hear footsteps behind, and turn to see Mary Poole running towards me. “I just wanted to say,” she begins, a bit breathless. “I’m glad that everything worked out. Please don’t feel that I… I had to tell them about your space travel last night, you must see that.” “I see that.” She’s asking for forgiveness. What she did is no big deal; besides, it’s hard to be mad at a woman who looks so yummy. “Like you said, it all worked out. They even want me to fly into outer space now.” “I know. They’re very excited, David. I mean, Eduardo hung out in the control room most of the night, and he was smiling. I didn’t know he could do that!” “That’s good,” I answer, acutely aware of how nice it feels to be around this real girl, as opposed to the imagined ones. I want to get to know Mary better, and I think she can sense me thinking that, which becomes uncomfortable. “It was weird seeing your head light up again,” she says. “I just don’t know how you do that!” Like before, I can’t tell whether she’s expressing concern, or professional curiosity, or if she’s fishing for information. “I’ll try to stop doing it if it bothers you,” I say, keeping things light. She laughs, but her expression quickly shifts to a more serious look. “I have my own opinion of what you were thinking about when your brain lit up.” “Oh? And what would that be?” “Sex.” It’s only a single word spoken softly, but I’d swear the sounds of distant traffic just came to a halt, like the whole world wants to listen in. I feel my heart beating in my chest, and work to keep my voice level when I ask: “Do the others agree with you?”

“The others are fixated on what you observe when you go flying around.” “What’s the point of all that, Mary?” I ask, trying to change the subject. “What do they learn if I pretend teleport to a pretend version of an actual place?” “I’m not entirely sure. I think it has to do with the collective unconscious, and how we can know many things that we shouldn’t know.” “You’ve lost me.” “Think about the satellites you visited. What do you know about satellites, or what they look like? You’re no expert, so your dream-satellites should be about as accurate as a child’s stick figure. Yet you identified an actual satellite from the other night’s dream — I'm not certain, but I think you might have even gotten the position of that particular satellite correct. One explanation is that you’ve seen photos of that satellite before, without remembering, consciously, that you did. Another explanation involves your tapping into a sort of group consciousness in a state of deep sleep — you’d know about that satellite because others know about it, and knowledge gets blended together on wavelengths we don’t or can’t recognize.” “Do you believe that?” I ask. “That my mind tapped into Joe NASA’s mind while I slept? It sounds kind of like a crock.” “Honestly, I’m not sure. The point is that the others are focused on certain aspects of the research, meaning they aren’t as concerned with others. They see some things; I see other things, and to my eyes the readings don’t lie. You were thinking about sex right before your brain did its glowing business this time. Maybe you were thinking about sex during the time it glowed.” So Mary is the whiz kid when it comes to interpreting my vital signs, whether the others know it or not. She’s as smart as she is beautiful, and intuitive, too, like she practically has my number when it comes to dream sex. I look into her eyes, almost daring her to say more. She doesn’t back down. “Big boobs and under the table foot-jobs from former high school cheerleaders, huh? That’s what lights up a guy’s brain?” I feel my cheeks redden — come to think of it, they’ve been doing that a lot lately. “We guys can dream, can’t we? Cheerleaders are powerful symbols, you should know that.” She smiles, thank God. “Another week of monitoring your dreams and I’ll know the perfect girl to hook you up with,” she jokes. “Only I don’t think I know any role-playing call girls.” I ignore that one, and ask: “Is the team… you know, upset, by the nature of my last two dreams?” “None of our other test subjects have dreams as frisky as yours,” Mary answers. “Then again, none of them are coming anywhere near the lucid state. Their dreams are useless until they do.” “Gotta take the bad with the good, right?” “Oh, I don’t know. Where is the bad, exactly? How do you know I don’t have fun watching your hormone levels shoot up like fireworks?” I’m the one laughing now. I think Mary might be a rebel at heart, which I find additionally attractive. I take

a deep breath before venturing: “Breakfast? My turn to treat.” “I… can’t,” she says, and her mouth crinkles adorably before adding: “It’s complicated.” “Complicated” almost always means “boyfriend”, and I don’t ask. As she’s turning to leave, I remember something from the most recent dream that I need help with. “Mary, you know a lot about the anima, right? How to recognize it, how it behaves in dreams and all that?” I’ve intrigued her. “I know a fair amount, although the others would know much more. Why? Your footsy girl wasn’t an anima figure, if that’s what you’re thinking.” It is what I’m thinking, and her opinion might be different if I’d given an accurate description of the conversation I had with dream-Nicole. “Anne and the others were talking a lot about the anima yesterday morning,” I spin. “The conversation made me remember a dream I had a few years ago. I didn’t know it then, but I think I was having a lengthy discussion with an anima figure in the dream. Only she kept talking in riddles — I even asked her why she kept doing that, and she gave me the weirdest answer.” “Which was?” “She said, ‘Why do Spaniards speak Spanish?’, like that answered everything.” Mary giggles. “That’s really a wonderful story, David. In her world — your anima’s world — it is the perfect answer.” “What was she trying to tell me? She speaks English as well as I do — she’s me, after all — so why does it come out so convoluted?” “Think of it this way — your anima isn’t a real woman, as you already know. She’s a personal metaphor, given life by your psyche in a particular state of deep sleep. What she’s telling you is that metaphors are also the language she speaks. It’s you, your regular mind, that expects communication in the language you’re most comfortable with. The way that we’re talking right now belongs to the waking world — it isn’t native to the subconscious mind, and she has no business saying much of anything directly. It just isn’t in her nature.” “So if she said something like ‘a doorway is open’, or ‘there’s a bridge to be crossed’…” “It would have nothing to do with a literal doorway or a literal bridge. There would be a deeper — or at least an indirect — meaning behind the message.” “How do you find the meaning, then, if it’s like translating a language that you don’t really know?” “It’s tricky, and takes practice. Telling the dream to someone can help. Or just writing it down. Sometimes the words you choose in recounting the dream come from the same part of the mind that did the dreaming, or you might see a pattern in front of your eyes that escaped you before. I remember a dream of my own, a rather grisly one, where I watched this creepy guy kill an old woman with an ice pick. He turned to me and proclaimed: ‘I’m Bats Man!’ and then ran off. I couldn’t figure it out — did he mean to say that he was Batman, because Bats Man just didn’t make any logical sense. It wasn’t until I wrote the dream down that I saw it, that ‘bats’ is the mirror of ‘stab’. Dreams will do that all the time, making these clever riddles, or shoving the truth right in your face in a way you have to ponder to recognize.”

“That’s really helpful, Mary. Thanks.” “I’m glad to help.” I can’t resist watching as she makes the trek to the employee parking area. Mary is in white slacks and a peasant blouse today, and has no problem making it all look sexy as hell. I believe her, about being happy to help. I also know I long for a big wet helping of her. Maybe she senses that I’m staring and admiring, because she turns once and waves to me. I give her a little wave back, then fasten my chinstrap and accelerate out of the parking lot. “I want to make it with that girl for real,” I tell the plastic visor of my helmet, then merge onto the highway, heading for home. *** When I turn onto my block, I see a familiar Honda Civic parked in front of my apartment. I’m trying to fathom the implications when Sharon curls out of the driver’s door, and waits for me to park my bike. “Hi,” she says once my helmet is removed. Fuck, she’s looking good. Other than yesterday’s dream, I haven’t seen her in more than a month. “Let me guess,” I say warily. “You left something that you just remembered.” I expect her to respond with something combative or even cruel, but she just looks down at her feet. She’s wearing extremely short shorts with running shoes, and a plain white T-shirt. She might even be braless, and it pains me how lithe and totally fuckable she looks. I end up staring at my feet, too, probably to lessen the useless desire. “Can we talk inside?” Sharon asks in a thin voice. “About what?” “About… We just need… I just need… We have to talk.” She has her butt leaning on the side of her car, and she suddenly looks to the heavens, her face animated in a way I’ve never quite seen before. She lets out a sudden breathy laugh before turning a fiery gaze on me. She groans and looks to the heavens again, and the word that comes to mind is “hysterical”. “Sharon? Are you okay? What’s happened?” Another strange laugh in response, followed by a soft, “No, I’m not okay!” and a shake of the head. “Please let’s go inside,” she insists, and I think I see her physically shudder. This has to be something really major. Several possibilities flash through my mind: Her dad had a heart attack, or maybe a visit to the doctor uncovered something horrible. I’ve heard that the Baltimore Aquarium is having its funding cut by a third — would losing her job put Sharon into an emotional tailspin? I unlock the stairway door, and stand aside to let her pass. A mistake, probably, because now I have an easy view of her perfect ass as she climbs the stairs. There are some very good reasons why I miss being with

Sharon, and it hurts to be freshly reminded of them like this. Seeing her in my dream was one thing, but this is reality. I have a sudden chilling thought: Could I be dreaming again? What if I wrecked my motorcycle, and I’m unconscious on the side of the road? I will myself to float out of my body, but nothing happens. This is waking life, I’m sure of it. “I… made a terrible mistake!” Sharon expels when we reach the landing, and I’m unlocking my door. “What do you mean?” I ask, inviting her inside. “What’s happened?” “I shouldn’t have… Oh God, I’ve missed you so much…” My mouth opens to tell her how much I’ve missed her, too, but I stop myself from saying it. Sharon is distraught about something, that’s obvious. Her emotions are out of whack, but that will pass. “We… I should never have said all those things,” she half-sobs. “What was I thinking?” “It’s okay,” I soothe. “Now tell me what’s…” All rational thought evaporates as she presses into me, her front to my front, a total body merge. My back hits the living room wall and I feel her warmth, and the swell of her breasts on my ribcage, her head straddling my chest and left shoulder. I don’t know what to do with my hands — wrap them around her? Push her away? What I really want to do is cup her firm ass, and when I feel one of her hands worming into the front of my pants, I go ahead and do it. “Sharon, what…” I begin to ask, but she puts her other hand over my mouth to shut me up. “Touch me all over!” she demands. “Touch me, feel me… Oh my God, oh my God…” My hands glide up her smooth back, and there is no bra strap impeding their journey. Sharon has taken hold of my cock, and she’s rubbing at it in a frantic, fumbling way. I’m hard as hell, excited as hell — I mean, I’m no saint, and I'm not going to say no to fucking her again, even if she's whacked out of her mind and we'll both regret this later. I feel my pants being unbuttoned, then lowered down my legs. She’s practically mauling my dick with one of her hands. I reach down and grab the bottom of her T-shirt, and quickly peel it away. With her breasts exposed I go at them, hand on one squeezing and kneading, tongue lapping at the other. Sharon lets out some kind of bestial cry when I go at her left nipple with my lips, dropping to her knees and sucking my cock into her mouth in one sudden intake of heat and saliva. “Oh Jeez!” I gasp. Sharon is pretty good at sucking a dick, and I’ve missed that like crazy. Only this… Fuck, where was she hiding this? I didn’t know she could… “Oh God, Sharon! Oh fuck, oh fuck…” I feel a wave of jealousy rise, aimed at some guy I don’t even know, because she’s been practicing, and learning a whole new set of tricks. She was always artful when blowing me, starting with lots of teasing licks, using her tongue and cheeks gently, going at the upper half of my cock a bit at a time. This is… insane. Insanely good, like my old girlfriend has been enrolled at BJU, learning to suck like fuck while we've been apart.

My legs begin to tremble, and I run my fingers through her hair, stunned by what she’s doing to me. She moans as she sucks, and I see that both of her hands have gone between her legs. She’s getting off with me, and we’re… Oh holy shit she’s good, so fucking good! “Oh Sharon!” I choke out as it all comes together inside. I feel myself blasting into her mouth, coming hard, feeling it all the way into my tingling fingers. Sharon’s hand-action between her legs has her detonating, too — she keeps sucking at my dick and her eyes are literally crossed for several seconds. She looks thunderstruck, and suddenly lets go of me, toppling sideways into a fetal position, gasping or crying or… I’m really not sure what. But she's shaking, almost jerking like my floor has electric current running through it. I slump down beside her, kind of comforting her, kind of delirious after having my rod so expertly drained. My rod aches — aches good, the way it would ache every damn day in a perfect world. Fucking actual sex, with Sharon again! She always looked as hot as burning coals, and she was a good lover. But now that we aren’t together, she appears to have catapulted to an entirely different order of sexuality. Unless it’s just her distraught emotional state fueling her fires. I’m… happy — I mean, how can I not be after getting a humjob like that? But how am I going to feel when Sharon’s current crisis — whatever it is — passes, and we have to deal with each other under more normal circumstances? We lie there for a good while, Sharon’s breathy gibberish eventually sorting itself out into a repetitive, “Ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod…” I know that we’re going to have to transition from the glow of after-sex to a discussion of whatever has happened in her life. When I think I can do it, I pick her up, and carry her to the bedroom, depositing her gently on the bed. I turn to leave and she grasps my arm, pulling me to her. I relent, joining her. It feels weird, lying beside my ex-girlfriend on the bed, holding her close, comforting her. I’ve never seen Sharon so needy, and I can’t be cold to her at a time like this, even if we did end badly. End? With our hearts pounding together, bodies pressed close, it hardly feels like the end of something. Especially when she pools saliva all over the palm of her right hand, and brings it down to my cock, smothering me with wetness and stroking, fast.

Interlude — Dampley Is the New Wet She was halfway through preparing a tall Cinnamon Dolce Latte when she couldn’t keep the images at bay anymore. The frothing of the machines and the low hum of customers’ voices faded away, replaced by her own shallow breathing, and the swirl of saliva in her mouth, and her heart pumping heat to her vagina, her hissing steaming pussy, beginning to foam with anticipation… Nicole shook her head, closing her eyes tight. This is crazy, this is crazy! she told herself, biting her lower lip. She thought she'd gotten hold of the urges, masturbating the need away before coming in to work. But it was back, the gnawing need flooding back in, haunting her from the inside. She clenched her thighs tight, trying desperately to keep from leaning against the counter to stroke her privates with its hard edge. “Nicole? You okay, girl?” No she wasn’t okay. They were here, the thoughts and images and heat, the wonderful terrible wet heat,

rolling into her in disorienting waves. She could feel her nipples aching beneath the green apron, achy needy pressure gathering between her legs… “Ohhh yesss…” she hissed out loud. Glancing sideways, she saw that Charlene, the new girl, was staring. Charlene had small breasts, but she was blonde and well put together like Gina. Charlene had a pussy — did all pussies taste roughly the same, or would Gina’s be extra-special, like the size of her boobs indicated a particular flavor? A special flavor. “Oh God, I’ll bet it’s so special!” “Nicole? What’s up?” She pictured Gina’s thighs, spreading wide open to allow access. She could see them, the creamy thighs, glistening or even smeared, smeared and shiny with David's stuff. "Oh yes! Yes!" “Nicole? Nicole, what’s up?” Fuck, the manager. She shifted her stance, rubbing her thighs together even tighter, trying to tease it and not tease it and somehow satisfy it all at once. The hot tide was easing out momentarily, she could almost think. “I’m… having some sort of…” she tried to tell her boss. Only she didn’t know what to call it. Psychotic episode? Hormonal attack? Vaginal power play? It felt like her pussy could heat up and froth the drinks all by itself, but how did you admit that to anybody, especially your boss? “Take a ten minute break,” Mr. Bowens ordered, taking the half-prepared concoction from her hand. ”Come back focused or don’t come back at all, understand? You’re a good girl, we all know that, so whatever it is, come to grips, okay?” She almost wanted to cry — hadn’t she been trying to come to grips since awakening in the night? The visions of her old pal, Gina Marie, and that quiet photo nerd, David Sand, followed her out of her dreams like a tidal wave, a boiling hot tsunami with the epicenter somehow in her nipples and pussy all at the same time. And sometime this evening… “Oh my God!” she cried out, a sudden rush of heat almost bringing her to her knees. “Nicole! Go!” “What?” Oh, she was still behind the counter, indoors. She removed her apron, ignoring the stares of her coworkers and the customers, marching into the bright morning light. She needed to get off again, desperately, but where? Her car. It would be hot as blazes inside, and not very private… It was hell making the short trek — that wasn’t sweat dampening her panties, and tickling at her right thigh. She had great legs, very long and workout shapely, and she knew that some of the customers would be looking at them. She had to keep it together, and not let her hands creep down between her thighs, not out here, not falling to her knees on the blacktop, not where everybody would see how crazed and fucking desperate she was. Behind the wheel, she unbuttoned the front of her shirt, pinching her nipples, twisting and hissing, almost

spitting out her lust. “I have to go home!” she cried, one hand turning the key, the other squeezing the flesh of her breasts. She looked at the dashboard clock — still hours and hours before she could get her hands on Gina’s breasts. “Why? Fucking why?” she shouted, banging her forehead on the top of the steering wheel. Why had a phone call from her old high school pal caused her body to go berserk? It didn’t happen all at once — it was like some time–delayed detonation, agreeing to meet and not even caring that much about it at first. Gina sounded kind of messed up, almost crazy, talking too fast and not always making sense. She went to bed wondering if she even wanted to see Gina, awakening in the early morning all… all hopelessly masturbaty, all relentlessly hot, chilled and hot and so needing to be touched, so needing to get off. “Why?” she repeated, receiving no answers. What she did know was that there was no way she could last until the evening, or go back to work. The urges were too intense; she’d end up having some sort of episode right in front of everybody. She should go home, but could she even make the drive? Home was only ten minutes away… No, there was no way she could focus that long. What if she wrecked, and the police wouldn’t let her play with herself? She’d fucking die! She put the car in neutral and set the parking break, turning the a.c. to full blast. Leaning the seat back, she lifted her rear and slid her shorts and underwear down, kicking them to the pedals. The smell of her wetness suddenly filled the car, enough that she rolled her window partly down for air. It wasn’t like the parking lot was crowded, and so what if some stranger caught a whiff, or saw her finger-fucking herself? So fucking what? She brought her right middle finger between spread legs, and let it slide up and down, up and down, wiggling and tickling at her labia, curling to give her swollen clit a special dab, a hard dab. She closed her eyes, imagining Gina’s lips… No, David Sand’s tongue… “Oh God, both at once!” she gasped. Gina’s tongue flicking at her clit, and a big thick David dick tunneling deep into her… “Uh!” she cried, falling sideways. Her arm brushed against the leather stick shift… “Oh no!” she declared, fighting the urge. But she already knew her fingers weren’t long enough to serve as stand-ins for his cock. “I… I won’t do it!” she insisted, terrified of the force of her own intentions. “I’m not like this! I’d never…” But she was already climbing up from the driver’s seat, spreading her legs wide to the side to squat into position. “Oh God help me!” she pleaded to the windshield. A flash of her sweating face in the rearview mirror confirmed that she was totally lost, still herself but in no way the self she used to know. “I’m not going to fuck my fucking car!” she feebly protested, feeling the vehicle rock slightly as the tip of the shifter found her drenched slit, and she pushed down. “Uh! Oh my God, oh fuck, oh fuck…” It was much as she’d thought it would be — unyielding and hard and wide. He would be hard and wide, too, she knew that. She’d felt up his cock with her feet in the dream and he was a big boy, and she wanted him to go at her without yielding, taking her for all she was worth. She was so wet, so incredibly lubricated, that she felt like she could fuck two stick shifts if they made them that way. Needing it harder, needing it deeper, she raised herself with her calves, then let her ass sink down, driving it in deeper, with more pressure on the front wall of her pussy. “Yes!” she cried. “Oh fuck, yes!”

Gathering momentum, trusting her legs, she freed her hands, and removed her blouse and bra entirely. Kneading, pinching, shouting and gushing, she rocked the car, rocked it harder, faster, grunting his name, hissing Gina’s name, seeing them in her mind and surrendering entirely. She rocked the shocks, sideways and then forward, squeezing her tits hard, abusing her nipples, abusing herself inside and out. “More!’ she demanded of the hard shifter. “Deeper! I… I need more! Oh God I need them! I fucking need them!” When she came, it was like her pussy exploded inside her ears, and she just kept coming, the sound in her ears a monotonous tone even as searing waves of escalating force ripped through her body. She shouted out her orgasms, sobbed them out again and again, and always the steady drone in her head. It wasn't until she could finally blink open her eyes that she understood how she’d collapsed diagonally, and that her shoulder and back were laying on the horn.

Chapter Five — Lust Never Sleeps I don’t know what sort of event precipitated her change of heart, but I sure do love fucking my new old girlfriend. Sharon and I don’t shake the mattress the way we used to — that was making love, while this is having the cum pressure-cooked right out my cock. Like a lost soul, she drives her whole body down onto me, making sounds that I can only interpret as demented enthusiasm. Whatever they are, I’ve never heard a girl, especially this girl, make so much noise during sex, and it turns out that noise is hot. Sharon couldn’t help being a turn-on with that honed and flexible body of hers, but she was kind of lady-like during sex, which included making sure the neighbors couldn’t hear the box springs squeaking. Nothing in the way she moves or grunts says lady-like now, and if I had any neighbors up here I don’t even think we’d hear them banging on the walls. It’s getting hot enough that our bodies slip-slide in our post-coital grasping. Sharon wraps both arms around my waist, and quickly drifts into a deep satisfied sleep. At a certain point I peel her limp arms away, and sit up. She utters this weird “bluh!” sound through wet lips, her hands grasping for me. “I’m just going to get something to drink,” I say. “Get some sleep, and then we’ll talk.” I have to pry her hands away to leave. In the kitchen, I lean my head on the fridge, completely bewildered. I’m ecstatic about getting some real sex for a change, but disoriented now that it’s fallen into my bed out of the blue. A whirlwind dose of ex-sex is the last thing I would have imagined happening today, and I’m not sure how to deal with it. Sharon is messed up, that’s for sure. I’m beginning to think that she’s had her heart broken in the weeks since we’ve talked, and that my dick is being used to pump self-esteem into her body and soul. Either that, or my horny wishes from the dream world crawled right inside her pussy, and fucked with her mind. I laugh while scooping coffee — such a thing would be fabulous, but it’s just another kind of dream. I recall the old lucid dream where I thought my cat might have come back from the dead — at some point what you hope might be true meets the reality of what can actually be true, and you have to accept that the impossible does not happen. The occasional miracle maybe; the outright impossible, no. The fact is that Sharon is here for reasons that will become known when she’s ready to talk. In the

meantime I’m not going to allow myself to feel the hopefulness that comes at the beginning of a new relationship, because I know that we don’t work right as a couple. We’re doing great in bed this morning, but that’s this morning. I had good days with this woman in the past, but good days and one morning of incendiary sex aren’t necessarily enough. I decide before finishing my first cup of coffee that there are three things I want to do right now. One, photograph Sharon sleeping. Two, write down the last few dreams I’ve had, like Mary Poole suggested. And three, drill for oil inside Sharon’s hole again before she realizes that she’s compounding her mistakes by coming back to me like this. I start with the photos. It’s usually more of a planned production than this, with reflecting umbrellas set to bounce some fill light into shadow areas, and I have a homemade tripod with an extending arm that allows me to point my camera straight down onto my sleeping subjects. This morning I just pull a chair next to the bed, and focus my Leica on Sharon as I can. She’s gorgeous, and unmistakably sleeping after sex. Though the light is more random than I’d normally want, something in Sharon's after-sex look makes me believe that these could be special photos, maybe even the best in the series. Sharon shows no signs of waking up, so I take a seat at my kitchen table, with a yellow legal pad and pen in hand. I can remember all three lucid dreams, but I’m sure I’ve forgotten particular turns of phrase. Rather than writing down an event-by-event replay of each dream, I try to recall the specifics of the conversations with the women who’ve been helping me, and the cryptic things they’ve said. In no time at all I have potential messages in front of me that may or may not have important meanings: A door is open, and it needs to be your door, not theirs. There is a bridge to be crossed, and you can’t do it without help. Being desperate for sex can be contagious. How much of this do you think you’re doing all by yourself? You’re a rogue comet, already altering the orbits of two or three worlds. A door has been opened, with light pouring into darkened cells. They’ve changed everything, and now everything can be changed. Unify the energy of this and this. Looking at these, I try to put my usual way of thinking on a shelf, forgoing logic for something looser and freer, or even poetic. The first thing that strikes me is the bit about light pouring into darkened cells. That sounds so much like what Mary has described, with my brain lighting up on her monitor. Would that make the newly lighted cells brain cells? If that’s right, then maybe the opened doorway would be like a new way of thinking. Where, then, does the concern come from that it be my door and not theirs? Who’s they? The dream team? They’ve changed everything, and now everything can be changed. “They” again. Changed the way my brain lights up? But that isn’t their doing — they don’t seem to know how it happens any more than I do. Or Mary doesn't; the others who knows. Anyway, what is the everything that can be changed? I keep looking, and associating, trying to go stream of consciousness, and that’s when I remember what supposedly lies on the other side of the bridge I must cross: Pennsylvania. Fucking Pennsylvania. Where’s the meaning in that? And dream-Nicole twice proclaimed that I’d have to unite this and this, while squeezing my dick with her feet. I guess I’m fine with getting a foot-job, but where the fuck is any meaning? I think I hear rustling in the other room, and grab a glass of ice water for Sharon in case she’s awake. She’s most definitely awake when I pad back into the bedroom, sitting up and completely naked with her legs spread wide, inner thighs glistening with sweat and the evidence of our sex. I haven’t put any pants or

underwear on, and I can see that she sees that I’m hard again, because her eyes aren’t leaving my dick. She beckons with a finger, her other hand spreading her labia wide, showing off the pink zone where I’m supposed to be. A wise man would probably just aim and swan-dive on top of a beautiful woman whenever she does that. Me, I’m going to fuck Sharon again, definitely, but I also want to know what’s happened to make target practice like this possible. “Maybe you should tell me what’s going on,” I say, offering the water. “You wouldn’t have come here like this without, you know… reasons.” Sharon takes a couple of quick gulps, resting the glass on my bedside table. “I… don’t want to talk,” she whispers, reaching out to me. “I only want… oh God…” I take the offered hand and she pulls me to her, and if I’m supposed to resist out of principle or something, than I am a man without principles. The sensation of our bodies pressed together is so fucking familiar — everything, from the scent of her body lotion and shampoo to the way she rubs at my lower back with the heels of her hands, is so fucking familiar. I can’t help coming to full erection, the tip of my cock jammed just inches from her slit. Sharon peers into my eyes, her mouth opening. She looks all conflicted, like she can’t decide whether she’s more thrilled or panicked that my cock is poised at the gates once again. “David, I…” she sort of croaks, and I think she’s finally going to tell me what’s happened. Instead her tongue comes out, and she presses the back of my head with her hand, and we’re kissing. She wiggles underneath me, her tongue darting, becoming assertive inside my mouth. She’s drawing in deep breaths through her nose and before I even know it’s coming, I slip inside of her, my “Ah!” of surprise smothered by aggressive lips. I run my hands up her thighs, feeling myself go in deep. “Oh yes!” she encourages. “Touch me! Oh please touch me! Everywhere!” There is no going back from this now that we’re both heated up again. I push up to where I can go at her tits with my mouth, licking at her breasts, pulling at her nipples, and we find a rhythm together, me driving in and out while I taste her body, Sharon grunting and gasping, begging for more. She’s so much more demanding than I remember — it’s like she wants me everywhere, rubbing against her, kneading and licking and grinding, and she even finds a way to interlock our feet, going toe to toe. Having come twice already, I feel good to go like this for a long time, stroking deep into her, then pulling all the way out. Every time my cock pops outside of her she lets out a cry, and urges me back in. Without warning she pushes me up with her arms, and tells me to get on my knees with my torso erect. This is unusual — Sharon was never one to switch gears in mid-fuck. I don’t know what she has in mind, but I do as she says. She stands with her back to me, legs spread, telling me to hold my position. I cup her ass with both hands, and then she’s bending forward at the waist. I think she must want me to stand behind her to fuck her from behind, until I see that she’s bending even lower, almost folding herself in two. Oh fuck yes! I think as her head appears between her legs, upside down, moving closer to me, until she’s licking the head of my cock through her spread legs. “Oh fuuuck…” I groan. I don’t even know what to call this — yoga-job sounds good — and she only did it with me once before, even though she knew how much it turned me on. If her tongue had a few more inches, I think Sharon might be able to lick her own pussy in this position, it’s so fucking crazy. She unveiled it early in our relationship, as though giving a taste of the treats I might expect if I was a good dog.

Only bad dog David never managed to earn this particular treat again — until today, that is. I lick my fingers wet and stroke her slit, and all the while Sharon is drawing my cock farther into her mouth, swirling wetness in a turbulent hot flood, licking, sucking… And then she goes for it, really goes for it, twisting her mouth all around my tool, taking me in deeper than she’s ever taken me in her mouth before. It’s… incredible, all inverted and super-deep, so much better than the other time she did this. Amazingly, she keeps going faster, so much faster. Why didn’t she ever kick into this gear before? Why did she always hold back? “Sharon!” she pulls out of my throat. “Jeeezus, don’t stop! You’re… Oh fuck. Oh fuck!” It’s like she’s reaching into my balls and inflating them, then popping the orgasm out, giving me no choice but to explode. My fingers are jammed inside her but I’m so stunned that I don’t even know if I’m doing anything with them anymore. She keeps sucking, hard enough that I think I can feel my dick stretching, and I come furiously. Sharon keeps sucking, making all those wet wild animal sounds like she did before, her folded body shaking enough that the bed vibrates. I feel a hot wet flood all around my inserted fingers — she’s coming just as hard as I am, her upside-down expression one of upside-down astonishment. She collapses forward before I can do anything to stop her, and her back thuds against the headboard. She ends up in a spread-legged heap on the mattress, expelling deep gushy breaths with this furious kind of whimpering mixed in. I’m not quite sure what to do — Sharon was always fairly quiet after sex, wanting to be held. I give that a try now, unfolding her and helping to get her flat on her back. She digs her body into mine, more like she’s clutching for dear life than just being close. We lie there in the morning light, hot and sweaty, stuck to each other like melted gum. She moans a lot, and when I try to bring things into the realm of conversation, she just clutches tighter, whispering, “We should never have broken up…” I don’t reply. I guess I have a girlfriend again, at least for now. I don’t know why, and it’s like a house built on sand, but Christ — when a girl looks like Sharon, and can bend like Sharon, and can give hummers like she’s been giving me this morning… Well, a beggar like me isn’t going to say or do anything to change things around too quickly, is he? *** “Uh-oh, here come the boobs.” Yes indeed, and I’m certain that I’m in love. Not real love — I know that I don’t have a clue what that’s all about. No, this is just well deserved anatomical love, Gina Marie Hurt style. Her school sweater stands out — way out — a firmly bound bundle of boobage jutting and strutting through the glass doors of The Pizza Escape. She’s flanked by two lesser lovelies and they’re a noisy group, chirping into cell phones with their sneakers squeaking on the freshly mopped floor. “I’ll bet those two can’t wait to grind their hips together,” Sophie comments, nodding at the cheerleaders. She has my attention with that one, although I figure she’s pulling my leg. “They aren’t into one another like that,” I say. “Wanna bet?”

“Which two, then?” Sophie’s eyes light on Gina Marie and Nicole Dampley, enjoying some joke together as they pour tanned legs and a mile of cleavage into a neighboring booth. I envision the two blonde bombshells naked — Nicole is taller, with excellent tits and the best legs in school, and Gina Marie is… well, Gina Marie, a girl who probably has to struggle to even see her legs. I envision big tits smushed into even bigger tits, and feel my cock hardening, fast. “You really think they are?” I whisper to Sophie. “It’s what you think that’s important, isn’t it? They’ll be what you want them to be.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sophie picks up a slice of her pizza, and bites off a tiny bit. “Too bad these aren’t real mushrooms,” she says. “The real stuff for you is on the other side. Good when wet is really wet, and lust is really lust, isn’t it?” She bites off a bigger piece of pizza and says something else, but it’s unintelligible. “Sophie… I can’t understand a word you’re saying when your mouth is full.” “Maybe that’s why you can’t understand your girlfriend,” she annunciates after swallowing. “Because her mouth is always filled with your dick.” It’s like she’s just given me a jolt of electricity with those words. Something about them feels meaningful, only I have no girlfriend. And since when did Sophie speak so casually about my dick? She always uses the word “penis”, like any other word is too intimate, or dirty. “Dirty?” she laughs. “Ask your girlfriend to clean it with her tongue, then.” “How did you know what I was thinking? And what girlfriend? I don’t have…” “She’s lying right beside you, silly. On the other side.” “The other side of what? You keep saying… Oh fuck, I’m dreaming again!” “Ta-da!” For whatever reason, my unconscious mind has taken me right back to The Pizza Escape, like this is a replay of a replay. And my real body… Where is it this time? At home, I remember, with Sharon pressed tight against me. “Now that you’re aware, let’s go for a drive,” Sophie beams. “That’s what we ended up doing tonight, after all.” “But none of this is real,” I protest. "You aren’t real.” “It’s all real to me,” she answers. “Besides, I like the moonlight.” “Where do you want to be? I could just think it and be there in half a second.” “I’d like to come with you. There’s something I want to show you.” I hesitate, wondering if there’s something else I should be doing now that I’m lucid-dreaming again. I’m not at the lab, so I don’t have to perform any trained monkey tricks for anybody, and what I do I can do in private. I could aim horny thoughts into Sophie, to see if I could get some dream-sex going with her, only

Sharon is lying right beside me “on the other side” as Sophie just put it. I’m enjoying dream sex just fine, but all I have to do is wake up and I could get the real thing. “You’ll get more sex than you’ll know what to do with soon enough,” Sophie reads my mind. Hell, she is my mind; or a piece of it, anyway. “Come on, let’s go.” I’m supposed to relate with these dream women, and her desires are simple enough, and understandable for a change. We get up from the table, and I wonder for an instant whether to pay for the pizza or not. “Don’t be an idiot,” Sophie reprimands, moving to stand beside the cheerleader table. She leans in to the group of high school lovelies, and grabs hold of Gina Marie’s left boob. Gina Marie gives out this goofy kind of gasp, and Sophie declares: “Can’t wait to see these giant things up close!” She’s full of giggles as we leave, and the pizza joint is in an uproar behind us. When we step out into the cool evening air, I see that my old blue Toyota pickup is right where I parked it that night, and the keys are in my pocket. “I feel weird pretending that I’m sixteen again,” I say to Sophie once we’re inside the truck cab. She rolls her window partway down, and leans back to place her feet on the dashboard. “I’ll enjoy feeling the air whipping through my hair, David. I can feel it, you know.” “But…” She beams a smile at me exactly the way she used to, fully aware of how her dimples get to me. “Pretty please?” she asks. I start the truck, wondering if I’m the first guy in history to knowingly cave to a cute and manipulative fragment of his own mind. I feel like a sap, but then she’s me, so I’m simultaneously the manipulator and the manipulated, both the sucker and the suckee. “You’ll go crazy thinking like that,” Sophie advises. “Drive down by the water, okay?” I hardly need directing, instinctively choosing the same roads we drove that night. I take a right off of Pleasant Point Highway onto a thin twisting road that leads to a public boat launch, only we peel off when we come to a particular curve, onto a well-maintained dirt track. The air grows moister and cooler as we pass under a stand of pines, and then we emerge at a secluded spot beside a little estuary. When I turn the headlights off, the stars jump to life above, the moon a red-orange ball just clearing a low band of clouds on the eastern horizon. “Just like it was,” I observe. This is where I’d bring girls back then — I got inside the pants of a couple, and flamed out with a few others. This particular place never had an actual name, although I called it Freeman’s Cove, because a kid named Tim Freeman first showed it to me. “I always liked that name,” Sophie says, getting out of the car. I remember what Mary Poole said, that metaphors are the building blocks of language for a dream creature like this. Does she hear Freeman and immediately relate to it as “free man”? It isn’t cold outside, but it’s not warm either. Sophie climbs onto the hood of the truck, just like she did back

then, and I join her, our backs resting on the windshield as engine warmth heats our legs. “I’d forgotten how many stars you can see here,” I say. “Some of them might even be satellites.” “I guess I could go up and see,” I laugh. “You know, those were real satellites you visited.” Is she saying what I think she’s saying? “That isn’t possible,” I correct her. “That’s real enough, too,” she elbows my ribs. “What is?” I see it now. Holy crap. It wasn’t there before and it wouldn’t exist in real life, but I see a bridge — a gigantic bridge, stretching out over the water and beyond. The bridge is enormous, a towering structure that seems to extend for miles. There is no fog tonight, nothing to obscure my sight, but the bridge fades from view in the distance, like it just ceases to exist before reaching the other side. “Think you could cross that?” Sophie asks. “I… don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “I can blink myself anywhere once I know I’m dreaming. I don’t need a bridge.” “You can’t just think yourself where that leads,” she corrects me. “You’ll need help.” I don’t know how, but I can sense that she’s right. It’s like my attempt to fly to the moon — which I couldn’t even do — would be a piece of cake compared to getting to the other side of that bridge. “What’s on the other side?” I ask, figuring she’s going to say “Pennsylvania”. “Probably the same thing as right here,” she answers, giggling. “Why won’t you ever give me a fucking straight answer?” I lose my cool. “I mean, ‘the same thing as right here?’ That makes no sense!” “Relax. No more questions for now. Just rest your head in my lap, okay?” What she says defuses a bit of my frustration. I hadn’t remembered until now that Sophie and I did that, the head-nestling thing on the truck hood. I adjust myself sideways, with the back of my head right over top of her pussy. When I look up, I see the swell of her breasts in the sweater, and then the stars beyond. “Listen to all the sounds,” she says, and I close my eyes, taking in all the frogs and crickets, the occasional flop of a fish breaking the surface. Maybe this was the moment back then when I figured we’d hook up for sure. I felt her warm thighs beneath me, and saw her breasts swelling out above, her long hair quivering in the light breeze. Sophie’s pussy was right beneath my head, like this was practice for both of us, getting used to me contacting her thighs. I knew I’d get something — fingers, cock or tongue — inside of her pussy before the night was out. It was just a

matter of time. “Oh!” I start, blinking my eyes open. I’m still on the truck hood with Sophie. I just woke up, but of course I’m not really awake. “You fell asleep for a minute,” she says, fingers gently caressing my hair. “How could I do that in here without the scene switching?” “You know what they say — lust never sleeps.” “I think that was ‘rust’.” Although in a strange way, she’s anticipated a shift in my mood. I’m starting to think that I should just go ahead and aim lust for my cock into this Sophie, and consummate what never got consummated. So what if it isn’t real — I never got the real thing, and that Sophie and I don’t even talk now. “I certainly won’t stop you,” Sophie says. “Here, maybe this will inspire you.” Smooth as silk, without even jostling my head in her lap, she reaches down and pulls both her sweater and undershirt over her head, and tosses them away. I’m looking up at the underside of her bra cups now, the white satin glowing against the dark backdrop of the night sky. She leans forward at the waist, reaches back and the bra drops away. Inspired, indeed. You need to fuck me tonight, I aim into the undersides of her breasts. No excuses, no delaying this time. When my hands and lips touch your nipples, the desires inside of you become overwhelming, and you have to have my cock buried deep inside your pussy, banging the fuck out of you. I sit up, wanting to see her switch from cool and collected dream-guide to ravenous David-devourer. Sophie slides off the hood of the truck, and the next thing I know she’s running, running fast on the dirt road. “Catch me if you can!” she shouts. I don’t know why she’s doing this, but I give chase, then stop. Why run if I can just float and be anywhere? I see her up in the distance, racing onto the slope of an elevated roadway. Fuck, it’s the entrance to that bridge, sort of like an on-ramp. I hesitate, then float out of my body, free of gravity… …into an entirely different place. One second I was there with Sophie, running up onto that phantom bridge in the past, and now I’m hovering over my own bed, peering down at myself and Sharon, our sweaty bodies interlaced together. Gathering details I confirm that this is right now, today. How the fuck did that happen? It can’t actually be the dream-me peering down at the real me, can it? It looks so real — I look so real. I wonder: Can a light body observe the dreamer dreaming itself into existence? Can a dream-me here and the real me there ever have a mutual awareness of each other, or is awake/sleep an impenetrable barrier, this world coming into being as sleep temporarily strips the other away? I guess I could aim all kinds of sexy stuff into Sharon as she lies there sleeping — I missed out on getting my dream-shag with Sophie, and I feel frustrated. But wouldn’t it be totally redundant to go after Sharon here when I’m already right there, naked with my body smeared from sex? I can smell her pussy even here in a dream — maybe I’m close to waking up, a bit of that world seeping into this one.

But I’m not awake yet, and might as well do something fun or constructive while I can. I think about the hot women I know, and remember my little vow last night, to get dream sex going with Anne the first chance I got. In a blink I’m at the facility, hovering in the conference room. I don’t really need to get any dream sex going, not with Sharon in my bed. Then again, why not dreamseduce Anne, or Mary if she’s here, get my cock all worked up and then have the real Sharon relieve the pressure? It feels like a brilliant idea — cock-teasing in one world, with a real live woman waiting for my dick on the other side. I’m already hard just thinking about it, and so I float from office to office, seeking dream-pussy. I don’t find Anne or Mary, but I do see Dr. Phillips in this dream, giving some sort of power-point presentation to a group in another conference room. He’s showing two maps of a human brain, like nearly twin brain-shapes side by side on a big screen. I’m startled when I see my name in the lower left corner of each image. These are supposed to be my brain? I compare them — they both have a rainbow of colors, like certain areas of activity have been given their own coding. Only the one on the right is much more… What’s the word? Unified, I guess, like the separate colors have found a way to blend together into a Rorschach-like pattern. Come to think of it, the pattern looks a hell of a lot like a butterfly. Another symbol to decipher? The important thing for now is that my target has just entered the darkened room. Dr. Anne pauses at the opened door, and mine aren’t the only eyes leaving the lighted screen to check out her legs in the high heels. She takes a seat at the far end of the conference table, focused on the images, tuning in to in the lecture. I can almost feel the rest of the group — all men — struggling to regain their concentration. Anne’s figure is a hell of a lot more attention-grabbing than slides of brains, even to me when the brain is mine. In a heartbeat I’m under the table, right in front of her legs. They’re crossed, and she’s moving the raised foot, dangling her heel, then fitting her foot back in. I can see that my focusing on her anatomy last night is already paying dividends, because her ankles and calves look completely real, silky smooth and in every way the kinds of things I might want to rub my dick against. I think for a minute about where I might want to take this. Do I want Anne to strip naked for me? Drool for my cock and need to fuck me? Or what if she melted down and climbed on top of the conference table, desperately needing to be fucked by every guy in this room? Group scientist sex hardly sounds like a turn-on; besides, experience has shown that I can’t predict the exact form the dream will take. I decide to keep things simple and mostly teasing, my warm-up leg show that Sharon can finish for me You’re beginning to feel a powerful attraction for David Sand, I aim between Anne's thighs, as though it’s her pussy I’m addressing. You know I love to look at your legs, and you want to get me in private, no others around, and show off your body. You get so incredibly hot, thinking about dressing in sexy lingerie and showing off for me. You know that doing it will make your pussy boil, until you’re begging for me to fuck you. It’s simple, but I have a feeling that I got it right, because my dick already feels like it’s hard enough to break off. Anne uncrosses and re-crosses her legs — it’s an ordinary, everyday action, but it gets my heartbeat racing, and thinking that I just might have to go ahead and dream-fuck her if the sequence plays out.

I float right through the table and hover above, looking at her face to see if there are any hints beginning to show. She’s doing her chin-rubbing thing, listening intently to the lecture. I notice that Dr. Phillips is seated now, his place taken by some military dude, maybe a general from all the stars and medals on his uniform. The general is laser-pointing at a map of northern Pakistan, talking about advanced surveillance techniques and something called “ultimate stealth”. The image changes to a narrow stone house — more like an elaborate hut at the foot of a rocky hill or small mountain — then shifts again to a much larger whitewashed building. The red laser dot meanders, eventually settling upon a particular set of windows. I glance back at Anne. The hand that was rubbing at her chin has drifted lower, absently fondling a little gold cross, attached to a thin necklace. Her lips have parted, and I think she just might have a far-away look behind the glasses. I flinch when she suddenly sits straighter, and speaks. “The changes are stable, but I’m not convinced that David is ready for this,” she addresses the group. Oh, I’m ready. Ready for you to… I’m shocked to feel hot naked flesh pressing into my back. Naked flesh? I open my eyes and see a lopsided ceiling above me, and I instantly know that I’m really opening my eyes, back in my Baltimore apartment. It’s Sharon’s naked body pressing into mine, because we’re still on the bed, still holding tight to each other. Fuck, no long-legged strip-tease dream with Dr. Anne? I close my eyes, hoping to drift back into the same dream, but fast-forwarded a bit to where Anne slowly strips out of her clothes. Having my dream end right there seems cruel, like I’ve somehow left her and me both in a state of suspended wankimation. I picture her legs in the nylons, slowly removing her glasses with her eyes burning with desire… In just a few seconds I know it’s useless. Fuck, that was the most fun I’ve ever had at the facility, and it’s gone. Thirsty again, cock hard, I ease out of the bed. After a couple of swigs of Dr. Pepper, I take a moment to add, “They’ll be what you want them to be”, “Brain like a butterfly”, and “The changes are stable, but David isn’t ready for this” to my list of dream symbol horseshit. Oh right, and on the other side of the bridge I’m supposed to cross, it’s now “Exactly the same as right here.” I laugh out loud at the absurdity of the contradictions. Hot hands touch my shoulders. It’s Sharon, silent as a cat and fragrant as a whorehouse. “I… need…” she sputters. I’m waiting for the rest to come out when she sticks two fingers in my mouth, then swings around the chair to plant herself in my lap. Things go all sweaty and tit-meaty as she presses close, with a hand pulling at my cock and fingers tickling my balls. “Come back to bed!” she insists. Halfway to the bed I stop her, push hard into her back and bend her over from behind, jamming my cock into her pussy. She growls, spreading her legs wide, encouraging me to go at her for all I’m worth. “We need to unify the energy of this and this!” I quote from my list of nonsense. “Yes! Yes!” Sharon agrees, falling to the floor and raising her rear high into the air, begging me to go as hard and deep as I can.

I pile-drive her. I mean I just fucking go at her with everything, slamming all my weight down, jamming my dick in where it’s never gone before. Sharon whoops, screams, but holds her position, taking it and more. She’s eating it up, begging for more. Trouble is coming and coming is trouble. I come, no problem, and the only trouble I can see is that I can’t come twice in a row nonstop, because Sharon flips around, and she’s sucking her juices and my leftovers down her throat. I think she wants to suck me off again. I know, before the day is done, she will.

Interlude — Lingerie Becomes Her It only took a few minutes into the interagency meeting for her concerns about David Sand to spread wider. He was their star, the program’s only successful dreamer to this point, and she felt the need to strip for his interests. Wait, what was she thinking? Care for his interests. Which would be a difficult task, given the atmosphere in the darkened room. Anne studied each serious face around the conference table, and re-crossed her legs below. She was the only woman in a sea of receding hairlines and type-A personalities, and there could be no doubt that she alone had a firm grasp on David’s enormous gifts. He was an innocent fish surrounded by teeming sharks, and the sharks were consumed by their desire to move the program forward at an accelerated pace. Couldn’t they reflect for a moment that without David’s exceptional talents, there wouldn’t even be a program to move forward? David Sand, her sandman, doing more to thrill her in his sleep than this whole room could manage when awake. He didn’t know it, but David had saved her firm ass by validating her research, just when the budgetary sex was poised to… budgetary ax was poised to fall. Not all of the subtle alterations to his subconscious functioning were understood, and there were concerns that it could take years to duplicate the results in other test subjects. Nevertheless, there could be no doubt that they had created a functioning light body, a speed-of-thought entity partially able to bridge the separation between the dream state and the world of conscious reality. It was impossible to underestimate the magnitude of the breakthrough — this was Western science treading in the realm of Eastern mysticism, aiding in the formation of energies long rumored in exotic esoteric practices, yet never proven nor observed. She could understand the need to keep David in the dark for the purity of the research, but now, with these thick-headed fools pushing so hard… Considering his basic psychological profile, she couldn’t really see David being pleased with the identity of his masters. Unless, perhaps, someone had to foresight to stroke his ego for helping to advance their research. She smiled as that thought eased through her body, warming her from head to toe. No one had proposed a pay raise for David, no bonus, no nothing. They wouldn’t, either, because they were blind to his overall charms. It went beyond his ideal thought-signature, beyond his usefulness to her personal research and the entire intelligence community. David was… She wasn’t quite sure what he was, besides extremely exciting. Perhaps it was more important to think about what she was. Easy on the eyes. Curvy. Restless in her chair. Feeling like the room was too hot. Feeling almost shamefully overdressed. Anne uncrossed her lovely legs and brought them back together with a little extra oomph. General Thompkins, certified pompous asshole, was jumping the gun, proposing to send David’s light body into immediate fieldwork in one of the most dangerous regions on the planet. She objected… and knew before her second sentence that any dissention was falling on deaf ears. David couldn’t be hurt in the field, not in the classic sense, which emboldened the military types. He could feel emotional stress, however, and they

still had so little data, and insufficient understanding of the data already collected. More importantly, they needed David’s trust — they were trying to understand a form of energy that only he could navigate, and there were any number of unknown factors when stimulating an organ as complex and sensuous as the human brain. They were seeing increased cooperation between both hemispheres and all the glands of the body… She squirmed in her seat, thinking about that. On the monitors, it sometimes looked as though his glands were absolutely engorged with energy. Her assistant described it as “a grand alliance of formerly disparate interests” — dry language, but almost unbelievably rousing for anyone interested in the effects of the mind on the body, or her body on his mind. Every organ — even specific parts of an organ like the brain — had its own function, arranged for the benefit of the entire organism as a whole. In some ways what they observed on their monitors was no different, but in other ways it was revolutionary, like entirely new brain/brain brain/body alliances were in the process of formation. Such a thing needed to be studied, patiently, but the military wanted intelligence on a grand alliance of another nature in Pakistan, and the funding of the entire program was now being filtered through the Pentagon’s black budget. Point, set, match — money talked far louder than the concerns she had raised in previous meetings, and they were plunging ahead whether anyone understood the readings or not. Under the circumstances she only had two options: Fall in line, or hand job her resignation. That thought disturbed her to no end. She would definitely not resign. Anne removed her glasses, absently fondling the frame. Something was very wrong here. A nagging feeling teased at the back of her head and ran down her spine, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She thought of poor David and felt her thighs… no, wait, her eyes… Dammit, what was the matter with her? She wasn’t thinking clearly and it was hard sitting still. Perhaps it was the appearance of a third option, one she should have seen before: She could reward David herself. She blinked as the idea grew fatter and longer with every breath. Ridiculous, she would never... Impossible. Immature and totally self-indulgent. Or… possibly not… In certain circumstances… Her rear wiggled in the chair as she slipped her heel in and out of her shoe, in and out, in and out. David did like to look at her — she’d been a bit annoyed at first, but her looks were part of her power game, she’d always known that. She wasn’t naïve — hell, she'd flirted with Eduardo when she had to just to get the program off the ground. She was a svelte and sexy woman in a world of alpha males, and objectification came with the territory. It didn’t hurt anything if the kid couldn’t keep himself from staring at her scrumptious legs. Kid? David was only eight years her junior; hardly a kid, and she was far from being too uptight to contemplate stimulating a younger man. She was just entering her sexual prime, wasn’t she? She felt like a prime cut, too. She felt like decking out her juicy figure in leather and lace, satin or nylon, garters and sexy stockings with her tallest heels and a warm feather duster to tickle his fancy. She giggled, drawing the attention of Eduardo to her left. “Are you all right, Anne?” She nodded, but felt a stab of fear inside. Something was definitely wrong, but she just couldn’t wrap her

legs around it. She could feel her nipples rising in her bra, and thought she should cry out… She shifted in her seat again, trying to get everything back under control. No point in letting the group know how much she’d love to dress up and watch that butterfly pattern in David’s brain begin to quiver with excitement. They wouldn’t understand, would they — they were all men, and a few would be envious as hell if she hiked her skirt for David to peer under. She’d have to get him alone, totally alone. Away from prying eyes, away from protocols and memos and hidden cameras and a culture of meddling with every little thing that a long-legged lingerie enthusiast might need. Wait, something was definitely wrong. She was a scientist, a professional problem-solver, and something wasn’t adding up. She shut her eyes and tried to focus on sexy little outfits. Her heart quickened, images tickling at her insides. Was she an actual lingerie enthusiast? She’d never thought of herself that way, and yet… She began to chew on her lower lip, the contradictions eating her out. There could be no doubt that she needed to deck her curvy body in seductive underthings and skimpy naughty outfits… “Oh!” she breathed out, experiencing a moment of realization. “Anne? Is something wrong?” She puckered her chewy lips shut, determined not to blurt out the horror of her realization. She barely even had any outfits! Some fetishist she was — she had a couple of camisoles, and Martin had given her a red teddy for Valentine’s Day. Not nearly enough, no French maid attire, no gartered lace bustier or nipple-y nurse’s outfit… She definitely felt her thighs reddening, this time heating with shame. Too many facts and figures, too little attention to purchasing pleasure garments that flattered her fabulous figure. What had she been thinking? Had she been thinking, or only working so hard that she’d forgotten how much David needed to be rewarded? She rubbed her glasses hard. Martin would object, probably. Well, not to the outfits or her need to wear them, but to the rest of it. Although it wasn’t like she would actually bring David home and dress for him. Most likely. That would be cheating and she didn’t… Well, she never had… But then she’d never had a young man do so much to excite her research. It was unknown territory, wasn’t it, just like David’s readings and the gnawing needs she felt blooming inside. She should probably keep her options open on anything that might or might not happen after she got David somewhere alone. Alone where? A room somewhere in this very building? Too may cameras. Her car? No room to move, and still public. Some bushes in a park? The brambles would tear her nylons. “Maybe a hotel,” she mumbled, picturing a suite with plenty of room to strut and show her stuff. “What about a hotel?” Eduardo asked, leaning too close. Hopeful lecherous fart. Like she would ever put on a velvet bustier or a cutesy school girl outfit to tease him hard. She could see that it wasn’t going to work to continue sitting here, pretending to care about acquisitions and terror cells cooperating with rogue intelligence agents. She needed to acquire some rogue underthings that could terrorize David Sand’s newly lighted brain cells completely stiff.

“Oh yes,” she said to no one in particular. “I… have to go…” “Go where?” Eduardo asked, leaning in close again. She didn’t bother to answer, rising from her chair. She could feel their eyes on her smoking legs as she left the room, and lowered her head to prevent a hallway camera from capturing her grin of satisfaction. Men didn’t know a fucking thing about women, did they? Didn’t know what made them tick, or what made them wet. David might not know, either — he could be a natural, one of those guys who makes a woman need to slink in ridiculously tall heels, makes a woman realize for the first time how alive her pussy can feel. “I’ll find ways to thank him,” she spoke to her clicking heels, beginning to rush to the bank of elevators, anxious to go down down down.

Interlude — Tits On a Plane Keeping it together in her narrow seat was a nightmare. The portly businessman in the aisle seat kept peeking at her boobs and it made her boiling blood boil even more, wanting to tear her blouse and bra off and stand in the aisle, giving everybody a good long look. She kept trying to fight the urges, wiggling her legs, chewing her fingernails, placing a magazine on her lap and surreptitiously fingering her aching slit underneath, pressing hard on the denim of her jeans, driving the seam hard against her and feeling her moisture spot right through. She’d do anything, any fucking thing to make it through this flight without baring her breasts and parading in the aisle, arching her back to let them bulge and sway so that everyone could marvel at the magnificence of her tits. Gina brought her teasing hands from under the magazine and hugged her breasts, corralling their weight with her arms, pushing them into even higher mountains. They were so fucking beautiful, she’d always known that but now she wanted everyone to see, she needed them to see. But she couldn’t do it in a place like this, she’d already come so close to being arrested in the airport while standing in line and pulling her blouse over her head. It wasn’t like she had bombs under her shirt but they detained her briefly and threatened her with arrest, but if they locked her up how would she be able to make it to New Jersey to shove her pussy in Nicole’s face and lick her tits and find David Sand and fuck him and feel his hands squeezing her tits and fuck him and keep fucking him? Such a narrow escape, managing to apologize and be all pretend-embarrassed and keep her tits covered because she had even greater needs, two ultimate goals, one for each incredible breast. She leaned her head against the window and willed the plane to go faster, feeling like one of those geysers where the heat and pressure keep building inside in unending rhythms of blowing and briefly ebbing until she had to blow again. A geyser was natural, though, and this wasn’t natural, no no no. She’d been drugged, or possessed, or some devil somewhere had a voodoo doll with oversized boobs and they were holding a cigarette lighter between its thighs and whispering into its ear to strip out of her blouse and bra and show everybody, show the whole world just how magnificent her tits were. it had to be either Nicole… "Oh my God, Nicole!" Or… it was probably David… fucking David, oh yes fucking and fucking David… She would show them, Nicole and David, and they would… She would… Oh my God she would, and they would, until she would…

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she thumped her forehead against the window, squeezing her thighs tight together, trying not to crash and burn. “Afraid of flying?” the guy in the next seat asked. Fucking boob-drooling idiot pretending not to be. What was she afraid of? The vortex between her legs, that’s what. It ate at her sanity, ate at logic and willpower and what was she supposed to fucking do? Her common sense knew the answer but the vortex rolled her common sense into a cock-like tube and stuffed it inside her opening until her knees buckled and she was gasping for breath. It ate reason and wouldn’t take no for a fucking answer and she’d done everything she could think of, hadn’t she? She’d fingered herself and come, and used her dildo and come, and rubbed warm lotion all over her slit and clit and she’d teased her pussy and abused her pussy and practically stir-fried her pussy and she’d come and come and come and it was never ever enough! She’d called David and come, and called Nicole and talked and come, and now she was forty minutes from touching down, touching, oh God she needed to be touched, Nicole’s lips on her slit, tits enveloping tits, wet gliding over wet, her burning vortex cunt swallowing David whole and swallowing Nicole's hole… “I’m… I’m not even fucking gay!” Gina tried to convince the oval window. She wasn’t, or shouldn’t be, but then she shouldn’t have blown off all her appointments, shouldn’t be flying to fucking New Jersey… Blown off. Oh God, and when she blew David off… “Uh! Uh!” It was like the thoughts turned into a kicking mule inside her pussy, wildly flailing, making her hips buck. “Hey, are you okay?” the clueless tit-obsessed guy asked. She clamped her eyes shut and made herself believe that he didn’t even want to see her tits. “Doesn’t want to see, doesn’t want to see,” she kept mumbling, like if she said it enough she might come to believe in such an impossible thing. Everyone wanted to see her tits and she could feel the man just inches away, eyes locked onto her cleavage. He might even be staring more with her eyes closed, like he could do it all he wanted to now because he could get away with it. They all wanted to see her tits, everyone always drooled over them and she needed them to want to see them, or she just needed to show them even when she knew she shouldn’t want to whether everyone wanted to see them or not. “I’m… not even making sense,” she whispered, unsure if that was true or not true. How could it not make sense to want to flash her boobs when what she wanted even more wasn’t there to put a cap on her geyser? “Oh God, yes, I do want everyone to see my boobs!” she vented, her breath like hot steam. The guy leaned back, shocked by whatever she’d said but with his wide eyes like magnets pulling at her chest. “I… can’t…” she tried to choke out. But she had to stop her hands from doing what they were doing, squeezing her boobs hard through the cotton top, with her fingers creeping under the bottom of her blouse and beginning to raise it. The guy looked like he was ready burst, and past him on the other side of the aisle two older women were staring with their eyes bugging out. Gina had her blouse bunched under her neck, her fabulous boobs bulging in her huge teal-colored bra.

She shut her eyes again, feeling the waves of excruciating excitement passing through her pussy, making it leak, making it beg… “Ma’am? Ma’am, you can’t…” She blinked her eyes open, saw two flight attendants leaning towards her. One was a woman and one was a guy and didn’t they fucking understand that she fucking knew she couldn’t bare her boobs but she had to anyway? Only if she did, if she kept going… “Oh God no!” They couldn’t arrest her, detain her, delay her from what she’d been clawing and oozing for, for what she’d abandoned her appointments and probably abandoned her whole fucking job for! They couldn’t, she’d die if they did. She had to stop or they’d stop her and she’d… Red in the face, pussy half-ready to explode with her tits screaming at her from the inside to set them free, she yanked her shirt back down with a growl and crawled over the man to her right, gushing and rushing for the rear lavatory. People were staring… Oh God they were staring and some wondered what was the matter and most wondered if she had the best boobs ever and she could feel another geyser eruption creeping up on her from inside, another debilitating orgasm, another of the mind-wrenching blowouts that made her gush and sent daggers through her body and turned her pussy into a fucking sopping plaything but didn’t stop the fucking heat! She had to wait, the door was locked and she rocked and sweated, tits pressed hard to the door. She let her knees bend, gyrating slowly at the hips, her huge chest fucking cleaning the door, nipples wiping it hard. She tried not to see all the heads turned her way, tried to wipe away the awareness of how so many passengers were leaning into the aisles, heads turned to the back to gawk at her desperate thighs and huge power-cleaning boobs. The door finally opened and she shoved past the little girl who came out, locking the door and peeling away the horrible clinging blouse, unhooking her bra and letting her bounteous beauties swing free, free to be pinched and fondled and cradled and hefted, sucked hard with her hot lips all over her aching nipples, pulling at them and imagining Nicole’s wet tongue here, and David Sand’s fat cock down there, David’s thing slamming inside, banging her against the narrow walls, just banging her and fucking banging her without stop, making her scream and wail, making her want to fall or fly or crawl to him again and again, begging for more banging, begging for her pussy to be eaten and drilled, eat pussy and drill meat, eat and drill, eat and drill…

Chapter Six — Float Like a Butterfly I feel like a changed man when I climb on my bike to head for work. I guess a boatload of sex can do that for you, especially after months of being shipwrecked on Right Hand Island. It isn’t like the blurriness of my life has suddenly become clear — I still don’t know if I’ll be in school in the fall, or what I’ll do for money once the dream gig ends. Beyond my narrow concerns the world at large is burning, warring, rioting, melting, and still coughing up recession/depression phlegm. For many — and unfortunately I’m no exception — the future doesn’t look like it has much of a future, and that hasn’t changed. On the other hand, my dick is happy, and a smile on its face tends to bring a smile to my face. All that unfigured-out stuff is still there, but living through it begins to look a little less daunting. I’m still a lost soul in a world that’s becoming more like a ball of broken promises each day, but now my response can be: Whatever, who cares? Even after showering this evening, sex continues to permeate my nostrils, and when

the scent of pussy haunts your world, life is good. Or, if it isn’t good, at least the bad smells like pussy. Sharon made it abundantly clear that I will be getting more of that — pussy — and that it will be hers. She was kind of out of it and still horny when I had to leave, unwilling to keep her hands off my dick when I walked her down to the street. It was hard — my dick, obviously, but also leaving when she was so ready to be plumbed again. We’d done it something like five or six times already, Sharon’s cum-crazed enthusiasm as effective an aphrodisiac as I've ever experienced. I don’t know how many times I can get off in a single day — it’s the kind of thing you learn through doing it, and no girl I’ve done it with was ever inclined to challenge my counting skills, not until today. Anyway, for the first time in months I have an actual date lined up, consisting of dropping in at Sharon’s apartment first thing tomorrow. Her mouth told me it was for scrambled eggs and bacon, but a predatory fixation on the bulge in my jeans said spread lips with hard sausage. I love this unexpected turn of events – who wouldn’t — but it’s been creating disorienting thoughts, too. Several times I’ve wondered if I could still be dreaming, because Sharon’s enthusiasm for my cock is so similar to what I wanted to lucid-dream with her that it feels anti-coincidental. I’m not dreaming now, unless I’ve completely lost the ability to distinguish the real from the unreal. That would be… unfortunate. Anyway, I know I’m awake, but that means I’m beginning to believe in the impossible, and the impossible belongs to the dream world. Dream-Sharon could not become real-Sharon, nor real-Sharon be compelled to behave like dream-Sharon, not unless Walt Disney has entered my life in triple-X form, right after I wished upon a cunt and my wishes all came true. I'm not comfortable with too-coincidental coincidences, but I guess I’m even more of a die-hard skeptic about anything approaching the supernatural. And why not when life teaches that excessive hope leads to excessive disappointment? I mean, billions believe in a loving God who listens to prayers, and look at what’s happened to the world. I don’t want to be a sucker like that, so I’ll believe that dream lust leads to real sex just as soon as Dr. Anne wears a shiny satin bustier under her lab coat, and draws me into a private room to model damp and fragrant peek-a-boo panties before begging me to fuck the living science out of her bones. I laugh at the fantasy, and just enjoy my dick aching the way a dick ought to ache, my Honda’s engine purring between my legs. It’s still light when I pull into the LDSP’s guest parking area — I’ve deliberately arrived early, and I’m pleased to see that Mary’s car is not yet here. Sitting on my bike as the evening shadows grow longer, I feel a bit like a love-struck teen, hoping to intentionally-accidentally bump into an unattainable crush-cutie and carry her books to class. I don’t have to wait very long, and Mary obviously sees me, getting out of her car and standing beside it. As I approach, the dream-butterfly I saw in my head today feels like it’s suddenly had offspring that have flown into my stomach. Mary is wearing a clingy pullover blouse with a fairly short skirt and sandals this evening, and she looks fabulous. “Should I feel stalked?” she asks as I draw near. Her smile alone could make her the kind of girl an actual stalker might glom onto, but it’s the smile that’s telling me that everything is okay. “I’m definitely intercepting you for your dream talents this evening,” I admit. “I had this intense dream at home today, and it’s driving me crazy. I wondered if I could run it by you, to see if you can help me unravel a riddle.” “Mary Freud Poole to the rescue, huh? Did you lucid dream?”

“Not even close,” I lie. “Then nobody cares but you and me.” She looks at her watch. “If it’s not too long, I suppose we could give it a try. Shoot.” “Okay. This girl — maybe an anima figure — told me that I have to cross a bridge. She said that I’ll need help to do it, like crossing this bridge is almost impossible. I asked what lies on the other side, and this is where the confusion comes in.” “Did she answer?” “Sort of. She said that on the other side of the bridge, it’s Pennsylvania.” “Pennsylvania?” “So you can see why I’m baffled. And then when I asked her again, just to be sure, she gave me a completely different answer, which was: ‘Probably the same thing that’s right here’.” “That’s an important dream,” Mary comments, her blue eyes seeming to peer inward. “Some kind of life change is being indicated with the bridge symbol. A major one, I’d guess. And it’s very positive that your anima, if that’s what she is, is so cooperative. They don’t always answer a direct question, you know. In fact, I can’t think of many dreams I’ve heard of where an archetype was so directly responsive. You must be in touch with your feminine side.” “Is that a good thing?” “Some women would say that it’s a very good thing.” “So any ideas on the dream?” She frowns as she sifts through it, briefly closing her eyes. I scan the contours of her body while she isn’t looking — I'd like to get in touch with both of her feminine sides, front and back and maybe even drilling from one side to the other. I'm holding my breath as the butterflies in my stomach all rush down to flap their wings inside my dick, lifting it up and stretching it out. “The part about Pennsylvania is pretty obvious, but…” “It isn’t to me.” “You’re new at this, that’s why. Think about it — what is Pennsylvania?” I see Philadelphia and Amish people, Gettysburg and mountains with coal. I try listening to the word in my head, wondering if it’s supposed to sound sort of spooky, like Transylvania. I end up shrugging my shoulders, because I’m firing blanks and I know it. “It’s another state,” Mary offers. “I think she’s telling you that the bridge leads to another state of mind, or perhaps that you have to reach another state of consciousness to cross it. That’s it — something about your state has to be a certain way for you to have a chance of making a necessary transition.” As soon as I hear it, I know that she’s right. “That’s brilliant. You’re brilliant!”

“I wish. That one was easy. The other… I don’t know. It’s as if she’s saying that nothing changes in one way, but everything changes when your state changes. The fact that she chose a neighboring state seems to confirm this — it’s like you don’t have to go anywhere in terms of distance for things to be different, but there is a significant journey ahead nonetheless. Or something like that. It sounds very mystical.” “That’s plenty to think about, Mary. Thanks.” “I should probably charge you my regular fee,” she jokes. “But it was only five minutes, so I’ll let it slide this time.” “Walk in together?” I ask, instantly wishing I hadn’t. “David… They have rules. We shouldn’t… you know…” “I understand,” I fill in quickly. “I really do like you,” she adds. “I mean it isn’t like it’s out of the realm of possibility, in case you were wondering. If we’d met in some other way… But we didn’t, and they have very strict guidelines about this sort of thing. I… I need this job. The funding for my graduate studies has been cut off and… You know how it is. It’s a tough world right now.” “I understand,” I repeat. “You go on in. I’m going to soak in the sunset before they own me for the night.” “Good luck with the dreaming,” Mary wishes before walking on. “Good luck watching me dream,” I reply. I’m not exactly happy about what just transpired, but then I remember how pleased my dick is tonight, so I guess I’m not too unhappy, either. I try not to stare too lustfully at Mary’s body as she makes her way along the blacktop, but I fail, which doesn’t really surprise me. I think about Sharon again, and how I wanted dream sex with her and ended up with the real thing. With Mary I want real sex, and real… I don’t know. Feelings, I guess. I know she stirs me with lust, but that’s not the only thing that seems to be stirring when I’m around her. I suppose I’m something of a skeptic about love, too. I’ve never been very good at telling the difference between lust/attraction and love/devotion — I’m not even convinced that there is a difference. And love seems almost anachronistic these days, like the forces of withering and dieing that have been loosed on the world have stomped the heart right out of… well, hearts. No doubt my fluttering butterflies will get smacked upside their antennaed heads if they take up residence in my heart, and start taking themselves too seriously. And what did dream-Sophie say earlier today? “Lust never sleeps”, like it’s lust, not love, that has enough raw energy to keep churning in a decaying world. Lust never sleeps. How true, especially with a heart-melting babe like Mary Poole around. *** I’m a little freaked when the night’s preparations begin without Anne being present. I’m disappointed at the

absence of on-the-job eye candy, and rattled that she would disappear right after I played mind games between her thighs in my sleep. Her absence is… a question mark. And obviously more than that, because my dick is positively tingling with hope. Dr. Phillips and Eduardo begin things by handing me another stack of photos to pick through. There are no satellites this time; they’re all mug shots. I flip through a couple dozen before coming to a sudden halt. The face is easily recognizable — the guy’s features are fairly generic, but I’m almost certain that I saw him in the control room in yesterday afternoon’s dream. “I, um…” I begin, and stop. I’m beginning to perspire and I know why. They can see into my dreams, I think, my heart racing. They’ve found some way to capture images from my brain! “David? You’ve recognized someone?” I want to scream, but I keep my mouth stubbornly shut, afraid that I’ll say something I’ll regret later. Okay, there’s a more rational explanation. I could have bumped into this guy in the elevator, or passed him in the lobby. It doesn’t have to mean… what I know it actually does mean, only I’m too stubborn to admit could be true. I’m having a silent Holier Than Shit moment inside, goosebumps rising on my arms. I was here in a dream, and they sent me to specific offices in my dreams. Offices where they would know the personnel, and the exact details a visitor would see if the visitor were truly there, not only at the specific place, but at a specific time. I recall the London office, freezing cold with boxes lining a wall, its lone occupant in jacket and gloves. A specific image, the details of the room significantly changed from the photographs they showed me. A verifiable image, if the place turned out to be a real place. I shiver, recalling Sophie’s words from today’s dream: You know, those were real satellites you visited. Real satellites in my dreams. Real people in my dreams? Real things out here, observed from in there, behind closed eyelids? “David?” Dr. Phillips pipes. I feel like I just stepped into a Twilight Zone world, and it has my entire body trembling. I try to find refuge in Mary’s theory about the “collective unconscious” — maybe I know where strangers really are because their existence is part of some grand consciousness-soup that I’ve tapped into. That’s possible, isn’t it? No, it’s not, or it’s absurdly more convoluted than the other thing staring me right in the face. The dreamme — not even the regular dream-me but my light body when it splits off, visits real satellites in orbit over a real Middle East or a real post-2/18 Australia, viewing the actions of real people in real places in real time, thousands of miles from where I sleep. They aren’t peering into my dreams — I’m telling them what I see when my light-body flies, and what it sees is real. “David?” It’s Eduardo, impatience making his voice hard. I’m starting to wish that Anne were here for reasons that aren’t tied to her fashion model looks. I don’t trust her for shit, but I trust these two even less. “I, um… I think I recognize this guy from yesterday’s control room dream,” I say, my voice quavering.

“You aren’t certain?” Eduardo demands. “I’m… pretty certain.” “Continue to the end,” Dr. Phillips directs. I recognize another control room technician, a woman. No wonder I couldn’t find Anne or Mary Poole to fuck with in that dream — it wasn’t a fanciful dream-reality but a different shift, with different personnel, monitoring a young woman who sleeps when I’m awake, and vice-versa. When I’ve finished with the photographs, I see that Eduardo has a twisted little smile on his face. “Thank you, David,” he says. They could have shown me a bunch of satellite shots, and pictures of people I’d recognize from Hawaii… No need. They know. They know that I can go anywhere on the globe in the blink of an eye, not all of me but a formless piece of me. They’ve shown pictures of people from the building because they don’t want me to believe yet. They must know that I’m beginning to suspect, but doubt or uncertainty is a tool they can use for the moment. It takes a ton of self-control to keep from asking for a double shot of vodka to calm my nerves. The fuckers wouldn’t even get me a Dr. Pepper yesterday, and I think I’ve finally identified the nature of the creepy energy that’s made my skin itch since day one in this program: I look into their eyes and I don’t see them looking back at me like I’m David Sand, a test subject helping them to understand dreams. I look into their eyes and I see myself reflected as a tool. Or, if I’m useful enough — property. They ask me to accompany them to another room, and we walk down halls I’ve never seen, not when awake. But I’ve been here, floating rather than walking, and when we come to one particular door and Eduardo pulls out a key card, the walls might as well be invisible, because I already know what it’s going to look like on the other side. I can pinpoint the very chair where Anne sat, and this is the long table I floated through to aim lingerie lust between her thighs. The room was dark then, and crowded. Now it’s empty, and I feel kind of emptied out, too. That was the real Anne, I think. Her ankles and calves didn’t look exactly right because I memorized them so well — they looked real because they were real. As with every other person and event I witnessed in this room, in a meeting where they discussed my brain. My changed brain. Messages from the dream world that previously made no sense suddenly come into focus, their meaning hauntingly clear. How much of this do you think you’re doing all by yourself? Don’t you think it’s a bit odd that you have the keys to the dream-car every time you fall asleep? They’ve changed everything, and now everything can be changed. I can’t keep a shiver from rolling through me. Do that table and the special cap I wear on my head do nothing but monitor me, or is there more to it? Have the fuckers been secretly working to create a butterfly inside my skull? I keep a straight face — expressionless, in fact — but inside I’m seething, and I hear an old clip of Muhammad Ali: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!” “Have a seat right here,” Eduardo indicates. “We’d like to show you a few images for tonight’s assignment.” I recognize the digital projector, even though I didn’t pay much attention to its design in my dream, and

never saw it with the lights on. When the room goes dark I brace myself, ready to see two colorful images of my grey matter, gone from chrysalis-weak to butterfly-strong. Instead, it’s the map of Pakistan. It takes about half a second for the words “ultimate stealth” to leap to the front of my altered brain, followed by the memory of Anne’s voice, expressing concern: The changes are stable, but I’m not convinced that David is ready for this. I’m an experiment. I knew that — it wasn’t like they didn’t tell me they were seeking breakthrough knowledge about lucid-dreaming. I just didn’t know it could go so far. Did they? “This small dwelling…” Eduardo begins, as a new image appears right next to the map. It’s the little stone house at the foot of the craggy mountain, the same one I’ve already seen in my dream. “…is situated right here.” A familiar red light appears on the map, and settles just north of a village called Ziarat. A series of increasingly zoomed satellite images follows, of the same terrain and the same structure, as seen from space. “If you achieve the lucid state tonight, we’d like you to visit this building. Go inside, into every room, and take note of every person and every thing you see.” They haven’t changed me so much that I’m clairvoyant. Even so, I can hear the assignments to come as though they’ve already happened: “We’d like you to visit this cave, this underground bunker, this laboratory, this embassy, this suspected nuclear facility…” And spy, unseen and undetectable — incorporeal, and able to be anywhere on the globe in the blink of an eye. A door has been opened, but it needs to be your door, not theirs. Oh shit and fuck fuck fuck! What have I gotten myself into, and who the fuck am I working for? *** Sleep is very far away when I’m finally on the table. The cap on my head feels like a black spider clinging to my skull, and my pajamas make my skin itch like crazy. They can probably measure the general sense of creepiness I’m feeling right now, so I try to keep still and concentrate on my breathing, clutching at one of the things I learned during my visits to Sharon’s yoga class. My mind races above the breath, because everything that’s happened over the past few days is up for inspection, whether it’s in the waking world or inside my own frickin’ skull, configured now with brightly colored wings. I’ve seen from the beginning that this facility is situated just a few miles down the highway from the National Security Agency’s headquarters. You'd think that its location would be a closely held secret, but there’s a bright green exit sign for the place, and you can see the glass buildings of the NSA through the trees in winter. Ten to one I’m working for them, or for a separate wing of research more or less tied to them. And ten to one my four-leaf clover dreaming status means I’ve become a valuable “asset” to somebody, whether I want to be one or not. I don’t mind serving my country, I guess. I’d have an ongoing job, which in itself would be as miraculous as anything else I can think of. Only I don’t trust them, and why would I? The games they play are part of what turned civilizations upside-down in the first place, and what would they do to me if they knew how much information I’ve concealed, or how many lies I’ve told? If I’m to believe half of what I read in the clandestine press, these might be the very people who make journalists and other inconvenient types disappear, forever removed from the system just by stamping the label “enemy-combatant” onto a dossier. I

mean, I’m not a black helicopter conspiracy nut, but only an idiot could believe that the rules didn’t reset in unknown ways after 2/18. Is that a world I really wish to get mixed up in? I can turn the tables somewhat, once asleep. I’ve already seen that I can spy invisibly right here in the building, so if I wish it, the team can have few secrets once my light body is mobile. The ramifications multiply like branches on a tree when I give it some thought — could I hang out at the actual White House, or penetrate impenetrable “undisclosed locations”, peering into the guts of government to watch the sausage being made? I wonder if I could float inside a Las Vegas dressing room filled with butt-naked showgirls, or hover over the beds of my favorite actresses and models, to watch them masturbate or fuck. Could I invisibly enter the headquarters of my bank, and learn every password on every computer that’s used while I’m sleeping? Could I learn where Mary Poole lives, and watch her take a shower, or even climb into the shower with her, seeing and faux-groping everything about her that makes my engines want to roar? I wonder if Mary knows everything, or only some things, or not very much at all. And why isn’t Anne here tonight — could they have sacked her for speaking out in that meeting? I wonder if she knew everything from the beginning — was she horrified at how they intend to use me, or merely concerned that I might need a few additional test runs? That’s one of the most frustrating things about this turn of events, that I’m not sure whether anyone at all is trustworthy. Well… I am. Thinking back on the messages I’ve received in my dreams, I’m hard-pressed to find anything in error. Dream-me knew that I visited real satellites, and how long has dream-me been alluding to changes to my brain, and different states of being, and how I should make this new doorway mine, not theirs? It’s like one part of the mind is almost completely self-aware, and quick in a way that the regular me is not. I think of those color-coded images of my brain, and how formerly unconnected areas grew together, almost as if one part reached out to another. Relationship, just like the dream-women have been saying. What was once separated wants to be in relationship, like I’m a community inside of myself working to get along better. I think I’m starting to understand something. The whole of me is needed for action — the dream parts can’t just up and do things by themselves, so they need me, or what I think of as regular-me, to be involved, only I’m not as bright as they are, or… Well, it’s difficult to gauge your own intelligence when thinking that there’s a smarter-David reaching out to a dumber-David. It’s probably not even a matter of intelligence in the regular sense — I’ve made the mistake of placing skepticism upon a pedestal, and it’s become an impediment to seeing the new reality, even when it's shown to me. Meanwhile, it’s like my less blinded subconscious mind has been working overtime to teach me from the inside-out, the dream figures trying to help the waking part wake up and catch up. I need to understand everything I’m trying to tell myself, and trust it. When the dream figures speak I have to listen better, and trust better, just like I trust that this road will continue around this bend, even though I can’t make out what lies ahead. I kick into a lower gear, going slower so as not to outrace what my motorcycle’s headlight can illuminate. The moon isn’t quite full, but it’s high and I can make out glistening water off in the distance. Is it the ocean? The bay? The road is unfamiliar, even though I have the sense that I’m riding to a place I’ve been before. Rounding another bend, I see a little stone hut ahead, lit by a few torches on tall poles. A gate blocks the road, and I recognize the structure as a primitive tollhouse. I gear my bike down, preparing to stop as an old man in robes steps out of the hut. I bring the bike to a halt right beside him, fishing in my pants pockets,

looking for change. “That isn’t the kind of change that’s needed,” the man speaks. It’s a clever play on words, or perhaps an unintentional joke. This guy could be senile, because he’s really, really old, with a long white beard and a hunched body that’s probably mostly bones under the robes. “Not senile,” he says. “Just ancient. Walk with me, if you would. There’s something that needs tending if you’re going to have a chance of making it.” I fall into step beside him, leaving my bike behind. “Something’s broken?” I ask. “No, not broken,” he replies. “It just isn’t strong enough yet. Needs heating up.” Step by step we round a sharp curve, and when the road straightens out again I stop in my tracks, fear gripping my heart. It’s a gigantic bridge. The bridge, the same one I’ve seen before. “That bridge can’t be crossed!” I declare. “It’s too…” I don’t know what the right word is, but I know I’m not being unreasonable. I’ve been told that I must reach the other side, but that bridge just can’t be crossed. It was never designed to be crossed. “A bridge wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t meant to be used,” my companion disagrees. “How many have made it to the other side, then?” “Can’t say,” the toll man mumbles, hand stroking beard. “No one ever comes here. You might be the first to try.” “Great.” “Let’s warm it up,” the old guy dismisses my sarcasm, ambling forward. There is a distinct beginning to the bridge, where the pavement of the road ends and a new surface begins. I’m not sure what the material is — it gleams and might be metal, but it’s not like any metal I’m familiar with. The old man has a lighted torch in his hand, and he touches the flame down to some sort of oversized candle at one side of the entrance. The candle is round and black, about the size and color of a bowling ball but more roughly textured. “Here,” he says, handing over his torch. “Light that one over there.” A twin candle waits on the opposite edge of the entrance. I touch the flame to the wick, and it lights. “You need more than light to cross this bridge,” the strange man assesses. “You need heat!” He reaches down and cups his balls with his hand when he says this, only something isn’t right. From the shapes that come into definition through the robes, either this guy is hung like a horse, or… No, there is no other option. He may be ancient, but the old guy’s cojones are almost as big as those two round candles, and his dick is huge. “They’re all the same thing,” he informs me. “And don’t be so surprised. Everyone ‘round here has been enhanced.”

“Your… equipment was enhanced?” I ask, confused. “The bridge needs heat. Now go out and stir up lots of it!” “Lots of heat? How?” “She’ll help, you’ll see. She likes the heat more than anyone.” I turn and see Mary Poole. No wait, what am I thinking? It’s Sharon. Only Sharon never had immense breasts like… It must be Gina Marie, only… Fuck, her identity keeps shifting, like she’s a woman who can’t decide whom to be. “You know how I love change,” the shifting woman says through blended vocal chords. “What did I tell you before?” I remember, and with remembering the reality of the unreality sinks in. “’Recognize the energy, not the form’,” I quote. “It’s you again. And I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” She doesn’t answer because I don’t need her to. I’m here at the entrance to the all-important bridge, but the real me is in the sleeping chamber tonight, and they are watching with their probing instruments. “You’ve been trying to tell me things all along,” I say to my female companion. “You come in different disguises, but it’s always you, or mostly you. And I hear the things you say, but I haven’t really heard them half the time.” “I haven’t given up on you,” she replies, almost too sexy to look at. Though I haven’t forgotten where the real me is, my dream-cock has rocketed to attention, because this must be the most ball-draining creature to ever walk the earth, or at least the dream-earth. She’s wearing a simple black dress with heels, and damn if her tits wouldn’t make Gina Marie envious. The rest of her keeps shifting, like she’s every kind of woman I’ve ever wanted to drill, all thrown into a blender with some added sex juice. Roowwwr! “It’s true that I’ve been enhanced,” she says modestly. “And no one woman will ever be enough, we both know that. It’s a good thing that no woman is beyond your reach.” “What are you telling me? That I can have any woman I want? How?” “I’ve been trying to speak as plainly as I can. They’ll be what you want them to be — how much clearer can I be?” Other messages that I ignored as bullshit come back to me: Being desperate for sex can be contagious, you know. You might ignite a woman without even knowing you’ve done it. There was more, too, with dreamNicole pressing her foot to my hard dick: You don’t have the foggiest idea how much trouble this could stir up. You’re a rogue comet, altering the orbits of worlds. Well God fucking damn. I think of Sharon, doing exactly what I beamed into her, like she couldn’t help it. But it just can’t be possible, can it? No, fuck that — that’s the kind of skepticism turned cynicism that’s kept me from understanding these messages all along. It shouldn’t be possible, but neither should zipping around the globe to spy on real things from the dream world. I can’t touch the outside world directly from in here — I have no substance, or not the kind of substance that corresponds to the physical world. But maybe, just maybe, I can do things, and affect things.

They changed me, and now everything can be changed. The “enhancements” being referred to here — they’re unnaturally enlarged sexual symbols, dream representations of some kind of potent sex energy that I can beam from one plane to another, or one state to those in a different state, or something like that. “You’re finally with me, heat and soul,” my shifting sexpot comments. “It’s about time.” Does she mean heart and soul? No, that’s me being a slow-witted doofus again. But now that I know, I also know that there must be rules. I mean, some of the women in recent dreams are from the past, and they live hundreds or thousands of miles away. Gina Marie and Nicole Dampley aren’t banging on my door to fuck me the way Sharon did, and why should they? I haven’t seen them in years, and don’t even know where they live. The same with Sophie — I aimed desires into her just today, and am I supposed to believe that she can feel that all the way in California? Anne. Fuck, I beamed strip-tease action into Anne, just today. Only everything I’ve concluded would make that the real Anne in a real meeting, not a dream version of the woman. Does that matter? Does it make something more likely to happen, or less? What are the fucking rules? I’m taking the impossible seriously and I need information — observable and confirmable information that helps me to know where I stand, or float. Which, coincidentally, is what I’m all about when I’m in the lucid state — observing the actual world from an unseen perch. Thinking it, I rise out of my dream-body, and will myself to be right where I really am, right now, in the sleeping chamber. It’s effortless — no wonder I could hover over Sharon and me in my apartment earlier today, because I was really there. And if I’m really here tonight, then the expected monitoring team is on the other side of that wall. Including the lovely sexy Mary Poole. I float into the control room and it’s exactly as expected. Seeing Mary seated in front of her bank of equipment, I can’t resist moving down and hovering close, so close that we’re dream-face to living-face, close enough that I could curl out my tongue and lick those angelic features clean. The rest of me would be halfway inside her computer monitors if I had substance, but what feels even odder is to study Mary while she’s studying the instruments that peer into me. It’s like we’re simultaneously contemplating each other’s guts, occupants of two entirely different worlds trying to understand what makes the other tick. For the hell of it, partly out of curiosity and partly because I can, I slowly float forward, until we’re more or less occupying the same space. I don’t feel anything too strange — maybe a sensation of warmth and a subtle vibrating that I can feel throughout my dream body. I do lose my view of the room, however, once my dream-eyes go inside her head. Things go dark, and what I see is smeared with a rosy hue, with vibrating points of brighter colors winking in and out of existence. It’s really very lovely, sort of like a gentle abstract light show on a fluid screen the color of toasted rose petals. I watch for a few seconds, and have to chuckle because I’m finally inside Mary Poole. Not in the way I’ve wanted to be, but still… It’s intimate in a way I never could have imagined, and it kind of gets to me. My dream cock is raging hard and I wonder if Mary can sense any of this, or whether the wall between our states of being is just too thick, too impenetrable. I mean, what if I screamed my head off, or had a dream ejaculation while inside of her? Would she go breathless, or feel an itch or indigestion or anything at all? I go right through Mary, smiling inside as I float forward to come out her back. Didn't I think earlier that I wanted to drill right through her from one side to another? Once my dream-eyes are outside of her skull, I have a regular view of the control room again. Floating back

to my original position in front of her face, I back up a bit and think about what I want to aim into her, and find that I’m unsure of how to proceed. Mary is a totally fuckable babe, but what’s even more attractive is that I genuinely like her. Unless she’s been put up to it, she’s gone out of her way to be friendly and helpful, and I’ve never seen that cold look in her eyes, the look that sees me as a usable thing, not even a real person. I want to do her — I’m not going to pretend that I’m above willing her to grill my meat if I can — but things are different now. I’m buying into the idea that what I’m doing might actually mean something, and that I can create… well, lust, out of thin air. Before it was like playing around, just some sandbox dream-sex with no consequences, and no one involved except for me and my naughty little hormones. Now, after seeing Sharon absolutely overcome with lust, to the point that she seemed to live for yoga-fucking me and sucking my dick… It’s damn hardening to imagine that sort of hunger burning behind Mary Poole’s blue eyes. She looks so sweet, and I can just imagine how potent that sweetness would be if it got turned all molten, like a vaginaflavored pastry oozing and bubbling in the oven. I’m well aware that I have competing urges inside, one wishing to turn Mary’s pussy into a blast furnace, the other screaming at me to remember how vulnerable I am in here, the real me sound asleep and defenseless. It’s not at all crazy to hear some alarm bells chiming alongside my desires — Mary sits right in the control room, and even if she’s not entirely in the loop, she’s part of the team. It could only be disastrous if I caused her to lose too much of herself, becoming completely cum-focused like Sharon, her mouth going all lipstick for my dick for everyone to see. Considering how hard I am and how far I could go, I treat Mary with kid gloves. It’s like trying to find an intelligent balance, my cheerleading dick and cautious brain meeting somewhere in the middle. You think you might be falling in love with David Sand, I begin. You think about me, and thinking about me gets you sexually excited. You’ll be compelled to drive out to Millie’s Diner right after work tomorrow morning, stopping somewhere to buy a super-short skirt and red stockings that you think I’ll love to see. And once we’re talking, you’ll be completely truthful with me, no matter what we talk about. I find myself wondering if it’s Mary’s angel face, not prudence, that keeps me from going more hardcore, turning her into a drooling cock-sucking machine. Looking at her like this and aiming behaviors into her has my dream-boner throbbing so hard that I’m afraid it might penetrate through the dream barrier and take on solid form in front of Mary’s face. Already I can see her eyes widening, like she can hardly believe the hormonal spikes and lightbulb brightness appearing on her screens. I definitely want to do more to her, but should I? The miniskirt and stockings will be enough to tell me whether I’m on to something here, or delusional. If she’s at Millie’s, and dressed like I want her dressed, then no more proof will be needed. I float around her, studying the fine legs and narrow waist, the smooth arms and just-right breasts. I want more than proof, dammit. I want… options. I want potential avenues of lust to be determined then, not now. I mean, shouldn’t I be able to juice her loins or tone things down depending on whatever she tells me in the morning? Every time I compliment you on the way you look, your sexual excitement grows, I add to the mix. If I complement your stockings, and tell you how nice they look on you, you’ll feel like you have the sexiest and sweetest pussy in the world, and that it desperately needs my tongue tasting it. If I compliment your tits in any way, your pussy will become like a cum-crazed black hole, created for the express purpose of devouring my cock.

I wonder if my actual body is panting and drooling in the sleeping chamber, because I think I’m beginning to fathom the difference between being extremely turned-on and being freaky crazy-horny like Sharon at my apartment. Mary’s eyes have gone even wider and I know it’s from watching my brain in action, seeing on her monitors what I’ve undetectably been shoving into her mind and body. Her picture of my brain probably looks like the butterfly is jacking off by now. And that’s from just wishing this stuff. That’s from a patched together toned-down menu of what I could do to her if she shows up. Just imagine, then, what her instruments would look like if I laid it on totally thick, not just to her but dozens of women, bouncing from location to location to make beautiful babes blow like wet volcanoes. I laugh without constraint right there in the control room. Control room — the team doesn’t have a clue how much I can control, do they? They know about the light body, sure, and how I can zip around observing things. But something extra must have happened to me, something they didn’t anticipate. They figured out a way to jazz my brain cells in the direction of lucid-dreaming, with the side-effect of enhancing psychological archetypes native to the inner world, and that’s given me… Whatever this is. I’ve been enhanced in a sexual direction, just like the shifting anima woman and the old toll guy said. There’s no way they’d let me leave the facility and dream, unsupervised, during the day if they knew what I was capable of. They’re aware that my brain lights up, but my lies have covered up the cause, and they haven’t yet understood the consequences. Respecting the need for continued secrecy, I aim one more thing at Mary: If I tell you to calm down, then your lust will ease, and you’ll be able to function normally again. I don’t know if it will work — I’m not one-hundred percent certain that any of this will work — but it’s an escape hatch, just in case. Maybe my butterfly brain makes me something like all-powerful in here, but I need the rest of the team to remain all-clueless out there, because I’m really not the most formidable guy when I’m sound asleep. All of this means that Anne could be something of a problem, doesn’t it? I probably made a tactical error there, committed when I didn’t know enough to be more cautious. I think about the fact that she isn’t in the building, and it makes me nervous. I thought I’d get nothing more than some teasing or dream sex when I thought my thoughts with her, and if it’s more… Well… If it’s more, then I’ll have a world of pussy at my fingertips, won’t I? Which has me praying that Anne is trouble, because I want that kind of trouble. The butterflies I’ve felt all evening long feel like they’re dancing everywhere now, like my entire body is built of heated anticipation. One way or another, through earlier stumbles or tonight’s more deliberate and measured dream-plans, I’ll know for certain whether the trouble to come includes igniting and fucking any woman I want. Which, I don’t know… Is a twenty-something guy with a vivid imagination and a rock hard dream-dick supposed to get all apocalyptic about having to deal with trouble like that? I didn’t think so.

Interlude — She Devils

“You devil! You devil!” The swarthy cab driver kept calling her that, his eyes filled with righteous anger. Gina ignored him, pulling her right breast completely free of her bra, pinching the firm long nipple and gasping, a wet bubble of lust forming between her lips. The bubble popped as she rolled her nipple clockwise, venting heated breaths at the roof of the car. The eyes in the mirror went wider, the man’s jaw dropping. She didn’t know if the turbaned cabbie was a Muslim or a Sikh or any fucking thing under the sun, but he was a man, and the sight of her huge bared breast was knocking the faith right out of his eyeballs. She felt the car swerve, the driver jerkily correcting some lane-wandering caused by the sight of her massive breast. She squeezed her nipple harder, almost brutally twisting until pain mixed in with the pleasure. She hung on to that little stab of pain like it was her new God, clung to it and prayed that Nicole would be home, waiting and dripping, and strong. Nicole had always been strong, a real athlete, and Gina thought she would need an athlete as her lover tonight, otherwise how could anyone hope to keep up? She felt a rush of panic again — what if Nicole wasn’t there? She’d die, she’d just fucking lie down and die, only her body wouldn’t let her die, it would just keep craving and throbbing and pulsing, her pussy like an unrelenting void, torturing her with its need to be filled. Afraid, the pain of abusing her nipple no substitute for real faith, she reached into her handbag and pulled out her phone, a shaking index finger punching the redial feature. “Yesss!” Nicole’s voice hissed after the first ring. “Gina? Oh, Gina! Are you close? Are you close?” Gina cried out, dropping the phone to the floor as her fingers dug deeply into her big breast, her legs flapping down below, thighs opening and squeezing shut over and over, knees knocking. She’d been close all day, closer than close so that her wiggling fingers took her over the edge, coming with abandon but never coming enough, every blistering orgasm just another tease, like her pussy was in one of those pictures inside of a picture inside of a picture, needing to get off into infinity. She needed the original orgasm, the ultimate orgasm, but she couldn’t get there herself, she’d tried that and failed, again and again. She needed Nicole… “Ohhh N…Nicole! I’m… I’m coming!” she promised the dropped phone, hoping her friend would hear and respond, stripping out of her clothes to be ready, opening her thighs wide and teasing her pussy, teasing it and making it ready, so fucking ready to be licked and stroked, tongued and oh God… “Oh God, oh God!” she shouted. “I… I put you out!” the driver shouted back, his voice breaking. He hated it when she said “Oh God”, probably because he was at war with himself, religiously offended and not wanting to look in his mirror, yet seeing that he was weak because he was unable to avoid looking, his lean face twisted as if her boobs were physically attacking him. Didn’t the idiot know by now that her breasts were almost uniquely magnificent? He responded to them like everybody else did, with awe and lust welling up inside of him, which was only natural. She kept pinching her firm nipples, pulling at them and he was only human and couldn’t help but look, because everybody needed to look to see how beautiful her tits were. “I put you out!” he repeated, eyes shifting between the road and the beautiful boobs in his mirror. “H…hurry!” she shouted back at him, wishing that his right foot would turn to lead, wishing them to be there.

“I put you out! I will!” But how many times had he threatened to dump her from the cab already? They’d covered thirty or forty miles since the airport, she getting off in back, he mumbling indecipherable obscenities, or perhaps even prayers, in front. She kept shoving cash over the seat every time he seemed serious about stopping, and the cab rolled inexorably forward, towards Nicole, towards some cure for the gnawing hunger that wouldn’t… fucking… stop! “Stop?” the cabbie asked, tapping the brakes. “No! Oh my God, don’t stop! I didn't mean… Here’s more, twenty more! Just get me there, please!” He took her cash, his eyes unhappy but greedy, greedy for her tits as stripes of pinkish light swept through the cab, briefly making her boobs glow before the shadows returned. The driver looked, muttered angrily — what had she picked, the one cab in New Jersey with the only man in the world who cursed himself for responding to the magnificence of her tits, rather than just accepting that he wanted to jerk off now? She saw headlights coming close, too close… The car swerved again, the descending scale of a receding horn blaring at them. Afraid that he was forgetting to look at the road, more afraid that an accident would keep her from tasting Nicole's pussy, she wiggled her breast back into hiding, gritting her teeth, fucking grinding her poor teeth, willing herself to hang somewhat together for these last four or five miles. Four miles and Nicole, shapely delectable Nicole. It was useless to tell herself that she wasn’t gay, just like it would have been useless to try to rent a car, despite the cost of the cab. She couldn’t drive; she could barely even breathe, unless the breaths were like deep panting sobs or half-delivered gasps from touching herself, stroking and pinching and dabbing, her pussy so wet, sopping wet and sometimes gushing from the never-ending flood inside. She fumbled below the swell of her boobs, bending over to pick her phone off the floor, and thought about dialing Nicole’s number again. Nicole, Nicole, Nicole… She groaned, placing the phone between her thighs and squeezing as hard as she could, helping it to press thrillingly against her throbbing hellhole, trying to appease it for another three miles. If Nicole called, and the phone buzzed… Oh yes, maybe they would do that — place their phones inside each other’s pussy, pressing the numbers brail-like with their tongues, letting the phones vibrate inside, calling each other’s pussies, leaving wet messages, electronically pulsing each other on top of everything else. "Oh yesss!" she approved, closing her eyes and seeing it. Nicole would do what she needed; she knew that. She was so stacked and sexy and nobody even dreamed of turning her down if she wanted them, and she wanted Nicole, she would just jump onto her and shove her huge tits in Nicole’s face and give her no choice, suffocate or fondle, suck on these hard nipples or die. She thought she could hear a similar need in Nicole’s voice on the phone, but that was impossible — nobody had needs like hers, and how could she trust her senses anyway? She had no reliable sense of anything outside of her own body, her fucking flamethrower of a beautifully built body, with her searing senseless pussy dictating everything... Dictate, dick-tate… “Dick-titting!” she spit, pulling her boob back out, suddenly picturing David Sand’s hard dick wedged between her breasts, swallowed up in their volume, his whole cock pumping against her soft hot flesh, pumping and pumping and his dick absolutely engulfed in tit, his meat and balls lost inside of a humongous compressed tit-crack, pumping and pumping and so lost inside, dick between tits, dick tit, dick tit dick tit…

“Dick tit dick tit dick tit…” she mumbled, squeezing her boobs together with her forearms, making them so fucking long and her cleavage so dick-ready, a long fleshy David dick crack-attack, a soft pliable immersion strip for his hardness, for pleasing His Hardness… “You cover yourself up!” her driver barked over the seat. “You no cause trouble you get out of my car!” Hard, oh God so thick and hard, so hard to think, it was all so unbelievably hard. She sort of heard the driver and instinct told her that he was right, it would just delay her from getting Nicole’s lips on her nipples or her head between Nicole’s thighs if she got hassled for having her boobs hanging out in public. She squeezed her bared breast with both hands, gasped and couldn’t help lifting it to suck on her nipple. A glance at the driver’s navigation screen indicated only one-half mile, just one-half mouth-watering mile and if she just sucked on her tit, sucked and nibbled at her hard pulsating nipple, just kept herself somewhat sucking fucking together for another few seconds… “You devil!” the driver shouted. “You go to hell, you devil!” “I’m not!” she tried to say, but the sound was all muffled. She wasn’t a devil, it was someone else, Nicole but it couldn’t be Nicole, it had to be David Sand, the fucker, the fucky fucker somehow doing this, wanting her tits and making her want him to want her tits and need Nicole's tits too and oh God did she want Nicole's tits! “Ohhh!” she groaned, her mouth opening and her huge boob bouncing down, the aftershocks rippling through her. Her hands started to tease at her clitoris through her jeans again… But oh God, they were slowing, pulling into the apartment complex! “You cover yourself up!” the driver demanded again, and she hastily shoved her breast back under the cup of her bra, trying to arrange her damage blouse over it as best she could. When the car came to a stop she had another moment of panic, trying to remember the number, trying to even see the numbers. Which building, and what if… “That one,” the driver said, pointing. “You go. You get out you devil!” She was already out the door, running with her boobs undulating up and down, up and down, running faster than when she ran track in middle school, running until she was pounding on the door with the flat of her hands. She cried out Nicole’s name again and again, then jiggled the doorknob and heard buzzing, turned the knob again and found it unlocked. It was only an entry door to the unit, Nicole’s apartment was somewhere in the building. She tried to remember the number — six, or sixteen? “Gina? Gina!” She heard Nicole’s voice reverberating in the stairwell and she ran up, taking two steps at a time. She turned, turned again, spiraling up, hearing the clomp of footsteps racing down. They collided on a landing, collided with their things clattering, collided and held firm like glue, wet hot glue panting and melting, hands touching and grasping, heated hands stroking even hotter flesh. “What’s… hap…?” Nicole tried to ask, and then her head was on Gina’s chest, lips closing around her left nipple, sucking on it right through the torn silk of her bra. “I don’t knooowwww oh oh OH!” Gina managed to wail. She wanted to say more, she needed to say more but something took hold, the same something but even more gripping, driving her mouth to Nicole’s

breasts, her hands tearing at Nicole’s blouse and bra to free her tits, to bare her nipples, to get her mouth on those nipples and suck, her right hand grabbing hard between Nicole’s thighs, fingers needing to stroke, needing to jam themselves into this pussy, needing to get wet and make Nicole even wetter, wet like her, her nipples so hard, so excited and hard, deliciously hard nipples filling her mouth. “Fuck me! Fuck me!” Nicole cried, yet her body was like a clawing animal trying to fuck back, both bodies pressing to be aggressors, needing to be fucked but insisting on fucking first, mouths on nipples, hands on pussy and tit with hot pussies wanting to grind, pulled together like magnets with hips gyrating wildly to grind pussy onto pussy, sweltering need pressing into a wet gushing mirror of that same need. Gina felt her knees buckling, the oomph of hard contact with the cement stairs echoing around them, her breasts in Nicole’s hands, Nicole’s blonde hair blinding her. On her back she felt Nicole squirming onto her like a beached seal, flopping and wiggling breasts into her face, clutching hands pulling at her jeans, jerking them down. She smelled cement but mostly pussy, her pussy and Nicole’s, and raising her hips with her calves she somehow allowed Nicole to tear her jeans down her hips, freeing her boiling pussy, the hot pungent smell of the day’s cumulative lust released into the air all around them. She fought to get her mouth on Nicole’s nipples again, pushing with her arms, trying to kick Nicole away and get on top. Her boobs were overwhelming when they hung down, they could mold themselves onto Nicole’s face and she could dine on Nicole’s nipples and eat her pussy for dessert, eating and coming and eating more, just flattening her face against Nicole’s wet pussy and never stopping. “Eat me! Eat me!” Nicole shouted with clairvoyant urgency into the hallway. Gina pushed harder and rolled, toppling Nicole away, hurriedly shifting around so that Nicole’s legs were in front of her. Her friend was half-naked already, only thin panties as drenched as her own, bright pink panties that she pulled away to reveal flowing wet folds and a completely shaven beautiful glory of a pussy that she didn’t know how to eat but just shoved her mouth against, tongue fully out with her cheeks mashed against Nicole’s muscled thighs. She felt hot breath on her own pussy and screamed into Nicole, her lips wide and her tongue pushing inside of her lover, this wet hot pussy-owner of a hot bitch friend, her desperately needed friend sucking on her clitoris, making her hips thrust, making her boobs bounce and her darting tongue flick wildly. She came, daggers of pleasure poking at every part of her body. It knocked the breath from her, emptying her out as her body erupted with white-hot stabbing jolting current. The orgasm came in a body-wrenching double-barreled shot like she’d been coming all day but it flowed onto Nicole now, and coming onto Nicole made her mouth blubber against this hot pink needy membrane, blubbering and jerking with Nicole screaming and the screams reverberating inside of her flowing cunt. She kept bucking, naked flesh bouncing onto hard concrete, so hard, hard as David would be hard, all the frantic screams echoing, every action creating more blinding coming and more licking, even more gushing and frantic clitting, and she writhed and she kicked and was she falling down the stairs? “Ouch!” she grunted, her right knee hitting hard on something. “Oh so hard!” she demanded of Nicole’s pussy, sucking on it, sucking like a vacuum and trying to make it grow. But it wasn’t hard, only David was hard enough. This was wet, her wet stop-gap porn in a storm, a wet gap for her tongue and fingers to fill, for her voice to inhabit and her fingers to stroke. She shouted David’s name into Nicole’s open pussy, using her fingers to open it even wider so that David’s name could rush in deeper, maybe as deep as his cock, like a word-cock fucking Nicole with sound, filling

her with hot breath and the named name of what they both knew they needed even more than this, needed though the need tore at them, making everything too frantic, the clutching artless sex too hard. “So… so hard!” she thought she heard an echo, but it was Nicole agreeing with her, no echo at all. "I need... David!" Nicole cried. Gina kicked something with her foot, heard it skid and stop. On an impulse she reached out, felt Nicole's cell and opened it. She pressed the redial button, and as the tones speeded she put the phone to Nicole's pussy, pressing it hard against her. They heard ringing until Nicole began to scream, piercing wails bouncing up and down the stairwell. His machine picked up, David's machine voice speaking against Nicole's dripping wet box. They both cried out, Nicole's hand fumbling at the phone, David's voice swallowed into squishy silence as Nicole shoved her phone inside her pussy. His voice was inside of her! Gina felt frantically for her handbag, for her own fuck-phone, but her hands only met bare concrete. She gushed frustration — it wasn't fair, Nicole had more than David's name inside of her pussy, she had his fucking voice! Her fingers desperately probed inside of Gina and met hard plastic. She wanted it and fumbled in slippery futility with her hair in her eyes and their bodies awkwardly joining together, forming a tightly interlocked ball with four writhing limbs. Having to give up on feeling David speaking inside her own cunt, Gina whipped her body around to squeeze her colossal breasts against Nicole’s smaller ones, hard nipples pressing into hard nipples, but both knowing they could get even harder, must get even harder and the only way was David, getting hard with David’s hardness, his hardness taming the devil she felt inside, David whipping their dirty demons with so much more than his distant machine voice. They needed his hard dick, they needed him to make the demons scream, their screams echoing up and down the stairs, wet fury making the devils dance and need to dance more, two bodies in a tumbling sex-grip, two she-devils writhing like pink fuck-me salamanders down the hard cold stairs, bumping and wailing, bumping and gasping…

Chapter Seven — Molting Meets Molten I wonder if I’m beginning to get the hang of this dream interpretation stuff, because a couple of ambiguous references suddenly click into place during the morning debriefing. You’re finally with me, heat and soul, the impossibly sexy shifting woman proclaimed in last night’s dream. The word “soul” leads me back to dream-Nicole, pressing her foot against my dick while saying: Unite the energy of this and this. This and this — not cock and foot, but cock and the sole of her foot? If the words “sole” and “soul” are only different in spelling, not meaning, then… Then what? My soul needs heat, or sexual desire? Well… duh. Unless there are meanings within meanings, like the toll collector with his thing about “heating” the bridge. According to Mary’s interpretation, the bridge is a symbol of some major transition coming my way, or that I need to make come my way. Was it a coincidence that the huge candles were round like testicles, and that the old guy was so freaking hung under his robes? He said he was enhanced, and he’s a part of my changed brain — my changed mind. The best I can figure, there must be some partnership between the heat or lust of the body, the new workings of my brain and what I might call my spirit or soul, all working together to create some state where this whole transition thing will happen. All of this is pretty damn deep for me to contemplate, and I don’t feel any closer to understanding what this supposed transition is all about. Mary surmised that it might be a new state of consciousness, but it seems

ridiculous that my gonads would be the engine to send me into Nirvana or something. I mean, aren’t most “enlightened” people ascetics, or even celibate? I’m fairly poor, but that's just the way it is, it's not so much because I’m above wanting things. And no way am I ever crossing a bridge that leads to a sexless existence. Hell, I’m not even one to go around proclaiming that human beings have souls, not with any certainty. Especially if we’re talking about people like Dr. Phillips and Eduardo, my duo of lying scheming debriefers, going tag-team at me pretty hard this morning. “It took longer than usual for you to fall asleep,” Dr. Phillips tells me what I already know. “The readings were somewhat different than usual through the night as well. The unusual highlighting on our instruments returned, and it appeared that you were engaged in highly focused problem-solving through much of the night. We also detected an elevated state of emotional anxiety the entire time you were being monitored. Are you worried about something? Trying to solve a particular problem?” Only what to do if you fuckers are part of the Evil Empire. “It’s no big deal,” I say. “Just some minor personal stuff.” Dr. Phillips and Eduardo exchange glances, and not the kind of glances I’m looking for. Though it would surely get me buried neck-deep in shit — perhaps even water-boarded if they’re of that ilk — I couldn’t resist aiming urges into them while still in my light body, to give each other a blowjob during this very debriefing session. Totally juvenile and self-destructive, I know — but then I had the sense while doing it that it had no chance of working. That feeling of indefinable pixie dust I’ve experienced while aiming sexual needs into women was absent, like my heart really wasn’t in it. Dr. Phillips has been sucking pretty enthusiastically at his pipe all morning, but that’s an oral fixation I’ve witnessed for nearly a week. I don’t really want to see these two farts whip out their dicks, not for any sexual thrills… And that’s probably the key. Heat. I could take the toll man’s fixation on heat as a sign that I need to feel lust for any of this fantastic stuff to work at all, like it’s crucial that I’m driven by sexual desire when I want to affect someone. Dr. Phillips and Eduardo would probably shoot me if they knew how my mind actually works — not only what I might be able to do, but how much what I want to do is very anti-establishment, and basically perverted. They found a test subject whose mind could be configured the way they wished, but they underestimated how true the jokes are, about how much of a guy’s thinking takes place below the waist. I look at them with fake earnestness as they go at me about my emotional state, and how relevant that is to the success of the program, how essential it is that I give them complete and straightforward answers, blah blah blah. Dr. Phillips makes a slip of the tongue when he calls the program the Lucid Dreaming Surveillance Program, instead of the special program as they’ve sold it to me all along. I'm pretty sure that Eduardo noticed, because I see his eyes go cold and angry for an instant. I don’t flinch or react at all — they can interpret my disinterest as they wish, like my brain is so full of butterfly poo that the actual meaning of the LDSP’s acronym zipped past me unnoticed, or like I heard but already knew, and it doesn’t bother me one bit. It’s all an act, of course; the reality is that my paranoia index is at an all time high this morning, and I think it has to do with Anne still being absent. I keep imagining her waltzing through the door in a translucent bodystocking and six inch heels, breathing heavily as she asks me to accompany her to another room for more intimate questioning. It’s a sexy fantasy, but the kind of event that would surely turn my waking life into a living nightmare. I find myself wishing that I'd known what I was doing from the beginning, or had managed to keep my

hormones chilled for just a couple of days. I'm afraid that I've already screwed everything up somehow, without having learned how to unscrew my missteps. Cooped up in the debriefing room with only Eduardo and Dr. Phillips, I get the sense that I’m being threatened, even though nothing in that direction has been said or otherwise indicated. They aren’t at all happy with my “no big deal” evasion concerning their instruments’ readings, and I can see that I’m going to have to give these A-holes an excuse for my agitation last night, otherwise I might have black cars and guys in sunglasses tailing my motorcycle in my off-hours. That might be melodramatic… but I’m guessing not, and so I go with the tactic that usually works for me, giving them a thin slice of truth in lieu of another lie. “My ex-girlfriend showed up yesterday,” I lament with exaggerated angst, very aware that Mary Poole will hear every word I say. “She’s insisting that we get back together, and I’m… I’m not sure how I should handle that. I don’t really think I love her, and that’s an essential thing for me if I’m going to be in a relationship. I’ll sort it out, don’t worry. It has nothing to do with my work here, and I’ll try to be better at leaving my personal concerns at home.” “Very well, then,” they move on. “Let’s go over what occurred when you finally did fall asleep. Tell the entire dream a second time, just to make certain that no details have been left out.” I give them an abbreviated version of the toll booth dream, devoid of my shenanigans while floating and lusting inside the building. They barely listened to this material the first time, and I see them tune partway out again as I describe the old man blocking the passage of my motorcycle. They think they’re so smart, but after hearing Mary’s nuanced interpretation of symbols, I get the sense that these two jokers absorb my dreams the same way a kid absorbs a porn novel, mentally skimming past half of what I say because they’re anxious for me to get to the “good stuff”, the parts where I blinked myself right to their stupid stone house in the mountains of Pakistan. There wasn’t much to it — no stash of weapons or guys in turbans wiring homemade bombs, which is what I assume they hoped for. The house contained more women than men, and half a dozen kids. I felt sort of horrible floating from shabby room to shabby room, because those were actual lives beneath me, filled with the complicated behaviors of real people living under conditions of extreme poverty. I saw some things in that house that should have remained private, and for the first time I felt kind of dirty while in my light body. Odd, how my conscience wasn’t bothered when aiming sexual thoughts into beautiful women over the past few days. I didn’t understand that what I did was real until just recently, but is there more to it, like having an ephemeral hard-on makes everything okay? It’s an interesting question — an ethical dilemma. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that I might have ethical dilemmas up the wazoo with a colorful butterfly flapping inside my grey matter. One thing I’m not going to lose any sleep over — ha ha — is getting hot babes horny. I might be misinterpreting something, but from where my dick sits it got a green light last night, straight from the super-sexy woman’s mouth: No one woman will ever be enough, we know that. It’s a good thing that no woman is beyond your reach. So the smart part of me said it’s a good thing, and if Mary Poole shows up at Millie’s Diner this morning… Oh fuck. Sharon. I promised to go to Sharon’s place first thing after work. It’s not even a close contest. Sharon has it all — looks, flexibility, and after the way she sucked my cock, a mouth and throat that might have been patented by Dirt Devil. But Mary is Mary, and knowing whether Mary travels out of her way, dressed a particular way, is to know whether I have a seat at the throne of Mount Olympussy. So fuck Sharon, she can wait. It isn’t like I want to punish her about it, but I have other

thighs to fry. I mean, just think of the morning it could be — Millie’s coffee or maybe even her hash browns in my belly, and Mary Poole confirming that my dick has EZ Pass into any pussy that fills me with desire. I suppose that isn’t the same thing as a completely free trip — even with EZ Pass you get charged, and the toll guy in my dream did ask for change, which went beyond the monetary. I’ll change, all right. If Mary Poole is sitting on a stool at Millie’s, I’ll change from a cynical confused loner to the man with the happiest dick in the universe. And I’ll make certain that I’m not the only one that feels like falling to their knees to give thanks. *** They keep me more than ninety minutes late at the facility, prodding and poking and sticking me in the tube for additional brain scans. I try chatting with the technicians for a change, asking whether they’re looking for anything in particular. One bespectacled smart-ass cracks a joke about the porn movies playing inside my skull, which makes me wonder if it’s already out that I creamed in my pajamas the other night. Right after they slide me into the tube, the same guy absently whistles “If I Only Had a Brain” from the Wizard of Oz, which I have to admit is a nice touch. Mary’s car is long gone when I leave the facility, and I can feel my heart racing almost as fast as my bike as I make my way past the charred Walmarts and other skeletons of what the surviving mainstream media still refer to as “global wreckonomics”. It might be unnecessary paranoia, but I do a lot of checking in my mirrors, and direct the bike off the paved highway at one point, riding onto dirt roads that cut through formerly productive farmland. Even going slow and steady my bike kicks up a long cloud of dust, and I stop at the top of a small rise to see whether any trailing vehicle might be creating a similar plume. Unless the fuckers are tracking me from satellites — maybe I should learn how to screw lens caps on every one of those things when I fly in my sleep — I have to conclude that my free time is still basically free, and unsupervised. I feel pretty secure when I get my Honda back up to speed, but my hopeful heart smacks into a brick wall once I arrive at Millie’s, because Mary’s car isn’t in the parking area. I circle around the building just to make certain, and it’s a hard call to say which is more deflated — my hopes or my dick. “Two visits in one week?” Millie greets as I enter and take a seat at the counter. “There must be changes in the air that my astrologer forgot to mention.” “You know I can’t resist your hash browns,” I flatter. “You sure you have a stomach to put them in?” “What do you mean?” “I mean you look like someone ripped your guts out this morning. What happened, David?” I must have quite the hound dog face, maybe because I just lost the scent of all the comely foxes in the world. “Something… fell through, that’s all. I had high hopes, I guess — silly isn’t it? I thought… I don’t know, like I’d suddenly stumbled onto more luck than I could believe.” “Too bad, when the whole planet could use someone decent to get lucky,” she answers, placing her small

hand on mine. I think she’s going to say something more, but a customer asks for their check, and she gives me a little nod, leaving me to work through my sorrows alone. I look around the place, and it’s about the same as the day before, with just a few older customers, mostly men, looking life-worn and listless. I’m just a younger version, aren’t I, probably on a downward spiral even though everything about my life suddenly feels like it’s standing too fucking still. I was so certain that I’d figured things out. All the dream messages pointed in the direction of Mary Poole being here — I thought for sure that she’d be unable to avoid being here, like my dream-wishes would lodge in the back of her brain and nag at her without mercy. I guess not. I guess it was dangerous thing, to start believing in the unbelievable. But how could I have gotten things so wrong? I didn’t dream all that sex with Sharon yesterday, although now I’m back to wondering why it happened in the first place. I look at the payphone near the restroom doors and think about calling her, to apologize for being delayed. Sex with her this morning would feel like a small consolation compared to what I was hoping for, but it would still be sex. Millie comes back and she asks in a very gentle way if I want to talk about it. I kind of do, but I can’t drop a story on Millie or anyone else about how I thought I was on the verge of scoring pussy all over the world. It’s not the kind of thing to admit to anybody, even an understanding someone like Millie. Besides, it’s too far-fetched — that anyone could have that kind of ability, or that anyone would start to believe in such a thing. “David?” she fixes her eyes on mine in a way she never has before. “I’m going to share a little secret with you, but you have to promise never to tell anybody.” I nod, and Millie reaches down behind the counter, pulling out an elaborately patterned wooden box, barely larger than a box of matches. “It’s time to do a reading for you,” she says, sliding its lid open and removing several dull pennies. “What is this, Millie? What are we doing?” “We’re doing the Ching,” she says in an almost-whisper, glancing to make sure that the two remaining customers in the diner are taken care of, and occupied. “Has anyone ever helped you with a reading before?” “The I Ching? Never. But why all the secrecy?” “Out of respect for the ancient art, mostly. But also… You lived here all those years, and you never realized how much we’re in the boonies? If it weren’t for all the water, I’d swear some days that this diner is sitting in the middle of Kansas. I don’t care if I offend anyone or not, but I don’t like being teased about things I take seriously.” She also mentioned an astrologer a few minutes ago — flake city — but I keep my mouth shut and follow her lead with a semblance of great respect. She hands me the pennies from her box, which are dated from the 1960’s with some areas so smooth that I comment on their worn state. “My mother passed these coins to me,” she explains. “It’s important to be given your tools — the energy is much better. I couldn’t even guess how many readings these coins have been involved in. All the important decisions in my life came about with the help of these coins — everything from marrying Dan to whether or not to buy this old diner.”

Without making a racket of it, I cast the coins on the counter as she directs, and watch as she makes corresponding marks inside of a worn little notepad. I have no idea what I’m doing, or what she’s doing, or whether I’m really supposed to believe that this is profound or not. The way Millie is concentrating, she sure takes it seriously, and her respect for the activity sets the tone. “Forty-nine,” she whispers when there are six broken or unbroken lines drawn onto her pad. She looks at me significantly. “You really are in the thick of it, aren’t you?” “Forty-nine what?” “Hexagram forty-nine — Molting, or Revolution.” “You have all this stuff in your head?” I ask with astonishment. “Been doing this since I was a young teen, but only giving readings to close friends, and only in emergency situations. It’s too potent a tool to play with for fun.” “I’m in an emergency situation?” “Thought so, and now I know it. You’re molting, in a place where great transformation is possible. You’re like a snake shedding its skin, needing to cast off old things to give birth to something new inside of you.” Christ. “Go on,” I urge, paying very close attention now. “Being in a place of change is quite positive, but there’s always a darker side to even the best hexagrams, something to be watchful for. In an outward way, these lines are tied to political revolutions, an upheaval of the masses against unjust or unwise rule. It’s the same kind of thing when taken as an inner or personal movement, where the old ways of doing things are replaced with an entirely new order.” “And that’s a good thing or a bad thing?” “We all have to grow, and sometimes almost too quickly. The growth is needed, but all major changes take place in an atmosphere of upheaval, or what feels like personal risk to the ego. It’s never easy to face the unknown, and you’re either facing it now, or it’s coming. You’ll probably have to sacrifice something, too.” “You’re getting all that from these lines?” “Each individual line has its own meaning, but the key is their arrangement as a whole. This first line, for instance,” she indicates with a finger, “is called ‘wrapped in the hide of a yellow cow’. It speaks of pretending to be docile as one’s strength gathers. By the time we reach this fifth line, we’re at ‘the great man changes like a tiger’, meaning swift and decisive change.” “What kind of change?” I ask Millie, my flesh tingling. “You have to know that when the time comes, David. Some part of your life is in a state of metamorphosis — that could mean your attitude, your aspirations, you name it. It might be something as obvious as your job or a relationship, or the changes could be taking place mostly hidden away, on an unconscious level. The main thing is that you’ll eventually have to race past any fears that hold you back. Be the tiger when the time comes, otherwise it’s all for nothing, like a missed opportunity.”

“And the sacrifice?” “Is inevitable. Imagine a political revolution, and all the sacrifice and turmoil involved in something like that. Or again, a snake shedding its skin — at the very least the snake has to leave its old self behind, and the new skin might feel raw for a time. The point is that a transformation can’t take place without giving something up.” I look at Millie and I have this eerie sense that she stepped out of one of my dreams, because she’s nailing me with half-understood truths just like the anima women do. I have a moment of doubt, and try to float out of my body… No, I’m definitely awake, and this is the real Millie. Because her reading is so dead-on, I’m wondering whether to ask an extremely touchy question that pops into my mind — whether she had any foreshadowing of her husband’s untimely death through I Ching readings. Before I can decide whether to go there, I see her forehead furrow, and she looks past me with an expression of concern. “I don’t know if this is going to make you feel better or worse,” she says, touching my hand again. “What?” I ask, turning to where her eyes have gone. “I’ll poison her tea if she’s here to drive a stake through your heart. If it’s the other, then you owe me a case of beer.” I see what she sees — Mary Poole’s car pulling up right in front of the door. The driver’s door opens, and the color red pours out, like a gorgeous flower glowing in the morning sun. “Whoa,” Millie whispers. And God fucking damn! Mary looks like a piece of Valentine’s Day fuck-candy — red heels, red thighhigh stockings, a black skirt so short that several inches of creamy thigh show above where the stockings end. It’s all topped off with a red scooping sleeveless pullover that clings to every delectable inch. “Holy sheeeiiittt,” I breathe out, my cock and aspirations suddenly feeling too big to fit inside the diner. “Mary!” I exclaim with real emotion as summer heat and almost too much carnal appeal breezes through the opened door. “I can’t believe you’re here!” she gushes with a mixture of wonder and relief. “I can’t believe you’re here,” I say disingenuously, my cock as hard as the Formica countertop. “Join me for breakfast?” She nods vigorously, her blue eyes wider than usual. As she turns, I whisper to Millie: “Things are looking way up all of a sudden.” Millie’s smiles, and mutters under her breath: “I’m surprised you didn’t get number fifty-one: The Arousing.” Even more than arousing — I’d say fucking molten. I stick to my pattern, walking behind Mary for the view, and this time it takes a hell of a lot of willpower to keep from speeding up to give her rear a good hard poke with my aching dick. The woman’s legs are just fantastic, their exquisite shapeliness accentuated

by stockings with vertical wavy nylon stripes of more or less translucency. The tops of her thighs, uncovered and squeezably smooth, are more tanned than I would have thought, and might be the most appetizing three inches of skin I’ve ever seen. If I squatted on the floor I’d be able to see the beginnings of two round ass cheeks peeking out, but what’s the need when the entire ass is wiggling so beautifully in the barely-there skirt? I didn’t tell Mary to get new heels or a new blouse, but it looks like she went for the whole I’m-so-incredibly-fuckworthy makeover once she began shopping. We slide into our familiar places, and I’m on the alert for any visible signs of her emotional state. I guess I expect fawning eyes, or some other movie-style expressions of a woman feeling sexually enlivened as she’s falling in love. What I see is a quiet kind of breathlessness, some nervous fidgeting with the salt and pepper shakers, and a lot of wide-eyed blinking, like someone is tapping a “refresh” key connected to her brain, so that she feels newly stunned every few seconds. “You just decided to drive out here today?” I say like it’s the most unexpected thing in the world, wondering how she’ll explain it. If my dream-commands were firing on all cylinders last night, then she’s going to be compelled to be truthful with me. “I… had this urge to be here. I didn’t know whether you make a habit of coming here, but I hoped you did.” “And you keep a change of clothing in your car?” I ask with my eyes roaming a red sea filled with curves. I’m not clever like a brain scientist; even so I’d already figured out that Mary Poole would have absolutely scrumptious tits. Score one for the guy whose brains got jumbled, because I’ve never deduced a truer thing in my life. Mary blushes, like her cheeks are trying to catch up to all the red cotton and nylon. “It’s been an unusual morning,” she exhales. “I stopped to shop… Nothing was open, and I… I panicked… I had to wait and then… I don’t know what got into me! I can’t believe I bought what I bought, or that I was brave enough to wear it in public! It’s so… so call girl, or… I mean, it doesn’t look bad on me and I was… kind of hoping you’d like it?” God fucking damn I like it. I like it about as much as I’d like to open a tap on all the sexy female hormones in the world, which appears to be an achievable goal. Obviously David the Dream-Doofus forgot to remember that clothing stores wouldn’t be open early, and that there aren’t many around anymore outside of the urban centers. But David the Dream-Deviant had his shit totally together last night, and I finally have a real woman to manipulate, right in front of my non-dreaming eyes. I see that Millie is standing a few paces back from our table, waiting for the right moment to approach. I make eye contact and she comes forward, practically standing over top of Mary, asking what we want to drink. “More coffee for me and a… tea?” Mary nods. Millie makes “What a dish!” eyes at Mary, then looks at me oddly, like she’s searching for an expression or some signal that would give her a hint of what’s going on. In a way I’m wondering the same thing myself, because now that Mary is here and dressed to kill, the realization has hit me that all of this crazy shit is actually happening, and the weight of it feels like it’s frying my nerves. My entire body is tingling with excitement, and I have this odd sense that Mary Poole and I are both virgins, poised to explore an entirely new form of sex that we barely understand. My dick is ecstatic, because it knows that I can set her off like a bottle rocket, just by flattering her on the stockings or her tits. But the equation is thornier for all the non-dick parts of me, because of Mary’s association with the

research, and the minefield I could be treading into if I screw her up in some irretrievable way. But there’s more to it, too. I’m a slow burn kind of guy by nature — why else cling to the old method of developing photographs in a tray, watching an image emerge gradually under dim yellow light? I prefer processes that tease before unveiling their true nature, and male/female relationships are no exception. At the beginning of any relationship, you put yourself in play only knowing that you find someone attractive, but without any guarantee that the chemistry will be any good, waiting breathlessly as something exciting develops, or doesn’t. All of a sudden I’m in a whole new situation — Mary won’t have a chance of escaping my chemistry, which is extremely intoxicating, and has me wondering how much of a Marymeltdown Millie could witness without calling either the cops or paramedics. I mean, could I have Mary Poole writhing on the floor, literally begging me to shove my dick inside her pussy, just by uttering a few words? Are we talking about that much influence over another human being, where all of their inhibitions and personality traits can be wiped away in a few seconds? My hands are trembling from imagining it. I feel half-drunk, like expectancy is fermenting right inside my brain cells, and for some reason I hear mental echoes from the critiques in my photography courses, where I’d catch shit for experimenting too much, or even more shit for not being experimental enough. Gorgeous as she is, Mary isn’t an art project, and the question of how far to go is almost too big to grapple with. I never expected to have to make a decision like this, and I don’t want to screw things up on my very first attempt. She’s been quietly hyperventilating over there, waiting to hear what I think of her new clothing purchases. Choosing my words carefully, I finally say: “I think you look incredibly beautiful, Mary. I knew you were a lovely woman, but damn.” She smiles in a pleased but modest way with both her eyes and lips, but then something happens behind the blue irises, like a wave of energy passing through, electrifying her from the inside. She swallows hard, looking down at the salt shaker, which she’s fondling absently with her right hand. Rather than easing back, the wave seems to gather and crest, and she utters a barely audible “Uh!” with her rear squirming in her seat. The effect on me might be even greater than it is inside of her, because I’ve never witnessed anything so stirring in my life. I’m breathing heavily and my dick aches like it’s never ached before, like it’s become the Ferrari of dicks with a ridiculous amount of power under its hood. In a public space I’ll need to keep my rpm’s down, holding back the words that would have Mary Poole tearing her skirt and panties away… But come on — that’s only for now. I’m not going to say those words yet, because I want Mary coherent for a few minutes, and able to walk to her car. But I know where this conversation is ultimately heading. I could stop it from going there, but that would mean stopping myself from doing what I know I’m going to do. Heat, the old bridge guy said in last night’s dream. Go out and stir up lots of it. With Mary dressed as a fuck-me doll, and two simple compliments held in reserve that should act like Taser guns stunning her pussy, I hardly need the old guy’s blessing, or any additional encouragement. “Mary…” I say, and just by uttering her name I can see the dream commands trembling inside of her, like her pussy is yet another wick awaiting the torch. “I’ve had this feeling from the beginning that you have something that you want from me, or that you want to understand about me. Is that right?” “Yes, I… I need…”

“Tell me what you need.” Her eyes flash. “I need to understand… what’s happening in your dreams! Your hormone levels last night… In fact all of the readings… For a while you were lighting up like crazy, and just watching it… I never thought I’d see anything like that in my life and I got… I got…” “Keep going,” I encourage. “It was so incredibly exciting! You can’t understand… how it makes me feel…” “How professionally intriguing it is, you mean?” “That, too. But I mean… it’s… sexually exciting.” Her mouth remains an opened "O" after that one, like she's frozen with the realization of what she just divulged. She looks down, averting her eyes, face beet red. I see the corners of her mouth twitch, her eyebrows showing a lot of tension. She’s probably been wondering all morning why she can’t stop herself from doing certain things, and now she’s confessing things to me that she’d normally leave unsaid. I see her eyes dart, like she’s thinking about running out, or fleeing to the restrooms to keep from confessing anything else she wants to keep secret. “Tell me what you believe you witnessed through your instruments last night,” I hurriedly prod, giving her no chance to escape. I wonder if she had any sense that I was there in front of her or even inside of her last night, creating the drives that brought her here in the first place. “I… heard what you said this morning about your… girlfriend?” is her response. “Ex-girlfriend. We’re not getting back together.” She smiles for an instant, then seems to realize that she’s doing it, and the smile is forced away. “You weren’t problem-solving about your girlfriend,” she concludes, correctly dispelling the lie she heard earlier in the morning. “The others believe that your glands are providing energy for you to concentrate, like there’s this… alliance, between the brain and body, helping you to focus and maintain the light body. But I think your mind and your entire glandular system… have found this unique way to operate together and I… I don’t know how it works, but there’s more to it than maintaining the lucid state and the separation of the light body, I know there is. You’re hormonal levels… and all that energy in the brain… It’s not what they think! You’re getting off in your sleep, I know you are!” “Getting off? You mean that I was having sex in my sleep last night?” “Sort of. Only… different. I don’t understand what I’m seeing, but I know! It’s a form of sexual activity right there on my screen, and it… it…” “It what?” “Oh God, it… makes me feel all prickly and…” “Prickly? What happens when you feel prickly?” “Uh!” she vents uncontrollably. She looks away, even squints her eyes shut, like she’s fighting the urge to let it out.

I take the opportunity to stare at Mary’s tits, even more magnetic now because her nipples have clearly swelled and hardened under all that red. Either what we’re talking about is providing fresh excitement, or her body is still responding to the compliments I dropped several minutes ago, even as she struggles to keep from saying things. “I… had to take a break last night…” she whispers, lips full and quivering. “A break? Why is that significant?” “I… needed to m…m…” “Spit it out.” “To m…masturbate!” Mary has gone so red in the face that I wonder if she’s going to have a coronary or something. We might even be in the same place, because I’ve never seen or heard anything so hardening in my life, and another minute of this is going to have my dick ripping a hole through my pants and upending the table. If I'd stuck around rather than zipping to Pakistan, I could have floated with her to watch her play with herself, getting off from her getting off, maybe even passing into her body again right when she came, looking to see if her toasted rose petal insides erupt with color or light or anything else when she comes. Talk about the tiger missing an opportunity. No matter, though, because I’m about ready to go for the kill right now — it’s almost like her systems are freaking out so much that a part of her is begging me to go for the kill. But there’s just one thing I want to know first. “Mary, you said something the other morning that really made me curious, about having intense sex in your dreams one time. And then… Well, you’ve completely nailed me, because I’ve been having a lot of sexual dreams recently, right there in the lab. Last night was especially powerful, but I want you to tell me all about your sex dream, and what that was like, and why you’ve been so curious about mine from the beginning.” I can see in the wide eyes that I’ve touched a button with that one. “I… I lied about that!” she reveals in an outpouring of breath. “I mean… I under-exaggerated. It was a whole series of dreams… They came sporadically when I was a teen, where I… I kept waking up in the night, so incredibly hot and… I’d… I’d… masturbate… Fuck, I can’t believe I’m telling you this!” “What’s so embarrassing about it?” I ask, pretending to misunderstand her distress. “Tell me all about these dreams.” “They weren’t dreams with a story, just… It was like I had a dream lover inside of me, getting me so agitated, so hot and… I’d masturbate like crazy. It was like I was on fire inside, my… my… p…pussy… so needy and I… Why can’t I… Dammit, I…” “Just let it out, Mary,” I encourage, like her problem is garden-variety repression. “You’ll feel better, I’m sure.” “But… it messed me up!” she almost explodes. “It was like I had this incredible sex life… all alone in the night, getting me so... The orgasms were unbelievable! I… craved them, I couldn’t get enough, but… I had no control over when the dreams would appear! I was so… needy… I sought out real relationships, and real

sex… but it was… it was…” She’s trying like hell to keep from saying it. “Real sex?” I press. “It was… so disappointing!” she exhales, then adds in a thin pained voice: “I thought there must be something wrong with me. There is something wrong with me! I… I prefer dream sex over the real thing, like I’m… caught somehow…” “Because the real thing is never as intense as in the dreams, you mean.” She nods quickly, her eyes moist. “And then, when you had sex in your dream the other night, and I could see your hormone levels skyrocketing, and that strange light catching fire in your head… I wanted to know! Was it the same thing? Was I seeing an experience like mine right there on my screens? And you knew you were dreaming, and could take the sex anywhere you wanted! But you didn’t, you let your big boob dream girl lead you the way she wanted and I… I wanted to scream…” I’m finally getting it. “You want to be able to lucid dream and create scenarios where you get molten hot dream-sex exactly the way you want it,” I say for her. “Yesss!” she hisses. “D…desperately!” Well, well. Are the gods a perverted game-playing lot, or what? “Do you have a boyfriend, Mary?” “No, I…” “A girlfriend?” “No!” “Because it’s never as good as it can be in your dreams?” “Y…yes,” she whispers in a near-sob. Wow. The things you learn about someone when they’re unable to keep from telling you. Mary’s had sex, just like any great-looking babe would. And she’s currently unattached — has probably been unattached — and the only reason for it is that no one has ever rocked her membranes in the waking world. Until today. Until me, and every underhanded thing I can do to her. I think about what Millie said, about how a snake’s skin feels raw after molting, and I grin, just thinking about sharing that sensation with Mary. We both have new realities awaiting us, profound changes already unleashed that can only culminate in my dick plunging deep inside of her molten pussy. And the one thing I can promise myself right here, right now, is that I’m going to fuck this woman relentlessly, fuck her so hard and for so long that we’ll both be raw and sore, so raw and sore that we barely know who we are any more.

Chapter Eight — Cabin With a Heated Poole It’s nice being on familiar turf, where you know the ins and outs of things. For instance, I’m acquainted with a bait and tackle shop on the other side of town, a place called The Worm Turns. The proprietor, Bill Perkins, was a fishing buddy of my dad’s, and he also has charming little rental cabins sprinkled around his

property. There were almost always one or two available even during good times, and they’re very private. Mary doesn’t know it yet, but we’re going to require that kind of isolation, because I’m going to turn her into my own boink box banshee, and once we get started I don’t want anyone pounding on the door to know what I’m doing to the poor woman. Beautiful as Mary is, she’s a bit of a mess across the table, her eyes teary with arms drawn in defensively. She’s definitely shaken, and only occasionally meeting my eyes after confessing that she’s something of a sexual misfit, a passionate lover only when sound asleep, or fingering herself out of a deep sleep. Her face is so naturally lovely, the planes and features so exquisite, that I’d probably be stirred with desire even if she were bawling her eyes out. Her pain is real, though, and wiping the wet streaks from her cheeks does nothing to erase the air of being haunted by a sexual past that sounds one part Freud, two parts Rod Serling. For myself, I can see elements of both comedy and tragedy in Mary’s predicament. It’s obviously tragic that such a great-looking woman would have any sexual hang-ups at all — it reminds me of the times I’ve heard female friends lament that some movie hunk is gay, like removing that piece from the opposite sex’s dating board is a crime against every woman who can’t quite find what she wants. The comedic element involves the gods delivering such a beautiful but fucked-up woman into my grubby little hands. I mean, it’s one of those cases where something is actually happening, yet it has the smell of a cosmic set-up because it’s too perfect to be true. I can’t pretend to understand where Mary’s recurring dreams came from, or what they did to her evolving sexuality and why, but it’s easy to conclude that they played a role in her signing on with the LDSP in the first place. Perhaps, by becoming Anne’s understudy, she sought a deeper understanding of her old recurring dreams, and the unconscious drives that must have spawned them. I think it’s more likely, however, that her inner horndog is not so different than mine, and she recognized the possibility for using lucid dreams as a sexual tool from the very beginning. She wants dream sex, and what better way to get it than becoming involved with the leading edge of lucid dream research, learning and possibly mastering a technique for taking control of unconscious events to melt her body in the night. It’s easy to understand why my very first dream with Gina Marie must have sent Mary’s pussy into a fit of dripping wet envy. I can just imagine the look on her face when my hormones and glands and lightbulb brain went all sex-crazed on her instruments, culminating in an outright pajama-staining orgasm in my sleep. No wonder she followed me to learn more, and found it so strange that I didn’t take firm control of Gina Marie’s actions once the sex commenced. She’s probably been itching for a dream like that for years, fantasizing about every little thing she would do to her dream lover, or lovers, once she came to consciousness while continuing to sleep. I feel genuine tenderness for Mary, and it makes me that much happier to assume that we form a sort of yin and yang of dream perversion. She wants heightened sex that comes from a nebulous source, and I’ve been given more of that than she knew to want. Perhaps she even intuits that the butterfly pattern born in the lab is the very tonic she’s needed to turn her consciously prim and proper vagina into a salivating demon of a dream-affected cunt. Whether she has any sense of that or not, I get the benefit of thinking of myself as one of the good guys, ready to play the role of the sexual savior by acting on the many wrong and manipulative ideas I have fluttering in my mind. I wouldn’t be able to resist plunging my dick inside of Mary whether it’s good for her or not, but I really do believe I possess the magic elixir to cure her sexual frustrations, all conveniently located right between my ears and legs. The only question is how to get from here, the diner, to there, a secluded room where I can pound her pussy until it’s even redder than her outfit. I’d like to be fairly gentle with her — until I’m ready to not be gentle at

all — and I hope I can manipulate her with some degree of finesse, so that I won’t have a lot of explaining to do after her pussy has become a gusher. I start where it seems right to start, by confessing that I can’t help having strong feelings for her, and that I think she’s about the hottest and sexiest woman I’ve ever seen in my life. A heartbeat afterwards it’s like strings hitting discordant notes behind her baby blues, a rush of chemical passion colliding with her emotional distress about only feeling passionate in a series of old dreams. She shakes her head, her jaw dropping as though somebody just released a spring. Her eyelids flutter, and both hands go to the edge of the table as if to keep her body from leaping up or falling over. “I…” she tries to speak, then gulps. “I know… you’re attracted to me. I’ve wanted you to be attracted, and I… I must trust you… to say what I’ve said. But…” “I know, I know. I’d never do anything to jeopardize your job. But you’re so beautiful, every bit of you, that you can’t blame me for…” There isn’t even any point in finishing the sentence, not after Mary breathes out a loud “Hahhh!” sound, her hands squeezing the table like she intends to crush it. Her eyes are closed tight and her head has tilted to one side, an almost religious expression animating the angelic mouth. It’s easy to imagine a teen-aged version of this face with lust flooding in through her dreams, her sleeping features exhibiting the same glow of heated amazement. I suddenly regret the absence of my camera — I mean, now that I see it, this is exactly what I’ve wished to capture with my camera for the past two years. I could stare at a big silver print of this beatific sex-stunned expression for weeks — and I’m not even playing with her when I say: “I can’t even believe how fucking gorgeous you are.” That one pretty much does it. I can tell because one of her clutching hands leaves the table, grabbing her right breast to roll it around under her blouse. “Oh my God!” she vents through lips gone full and slack. “I’m… I don’t know… what’s happening…” Yes she does, even if it’s been a long time since she’s had to contend with ferocious lust beating on her door and threatening to blow the house down. She looks totally lost and oddly defiant all at once, like she’s both savoring and trying to resist the effects of every compliment I toss at her. I could end her struggle with just a few well-chosen words… But it’s sexy watching her wriggle, and I think she’s already helpless anyway. I do believe I could crook my finger inside of this woman’s pussy and make her do any fucking thing I wanted. She’s already mine to shape and mold, helpless in the face of the storms of energy crackling inside, and that’s before I’ve even pulled the pins on the verbal grenades held in reserve. “Mary,” I try to pierce through her fog of lust, taking hold of the hand that isn’t frantically teasing her tit. “Just answer one question, okay? Do you have feelings for me?” I know what her answer is going to be, because she has no choice in the matter. Even so, it warms my heart to hear the words, “Yes, dammit!” released like verbal steam from her full lips. “But… we…” But nothing, and it’s time. Squeezing her hand tighter, I rise from the table, standing beside Mary’s seat. When I pull, she slides out of the booth until we’re erect on the floor, pressed front to front with her hardened nipples grazing my ribs. I have no need to whisper, “You are so beautiful,” into her ear, but I do, because I want to feel the words igniting fresh fires inside her body. I reach around and hold onto her back, pressing our groins tight to each other as the heat comes to life inside of her. A slight sound escapes from her opened mouth, sort of like the

distressed mewing of a kitten. Her entire body shudders in my arms and I smell her excitement like it’s a cloud of super-heated vapor presaging a more violent eruption. I have to take her weight as she arches backwards, the middle of her body pressing more insistently into my hard-on, her hands reaching around my back with fingernails scratching through my shirt. Mary is outright panting now. I don’t say anything — no more needs to be said, not until I’m ready to completely set her off. I see Millie staring at us, watching every bit of the extraordinary seduction unfolding under her roof, and I silently mouth the words: “Bill Perkins — cabin.” She’s surprisingly calm, no grinning or winking or eye rolling. She just nods and takes a phone out of her apron pocket, and makes the call. “Give me the keys to your car,” I whisper into Mary’s ear, my hands slipping under the miniscule skirt to squeeze her butt cheeks hard. She mews again — I’m wondering if she’s going to turn into a catwoman by the end of this — and then her lips are on my neck, hot breath whispering, “My purse.” She sucks on my earlobe as I grab the small bag, and she must be on tip-toe because my hard dick presses into her panties in a different way, aching convex rubbing against overheated concave, giving me the first tactile taste of the sodden furnace radiating between her legs. We both gasp from the contact, and I'm almost in a swoon as I more or less force Mary into a position where she can walk, holding her up with an arm around her waist, making slow progress towards the door. Millie, arms folded on the counter with an amused gleam in her eyes, says, “Number three will be ready for whatever you two have in mind,” as we pass. “I told Bill it was an emergency.” It’s good, having trusting friends that want the best for you. It’s good out in the clear morning air, with the flesh of a beautiful babe nearly as hot as the bright sun, her trembling hand undoing my zipper, the sound of human panting and gasping as loud and steady as cicadas on a steamy August night. And it’s good to sit behind a steering wheel for a change, especially when the car comes with a special gear reserved for revving Mary Poole’s moody pussy, winding her tight before driving her insane with desire. *** “I think I’m in love with you,” I’m happy to inform her when we’re almost there. It isn’t a compliment about her looks, and so the words don’t have a particular heat-escalating effect. Nonetheless I see Mary shiver, and her left hand, which has been gliding along my abdomen and sometimes grazing my erection, closes hard onto my dick, fingers molding tightly to my shape. “I… think I love… you…” she whispers, voice almost inaudible. “But…” The hand begins to stroke my cock, then freezes, and she pulls it away. “We shouldn’t do this?” she states as a question, perhaps even a plea. I slow the car, pulling onto the shoulder. I’m not going to put a gun to Mary’s head to make her do anything at all, but playing fair is also not an option. She’s probably right that it will stir up some sort of trouble if we do this, but why would that stop anything? People make mistakes all their lives — hell, the whole world has been cluster-fucked by a series of mistakes, and most of them were made intentionally. Whatever the consequences, it’s worth it to me, because I feel something really special with this woman, and I want to fuck her like no one else I know. Besides, we’ve already driven more than a mile with my rigid cock poking out of my jeans, and that’s close to being a signed and notarized agreement. I’m not an outright

rapist — if she chooses otherwise, saying no and meaning it, I’ll back off. If she really means it. If she can even manage to say it. “You’re really gorgeous when you’re conflicted,” I hit her flickering resolve with a hammer, placing my right hand on her thigh, slipping my fingers inside one of the tantalizing stockings. “It’s completely up to you, Mary. I could turn around and…” “N…nuh!” she grunt-objects, her hand closing around my wrist, bringing my fingers under her tiny skirt. That’s more like it. I feel sodden panties against my fingers and the car smells like fresh female musk, and Mary looks down at my straining dick, slapping at the dashboard with her other hand, urging me to keep going in broken words and breathy wiggling. I’m not sure if she means the car or my fingers, but I ease back onto the pavement, keeping my hand right where it is, right where it belongs. She’s still holding me by the wrist, rhythmically drawing my hand more tightly against the hot panties, then less, going back and forth like a yes/no pussy tease. I think of slipping her panties aside and delving inside, but there’s plenty of time for that. She just had her chance to escape, sort of, and I think we can both agree now that reason is no reason to back off from where we’re ultimately going. “I’m… just so afraid,” she whispers after maybe a minute. I don’t ask what she’s afraid of. The feelings she can’t help feeling, probably. And the unfamiliar eruptions of passion, and the fact that we’re going where she can’t go without jeopardizing her position on the dream team. Or she’s scared to ride in a car where the driver’s dick is exposed, or she’s worried that her body will freeze up during sex, her lust dissipating once we’re actually fucking. She said that sex was always “disappointing”, and who knows what half-baked misadventures she’s had in bed over the years. I’m not the least bit worried about how we’re going to hit it off. In fact, it’s almost criminal how unconcerned I am as I turn onto a gravel road that snakes under the shady embrace of tall pines. I know exactly where cabin number three is, and I have a pretty good idea of what I’m going to do to this damaged but utterly bone-jumping hottie once we’re inside those walls. The cabin is unlocked, with only a screen door in place to keep the insects out. When I semi-carry Mary inside, I find the interior delightfully cool, the windows open with a gentle breeze moving half-drawn lace curtains, a pleasant potpourri scent filling the air. The flooring is blonde pine with a log ceiling above and a lovely blue and orange patterned quilt folded upon the wide four-poster bed. I don’t think that Mary is even capable of absorbing the charming atmosphere of our love nest, but it feels right anyway, doing what I’m going to do to her in a room with a romantic ambiance. She pretty much falls onto the bed once I let go of her, lying on her back with one knee drawn up. Positioned with a view right between her legs, I take my longest look thus far at her beautifully proportioned body, watching her breasts rise and fall with every deep breath. The sight of her legs in the barely-there skirt and wavy red nylons is almost too much to bear — this woman has some of the shapeliest legs I’ve ever seen, and the stockings and heels make them look like gift-wrapped presents, where tearing into them is half the fun. I think about every woman I’ve been with, and how I wanted to get them naked as quickly as possible. It’s different this time, like the sight of her all dressed up for sex is much better than naked. Mary Poole is my raven-haired fallen angel, a woman exuding a totally unique mixture of dream-infected anticipation and

breathless anxiety. Millie spoke of a revolution, the tearing away of former ways of being, and it seems to me that a revolution must be taking place inside of Mary’s pussy, or possibly her entire body, like runaway surges of liquid lust are chasing away a longstanding curse every time I tell her how gorgeous she is. “Take your skirt and panties off,” I insist, my cock pulsing, eager to stir her soon-to-be cauldron of a pussy. “We… we can’t!” some remaining slice of sanity objects, even as her hands grasp the elastic of her panties to wriggle them away. I think I’m about done with listening to what we can’t do. Mary has no real fight left in her — all I have to do is look how both knees have drawn up, her useless panties being shimmied over her heels and kicked away. Even so, how exquisite will it be to change her attitude from too horny to do otherwise, to just fucking out of control? Her eyes are closed, mouth opened expectantly. It’s obvious that she isn’t going to be all sex-kitten the way Sharon was, striking seductive poses and undressing me to give my hard dick a Poole-job. She’s too stunned, still shy and uneasy in bed, her body revved yet the rest of her fretful, maybe barely believing that she’s here. Kneeling beside her, I help ease the skirt away, running a hand over the bare flesh at the tops of her thighs, my eyes delighting in the shaping of her firm legs, and the way I made her dress them up. She’s trembling, even before I lightly graze her soft trimmed pubic hairs, moving higher to trace her hipbones and the flat of her stomach. My hand slips under her top, feeling her ribs and then the filled cups of her bra. She’s shaking more violently now, her breath catching in dramatic fashion even before I’m wicked enough to say: “You are so beautiful, Mary. I love everything about you, every curve, every gorgeous inch.” The breaths become deep abdomen-quaking pants, her legs spreading wider. She jerks, and mews like I’ve heard before, only so much louder. The middle of her body writhes energetically, back and forth like her pussy insists on being a moving target. I see that Mary has a truly lovely pussy, rather petite like she is and visibly swollen with need. I bring my hand out from her blouse, lick my right middle finger, bringing it between her shifting thighs to oh-so lightly dab between sopping wet folds. She makes an involuntary sizzling sound, like nature has equipped her mouth with sound-effects that express what her pussy feels. It’s a beautiful thing to hear, but it doesn’t last long as the tiniest wiggling of my finger transforms the sizzle into deep animal groans that reverberate off the ceiling. I feel like all the normal rules of lovemaking leaped out of the cabin’s windows the moment we entered, because I’m touching what might be the most hyper-sensitive vagina in the world, if I so choose. There is no such thing as foreplay here, only experimentation with how far I can drive Mary into a zone unknown to both of us. Ideally I want her in a condition where she’s begging to receive the most genuine mercy-fuck ever given, but without succumbing to some sort of harmful lust-madness or outright unconsciousness before I’ve hardly begun. Very quickly, perhaps unnoticed, I slip free of my clothes, leaning in, my cheek rubbing against smooth nylon. I open the lips of her pussy with my thumbs, inching my head closer. She’s squirming, squirming just right, and I’m wondering whether I should even pull out my more powerful tools when I hear her whisper: “Why… hasn’t it felt like this before? I’m so… Oh my God, I didn’t know… I just didn’t know…” It almost sounds like a religious conversion, and she doesn’t even have a clue yet, just how different it could be. I could be kind or cruel as I do what I do next, lightly swiping at her clitoris with the tip of my tongue, then telling her again that her body is perfect, that she’s breathtakingly beautiful, that her pussy is like a

budding flower, her face like that of an angel, her eyes two lapis jewels. I just keep laying it on, licking and nibbling at her swollen clit, pausing to pile flattery upon flattery, going right at the most sensitive part of her physical body yet avoiding the verbal zones of Absolute Detonation — the stocking-clad legs and her breasts — from last night’s invisible seduction. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but it seems like not complimenting her legs and breasts is the equivalent of licking all around but not quite touching her clitoris, driving her to distraction through omission, encircling her interior erogenous zones but never quite laying my voice upon them, mercilessly teasing her spirit even as my tongue goes right at her clit. Mary erupts with sounds that I don’t even know how to characterize, weird throaty somethings pouring out into the room even more rapid-fire than the compliments went in. Her thighs quake around my head, almost battering my temples and ears as warm liquid meets my busy tongue. She’s coming, only this is different somehow, like coming isn’t an explosion and body reaction, but an unfolding flood of heat upon heat, a cumulative wave that keeps surging, keeps growing. “D…D…David!” I think I hear her stutter-croak somewhere up above. Hands touch my head, fingers tapping spasmodically like the unfolding orgasms make her need to mark an experimental jazz beat. I’m so hard, and so ready, yet also so fascinated by her strange cries, by this lovely petite pussy taking Mary for a sustained joy-ride, somehow flowing with more force than any pussy I’ve ever encountered. I push myself up, needing to see her face, needing to know how it all looks on her. She appears… enraptured, only somehow worse. The hands that had been riffing on my head are now waving blindly in the air like they’ve learned some new sign language for conveying deliverance, her mouth twisted open, eyes wide but apparently unseeing. I’ve never seen any woman look like this, like she’s a red-legged fuckbug being attacked by sex mites from the inside. That’s what it looks like — like Mary is being attacked by the tremors erupting within her body, my dream commands eating her pussy's insides out. And we haven’t even moved to the next level. The previous night’s magical dream-commands surface in my mind and it’s not even a question of whether to go there or not, it’s only eeny meeny miney moe. My aching dick makes the choice for me; after that I don’t think, I don’t weigh or try to predict. I just say, “Mary, I need to see your breasts,” the first step towards dropping a much heavier bomb. Her arms are still animated, eyes fixed on the ceiling like they might beam heat rays that burn pornographic graffiti into the timbers above. Seeing that I’m going to get little help, I grasp the bottom of her blouse and peel it up above her boobs, scrunching the material at her collarbones, then dig under her back and unclasp her bra. I forget to breathe when I see them. Mary’s tits are creamy smooth and medium-large, a bit fuller and rounder than Sharon’s. They’re great breasts in every way, but it’s the nipples that have me reeling. They’re surprisingly long and fat, and all around them, punctuating the darker flesh of her areoles, are raised bumps of more excited skin. I happen to know that these tiny mounds of super-sensitive flesh are called Glands of Montgomery, because they’ve always been a monster turn-on for me. I don’t know how many women have them, or why they get to my dick the way they do, but I just fucking love them. Sophie had them, which made not hooking up with her all the more tragic. But here with Mary, the little lust-nodes are even more numerous and more pronounced, causing my cock to respond like its nerve-endings all have microscopic dicks of their own that have suddenly grown rock hard. “Oh man,” I breathe, ducking under Mary’s prayerful arms to touch these tactile wonders, closing my eyes and reading the brail-like bumps with hot greedy fingertips. My fingers push at the hard nipples, squeeze them, then seize the whole of her breasts, both of them, pressing them together, kneading them like the

perfect soft pleasure pillows they are. Mary adds electric hisses to her repertoire of sound effects, the excitable bumps around her nipples rising even more, like they’re tiny bubbles filled with heated gas, needing some place to go. I bring my head in close, inhaling the rosy scent of her skin, lightly flicking at both nipples with my tongue. I love these breasts, I just fucking love them. How could I not tell Mary how inspiring her tits are? Taking a deep breath, feeling like my aching cock has become a magic wand capable of moving the heavens and the earth, I put my mouth right up to her ear, and whisper seductively: “You have the sexiest, sweetest, loveliest tits I have ever seen.” I don’t know what I expected — what I get is like a hiccup of time, an instant where Mary goes completely still, not even breathing, as though every system in her mind and body needs a moment to become recalibrated to a new reality. The momentary stillness is shattered by something that might be a scream, though it also sounds like the word “need” stretched in length and volume into nearly unrecognizable form. Mary’s formerly unfocused hands are on my dick in a flash, and with astounding speed she’s suddenly on top of me, turning my body between squatting legs to aim her pussy down onto my erection. It’s one of my favorite positions, but I’ve never had a woman bouncing her body onto my dick like this, bouncing and screaming, my dick devoured by a fuck-monster frothing between red stockings, wetness dotting my chest from I’m not even sure where. I think she’s drooling, and her pussy might be so wet that it’s actually splashing. I start to meet Mary’s down-thrusts with my hips, but her rhythm is so frenetic that it’s not really a rhythm, or it's a rhythm that I'll never comprehend. She pushes me down with locked forearms, just speed-bouncing with as much force as her body can muster, and her strong legs can muster plenty, her head thrashing, boobs rocking, her pussy incredibly tight yet ultra-lubed, my aching cock swelling, receiving body-blows like never before, being as much beaten by her interior as fucked. She comes. It's a neon sign of an orgasm that my dick can't help but feel, like a hot ocean is bubbling deep within Mary’s pussy, bathing me when she ignites. She was screaming before but it’s aural chaos now, weird sounds torn from her chest or maybe even deeper, like the orgasms are an entity with its own voice. I listen, and watch, fascinated and so fucking turned on as she bounces oddly a couple of times, one of her heels coming down on my belly, making me blow out air. I close my eyes for maybe a second, and when they’re open again Mary is turned completely around, her ass and back to my face, riding my cock from a new direction, giving me an entirely different view of her cock-devouring frenzy. It’s the back of her calves now, flexing and unflexing in the stockings to raise her pussy up and down, her furious screams directed at the cabin’s far wall. She feels even tighter from this direction, like I’m going in deeper and rubbing more of her interior as she goes at me. I feel an incredible surge flooding towards my dick, zigzags of color flashing in my eyes, like my optical nerves are part of the coming explosion, lending their energy to it. Pressure congregates in my balls, unfolding, multiplying, building too much, Jesus fucking Christ it’s still building, making me gasp, making my abdomen quiver, my eyeballs dance… “Fuuuuck!” I think I cry out, the flood armed with kickback, knocking my insides as I spurt into Mary’s relentless cunt. I can barely see, like my eyes are trying to come too, tearing up from the force of it all. I hear Mary’s alien cries, feel her weight pounding me just as furiously as before, and I begin to fear that I’m going to be fucked to death, fucked so hard and for so long that my dick is ground down to mush. Only I’m still so fucking hard, still so fucking excited… I feel her pussy clenching in a new way, clenching like she’s awakened beasts that live deep inside the

walls of her tunnel, beasts helping her pussy to eat my cock, adding their energy to hers, drawing another orgasm out of my depths, another flood crashing against the limits of what I can bear, knocking them down, fucking pulverizing my limitations, pulverizing me from the inside, a giant bubble of an orgasm pushing against every organ, heating me, making me cry out for mercy or with deliverance or I don’t know what, I just have to cry, to scream, my dick bursting into her, meeting her flood with mine, crashing together, screaming and crashing, Mary not stopping, her body possessed with the fucking, oh God the fucking, the white hot never-ending fucking… *** I’m resting in my quarters, the lights turned low, when I hear the tones of a visitor at my door. “Enter,” I say, sitting up, swinging my boots onto the floor. I hear the swish of the door opening and closing. I can’t see my visitor yet, but I hear them breathing. “Yes?” I signal, my cock growing hard for some reason. The first I see of her is a foot, followed by a trim ankle connected to an exceptionally shapely calf, raised seductively off the floor. The rest of her voluptuous body snakes into view, movements sinuous, flesh and hair gloriously green. “Oh fuck,” I exhale as she fixes her eyes onto my erection, pushing lewdly at my uniform. For some reason I can’t remember what the name of her species is, or the name of her planet, but she’s one of those irresistible green women, famed for their sexual prowess. She glides forward, body twisting alluringly. Her legs and feet are bare, only a skimpy slip of a violet dress covering the middle of her body. Bracelets dangle at her wrists, the white of her wide eyes and the pink of her licking tongue contrasting warmly against the green of her flesh. “You… can’t be here,” it’s my duty to say as the captain of the ship, though of course I want her here. But if Starfleet knew… Before I can say another word she’s on me, full breasts pressing me back onto the bed, lips teasing at my neck, her hot breath right in my ear. “We need this!” she shoves sex into my ear, one hand on my chest, the other beginning to stroke my erection. “This is our moment, our chance to get everything we’ve wanted. You’ll soon be needed on the bridge… Don’t stop me; there isn’t much time!” She has my cock in both hands now, her neck tilting so she can take a bit of her tiny dress in her teeth, pulling it away. I help her to open the top of her dress, freeing her breasts. They wobble right in front of my face, grandly round, dark green nipples straining on red alert, their pebbled hardness aimed for my lips. I take one in my mouth, sucking, lightly biting. My sultry visitor groans, climbing fully on top of me, deftly lowering my uniform trousers, my dick popping out to tower up at her. She rubs my cock with her hands, manipulating the sensitive flesh with alien deftness, somehow knowing which spots deliver the most pleasure, shooting jolts of bliss throughout my body. She raises her haunches, the center of her thighs precisely aligned to my dick, and I watch breathlessly as a glowing line of greenish lubricant drips down from her extraterrestrial cunt, coating my dick with a substance that burns deliciously, burns inside, burns like sex acid injected into the cells of my dick, exciting me from the inside out, turning my dick into an incomparably sensitive instrument, her exquisite handjob going all the way through me, awakening dormant hormones, vibrating formerly sleepy sperms, my balls swelling, an unnatural amount of force building…

I try to cry out, find that I’m so horny that I can’t even speak. I think I’m going to blow a load that will shoot through the ceiling, breaching the next deck, perhaps destabilizing the ship. Just before I can’t take any more she releases her handhold on my cock, grinning with the satisfaction of knowing exactly how to play me, how to take me wherever she wants me to go, making me feel whatever she wants me to feel through the weapon of her supreme sexual skills. My cock feels nearly broken, broken good like I want to beg her to break it even more, break it in two or even into a thousand pieces, each one aching to have its own orgasm. She recognizes my need — she created it — and responds by reaching out, a phaser in her hand. I can’t move, can’t hope to defend myself. She just grins, adjusting the setting, jamming the firearm under the hem of her dress. I hear it pulse, watch her eyes go dreamy as the shapes of her thighs are silhouetted in brilliant tones of red-orange through the thin fabric. Crying out in sounds that match the phaser’s pulsation, sounds torn from a body caught in a heated delirium, she throws the weapon to the floor, raising the bottom of her dress, pulling it over her head until she’s finally naked, gloriously green but for her vaginal lips, her pussy radiating intensely like a lavafed crevice, the dangerous outer slit of a deeper super-heated core. “Never forget… the power of desire,” she whispers, grazing the tip of my towering dick with her redorange lava flow pussy. I feel my flesh vaporize, my cock-head burning away. I scream, yet realize that I’m screaming with the intensity of the pleasure, not with pain. “It’s elemental, transformative, relentless!” she declares. “No object can withstand its force, no force can withstand its power to transform. The snake eats its tail — needs to eat its tail, a perfect circle of cause and effect, effect and cause, transformation leading to transformation, a doorway melting open, the bridge prepared…” In a sudden thrust she slams her haunches down, her molten pussy completely swallowing my cock. I feel my dick burn away completely, instantly evaporated, yet somehow I’m even harder than before, my dick gone but my hard-on even harder. With her head thrown back, green hair flying, she raises herself, and out pops my cock, bubbling and steaming. Only… it’s not the same cock at all. The old one has been burned away, my snake's skin more than shed — it’s been fuck-dissolved. And with the old skin gone, a newer cock stands in its place, raw yet pulsing insanely, making my mind reel, making my balls ache, making me need to fuck and fuck and fuck. She slaps her glowing pussy down around my new tool, feeling so amazingly tight, so deliciously wet, an oozing pussy of incomparable heat swallowing my newborn dick, taut and toned green thighs and calves raising her weight to slide partway up, then back down fast, my fat transformed dick devoured, redevoured, in deeper than deep, out partway, in and out, the molten friction making me gasp, making me cry out her name. “M…Mary!” I gasp, recognizing the pussy before I even recognize that it’s all a dream, all except the sex. Mary is still above me as the green dream-woman was, her pussy every bit as tantalizing, not glowing but just as tight and wet and hungry, a loaded weapon of a pussy, impossibly energized, caught in it’s mission. I don’t know if she ever stopped when I passed out — if she’s even capable of stopping. She’s facing me again, and I fuck back, matching her rhythm with my hips, pounding up, delighting in the lost expression that has her face contorted, her eyes bright but unseeing, all of her awareness gone within. She still looks like Mary, the dark hair somehow mostly in order, the eyes a deep blue. But something in her face makes

her look even less human than the green woman, her delicate features slipping towards sexual savagery, like the intensity of her pussy’s need has stripped her of her human identity, like she’s become an alldevouring pussy first and all the rest is just a beautiful costume for her pussy to wear, using "Mary" as it seeks its goal and fucks it. Fucks me. I doubt that she even has any awareness that her gorgeous legs are sheathed in teasing shades of red, but I know, and I know I’m going to drop my other bomb today, tasting her, making her need to be tasted. But that’s then — now I want to fuck this pussy from every angle, at every speed, doing her and re-doing her, risking enough friction that our privates might fuse together. I raise myself at the waist, taking her beautiful tits in my hands, squeezing them, feeling their weight jiggle from the pounding below, pressing forward, her body adjusting to mine, going back until her back is flat on the bed and I’m ramming her horizontally. I’m in control now and I step up my speed, one hand hard on a thigh to hold her in place, pounding into her with all I’ve got. She wails. She fucking wails like an animal that’s swallowed a siren, her head thrashing sideways, full tits rocking, pussy clenching and flowing, all of her flesh gone red like the dream version went green, excited blood boiling to the surface, her entire body flush with heat, appearing to be embarrassed by the richness of its pleasure. I just keep pounding, coming with a mighty spurt that draws groans that harmonize with her wailing, and I keep pounding, my dick pulsing anew, like my spent hard-on has a hard-on, like Mary’s gushing cunt is a fountain of comely youth, making me hard and keeping me hard. I flip her over and she raises up at the middle, my cock pounding into her from behind. I feel like my eardrums will burst from her incessant wailing but it’s lovely, too, the sound of a lost soul, the sound of a woman receiving enough fucking to almost make up for all those wasted years, her pussy frothing around me, my cock exploding into her again, the two of us coming together yet somehow not being done, not getting softer but stiffer, beginning to wonder if I could fuck Mary Poole all day and all night without my wood losing its wood. She’s in something like a primitive prayer position, kneeling with arms outstretched in front, her face buried in the mattress. I pump harder, every thrust pushing her forward, inching her up until her hands touch the wall. She claws at it at first, grasping feebly until her fingers spread, her palms finding purchase. With quaking legs and steadying hands she starts to rise and I follow, never giving her pussy a moment's rest from the pounding. I sense her goal, see her shuddering body working to take the position. Using my hands to help, I shove her legs wide so that we’re both standing, she with back parallel to the mattress and arms stretched out, ass raised, me with knees bent, my cock embedded even deeper than before, feeling her ass smacking against my abdomen, reaching down and around to get my fingers on her swollen wet clit, pounding and flicking, thrusting and dabbing, coming and staying hard, coming and getting harder, Mary never ceasing in her need, my cock never ceasing to get hard, orgasms multiplying, positions shifting yet the heart of our fucking always unfolding, one great master-fuck stretching out beyond tight yet never snapping, lust devouring itself yet never exhausted, like fucking eats fucking to create more energy to fuck, a never-ending cycle fueled by never-ending need…

Chapter Nine — The Torrent Begins It’s nearly five in the afternoon when I’m on my bike again, riding towards the city. It was tempting to just

stay with Mary, holding on to her warm body, perhaps coming to some post-fuckathon sense of what we want to be with each other, but that would have required a conscious and coherent partner, plus some convictions on my part, neither of which were available at the time. Mary’s body eventually gave out from the relentless fucking. From where I lay, it appeared that she just orgasmed herself into oblivion, waves of pleasure wracking her body until one of them hauled off and knocked her out. She toppled from me while blowing out an extended groan of pleasure, and just lay there in an awkward scrunched-up position, lights out. With my dick aching like it had been fucked for hours, I crawled from under her and gently repositioned her limp body, turning her onto her back, stretching her graceful limbs and placing a pillow under her head. Though it might have been a good time to lucid dream for any number of reasons, I felt wide awake, totally sex-energized, and sat for a good long while in a wooden chair, just watching Mary sleep. Every now and then I wished I had my camera, but mostly I just wanted to look, burning the sight of Mary Poole’s relaxed and satisfied body in my brain. Her thrilling nipples remained hard and extended even in sleep, her petite pussy all swollen and definitely catching up to the stockings in terms of redness. I’m no expert in such matters, but if Mary had issues about feeling passion, or becoming sexually stimulated, or achieving orgasm… Well, I feel qualified to declare those problems a thing of the past. I contemplated all the ways I might play her in the future — I never triggered my red stocking pussy-eating commands during our fuckfest, and it was tempting to stick around and go there, shifting straight-up sex into nylon leg loving, playing with with some of the finest legs I’ve ever seen. And I would have gone there, except I kept hearing the voice of the green Star Trek woman calling from the back of my head, telling me how little time there is. She also said I’d soon be needed on the bridge, which was obviously more than a throwaway trekkie reference. With messages of urgency echoing like that, hanging out to continue puppet-fucking Mary Poole began to feel like I luxury I can’t afford, not today. She verified with opened thighs and wailing lungs that I can carry all sorts of hot shit from the dream world to the real one, and perhaps tomorrow, and a whole host of tomorrows, we'll get it on again, trying new things, aching in new ways… It really did hit me, that even if I have the ability to dream-seduce every hot babe on the planet, I’d want to begin by returning right here, planting myself between these familiar legs. Watching her sleep, I realized that I want Mary… and that’s where it would get tricky, right off the bat. So many avenues are dead ends, because I want her, Mary, not a hollowed out Stepford abbreviation occupying her beautiful body. I want to experience the many sides of her, the natural flavors that make her so appealing to me, which wouldn’t happen if I became too overbearing, crowding out her personality or even destroying it with too much need. Lust, sure — even super-lust, all focused on me, or on us and all we might do together. But more like icing on our cake, sharing a spoon, sharing a chance to get to know each other, culminating in an overwhelming desire to fuck ourselves silly. All of this led me to an inevitable conclusion, that I may have truly fallen in love with Mary, which adds a level of complexity/duplicity to my life that might make my head explode if I think about it too much. Can real love include stealth-compelling the loved one into loving you back? Can love include slipping out the cabin door, essentially chickening out and settling for the rambling man procrastination routine, rather than sticking around to answer the questions a dream-infected lover needs answered once she comes to her senses? I don’t have the answers. I just know that I felt compelled to move on, ready to face whatever price I might have to pay for experiencing this exquisite afternoon. I think Mary will be okay mental state-wise, because I

spoke to her as she slept, telling her several times that she needed to calm down. Using the stiffness of her nipples as an indicator, I got the impression that my words penetrated, giving her a chance to become functional again. Of course I couldn’t completely let go — I told her how beautiful she is several times before leaving, and I could watch her nipples rise with every word, little “uh!” cries troubling her sleep, which seemed perfect, given her history. My guess — my hope — is that she’ll find herself in a condition not unlike the one that gnawed at her at Millie’s, which worked out rather well for both of us. I had to walk the mile and a half back to the diner and my bike, and tasked Millie with ringing the cabin sometime around six, which should give Mary just enough time to clean herself up and make it to work, if she feels up to it, and can walk. Millie didn’t bother to ask how things went — she didn’t need to. I showered for more than half an hour at the cabin, but I think it will take several days or more for Mary’s scent to completely dissipate from my pores. I can smell her even as I ride, like a piece of her is inside my motorcycle helmet, something of her spirit traveling with me. A giant cloud the color of a charred battleship looms behind Baltimore, and the traffic is extremely heavy when I hit the beltway. I hate contending with stop and go traffic when I’m on my bike, and the prospect of getting soaked in a thunderstorm is no fun, either. Still, it’s a different kind of tension that I’m holding in my gut, because I’ve left some potentially disastrous dream interventions unattended. Sharon with her greedy cock-sucking mouth is the one I’m sure of, but it’s Anne that worries me the most. I don’t know where she lives — I keep thinking that if I knew where she was, I could go to her in the lucid state, and if she’s lingerie obsessed, I could try my damndest to undo all of that. It’s a pretty shaky thing to hope for — even if everything worked out, wouldn’t she have a sense of what had happened to her, and that I’m responsible? I could wipe away her memories of the past few days… Well, maybe — who knows? Maybe that’s a possibility and maybe it isn’t, and maybe it would create even worse problems and maybe it wouldn't. And crap — maybe my goose is already cooked, and I can't even see that my bike is riding in circles inside the pot. I didn’t want to think about this kind of stuff back at the cabin, because I didn’t want to pollute the most perfect day of my entire life. But that bliss is behind me now, back with Mary where the sun is still shining. Ahead it looks like the atmosphere has turned to hard slate, and something tells me that with a lingerieinfected Anne Haggerty running loose, thick female storms must be gathering on the horizon, too. *** It’s prematurely dark when I turn onto my block, confused streetlights feebly challenging the angry sky. The wind hurls trash and grit against my helmet’s visor, nearly blowing me over as I pull in front of my apartment building. Jagged lightning flashes and it’s only a couple of seconds before thunder cracks. Unfastening my helmet, I run to my downstairs door, thinking I have no more than ten seconds to get inside before the torrent begins. I pull up short, keys in hand. Something doesn’t look right — probably all the splinters of wood where the lock used to be. I stare dumbfounded at the evidence of a break-in as a raindrop the size of pigeon poop smacks the top of my head, wetting my hair. Several more strike before I push the abused door open, crossing the threshold into dry shelter, my nerves already soaked with dread. Standing at the base of the steps with the sky opening behind me, I peer up the stairs, feeling queasy in my stomach. I imagine NSA agents combing through the files on my computer, or my camera equipment stolen to be sold for next to nothing on the street. Or maybe it’s only Sharon up there, half out of her mind, desperate to make up for a lost day’s fucking and sucking. I climb, pausing on each step to listen for signs of life, filled with this awful certainty that the new fucktastic life I’ve been granted is already over.

The door to my apartment is wide open, the jamb shattered, presumably by the crowbar lying in the hallway. When I step inside I half expect to be pounced upon by masked assailants, but the place is eerily quiet, and thoroughly trashed. My eyes sweep from right to left, taking in the clutter of a home with many of its possessions torn limb from limb. I fear for my cameras and the portfolio of large photographs I have stored in the bedroom, but for some reason it’s the blinking red light of the answering machine that arrests my attention, lying on the floor amid scattered books and magazines. Forty-nine phone messages. Fucking forty-nine, about forty-six more than I’ve ever had at one time, and the same number as Millie’s hexagram about molting. Thunder booms and it shakes my resolve while rattling the windows. I start to back out of the apartment, instinct telling me that facing the downpour is preferable to remaining in what’s left of my world. A fractured deluge pounds upon the roof, streaky gray light casting liquid shadows through the windows that slide transparently down the walls. My breath catches as one thicker shadow creeps horizontally, coming from the direction of the bedroom. I freeze, heart pounding, tentacles of apprehension squeezing my chest, preventing me from moving or even breathing. I discharge a sigh of relief when Anne steps into the living room, only it’s “relief” in quotation marks, because she’s wearing almost nothing, a shimmering translucent bodysuit clinging to her lithe curves, wet pussy lips almost bulging through the triangular opening between her thighs. We stare at each other as lightning flickers into the space, she not speaking, me not having a clue what to say. Did she wreck my apartment in an explosion of fury when I never showed up to watch her parade around? And does she understand how unnatural this situation is? Does some part of her brain comprehend that she’s been filled with alien needs, relentless lust requiring her to dress sexy to get me hard so we can fuck? I take a cautious step back, crunching the frame of a photo of my parents under my feet. Anne slowly removes her glasses, bringing them down near her mouth, slipping part of the frame between her lips, sucking on it with seductive exaggeration. I almost feel like cursing at my cock because it’s getting hard — is hard, in a situation where fucking this woman would probably be the biggest mistake I could ever make, short of just jumping out a window. “Come here, David,” she speaks in a voice so low and collected that it’s worse than if she shrieked my name like a crazy woman. I see a full day’s worth of compounded lust burning in her eyes, and steely determination focused upon the bulge in my jeans. I weigh my options. I could try to run — Anne has extremely tall heels on, which look great on her legs but can’t be practical in a foot race. But where would I escape to? I’ve mind-shagged one of the leaders of a team connected to national security, and how long do I think I could stay ahead of something like that? It would be better to fuck Anne, maybe fuck the two of us unconscious, then get into the lucid state to switch her hormones off. And if the gods are with me, I'll erase some of her memories, too. I take a step forward and she reciprocates, only with three dance-like leaps, her lips planted on mine before I even see them coming. Her tongue pushes in and I take her in my arms, erection pressing against overheated loins, feeling the muscles of her back, taking in her height and how our bodies fit together. I smell Anne-pussy, and taste fermented need inside her mouth, her hands unzipping my jeans, roughly pulling my cock out, locking it in a skin-stretching death grip. “Come… to the bedroom!” she exhales into my mouth, pulling my cock where she wants it to go. “I have things I need to show you!”

There’s no telling how many outfits she wants to strut and sway in, and I’m sure she’d look wonderful in anything. Dr. Anne has one hell of a body, even more elegant and shapely than I would have guessed. Our desires are not quite gelling, though. She wants — needs — a drawn-out lingerie show culminating in supernova sex, and what I need is to be asleep as soon as possible so I can try to erase this boner-fide megafuck-up before I find myself in an undisclosed prison cell. I take her completely by surprise by roughly jamming three fingers into her sopping pussy. She cries out and leans back, spreading her legs wider to give me better access. I wiggle, twist, watching her eyes bulge, feeling her thighs quiver, her vice-like grip on my cock loosening as my embedded fingers pry her pussy walls apart. As quickly as possible, not wasting time to fully lower my jeans, I pull my fingers out and shift my body to jam my cock in her cunt, thrusting the full length in with artless force, drawing a belch of hissy ecstasy from Anne’s lungs. I lower my hands on her back, grasping her firm ass to shove her tighter against me, working my hips as vigorously as I can, giving her no time to react, no time to protest or do anything but take it, take it as her hijacked cunt knows she needs it, take it just like I’m taking the only chance I can see to keep my life whole, my freedom intact. She’s one hell of a talker. A gibberish talker, wide-open mouth spouting unconnected half words and repeated “Gunh!” grunts. I have her coming in less than thirty seconds and I just keep going, reaming Dr. Anne’s poisoned pussy, taking her weight as her long legs give out, pumping and pumping, hearing her “gunhs” run together like a kid imitating a machine gun, holding on as we fall to the floor together, thumping down onto the rubble of my life with her ass taking most of the impact, never ceasing to jam my cock as deeply as I can, only pulling out so I can flip her over, her stomach flat on the floor, taking her from behind, tearing at the flimsy fabric of the bodystocking to grab her tits in my hands, squeezing them to her ribcage as I jackhammer her pussy, groaning and shooting liquid hip-jerking fire into her, hearing Anne blurb sounds that escalate into wet piercing screams, so many voices, like a symphony of wailing lust, feeling her ass against my front, hot hands on my ass and back, gigantic boobs suddenly mashing into my face, blinding me with their vastness… Before I can understand it I’m pulled away from Anne by strong female hands, my cock instantly embedded in a tighter pussy, an even wetter pussy. The tits squashed around my head shift and a swollen nipple pushes past my lips, my mouth press-connected to a boob that must be the size of my head. Gina Marie! It can’t be anybody else because I can’t see anything but the boob, which means Gina Marie, which means my desires flew through the ether from the very beginning, which means Nicole Dampley and… fuck, Sophie, and more female trouble than I had any clue I’d have to deal with. Mind reeling, I suck instinctively at the firm nipple in my mouth, feeling my hands being pulled up, pulled onto Gina Marie’s tits. “Squeeze them! Squeeze them and fuck me!” she bellows. “Oh God fuck me squeeze them fuck me squeeze them fuck me squeeze them!” She keeps screaming it and so I squeeze — hell, I’ve always wanted to squeeze these tits. It’s crazy when I do it — I’m not a small guy, but I feel too small because there’s no way I can squeeze the whole of a Gina Marie-sized boob with just one hand. I can’t fuck her either because somebody else is twisting their cunt around my cock, going at me frantically, making my balls swell, making me cry out into an ocean of soft tit. The flesh in my face presses down so hard that I can barely breathe, can barely hear, and it feels like every squeeze of my hand is rocking Gina Marie’s world, her abdomen quaking against mine, her “fuck me!” demands breaking apart, fracturing into spasmodic body-jerks and half-understood wails. She’s coming, boob unnaturally hot against my face, something even hotter happening to my cock, the wet friction of the charged pussy exchanged for a sucking mouth, a shop-vac of a greedy throat yanking me towards a violent

explosion. I burst breath into Gina Marie’s boob when I come, my body shuddering, somebody choking, somebody wailing, maybe somebody else shouting “Mine!” over and over. Gina Marie’s massive mound lifts off my face — she’s being pulled away by Anne, her mouth twisted with fury, eyes glowing eerily as lightning flashes. A gaping red pussy instantly fills the void left by Gina Marie’s breast, athletic legs shoving fragrant slippery membranes against my lips. I look up, see the taut torso of Nicole Dampley with her head shaking wildly, a milky glob of cum trickling out one corner of her mouth. I stick my tongue out, which means inside of her, and she screams, a flood oozing all around my mouth. Nicole’s pussy grinds so hard against me that it’s like she wants to swallow my head in there, wants to force me into her gushing cunt so I can fuck her from the inside with my body like I already have with my mind. Again I can’t see much of what’s happening, but there are screams everywhere, feral grunts and something smacking repeatedly against something else. I hear a distinct “Eat me oh God eat me!” overwhelming all other sounds, which I turn into piercing screams just by the wiggling of my tongue, licking at Nicole’s ravenous hole however and wherever I can manage. A new pussy wraps around my cock, leaves, a different pussy jumps on, so much tighter — maybe not a pussy at all — reaming itself on my hard pole. My meat is grabbed with delicious force by clenching walls, pulling another orgasm out of me, making me groan into Nicole, sending her into fresh screams of flowing deliverance. I hear an ominous thud, Anne’s hard voice declaring, “No, I need him alone! I need fucking privacy!” I’m being fought over, fucked and re-fucked with a possessive territorial catfight mixed in, contradictory dream-commands clashing, the three-pussied fuck-fury in my ruined apartment drowning out the sounds of the storm. Even more afraid than turned-on, I try to pull my head away from Nicole’s attacking cunt, crabwalking backwards. I feel something sharp cut into my right hand, and wincingly catch a glimpse of Anne wrenching Gina Marie’s blonde hair, two giant boobs smacking together with Anne’s head between them, my boss being boob-slapped into submission. Nicole’s eyes are wide with horror that I’m trying to pull away, and she jumps full on top of me, her big breasts rimming my chin, grabbing my dick and begging me to suck her nipples, begging me to fuck every part of her body. Gina Marie and Anne topple onto us, limbs flailing, a high heel striking me hard in the throat. I choke, sucking oxygen in as a knee or some other solid joint smashes hard against my right temple. I see stars, a moving fleshy field of agitated blinking motion swimming in a roiling sea of tits and arms and legs, a third blow falling on my ear, filling me with dull sound. My cock is swallowed by something — maybe a mouth, maybe an ass; it’s hard to tell the difference when objects are so out of focus. Or maybe my rod is being devoured by the same black tunnel that’s pulling at my head, the tunnel sucking me in so deep inside, black walls closing all around, a black cave of a world with no sights and no sounds, only more black, pulsing blackly, dimming to black. *** I look down and see that I’m naked, the front of my body smeared with grayish brown, caked hands grasping tools for carving and smoothing. Somehow I’ve become a master sculptor, but until this minute I never understood just how talented I am. Raising my eyes, I wonder whether I’ve finished modeling the life-sized clay figure standing before me. My sculpture is Mary Poole, nude, reproduced in exquisite — perhaps even perfect — detail. Everything is accurate down to the subtle veins in her feet, or the faint creases at the back of her knees, or the way her

navel turns in. I’ve given her eyelashes and pores, for God’s sake, and squatting down I find a perfectly formed vagina between her legs. I don’t remember carving it, but I know this pussy intimately — it’s small and tight, almost demure in appearance, yet I know how deceiving appearances can be. Mary’s prim pussy is a cock-devouring cum-craver in disguise, sweet and innocent on the outside, yet within its depths it has to be one of the most savage and greedy sexual organs on the planet. I can barely believe I have the skill to have carved its perfect likeness, capturing its deceptive nature with trompe l’oeil accuracy. Everything looks so real that I’m tempted to insert a finger inside, to stroke and hope to hear an excited gasp — yet I know I’d only feel wet clay, not warm membrane. She looks real, but that isn’t the same as alive. Life is heat, and this clay version is certainly beautiful enough to stir heat, but it has no such capacity itself. I stand, and walk in a slow clockwise circle around the figure, assessing both my workmanship and Mary’s overall beauty. She’s so well-formed, her tits firm and proud, waist tight with legs that are simply spectacular. The upper thighs are especially tasty when viewed from behind, converging before flaring into that fine round ass. I move to the front and lean in, examining the texture of her breasts, happy to see that I managed to recreate her cock-hardening Glands of Montgomery so perfectly. Standing with her weight on one leg, this clay Mary Poole appears confident, extremely pleased with her body, perhaps unaware of how her pussy can be made to flicker with lust, blooming into a firestorm of cock-craving that she could never have imagined, yet can’t deny. Without realizing what my intentions are at first, I lay a bit of fresh wet clay upon her left nipple, pressing in and shaping with my tools to heighten the effect of her alluring glands, raising their texture, fattening her nipple, elongating it to almost obscene proportions. In just a couple of minutes I’ve created what might be my version of the Ultimate Nipple, an object exhibiting such extreme stimulation that it creates an echoing effect in my cock, making me feel harder than hard, downright painfully erect. Moving to the next breast I duplicate the enhancement, working quickly and instinctively, seeing that the breasts themselves need more mass to accommodate these newly pronounced tips. I add a substantial amount of clay “tissue”, going too big at first, shaving some away, shaping and reshaping, smoothing everything just right, making Mary’s tits larger and rounder but not artificially so, capturing a completely natural swell, an idealized graceful surge. More than satisfied, rock hard, I slide down and shave a thin layer of clay from her waist, pressing in and stroking with my fingers to further tighten her abdomen. I heighten the roundness of her rear just a smidgeon, and use a detailed carving tool at her front to make her clitoris more pronounced, like it’s more excited than excited, a clitoris screaming out both its need and its power to deliver. The thighs I barely touch at all — they’re already so ideal that I can’t see any way to improve them. Below I re-shape her calves only the tiniest bit, giving them a tad more fullness, accentuating the way they taper to her Achilles tendons and feet. I stand back to assess the changes and my dick feels like it’s ready to explode. Wow. Fucking wow and God fucking damn! It’s still Mary, but Mary looking like she’s been on a sexercise regimen, honing her body while growing what might be the hottest hooters ever. I didn’t take her tits anywhere near the Gina Marie zone in size, but the way they stand out with those high-caliber nipples, I think I could shoot a huge load from just staring at them long enough. The pressure in my cock inspires me to go further, tweaking the musculature of her arms, shoulders and back until every bit of her is in perfect alignment with everything else, the whole of her body a true work of art. When I stand back this time, the effect is just too much. I’ve created my version of an ideal woman, every inch of her tailored to my preferences, and the sight is like a blow to my cock, like I'm being fucked

mercilessly somehow. I groan out loud, pressure rising and suddenly peaking, my cock rising and spurting, my stuff splattering onto the sculpture's left hand and forearm. I’m reeling, panting, my cock aching like never before. like it's drowning in sex. The craziest thing is that this brown-gray version of Mary Poole is not even greatly changed from the original, but oh how a series of subtle shifts can accumulate, gathering so much force that she looks like a modern fertility goddess, only the body is not about reproduction — it’s about pleasure, and tons of it. With her swollen clit and literally outstanding nipples, she appears to be about two breaths from coming herself. To accentuate the effect, I work on her eyes, widening them, and I lower her jaw, creating room for her mouth to open in an expectant “O”. It’s just right, especially after I dip my hand into a bucket of water and bring it between her thighs, creating a shining trail that begins inside of Mary’s pussy, trickling halfway down her left thigh. Oh fuck, oh fuck, this is too real, she looks so real and so fucking hot. This is hourglass cum-bunny Mary Poole caught in the moment of having an existential meltdown from the intensity of the fires blazing inside her body. The effect is almost overwhelming — to see her is to want to fuck her, to need to fuck her, feeling like I might pass out if I don’t come. I pull at my cock and begin to jerk off, which is crazy because I just came. But “just came” has somehow become meaningless for me, like all the recent dream lust and ensuing sex has turned my excited cock into a magic wand, somehow able to release load upon load, like I could challenge infinity to a fucking contest and win. I close my eyes, fondling my hard dick, grasping firmly to pump at its base. I feel like I could come a hundred times, come enough to coat the whole of clay Mary with a wet sheen, my spunk highlighting her form, everything glistening, my hand stroking, another hand joining in, circling the head of my cock, squeezing, pumping me like crazy… I open my eyes and cry out in shock, seeing a small hand stroking my tool, part of clay Mary come to life. Disbelief mixes with heat and I come again, my body shuddering, ropes of cum filling her cupped hand. I fall to my knees, half-exhausted, even more stunned by the miracle taking place before me. My clay fuckmate smears cum all over her body, and everything it touches comes to life, some parts of Mary still cold and lifeless, but only because she’s running out of cum. Her vibrant hands rub at her mouth, rubbing the last of it onto her lips, up her jaw and cheeks, into her eyes… I’m betting that she’s going to step forward, grabbing hold of my dick to suck me off, infusing her insides with my cum, life shooting into her, lust filling her body, desire coursing through her veins… “There isn’t… time,” she whispers hoarsely, her mouth moving awkwardly, like speaking is an unfamiliar action. “Why not?” I ask in return, not understanding. “We aren’t alone,” she answers. “There are forces… Powerful, inescapable… We're pawns in a game… of re-creation…” I see her eyes widen, peering behind me as though she’s seen something terrible. I turn around and find the floor of my apartment strewn with debris and shards of broken glass, the remnants of my windows everywhere after the passage of a violent storm. I hear some kind of skittering sound, and catch a bit of movement to my left. Sensing danger I freeze, barely breathing, trying to peer into the obscure corners of the space, needing to see what I haven’t seen before. Ahead of me, in the hallway, I make out the shape of a giant spider’s web, and there attached to a wall, oozing out fresh thread from it’s abdomen, an immense

black widow spider. I don’t know how long this web has been in my space — it’s lovingly woven, the criss-crossed design vastly more intricate than would be needed for merely catching prey. It’s hard to make out the spider in the shadows, but she’s there, infinitely patient, radiating an aura of… I’m not sure what. Maybe agelessness, like she’s been in this apartment forever, and the apartment has been in the world since beyond forever, the web always present, just never noticed. Again I hear something moving along the floor, perhaps a creature that will become the spider’s food. I catch movement again, a crafty sideways dance… It’s a scorpion, also larger than normal, black shell shining, barbed tail raised. I realize with horror that it’s actually stalking the spider, confident in the effectiveness of its sting, a predator preying on a fellow predator. I’m witnessing something extraordinary here, a timeless arachnid death dance, and I have no idea which is the stronger — the spider with its bite, or the scorpion with its sting. But I do know that the scorpion is incredibly dangerous, while the spider is… different. Dangerous as well, but not malevolent, and crucial in some way. Powerful eruptions of dismay clutch at my spine, instinct telling me that without my help, the spider is going to die. I’m not sure why I should care… I just do. I feel the need to interfere, to warn the spider or get rid of the scorpion somehow, only I don’t know what to do. I have no weapons, no real power at all other than the mind-power of my light body when I dream. But I need to feel lust for that to work, and sorry — spiders and scorpions just don’t do it for my dick. I’m stuck in a buggy dream where sexual desire is not even an option… Christ, I’m dreaming again, and there is no spider, no scorpion. I’m in a metaphorical version of my apartment, not unlike the real thing in that the floor is covered with all this broken crap. Out there, my real body is… Actually, I have no idea where I am. Still lying on the floor with Anne and Gina Marie and Nicole fighting for my cock? I rise out of my body, and will myself into the main room of my apartment. I’m not there, and neither are the women. The place is still a wreck, and there’s a disturbing amount of blood on the floor, perhaps where I blacked out. My blood, or that of the women fighting over me? Blue and red light sweeps in through the windows, and I see a cop in a yellow raincoat standing out in the landing. This is not good, not good at all. I know it’s silly when I do it, but I just have to float to my bedroom, to check out my cameras and portfolio. My main camera, the Leica, is fucked, as in… Shit, I think it might have been literally fucked, the lens, anyway. My light body has no substance to check the mechanisms, but things don’t look very promising. My portfolio is in similar shape, photos strewn all over the floor on the backside of the bed, many of them bent, others stained or smeared with what I take to be girl-cum. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck! The bed is covered with a heap of camisoles and stockings, black leather suits of various types, colorful teddies and bustiers. Did Anne fuck my equipment and my photographs while waiting for me, and take that crowbar to my life in her frustration? Or did Gina Marie and Nicole break in earlier, going girl-crazy in every room, doing it all over my stuff and even with my stuff? I may never know the exact nature of the female tornado that ran through my apartment, and the blue and red lights flashing outside remind me that I have bigger issues to deal with than wrecked cameras and cuntcreamed art. I blink myself down the stairs and immediately find the real me, my body being loaded into an EMS van on a gurney, hordes of cops and their vehicles crowding the street. The rain has eased to a steady

drizzle, and I see Mr. Johnson, my landlord, being questioned under a large umbrella. A few sentences are enough to gather that he made the 911 call that summoned all this heat. I should thank him for possibly saving my life. I should probably curse him, too, for bringing my sexual offenses to the attention of the authorities. Like that wasn’t going to happen anyway, with Dr. Anne’s pussy running a fever. Multiple seeds of disaster were sewn before I even knew I could sew them, and I see the face of the consequences right now — Eduardo, donned in an orange rain slicker, speaking to an agitated EMS guy. I am totally fucked, aren’t I? And that’s before even checking to see how badly I’m hurt. Floating over to myself, needing to know, I’m surprised that my face looks so peaceful, even if I do have a tube stuck up my nose and a bandage a foot wide wrapped around my hip/dick area, soaked in blood. I don’t know what happened to me to make me bleed like that, but something’s gonna hurt something awful when I wake up. If I wake up? The idea flashes that I might be dead, my heart instantly pounding in response. I can see the spikes on a small monitor mounted upon the wall of the van… Okay, I’m definitely not dead. I could be in a coma, though… As soon as the thought is there, I can’t help wondering what would happen to me if I fell into a coma. Would I zip around as I am for weeks or months, essentially a ghost, able to look down and see my body withering, a conscious spirit witnessing its own vegetative state? It’s a gut-wrenching thought — there’s an incredible sense of freedom in here, where laws like gravity don’t touch me, but being like this for a long time, never able to touch anyone, to speak and be heard, to relate with others… I think I’d go nuts, I really do. It takes some effort to move past those fears. I rise up and track the movements of Eduardo, because I know in my gut that he’s the element on the scene whom I really should fear. He’s telling a man I take to be the driver of the van to follow his car to the research facility, and the EMS guy is putting up a fight, insisting that I be taken to Union Memorial Hospital, because that’s in his contract and that’s where the crazed babes are being taken. The “crazed babes”. There are two additional ambulances — I float inside of one and find Gina Marie strapped to a gurney, her giant boobs nearly bursting through the white gown they’ve fitted over her. Maybe it’s a horrible thing to think under the circumstances, but she’s every bit the super-busty sex goddess I remember, gorgeous as get-all even with a cut lip and one eye swollen half-shut. I’m finally getting a good look at her, and that includes what I’ve done to her mind. She’s struggling against the restraints, literally frothing at her injured mouth, shouting how she needs David’s cock inside of her, needs his hands squeezing her tits, needs Nicole’s nipples. Without the restraints I have no doubt that Gina Marie would be banging my damaged body in the other van, making me squeeze her tits even if she had to hold my limp hands to animate them into it. A woman — a psychiatrist? — holds tight to one of Gina Marie’s hands below me, trying to calm her down, trying to reason with her, all to no avail… Christ. I finally got my mitts on Gina Marie’s ginormous boobs, my cock in her cunt — I think — and just look at us. She’s insane, and I’ve been fucked to a pulp. There isn’t even any point of asking “what have I done?” because I remember exactly what I did, to Gina Marie and the rest of them. I didn’t know I was actually doing it at the time, but I did it, and I even got what I wanted. Sort of. I feel pretty much like dream-shit. “Hello, my name is David and I’m a light body rapist,” I confess to the woman tending to Gina Marie, fully aware that no one can hear my silly attempt at black humor from in

here. And is it a total cop-out to feel like the confession is only half-justified, like the fault isn’t entirely mine? I never asked to have my brain reconfigured — I got snookered into it, by people more devious than I’ll ever be. And then, when the gods handed me a ticket to lucid sex paradise, they played the same twisted games they always play, assuring from the first moment that my gift came with the guarantee of its own destruction, the puny human cosmically ass-fucked in the end. That’s what gets me, really — not that I used the dreams for sex, but that I did it blindly at first, stumbling from pussy to pussy with no strategic thinking, not even knowing that I needed to think strategically. I probably could have gotten inside all these women, maybe even Anne, with no evidence of foul play, no trail of mind-fucking for the team to uncover, no repercussions, no real harm — if I’d only known the rules of the road, with some awareness that I’d need to dodge all the speed-traps lying in wait. I pull myself up and out of the van, letting go of this useless bout of what-if-ism. I know where Union Memorial is, so I’m willing to leave Gina Marie and the others for now, silently promising that I will come back to release them from the grip of my blundering interventions. I’d try it on Gina Marie now if I felt the least bit horny, which I don’t. But later, when this storm has passed, I’ll do the right thing, trying my best to free Gina Marie and Nicole, and Anne, and Sharon. And shit… Sophie, assuming I can find her. And Mary? I don’t even want to think about it, but I force myself to. Yes, Mary too, fuck it all. Until then, I need to find out how badly I’m hurt, and just how deeply life-screwed I am. And once I know the extent of the damage, a whole new set of questions awaits, the main one being: Is there any chance of ever being un-screwed, or have I dreamed myself to the end of the road, my light body no smarter than a sex-blinded bug, smacking head-on into a giant yellow dead-end sign?

Chapter Ten — The Bridge They drive me to the lab, not the hospital. I’m not surprised — no anonymous EMS grunt was going to outmacho or out-maneuver Eduardo; in fact, the van’s original driver got left behind, replaced by a couple of men-in-black heavies. I follow the passage of my damaged body as it moves along Baltimore’s rain-washed streets, peering from my bird’s eye perspective among the low clouds, drizzle passing right through me. I guess I could go somewhere sunny for a half hour or so, trying to do something constructive, or fun… But my body is in trouble down there, and I can’t see leaving it unattended in the hands of strangers — or worse, people I know, and know not to trust. At the facility I’m transferred to a bed on a floor of the building that I’ve never even floated through, and I hover attentively as a small team of doctors and nurses tends to my various wounds. I’ve heard stories about people rising above their bodies in the operating room, experiencing near-death journeys where the freed spirit is bathed in a feeling of blissful detachment, a bright welcoming light of heavenly grace holding out the promise of a better world to come. I get none of that — the only lights I can enter are the overhead fluorescents, and I’m still very attached to that body down there, enough to know that its problems will be my problems the moment I wake up. I have a host of superficial cuts and bruises, and a sizeable knot on my forehead where somebody gave me a good whack. But it’s the state of my penis that makes me dream-wince. After I blacked out, those women must have continued to go at me, fucking me raw, as in raw. It’s not as extreme as when I dreamed about having my dick vaporized, but that was a fantasy exaggeration, while this is… red. Millie talked about me being a snake ready to shed its skin, and it looks like my dick got the message, but couldn’t understand that it was supposed to be a metaphor. I’m not a wimp — I can sit through the grossest of slasher films while

chomping on popcorn, no problemo, but up here looking at the fuck-carnage down there, I’d probably faint if I weren’t already unconscious. Unless they keep me pumped with painkillers, that’s bound to be dreadful when I wake up. And I’m going to wake up, according to what I hear below me. My dick will eventually be as good as new, too, although it will need to stay bandaged, and might even require physical therapy. I don’t have a clue what that means, to give a penis physical therapy, but one of the nurses has lovely brown eyes above her facemask, and a tight body with a great ass. I can see where it might set the healing back a bit if she’s my therapist – especially if I decide to dream-stroke her mind. Who am I kidding, though? I’m thinking of dream lust out of habit, because it’s hard to feel desire when my actual body is so battered — I’m afraid to even think of getting an erection in here, because of the repercussions it might have to my tenderized organ down there. Everything has changed anyway — there are two armed guards outside the door, and I don’t think they're on duty to keep hot women from wanting to do me. The team obviously knows what I’ve been up to, and they can’t be taking the situation lightly, especially when I turned one of their own into a lingerie fuck-fanatic. Satisfied that I’m not going to die, I float up to the familiar floors of the facility, figuring that it’s time to assess the extent of the non-physical damage I’ve inflicted upon myself. I find Dr. Phillips and Eduardo quite easily, sitting around the big table inside the conference room, briefing the same cast of stiff-assed characters — minus Anne — on what Eduardo terms “the regrettable situation”. I hover unseen right above the center of the table, listening in as an unknown man reads the names and personal information of my victims. Gina Marie is — was — a real estate agent in Denver, while Nicole worked at a Starbucks and played on a semi-professional volleyball team. They know that I mind-fucked Sharon, too — she was supposed to show up for work at the aquarium today, and never called in sick. One of her friends checked in on her, only to find her passed out on her bedroom floor, assorted sex toys strewn about the room with my name scrawled all over her walls, written in “organic fluids”. That sounds… not so good. It doesn’t get any better as they read a timeline, chronicling how Gina Marie and Nicole both walked away from their jobs in what has been diagnosed as “extreme cognitive confusion and unnatural single-mindedness of purpose, combined with behavioral and physical markers indicating an ongoing state of near-maniacal sexual fixation, as well as corresponding hormonal and glandular imbalances, swollen pleasure receptors and clear evidence of almost incessant genital manipulation stemming from hyper-sensitivity that appears to be addictive and self-perpetuating.” It’s jarring, hearing my dream interventions described in language that might be at home on the warning label of a really bad-assed medicine bottle. I get a picture of Sharon going mega-cunt-manic when I never showed up for breakfast, as well as the movements that brought Gina Marie and Nicole to my door. Dr. Phillips also informs the others that Mary Poole called in sick this evening, a team dispatched to bring her to the facility for questioning. “What about Dr. Haggerty?” a balding military type asks. Eduardo shakes his head. “Anne has been upgraded to stable, physically. Beyond that, her mind is on the same kind of autopilot as the others. Some of the details are different… There really isn’t any point in dwelling on the aberrations, the exact form of the artificial obsessions. Suffice it to say that Anne as we knew her is… absent. Her personality, her mind, has receded. In its place is… well… something with an entirely different agenda. ”

“How did Sand do these things?” the skin-head military guy asks. “Do we have a working theory?” They do, but it’s less complete than I would have thought. Dr. Phillips gives a synopsis of Anne’s research, which goes way over my head after the first couple of sentences. I generally get the part about strengthening the bridge (interesting choice of words) between the upper and lower brain functions, attempting to fuse the dream-spawning areas of the higher mind and instinctive functioning into one smoothly running unit during REM sleep. Past that, Dr. Phillips talks a great deal about PGO waves, whatever they are, and the manipulation of their cholenergic hyperexcitability, added to artificial cancellation/stimulation of serotonergic inhibition and neuromodulation. I don’t know if the others are able to follow all this brainspeak or not, until one bespectacled suit holds up his hand and waves the jargon down, asking for an explanation of where the dream science went wrong, in plain English. Dr. Phillips explains how the team was caught off guard by the degree of cooperation between my nervous and glandular systems, and speculate that some sort of “trans-systemic field of influence” came into being as I dreamed. They aren’t sure whether I deliberately went after my victims, or simply had sexually charged dreams about them, with the effects spilling out beyond my control. It’s a key point in the debate that emerges, because the answer is the difference between the unintended consequences of an experiment gone wrong, and premeditated sexual assault. “We knew David Sand had dreams containing elements of sexual longing and wish fulfillment,” Eduardo cuts to the chase. “We didn’t know these prurient tendencies could spill out from the lucid dream 'reality' to affect others. It may be that Anne suspected, or was beginning to suspect… Frankly, unless her condition is vastly improved from what I’ve observed, we’ll never know what she thought before she became… what she is.” “Dr. Haggerty’s recovery must be our top priority,” Dr. Phillips asserts, loading fresh tobacco into his pipe. “Simply put, there is hope of continuing the program without her expertise.” “Anne is already lost,” Eduardo grunts. “We’ll have to process the information we’ve collected thus far, and create a new team to work from her notes.” “I cannot accept that!” Dr. Phillips snaps. “There’s still so much we don’t know… Anne’s fixations could wear off over time, or she could be re-educated, brought out of the trance through therapy, or… or even by David. If given the task of removing his influence from Anne’s mind, he might succeed in restoring her to what she was before.” “We have a far greater problem here than the fate of any one person, even if it's a valued colleague,” Eduardo argues. “Gentlemen… David Sand is unconscious right now, at this very minute. Do you understand what that means? He is a threat — to anything, to anyone, when he is unconscious. He could be in this room as we speak, his light body listening to every word, weighing our resolve, gathering information from our own lips to use against us. We designed him for that very capability, and I will remind you that there is no way to measure his presence. He is undetectable, Ultimate Stealth just as we wished, and now we have proof that he can do so much more than observe, worming his way into the human mind, causing damage that may be irreversible. We have no concrete proof as yet that he does this deliberately, willfully, but it's prudent to assume that he does. We have to…” “We have to what?” another military man interrupts. “Am I the only one here who can see that we’ve been handed an opportunity that goes beyond our wildest dreams? If Sand has these capabilities and can use them in a targeted way, a deliberate way, and can be coerced into engaging with carefully selected

targets… We could be talking the instant destabilization of foreign governments from the top down, distracting or even incapacitating the command structure of America’s enemies, outing spies, forcing confessions… We all know that the most dangerous enemy is one possessed by religious zeal, by religious certainty. We’d finally have a tool that could undermine that mode of thinking, a soldier who can fight ways of thinking, toppling not only governments but entire belief systems…” “But everything you’re describing could also be aimed at us!” an unknown man weighs in. “Would we even know when our minds have become infected? Anne sat in this very room, one of us, trusted and dedicated… What if Sand had put it into her head to destroy her notes, or to bring the program to the attention of the media? Any one among us, right now, could already be in Sand’s grip, plotting to bring the program down, to expose this and other secrets… My God, between us, the things we know, all the classified intel that could be revealed…” “I spoke with the vice-president about this half an hour ago,” the decorated general from the other day pipes up. “We are to take whatever measures are necessary to keep these black ops pitch black. Whatever we decide in here, I have it on the VP’s authority that it is the secrecy of the program that is our highest priority. Not Anne, not even the survival of the program for now. No leaks, gentlemen — no possibility of leaks. Whether this is the end of the LDSP or merely a significant bump in its eventual achievement, this program must remain out of sight. And David Sand, with these capabilities, poses an unacceptable risk.” A general silence falls upon the room, and I look from face to face. I see profound loss torturing Dr. Phillips’ eyes… I’m not certain whether it’s Anne he’s thinking about, or the program, or his job. I am certain that they just decided my fate — or the vice-president did. “Sand cannot be allowed to dream…” Eduardo begins. “Sleep cannot be prevented,” Dr. Phillips speaks over him. “Even with the most sophisticated sleepdeprivation techniques, the human body will eventually require the mind to shut down. And any time David reaches the REM state…” “We’ll go into him,” Eduardo asserts. “We changed his brain; we’ll change it back. Tonight. Now.” “I must object,” Dr. Phillips pipes. “David received a severe blow to the head, and Anne’s notes on reversing the alignment within the brain are untested, and could pose significant dangers to…” “To what — his health?” Eduardo scoffs. “This is a possible rapist we’re speaking about, a man who might have thought nothing about robbing women of their personalities, of their sense of purpose. And he is a national security threat of the highest order, a menace to everything we know. He no longer has any rights, Neil. He doesn’t exist — you know that.” Silence. I’ve heard more than enough. They’re going to treat me like a piece of rancid meat, even if it means never giving me a chance to undo what I did to Anne and the others. I mean, fuck! Even if they don’t give a shit about me, they’re going to allow their paranoia to kill the only chance they have at getting Anne back to normal? I want to yell out to them, to talk some sense into them. Don’t they get it, that I can’t do anything to their minds because they don’t get me hot? But they don’t know that — I wouldn’t have known either, not without time to figure it out, and not without the clues I received from my own brain. They think I’m an all-

affecting Frankenstein monster, not David Sand but David Shiva, the ultimate destroyer of all things clandestine. Maybe I would be if I could, but I can't, not unless the fuckers have hot wives and my dick recovers… It will never have the chance to recover. I will never recover, because I’ll be dead, or a disappeared shell of myself with cabbage for brains. I have to wake up, really wake up, and reason with them. They need to know what I can do and what I can’t do. I’ll heal Anne, heal all of them, make amends, be a good soldier for the red, white and blue, a terrorist-turner or a satellite-hopper of the highest order, or whatever the hell else they might want from me. Heart pounding, wondering if I'm going to do their dirty work for them by giving my bruised body a heart attack, I’m there in a second, back in the room where I really am. I shout at myself to wake up, try to will it, to will me, into complying. Passion, desire — I want to fucking live, can't I feel some passion about that? Only I look totally out of it — fuck, they have tubes running into me, maybe to help or maybe not, maybe to keep me asleep for my benefit, or maybe it's the opposite, my body rigged with a kill switch, or an operate-on-the-brain switch, everything set for whatever decision is being reached two floors above. "Just look at these readings!" the shapely brown-eyed nurse says, indicating the bleeps on some monitoring device. "Having a nightmare," somebody assesses. "Either that or he knows what they…" A phone rings and everyone goes silent. One of the doctors picks up, listens gravely… Shit shit shit! I don't need to hear a verdict; I can read the expression in his eyes. I float inside of myself, trying to fit my formless parameters precisely to my body, trying to make the light body me become the rest of me, to merge myself to myself, to be behind my eyelids so I might pry them apart. I try to open my eyes, struggling, getting nowhere. I take my dream hands to my eyelids to force them apart, but it's like they're glued shut, or held together with invisible clamps. Dammit I have to wake up. I have to wake up! Wake up David. Wake uuuuup… WAKE UP! *** I jerk awake on the bridge of the Enterprise, eyes jarred open like my eyelids were held fast by tractor beams. The invisible grip suddenly releases, accompanied by a sudden sensation of vertigo. “Sijuation?” I ask, my mouth not working right, wondering how I could have fallen asleep in the captain’s chair. “We are under attack,” Spock answers flatly behind me. “Raise shields,” I command, figuring that never hurts. “Too late; we have been boarded.” “They’re in engineering!” I hear Scottie’s voice on the intercom.

“Security to engineering,” I punch into my chair’s arm. “Security!” “Inter-ship channels have been cut off,” Uhura informs us. There are two security guards standing stiffly on the bridge. I motion them to the turbo-lift, but the doors won’t slide open to let them in. “Turbo-lift is down, auto-destruct sequence activated,” Spock reports. Auto-destruct? What the fuck? “Shut it off!” I demand. The vessel shakes violently, throwing Chekov out of his chair. I always wondered: If this is the future and everybody is so fucking smart, why can’t they think to put some seatbelts in these chairs? In nearly every episode, somebody is sprawling out of their seat when the cameras shake… Wait, this isn’t real. It’s a TV show, the original one, and I’m not really Kirk, but me playing the role of Kirk. Which means the attack and the auto-destruct sequence aren’t actually happening. “Negative,” Spock responds to my thoughts. “The hull has been breached. Auto-destruct is at two minutes, fourteen seconds.” “Captain, they’re sending a message,” Uhura interjects. “They… they intend to take the bridge.” The bridge. For some reason that hits me even harder than the prospect of the entire ship blowing up. The feeling of vertigo returns and I’m propelled out of my chair, dizzy and staggering. Hands grip my shoulders, stopping my aimless momentum, and I look up into the deep blue eyes of Mary Poole. “David — you can’t let them destroy the bridge!” she urges, gripping hard, emphasizing her point while holding me up. David? I thought I was Jim. No, keep it straight, Jim is Kirk and I’m not really Kirk. I glance down, mind fuzzy, assessing Mary’s figure in the short red mini-dress and black boots. Kirk sure would want to spacebone Mary with her body showing off like this. Me too. She looks hot, so hot that… “Yes, yes! Heat is our only chance, but that’s after the before, in the dreams to come! We can have it, but only if you get to the bridge!” “I’m on the fucking brindge,” I slur. “One minute, thirty-two seconds,” Spock monotones the countdown. Mary pleads with me to hold on, to wake up. She keeps saying that — wake up, wake up, and it finally dawns on me that I’m dreaming a dream, that this isn’t really the Enterprise or even a TV soundstage, it’s another stupid dream and I’m David Sand the butterfly-brained rip-raping sandman, let’s all give him a hand. I expect applause but only get Spock, droning that in fifty-seven seconds, we’re all going to die. I always hated these silly countdowns, so melodramatic. He's reading the time on an analog dial, not even digital, and the time was never accurate anyway, fifty-seven seconds somehow stretching out to something like two minutes. We probably have more time than…

“There isn’t any time!” Mary shakes my shoulders harder, making my Kirk head jerk. “Do you understand? You have to get to the bridge, David, the bridge, the bridge! There isn’t any time!” “Well where the fuck is it?” I complain. Crap, I didn’t mean to yell at her — I’m not myself, because of the drugs. “Not only drugs — they’re trying to reconfigure your brain!” Yeoman Mary explains, her lovely tits exuberant, those cock-hardening Glands of Montgomery hiding somewhere under the red dress. “They’re going to change you back… They might even kill you! We have to get you to the bridge!” My eyes roll around her boob area, and I see an insignia that’s all wrong, not the inverted V of Starfleet but an organic looking “O”, which is actually a snake eating its tail. Snakefleet? Oh, right, that’s one of the dream symbols and I’m dreaming, dreaming that I’m drugged and only half with it already because my brain’s being reconfingered. I take control of the dream by floating out of my body… Well shit, that went nowhere, I couldn’t even flap the flutterfly wings in my head for lift-off. “Somebody help us!” Mary yells, voice urgent. “They’re going to destroy the bridge!” “Forty seconds,” Spock counts, and somebody tells him to shut his Vulcan pie-hole. I feel other hands on me, lifting, supporting — it’s Uhura, taking me by the left armpit while Mary holds the right, drag-walking me to the turbo-lift door. “Won’t open,” I remind them, feeling pretty smart. “You shut up, too,” Mary reprimands, voice even, determined. She unclips the phaser from my belt, aims it at the door and fires. I groggily watch the red-hot beam of light strike the door, pulsing into it, opening nothing, accomplishing nothing. “Fug,” is all I can think to say. “Lift your skirt!” Mary demands. “Hurry!” I think she means me, but it’s Uhura lifting hers with her free hand. Mary aims the phaser at Uhura’s pussy and fires, turning the area between her legs into a glowing molten mass of sweet dark fuck-flesh. Uhura moans a Swahili moan, the sound so luscious it makes my cock feel like it could fire all phaser banks right into her. Mary trains her weapon on her own sweet juicebox, magmatizing her petite pussy, making it glow, two female furnaces radiating to either side of me, orange-red color washing over everything, waves of heat stereo-kissing my rigid cock. I fall to the floor when they move forward to grind their pussies into the doors, two red-giant sun-cunts vaporizing the barrier in an instant. Fuckin’ right no object can withstand desire’s force. Uhura collapses to her knees, gasping — I think she’s exhausted or broken, but she unzips my pants and draws my cock into her mouth, swirling saliva everywhere, sucking like crazy. “Whoa-ho!” I bellow, suddenly feeling a bit more clear-headed, like we're finally getting somewhere. Mary rushes back, reaching down to tug me to my feet. Uhura lets my dick pop out and I’m pulled inside the turbo-lift, only there is no inside, only the entrance to the bridge. The bridge, stretching out into what

looks like forever, beyond the water, beyond even the stars. I could never cross that, not in a million years, not without… My Honda. I see it leaning on its kickstand, the key conveniently dreamed into the ignition. Mary sets my rear on the seat and instinct takes over, my legs assuming a riding position, foot working the gears, hand turning the key, the engine catching, creating its sweet purr-vibration against my crotch. I see the ancient toll man ambling forward, waving his arms as if to say “no”, pointing at the twin candles and gesticulating. Mary fires her phaser at the two round candles on either side of the bridge, making them pulse with white-hot heat. The gas tank is her next target, and the engine roars, the bike humming like I’ve never felt before. The old guy wanted heat? He got heat and I’m sitting on it. “But he hasn’t paid the toll!” the old man objects. “He can’t cross to…” I think I hear Mary say, “I’m sorry” right before she lifts the phaser and vaporizes the guy. “Fuck being a hapless pawn!” Mary declares. She leans into me, planting her lips on mine, our tongues meeting, pressing, needing. She whispers, “Never forget how much I love you!” before urging me to ride, ride as fast as I can, just ride, ride, ride! I hear Spock say, “Nine, eight…” I look into Mary’s eyes, mine welling with tears. I take her hand, squeezing tightly. “Shoot him, too,” I say, letting go. Her eyes are moist and it kills me to leave her, but I twist the throttle, squealing rubber as I kick into first gear, surging at high speed onto the bridge I could never cross, have always known I’d have to cross but dreaded crossing, engine whining, wind whipping at my face, the air turning to pressure and howling sound that gnaws at me, yowling wrenching curling streams of turbulence buffeting not just me but everything around me, the surface of the bridge itself wavering, being eaten, my screams of defiance devoured before they’ve even been uttered, everything consumed except my hand on the throttle, opening the engine, giving it any gas it wants, letting any residual fear be eaten too, just riding, riding like the allannihilating wind… I hear distortion, twisted sound growling from inside myself, my lungs caving in, air sucked out, pressure battering at me in waves. I don't think I'm going to make it — even my wrist working the throttle feels like it's breaking apart, like the flesh is being ripped off the bones, my body shattering, everything including light and sound sucked inside, bent right into my breaking skull… “Uhhhh!” I cry out. “Uh? You jerk, you fell asleep!” It’s my head that jerks up, bumping against something soft. I open my eyes and I’m staring at the underside of Sophie’s chin, my cheek pressed into her sweater and the plump young tits underneath the sweater, the stars winking above us. “Where… am I?” I choke out. “On thin ice,” Sophie snaps. “I’m that boring, am I?”

I sit up, taking in my surroundings. We’re on the hood of my old truck, in the dark, on the bank of Freeman’s Cove. Crap, I’m dreaming again, I surmise, trying to lift out of my body. Nothing. “Here I am thinking this might be a special night, and he falls asleep on me,” Sophie mutters to the stars, or perhaps to me. I feel her warm hand on my cheek and I turn toward her, absorbing the lovely planes, the full lips, the irresistible dimples. She looks completely real but I'n not here; I'm in an operating room, my brain in danger. I take Sophie's hand in mine, peering into her curious eyes, seeing myself reflected, my face too young with no knot on my head. I peer in even deeper, trying to see underneath the surface, as though I might find all the answers in there. “What?” she asks. “Why are you looking at me like that?” I try to lift out of my body again, but I’m already awake. I am definitely awake, which cannot be. What about the research facility, being injured and drugged, hoping to fucking survive… “What?” she asks again. “What’s gotten into you?” What do I say? What do I even believe? It can’t have been a dream, not seven years of my life. I finished high school, went to college and half of grad school, watched my parents separate, fucked girls, got and lost jobs, made art and suffered through the aftermath of 2/18… All those things I did, all the people I know, all that the entire world went through — I remember seven years of experiences dammit, and they happened, I know they happened. “David?” “I’m, um… confused,” I tell Sophie, not convinced she’s real. “Just give me a minute to… to…” To what? It depends on whether I’m dreaming, or delirious from my injuries, or drugged, or lobotomized, or in a coma, or brain-dead, or dead-dead. Or, if not one of those, then I’m actually here, although “here” would also have to be “then”. ’Back then’ is a deeper concept than you realize, dream-Nicole’s voice reverberates in my brain. And once it’s there, other voices flood in, like echoes from another world. I shiver, hearing my own voice asking dream-Sophie what’s on the other side of the bridge. Probably the same thing as right here, she answered, in a dream about right here, right now. And just a few minutes ago, dream-Mary proclaiming again and again: There isn’t any time… “I… I think I need to lie back down,” I say, feeling like I’m going to faint. My head slips back into Sophie’s lap, and she softly strokes my brow with the back of her hand. “Tell me what it is,” she urges. Sex is not the first thing on my mind, but I feel my cock tingling, growing, and it feels strong, not raw and needing physical therapy. Sophie's face looks so beautiful up there beyond the shelf of her boobs, but it’s more than that. Her eyes convey something that I didn’t see before, back then when we briefly had something of a chance. I recognize it this time because I just saw it moistening Mary Poole’s eyes as we had

to go our separate ways, our separate… times? I look at Sophie, more chills washing over me that have nothing to do with the damp spring air. She misreads my expression, my goosebump breathlessness — or maybe she doesn’t, not at all. She bends down, lips wet and full, and we kiss the way we did that night, only it’s different this time, my heart sighing as my tongue reaches out, eager but afraid, terribly confused yet almost certain that the truth is all around me. Desire. Only this is a different kind of desire, or a more inclusive kind of desire. I feel all filled up, yet also torn in two. Don’t forget how much I love you. Only now, if “now” is “then”, then Mary Poole and I haven’t even met, and my brain is… just a brain? I am one confused soul, a girl's hot tongue deep in my mouth, my body heating up just as it should, my senses telling me that this is all happening even as other senses tell me that none of this can be real. That feeling of vertigo comes back, the result of being hopelessly lost even though I know exactly where I am, the me I knew trapped in a reality — or a dream — inside a body that isn't quite seventeen years old.

Chapter Eleven — Déjà Vu All Over Again, Almost I keep looking to the stars like they might smile upon me, rearranging themselves to give me some sign. They wink impassively as always, leaving me to compare the patterns and recognizable constellations that I see with memories of what a night sky should look like. From horizon to horizon I detect no flaws, no errant elements or areas of vagueness — but then I never could prove that a dream wasn’t real, even when I knew for certain that I was dreaming. Here on the bank of Freeman’s Cove, skipping flat stones on the lapping waters with Sophie, every blade of grass is completely delineated, the ripples on the water moving as water moves, with a lawful chaos that our senses know to be true. It's all just right, only I keep getting these chills that make the hairs on my arms stand on end, because so many moments that pass are like reliving a script that Sophie and I both read from seven years ago. The twist is that all of my interior thoughts are different, my mind filled with memories of things that haven’t happened yet, not if now is now. Being here with Sophie is different because I’m different, a David considerably changed from the teen version. My face and body say seventeen — I did a quick check in the truck’s side mirror just to make sure — but my mind is years ahead of my body, containing memories of experiences that shouldn’t be. I remember being so unsure of myself at this age, feeling so unformed and shy. I don’t suffer in that way now, but that lack of certainty has been replaced with a new kind — I’m more confident, but I don’t even know whether Sophie and I actually exist here, or whether this is all a perfectly lifelike scenario taking place within my sleeping mind. Or worse, within a deformed or distressed mind, the product of events I’d rather not think about. Every instant is not an exact replay, though, as I experience when Sophie asks what I thought of Jackie Hill’s performance in the school play. My mind rushes in all directions to remember who Jackie Hill is, what she looked like — looks like — and whether I can remember any play at all. I can, vaguely, but I can’t remember how I answered the question back then, back now. So I dodge, and tell Sophie that she should think about being an actress because she’s so lovely, her mouth and eyes so expressive. I think I see her cheeks flush with color even in the dim silver light; what I’m completely certain of is that I didn’t make this particular comment before, so it isn’t like I’m stuck with being the exact same me that I used to be. The pattern is just like the lucid dream of The Pizza Escape — minus being able to float out of my body — where things repeated the known form of this night unless I consciously intervened to make it different. And I definitely want things to be different, because this is the night that ended up leaving a bad taste in my

mouth, a lost chance that I’m not sure I ever recovered from. “That’s twice tonight you’ve told me that you think I’m really pretty,” Sophie responds. “Is that right?” “You said earlier that I’m as pretty as Gina Marie. Not like I believe that, but …” I remember saying it, both in real life back then, and in the vivid dream about back then. “You know me, Sophie. I wouldn’t keep repeating it if it weren’t true.” “Oh? Then why couldn’t you take your eyes off her boobs, when mine were right in front of you?” “Well…” Shit, I thought I was being nice to her, and suddenly I'm on the defensive. True to form, I can see that Sophie likes having put me there. She's enjoying herself when I stammer: “They’re… I'm... You're being…” She laughs. “I know, sometimes I can’t believe them either. We’re going to be awfully embarrassed someday when we discover we were staring at balloon-filled sweaters all along.” She goes silent for a bit after that, but the silence isn’t tense or distant; in fact, she feels much closer than ever before. “If I didn’t know better…” she begins, her voice trailing off. I think she’s still speaking about Gina Marie’s knockers being fake, until she finishes with “…I’d think you're saying nice things because you're getting sweet on me.” Sweet on me — it's a quaint phrase, and I don't remember her ever using it. We’re standing side by side, looking out at the moonlit ripples on the water, and I feel Sophie’s shoulder lean ever so slightly against my arm. When she adds, “You know, I’ll bet my parents are closing up the diner right now,” I shudder with this complete sense of the déjà vu creeps, because after a brief sidetrack, we’re back on script, the touch of her shoulder hauntingly familiar, her words the living echo of events long passed. I know how it will play out if I say and do the things I did then, and I’d be a fool to live to regret this night twice. Only, what are the chances that this night is really this night? I try to lift out of my body again… Can’t, which tells me… maybe nothing. I almost feel like I’d give my right arm just to know without a shadow of a doubt that I’m actually here, as opposed to being back there, maybe stuck in a state of dreamanesthesia, or trapped in a dream-coma inside the research facility. I feel my heart pounding. I also feel Sophie’s shoulder, very warm, inviting more contact. I’m not sure what I believe when the thought comes, and my body responds. It feels so right to do it, pulling Sophie to me with no warning, kissing her insistently, almost roughly. She pushes away for an instant, then doesn’t, her tongue seeking mine as her body boomerangs, her breasts two swells upon me, our hearts hammering together. She makes little cries in her throat as my hands roam up her thighs, and a louder throat-moan when I press hard enough into her delta that I know I must be opening her up underneath her jeans. She grinds herself against my hand, mouth disengaging to take in more breath, both of her hands seeking the shape of the erection that we both know is there. All of a sudden what I want to do — alter the preordained flow of events, an experiment aimed at seeing what is possible — has completely changed. The touch of her hands on my hardness is like a release valve, emptying the mind of all it seeks answers to. Now I simply want Sophie, just as I did then and have ever since. I might be in bad shape in a reality outside of this one, but screw it — if I am, this is a great way to go, getting the taste of what I always wanted, getting another chance and taking it, no matter what.

Sophie lowers my zipper, unsnapping the snap above to let a small hand flatten to my abdomen, gliding down until its flow is interrupted by hard hot horizontality. Her fingers mold themselves to the shape of my cock’s base, circling as they can, giving me a tentative squeeze. “Oh jeez, David,” she whispers, resting her head on my chest, her fingers exploring, almost walking the entire length of me, dipping underneath to cup my balls. Her mouth goes at mine again, tongue pressing harder, hotter. She’s breathing rapidly through her nose, her other hand clutching at mine, forcing it inside the waistband of her jeans. She unclasps them, pulling the zipper down, offering her pussy to direct contact. This is all new — none of this transpired before, not in this way, not out here. I’m repeating a night I lived and have dreamed about, yet I don’t know where events are leading me, which is so normal that I’m reassured, and can just respond to the moment, to the impulses screaming inside my body to jam my hand inside Sophie's silken panties, fingertips touching hotness, wetness… She sighs when I finger her, gently kneading the wet terrain, kneading her and needing her, my cock throbbing in her hands, her hands manipulating my sensitive flesh to make me need her even more. “I’ve… wanted this!” she exhales, pulling at my jeans, lowering them to my knees. My underwear are white — they look silly to me, boy underwear from the past glowing silver in the near-dark. “Jeez, David!” Sophie repeats, looking down at my erection, apparently caught off guard by what she sees. She slowly squats, bringing her head in line with the ramrod thrusting out like nobody’s business, lightly caressing it with both hands, staring eyes to eye. She looks up into my eyes when her tongue reaches out. I know that Sophie is not a virgin, but she’s also relatively inexperienced. If I have my facts straight, she’s only had one, maybe two lovers before, and they were experimental unions, nothing ongoing or serious. She must assume that I’m similarly inexperienced — and I was, but I’m not now. I say, “Oh yes,” when her tongue takes it’s first light taste, her eyes still raised, wishing to see the results of her efforts on my face. I sense her insecurity — as far as I know, this is the first time she’s given head, or nearly the first, and I'm a lot for a mouth to take in. I place my hands on the back of her neck, guiding her forward with reassuring slowness, letting her know how I want it. Her jaw unhinges, lips slowly engulfing my cock-head. Holy fuck her mouth feels like liquid silk, so welcoming, so moving… This can’t be real — I’m about ninety percent certain that it’s not — but the warm wet of her mouth snailing around my thick meat, pulling just slightly, saliva giving me a slow-motion hot bath… I’m beginning to hyperventilate when Sophie slips me out, affectionately kissing the tip of my dick. I don’t want her to stop, but she stands, pulling her sweater over her head, unclasping her bra and letting it fall away. Her tits are wonderful — they’ll get even bigger, I know, but they’re already quite impressive, almost hypnotically round. She undoes her jeans completely, bringing them down with her panties, stepping out until she’s completely naked, her young firm flesh pale before me. It’s chilly, almost cold, but I don’t care any more than she does. My jeans and jockeys become history within living history, my shirt and T-shirt pulled away and thrown to the ground. Sophie kneels down, arranging our clothes into a makeshift ground cover, and only when we have a bed of cotton to sink onto does her mouth seek my cock again, taking in more of me this time, my width spreading her cheeks. She goes at me slowly, carefully, her tongue flicking underneath, lips wiggling, almost undulating, like I’m being mouth jellyfished. She keeps looking into my eyes, seeking confirmation of what feels especially good, and everything feels good. She's hesitant, though, not yet aware of how fabulous it feels to me when she does the things she's doing.

“Keep going,” I encourage. “Use your hands, don’t be afraid of hurting me…” Her eyes smile for an instant, hands wrapping around the base of my cock. She slowly pumps the flesh, licking at my tip with her tongue. I hiss, my cock twitching, tapping the tip of her nose. I can see the moment when the lightbulb brightens, when experimentation changes to a kind of ownership, like she’s just realized that she can give an orgasm. She grins a devious grin, adorable dimples deepening as her hands becoming more active, more forceful, making me cry out. “I’m going to suck you off,” she whispers, peering up into my eyes. “Yes,” I urge her on. “I’m going to suck you off,” she repeats, this time with her lips touching the tip of my dick, her tongue circling. “Yes!” She says it again, allowing saliva to flow onto me, and she says it again, and again, each time with her lips and tongue doing a tiny bit more, her hands clamped, pumping, sliding in the wet from her mouth. She’s a natural tease, a gifted tease, liking the feeling of power over me, liking it when my dick jerks expectantly, liking it even more when I hiss or groan, the sounds involuntary, my body in her hands, my cock hot and pulsing in her mouth. She no longer tells me what she's going to do because she's doing it, lips pulling and twisting, her tongue cunning in the way it flicks, dabs. I call out her name, my head thrashing from side to side, feeling my cock swell, my balls ache. This is Sophie, fucking Sophie, a novice getting better at cocksucking by the second, driving her mouth down my length a little more each time, head bobbing, cheeks sucking, pulling harder, going for it, losing any fears that she doesn’t know what she’s doing because oh God does she know, has she figured it out, her lips puckering, the sucking ramping up, the sounds going more liquid, my fingers starting to tingle electric and numb, cock expanding, the pressure building… “Oh God Sophie, Sophie, Sophie!” She tears the orgasm from me with a long wet tug, moaning as my cum spurts into her mouth. I keep coming and she keeps swallowing, her head still bobbing, trying to take all of it, failing. I get a flash of her head disengaged from my shining cock, a rope of cum leaping up at her nose as cum she’s already taken in trails from her lower lip. And then the salty mouth is on my neck, her body wrapping its heat to mine. I take her in my arms, squeezing tight, warming her and loving her warmth, my cock still eerily hard, pulsing insistently like even after coming I’m getting more erect, not less. Knowing what I want, somehow knowing I can do it, I ease her onto her back. I start with her breasts, so creamy and pale, with the inspiring nipples that mostly eluded me before. They’re so much like Mary’s, only the areoles are wider and paler circles, the textural Glands of Montgomery slightly less plentiful. I stroke one nipple with my fingertips, grasping it and gently pulling, my mouth going to her left nipple, teasing it with my tongue… “Uh!” she cries, her lower body jerking. “Uh! Oh God, oh fuck, David! I… Oh my God, oh my God…” I’m not sure what’s happening — I’m touching Sophie’s nipples, and her hips grind against me like I just discovered a secret on-switch, her fire blazing like she has clits for tits. Her hands clutch at my cock, finding it still hard and wet, and she doesn’t hesitate, her pussy worming frenetically around my pole. She struggles a little to take me in all the way, her pussy so tight, penetration still a relatively new experience. And all the

while the breathy “Uh!”s, her eyes sort of crazed, so big and wide that she suddenly looks like a child version of herself, like she's going back in time, too, into a place of wonder where impossible pleasures are real and true. She cries out again, louder this time, her eyes even wider. The thing is, I feel myself hardening more inside of her, opening her up further without even pumping yet, and she can’t hide the shock at what she’s feeling in there. I don’t know who Sophie fucked before, but they weren’t this big, or they never went this deep, and she’s already reeling before we’ve even started fucking. Real or not, this is going to be one fabulous pussy-reaming. I know it and she does too, and her pussy is clenching around me like it never wants to let go. I’ve never been held this tightly before, like her wet cunt is a greased too-small glove managing to contain me without ripping. I go slow inside of her — for about ten seconds, because in only two thrusts she’s screaming for all she’s worth, her hips thrusting to egg me on. Though she can’t say it, can’t hope to form the words with her distorted mouth, I’m being begged to fuck her hard, fuck her fast and deep, going for it just like I went through all the gears on my bike on a bridge that couldn't be there, just going and going even harder, faster, consequences be damned, everything be damned. Her screams turn to owl-like whoops before I’ve even hit my stride, her boobs rocking, legs clamping around my back. Her face is beet red, forehead wrinkling from the absurdly wide eyes, her expression a mixture of shock and need, her pussy expressing nothing but more, give it even more, more and more and more… When Sophie comes, her eyes roll back until nothing but the whites show, the dimples sucking in even though her smile is more about being stunned, being devastated. God fucking damn, why did I never get to see this look on her face before? I pound into her, just keep pounding, making her howls turn to a scattered growling, like an animal fighting for its life in the night, my lost love from the past finally found, finally taking me hard and deep, coming again, calling out my name, “David, D…David!” sounding out over the waters, mixing with the moonlight, soundwaves of passion glancing off the ripples in the cove, a new wave of deliverance building inside of me, Sophie coming yet again, her fingers digging into my arms as her eyes roll back further, the two of us hurling liquid fire against each other, heat meeting heat so deep inside this bizarre opportunity to fuck a perfect peach of a desperately needy pussy. We cling together, rolling on cotton and dirt, crying our cries, my dick still hard as stone, impossibly hard unless this isn't real, or real if I've somehow retained something from what happened before, the enhancements still enhanced, my balls still super-heated, either coming in a dream or coming like I never could before those dreams, gifted in this version of the past by the backward reach of the butterfly-brained dreams to come… *** The moon is high and blue-white, the water just as cold as the air. We dip my T-shirt into it, using a tiny piece of the Chesapeake Bay to rinse the sex from our bodies, cleaning up as we can to go home. Home, where our parents live. Driving back into town, I’m not sure which feels stranger — that I’ll slip into my bed under my parents’ roof, future-estranged mother and father still together, or that Sophie will go back to her parents’ place behind the diner, where a younger version of Millie resides with Dan, still alive. Sophie asks me to stop a block away from her house, and it’s only when we’ve come to a rest, the glow of my brake lights rimming

her face with red, that she leans into me with two hands on my cheeks, kissing me with a bold and probing tongue, then disengaging, breathing out that she loves me. “I love you too,” I say, believing the words to be true, even if the circumstances could be a complete fabrication. “This is going to sound weird…” she whispers, expression shy. “What?” “I… I don’t know if I could have lived with myself if we hadn’t gone all the way tonight." "We were both ready. We might have been overdue." "No, what I mean is… I wanted you — I've wanted you. But once we got started and you…” She hugs her body, arms under tits, like remembering the feeling of my hands and tongue there is bringing it all back. “When you kissed my breasts… I mean, something happened. I’ve been… you know, horny before, and I'm sensitive there. But I… I just went crazy inside! I needed you! Kind of… desperately?” “I understand,” I say. And maybe I do. As she sits there in the passenger seat, lightly rocking back and forth, I think I can recall what I aimed into a dream-Sophie several days before — or half a dozen years from now, depending: You need to fuck me tonight. No excuses, no delaying this time. When my hands and lips touch your nipples, the desires inside of you become overwhelming, and you have to have my cock buried deep inside your pussy, banging the fuck out of you. Could it be? I don’t know. I don’t know fucking anything any more. I was a blundering dream idiot just the other day, but that’s nothing compared to the cluelessness I’m living right now. Sophie kisses me again, placing her hand on my groin, which resurrects the beast between my legs in about half a second. She leans down and whispers, “I love you, too,” giving the throbbing loved one a goodnight squeeze. She rests with her back to the passenger door for a moment, like she's preparing to get out. Only she's breathing heavily, and looking like she can't decide whether to say something. "You have one sexy penis," she finally lets it out. "I mean, it's big, and beautiful… But shit, David, it just doesn't quit!" A completely honest response would be: "Yeah, I noticed that, too." Instead I just shrug my shoulders, and make some semi-lame comment about how much she turns me on. Which is true, just insufficient. "I didn't know guys could do that," she adds. "So many times, without some sort of… Aren't you supposed to need a rest period?" "I'm seventeen," I state, like that says it all. It's a pretty half-assed answer; maybe only a quarter-assed, since I barely even believe I'm this age. When she gets out of the truck, I sit there with the engine running, watching her wonderful rear sway in the headlights, watching my Big Regret, Sophie Moran, get smaller and dimmer, a dark feminine shape moving briskly under a canopy of eternal stars. When she reaches her parents’ door, she turns, and waves, and I’m finally alone.

Alone, realizing that I've fallen in love for the second time in one day. One of my days, anyway. If they’re real. If she’s real. If I’m even here, where I find myself. *** I don’t go straight home. It’s too freaky, the thought of just strolling into my old house like I belong there, like tonight is just another night back then where everything is normal. I drive towards Baltimore instead, stopping to buy gas at a ridiculously low price, getting a Dr. Pepper mostly so I have something to do with my mouth. I’m afraid that without it I’m going to start talking to myself, giving voice to some of the loopy ideas swimming around in my brain, and I don’t think I’m ready to hear them, not yet. I shake my head when I come to the area where the box stores sit closed but tranquil, untouched by the riots, the flames. I can't resist turning off the highway, driving along the manicured streets in the nearby cookie-cutter housing developments. I get the sense of an immense quiet, with people sleeping tranquilly under intact roofs, the date 2/18 representing nothing, not unless it's the date a relationship breaks off because someone forgot Valentine's Day four days before. The people living here are hopeful, believing in upward mobility, not seeing that a glass ceiling can blow down upon their trimmed lawns like an ill wind, parching their dreams until they and all their possessions are dried out, perfect tinder for torches lit with anger and desperation. I don't know how to be with that, with the knowing ahead. Returning to the faster roads, I try to distract myself by turning on the radio, tuning to a pop station where the music is all old music, the news recap at the top of the hour all old news. To my ear it sounds like the wrong guy is president, that the prime minister of Great Britain still has the initials of a disease. The Iraq War is still going, the stock market up with nobody having a clue how fast what goes up can come down. And then pro basketball scores, which make me laugh because I already know who’s going to win the championship this year, and the next, and the next. Traffic seems unnaturally heavy for this late at night — I guess I’d forgotten how many people drove cars back now, when the middle class hadn't been gang-banged and gas was affordable. I’m not quite sure where I’m going… Yes I do, because my heart is beating too fast, and I’m merging onto an all-too familiar highway, waiting to see what I’m going to see, what I do see just a few miles in — the letters NSA, their reflective whiteness glowing blandly on the deep green field of an exit sign. A couple minutes further on I pull to the shoulder and stop, just needing to collect my breath. The research facility is over there through the trees — the building, anyway. Who knows what they did on those floors before the program came into being — I don’t know all the history, but Anne could be a student right now, or a junior researcher somewhere, the whole LDSP not yet a blip in her brain, the chances of my ever entering that building seeming like several million to one. Or, I could be inside the building right now, dreaming that I’m out here on the road in another time, peering towards myself with no way to know that I’m doing it. I could be anywhere, I guess — if they turned my brain into vegetable matter, or shoved me into a comatose state through which I dream this reality, what would be the point in keeping me around? They’d put me somewhere hidden, either letting me rot slowly or seeing to it that I don’t stick around too long, one more invisible victim of the War On Nuclear and BioTerror. I shudder. I can’t really be sure, can I? Not unless I wake up, or just die, the show suddenly over.

A memory surfaces, and the irony almost hurts. I read a brilliant short story by Jorge Luis Borges in college — which possibly hasn't happened yet — about a guy condemned to die by firing squad. When he's executed and the guns fire, time stops for him — as I remember it he sees the stilled smoke of the guns, and there was a wonderful image of a bee, or the shadow of a bee, hovering motionless on the ground, everything frozen. And he came to understand that God had granted him the passage of a year's time within frozen time, to think about his life, and mentally work out all of his unfinished projects, contemplating whatever he felt the need to contemplate. In other words, he got to live out more of his life inside his own mind, all crunched into one miniscule moment, which was the moment of his death. I look at the building again. Fuck, add one more possibility to the long list of where right here could be. It’s plausible that they’re clipping my butterfly’s wings at this very moment — a miraculously extended moment — and reliving this night is what the death-throes of a deflating brain look and feel like, one last memory flashing in drawn-out time while all that potential — or hell, even my life — ebbs away. My brain hurts. Maybe that should fill me with anxiety; instead I just feel fatigued, even after the Dr. Pepper. I’m kind of grateful for being pooped out — I probably would have driven to my apartment building, to the university and even the pool hall I frequent, needing to see the places I know, the locations right even if the timing is all wrong. I think what I really need to do is go home and go to sleep — sure it will feel bizarre under that roof with my parents in the next room, but I want to know what will happen when I sleep. If I can sleep. And if I can, will I dream? Will I lucid dream? And if I lucid dream, can I still work the lust magic that got me into all that trouble in the first place? And when I wake up… Fuck knows where and when I’ll be. Wherever/whenever it is, I think I’ll trust that reality more than I trust this one. I just want to fucking know, if there's any way I can. And then… Well, we’ll see when the time comes, whichever time that is. *** I watch the black widow spider carefully weaving her web. Each thread is arranged where it was always meant to be arranged, the pattern set, the intersections carefully planned. Yet there are times when strange winds snap one of the lines, and the overall composition is altered. The spider is meticulous in maintaining her web, coming to the area where the order has been disturbed, mending the tear or oozing out a new line in place of the old. With her devotion the pattern is restored… Almost. To the naked eye it looks the same; perhaps it's even the same within her superior vision, her multifaceted perspective. But it is not identical. No tear can be faithfully replaced at a molecular level, and a new pattern exists. I hear the spider crying out in alarm, repeatedly protesting… Yet she, too, is subject to the patterns within her web. Only the wind is free, carrying her beeps of protest to my ears. I jerk awake — it's my alarm going off. I have a couple of seconds of total disorientation, then sit up, looking all around. This is still my bedroom in my parents’ house, where I remember falling asleep at three in the morning. I jump out of bed, and look in my dresser mirror… I’m still too young. I’m me, but a little too lean, with the faint stubble on my jaw a little too peachy. I’m teen-aged David Sand, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Considering the alternatives I can easily dream up, it probably is. Thinking of dreams, I try to remember any I might have had as I shower, and there’s nothing there but another spider dream. I try to remember the particulars, and think I have it. A short dream — I don't even know where I was in it, or if I was in it. I should write it down, though. That's

two spider dreams, a recurring pattern, which Mary would almost certainly say is significant. Shit, Mary. I get hard thinking about her, so hard that I have to grit my teeth to not jerk off in the soap and spray. Curious about the ferocity of my erection, I examine my penis. I'd swear that it's a little bit bigger than it used to be, and my balls are definitely enlarged. A mistaken detail that proves I'm dreaming this? Symbolic phaser-heated candle-balls made flesh? Fuck if I know. I'm just generally too big down there, and that's a fact — almost. Freshly frustrated by not knowing what's true, I deliberately narrow my focus to what's right in front of me, which is getting ready for school. It takes me a while to get my things together, because I have to become acquainted again with my clothing choices, my books and bags. I don’t remember exactly what I own and what I don’t own, and God help me when I’m sitting in class today, because what are the assignments, when are the tests, and can I even remember half the names of the teachers and classmates I’m supposed to know? I’ve had dreams like that, where I have a book report due and I never read the book, or there’s a test in front of me and I must have blanked on the need to study for it, because it all looks like gibberish. I could be dreaming something like that right now, or I could actually be going to school, and who’s to know the difference? It’s funny — either way, who gives a crap how I score on any test? It’s either unreal, or I already know that a few fractions up or down on my GPA are meaningless to my future. Everything is quiet down in the kitchen — normally my mom would have cereal out, and my dad would be reading the paper. I heard my dad snoring in their bedroom when I slipped in last night — they’re here, only they’re not here, getting ready for work in the patterns I remember. I fix coffee and put some granola with strawberries in a bowl, and sit on the front porch steps in the morning sun, trying to decide whether I can live like this, being this age again if that never changes. It will change — I didn’t stay this age before, and it’s safe to assume that I won’t now. Only… shit. I don’t have my own place, or my motorcycle, or my good cameras. Or my history. I’ve lost everything I ever owned and most of the non-childhood things I've done, including my high school diploma, my college degree. I’d have to repeat the whole shebang again, and watch the world go to hell again, knowing the crap to come ahead of time, watching disasters repeat themselves… I stop eating, because I think of Dan. If last night was The Pizza Escape night, the night I didn’t make love with Sophie the first time around, then Dan will be dead in a couple of days, drowned in a boating accident. I can’t let that happen — can I? How would I stop it? And if I could stop it, what other things should I try to prevent? My parents’ divorce? The 2/18 attack turning Australia into a lost continent? I don’t even want to go there when I’m not convinced that this reality is really real. But Dan is different — he’s Sophie’s dad, right here in town, and his hour of need is nearly here. I never got as close to him as I did Millie, but he’s a friend, and his loss was devastating to the entire community. He shouldn’t have died — everyone always said that, that his death was just plain wrong. If this is real and I know what I know, and I did nothing… I can’t do nothing. I think I have to try, although I can’t see myself telling Millie or anyone else that I’m from the future. She wouldn't believe me for one thing, and I wouldn’t have any way of proving it when I can’t even prove it to myself. “Beautiful morning,” I hear my mom say behind me.

I stand up, feeling like an imposter when she steps outside, and our eyes meet. My mom looks like an imposter, too — she’s too young and about ten pounds too thin, and dressed in a bathrobe, not her work clothes. I ask her what’s up, why she isn’t dressed. “Saturday is up. You don’t think I deserve a weekend?” Saturday! What a fucking relief! “When did you start drinking coffee?” she asks. I look at the cup in my hand, and remember that I barely touched the stuff until I left for college. I give a shoulder-shrug for an answer — I think I did that a lot back then, and it seems kind of rude to me now. My mom asks if I want some eggs and bacon, and I tell her that I just want to sit out in the sun, thinking some things over. She gives me a knowing look — I’m pretty sure it’s one of those “mother always knows” things, pertaining to how late I stayed out. That’s right, I have a hangover. Seven years of living and drinking in one night will do that to you. Sitting there, listening to the birds, brushing away the yellowjacket that arrives with an interest in the strawberries in my cereal bowl, I can see that I’m starting to believe in all of this. The sun emits light and heat, and my ass is beginning to get uncomfortable on the hard wood of the porch. My mom just behaved like my mom, too, even though I don’t think we ever had that particular exchange. And what choice do I have but to believe, really? If tomorrow follows today just like today seems to be following yesterday, am I supposed to boycott everything I see happening around me, declaring it to be false just because it should be false? I'm lost in these kinds of thoughts when I hear a porch door slam. Glancing to my left I see it’s Gina Marie, standing on her front stoop, all dressed up in her cheerleader’s uniform. She looks in my direction, sees me here… I give a slight nod, which was about the extent of our communication at this age. She’s going to an early practice, I guess, dressed in one of the ways it should have been illegal for her to dress, considering the effect she had on my penis and all the other functioning ones in town. After a few seconds I glance again, the same wish there as always, to get a good long peek at those boobs stretch-torturing her uniform top. The boobs are not where I expect them to be, because she’s walking in my direction, cutting across the grass. That never happened, did it? The blue and gold of her uniform shines brightly in the sun, and Jeezus Louizas, what was nature thinking when it granted this girl a set of whopping wonders like that? I think they were even huger in my apartment back in the future, but I never got to stare at them like this, absorbing their vastness, marveling at the way they move, the way they jut out like they know how incredible they are. “I saw you at The Pizza Escape last night,” Gina Marie says, coming to a stop just a few feet from me. I’m looking up at her, my head pretty much at her crotch level, and it’s the weirdest feeling, knowing how this blonde gazonga-goddess ended up begging me to squeeze those monster tits, so horn-crazed that she fucked my pecker into needing therapy. The pecker in question must be learning-disabled, too, because it’s tingling with the same energy that was its undoing before. I shift uncomfortably, concerned that my dick is going to stand up and salute so exuberantly that it will make a fool out of me. “You took a picture of me from your table,” she adds, and I kind of remember doing that with a digital camera so primitive that I'm embarrassed to own it. “Can I ask why?”

We definitely did not have this conversation before. I have a moment of feeling that deer in the headlights thing… But fuck that — I wanted to try to get a shot of Gina Marie’s headlights, and that doesn’t make me a bad guy, just a guy into photography who wondered whether it’s even possible to fit these boobs within a picture frame. “Gina Marie… You’re like the ninth and tenth wonders of the natural world. I mean…” I look up the length of her strong legs, my eyes resting meaningfully on the school letters being distorted by bucket-fulls of tit. "Just think how many people take pictures of the Grand Canyon. People like to document the… the remarkable. It's human nature." She stands there without saying anything, and it's just enough time for me to regret the Grand Canyon metaphor. I suppose she could take that the wrong way if she wanted to. Hell, she could take my existence the wrong way, and I always thought she did. So why is she here, when she wasn't before? “Look," I say, needing to challenge the extended silence. "I haven’t even had a chance to see whether you showed up in the low light. There might not even be anything there. But I’ll delete the picture if you want, or…” “No, that’s not what I want.” She hesitates and I expect her to mutter “don't ever point a camera at me again”, or something like that. Instead she just stands there breathing, which is quite an event. “That’s not what you want either,” she finally says. “What do you mean?” “You want to photograph me?” Suddenly I can't even breathe. “Of… course?” I venture, bracing for the unseen trap. More epic breathing — in fact we've become respiration opposites, because I can't draw in a breath, and her breathing is like the sunlight finally finding something big and round like the sun to rest upon comfortably. The tops of her tits are awash in brilliance, what’s under that uniform much bigger than two suns from where I’m sitting. “Let me think about it,” she says, as though I actually proposed something here. “We’ll… talk.” She turns and steps onto the lawn making her way towards her car, and I finally exhale: “We will?” And then I’m left with a dozen new questions, added to the well-known Gina Marie backside conundrum — part of her tits are still visible even from behind, so do you look at that particular wonder when she walks away, or at the curvy behind and the legs that are almost as wondrous? Good God it’s still hard being around this girl. Painfully hard.

Chapter Twelve — Second Chances I am not a maker of lists by nature, mostly because I have a hard time sticking to them. Nevertheless, I spend part of this early Saturday morning on my computer in my bedroom, trying to organize my thoughts. They need organizing, because every minute that passes, in a past that my senses confirm as real, tells me I have an often horny and sometimes-slackerish teen on my hands. He’s a kid named David Sand, and let me tell you — some potential there, but it never came together for him, and then the world fell apart under his feet. He got a few moments where he could spread his wings and fly, and it might be a sign of good

judgment that he didn't try flying too close to the sun. Then again, it might only be that he was too focused on getting laid. On a mission to set the poor guy’s life straight from my position of superior experience and utter existential confusion, I come up with a hierarchy of must-do’s, which goes like this: 1. Write down what I remember of every dream I’ve had since I stopped recording them. Multiple times now I’ve missed rather obvious warnings from the subconscious mind, and it’s disconcerting as hell that I’ve had two dreams featuring a poisonous spider. 2. Call Sophie. We hooked up last night and that was not a casual thing. A phone call early today is a must. 3. Fuck Sophie again. I think my dick came up with that one all by itself, so I question whether it’s actually number three. My dick probably cut in line. What a dick. 4. Figure a way to keep Sophie’s father off that boat. In fact, try to have the entire fishing trip scrubbed. 5. Believe that I’m really here until something proves otherwise. For better or worse, I appear to be living a life where somebody pushed a reset button. It might be hard being a teen again, but I think I’d go batshit if I constantly resisted the evidence bombarding my senses. 6. Do not stress over successfully altering the future. It looks like I can, because Sophie and I got in each other’s pants last night. Good — the future I know sucks. It needs changing. 7. Believing that I know the future, figure a way to use that knowledge to make some dough. Nothing horribly illegal, just immoral. Which still makes me too clean for most positions in corporate America. 8. Get decent camera equipment a.s.a.p. Obvious. 9. Get a motorcycle. I mean, what an opportunity. A bike just like my old one would almost be new. I look at these things and I think I can do them, although some of it will take more time than I’d wish. I go back to number one and start to think about the recent dreams I’ve had… And I get this niggling need to add to the list, rather than writing down the dreams. That’s probably why lists don’t work for me, because my mind keeps getting excited about new things, and the early stuff quickly feels old. Crap, everything is old to me in this reality, except me. Like this yuckbox of a desktop, with dial-up internet instead of high-speed. Duh. 10. Get a computer that isn’t a piece of crap, and high speed internet. If it's even available here yet. 11. Figure out what’s up with Gina Marie. Is she really contemplating a photo shoot of some kind? Why? What does it mean? 12. Try to lucid dream when I sleep. I need to find out what I can still do in my dreams, and what I can’t. 13. Find Mary Poole. That last one is for no particular reason — I just feel like I have to. And I must be superstitious, because I

don’t like seeing Mary’s name next to unlucky number thirteen. I employ elevator logic by leaving thirteen a blank, making her number fourteen, and — big surprise — I upend the purpose of the list by starting right there, clicking on my tortoise browser and typing her name into the search engine. After a bit of waiting, I see that there are a lot of Mary Poole’s around. I need to type something else to bring the search closer, only I don’t know crap about Mary, do I? I’m pretty sure that she’s my age, or close to it — she’d be a junior in high school, or perhaps a senior. But fuck, that’s all I know. I have no middle name, no exact date or place of birth, no idea where she grew up or where she went to school, no parents’ names, no hobbies, no nothing. She could be a cheerleader, or a debate team leader, or a singer in an obscure band, or touring with the freaking circus… I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to think. We talked about my dreams, then hers, and the rest happened in on a bed. I never got to know anything about her, except that she had life-altering sex dreams in her teens, and she got a degree in behavioral science. With nothing else coming to mind, I try adding “behavioral science”, and get nowhere. What did I expect — she wouldn’t have studied that yet. I try her name with “dreams”, and that doesn’t help either. I got nuttin'. And what would I do if I found her? She doesn’t know me here — she barely knew me there. Stymied, I glance at the top of the list, then re-begin at the beginning by creating a new folder named “Dream Notebook”, and start writing down what I can remember. The dream about the Enterprise bridge feels selfexplanatory — my mind was fucked up from whatever they were doing to me at the facility, and that disorientation carried into the subconscious. All the rest was like a gathering of previous symbols, culminating in crossing the bridge, which was either a real time-bridge or… Or nothing, per number five above. Only two things strike me as being peculiar. The first is the insignia on Mary’s uniform, of a snake eating its tail. That symbol has shown up in so many dreams now that I’d be a fool to keep ignoring it. I need to know what it is, and why it won’t let go. The other oddity in that dream is Mary, telling me to remember how much she loves me. I keep thinking of that as the real Mary tearfully letting go, but the real Mary never got the chance to say those words. They were uttered by a dream woman, a figure inside my own head. So what does it mean to have an anima figure say goodbye like that? I don’t really know, but it’s no coincidence that the helpful and sexy dream women appeared right when the butterfly pattern came into being. Could it be that the new potential to relate with myself within my own sleeping head knew it was being killed off, my brain/body connections returning to normal, that special ability feeling the need to say farewell? That’s one of those loopy ideas I’m almost afraid to ponder, because it makes me feel sort of weepy, like a piece of me did die, or sacrificed itself so I could be here now. Moreover, I’d have to assume that I always knew, deep down, that I’d end up back here contemplating these questions, because the messages about crossing the bridge appeared early on. However that happened, the bridge served as an escape hatch to back here, where I could flee the consequences of all the mind-sex — the heat — that I’ve understood needed to be there for the bridge to ever be formed. It’s like a circle of cause and effect, a real loop, where what created the means of escape also created the need to escape in the first place. I make myself type that idea, followed by what I recall of the dream where I created a clay statue of Mary. It was the beauty of her body that got to me, especially when I carved her further, making everything almost ridiculously sexy. If that version of Mary was also a dream woman, not the real one, then what would it mean that she came to life when my spunk sprayed on her? Is she also a symbol of the new connections that

were formed, the unique alignments fueled by a newly available amount of sexual energy? I think that’s mostly right. The changes I made to the Mary statue were really tiny — except for her tits, which became so freakin' sexy that I really must not think about them if I want to get anywhere here — yet that little bit of tweaking created a creature that just oozed sexuality. I get the feeling that the changes to my brain in the lab were exactly like that, just a few itsy-bitsy enhancements cascading into all that heightened sexual need, and the miraculous abilities that appeared to satisfy that need. Only not all of the enhancements were symbolic. I stayed hard non-stop with Sophie last night, and if any of being here is real, then my balls are for-real bigger than they used to be. Somehow when I ended up back here, one of the things I dreamed about resulted in physical changes to my actual body. It’s possible that the other enhancements, the lucid dream abilities, followed me here, too… But if so, why would the dream Mary need to say goodbye like that? I won’t know the answer to that one until I lucid dream, if I can. I had those kinds of dreams before entering the lab, but extremely rarely. And if I can still do weird stuff while in my light body, I’ll need to be a hundred times smarter this time, to avoid repeating my mistakes. I think about how awful that all became; I mean, I’m not going to lie — getting all that sex was fabulous. But except for Mary, they all became too deranged, like their brains were nothing more than an extension of their snarling pussies. And what they did to my poor dick in their fuck-frenzied state… Shivering, I go to the dream with the black widow spider being stalked by a scorpion. Other than a sense of extreme danger, maybe even evil, I’m not sure what to think. I had that dream as everything was turning to shit, my cock being damaged from too much fucking, the cops and possibly Eduardo in my apartment. It could be that I sensed all of that around me, the sting of the scorpion representing the physical pain my body felt, the spider a symbol for… I don’t know, maybe Eduardo, or the NSA with its tangled web of deceit. That explanation sounds pretty good, but it feels wrong. If it was just that, then why have another spider dream here in the past? The NSA couldn't have followed me here, could they? The newest spider dream has few clues because it was kind of story-less, focusing on the black widow maintaining her web after it was damaged by the wind. Or repairing it. Repairing it like Eduardo said, “We changed his brain; we’ll change it back”? Or is it more like the way I’m thinking of repairing what’s going to happen to Dan, trying to alter an unfortunate event that's part of my history? I write all of that down, wishing I could ask Mary for help. Being back here I've not only lost Mary as a lover, I've lost the one person I knew who could help me unravel these images. Either I need to become a thousand times better at reading dream symbols, or I need someone trained or gifted in the art to help me. Which prods me into adding another important thing to my to-do list: 15. Get some books on symbols, or find someone with a gift for dream interpretation. Maybe… Millie? I don’t know if reading the I Ching is anything like reading a dream, but it’s a place I might start. I need to talk with her today anyway, because number four is calling out to me, and I have to do it, even if I’m not sure how. “Dan will not die like he did,” I speak out loud, thinking positively. “I won’t let him.” Am I talking to myself when I say that? I sure hope so, because I’d hate to think whom I might be challenging.

*** I call Sophie, which means I can scratch two things off the list now. She sounds drowsy, her voice all low and sexy with sleep. She’s happy to hear from me, and doesn’t waste much time in asking whether I want to get together in the evening, where we can find someplace private to… talk. Her annunciation of the word “talk” is not very different from having her lips reach right through the phone to wrap around my dick. I have a question about Sophie's sexual enthusiasm; it's not so much a to-do, so I didn’t write it down. But I want to know — has she been affected by the dream commands I aimed into her from the future? It sure seemed that way last night, with her tits so amazingly responsive, her need so extreme. The only way I can answer the question is to keep fucking her, watching to see if she goes sex-deranged or can keep things more together. It’s the kind of science experiment I can get enthusiastic about, so I reply to her usage of suggestive language by telling her that I might want to talk with her for hours tonight, coating her body in adjectives and rubbing them everywhere, maybe even slipping a few adjectives inside of her. Sophie makes a sound so delicious that I feel like I’m right there in bed with her, watching a finger slip into a dripping slit. “Make sure you rub some adjectives on my breasts,” she plays along. “You don’t know… how much I’m dying to feel your words there. I can’t stop thinking about how that felt last night. If your… words, get to me like that again… I might become…” “Excited,” I say. “Stiff. Engorged.” “Oh! I’m… touching them…” I believe her, and draw out the word, “tex-tur-al”, hoping it will glide right around her beautiful nipples like my tongue wants to do. She hisses on the line, and it isn’t an act. Making sure that my door is locked, I slip off my pants and underwear, grabbing hold of my straining cock. I’m not going to masturbate — it’s obvious that I’ll get Sophie soon enough, and that we’ll fuck like rabbits again. I take the opportunity to inspect my equipment as she tells me how she couldn’t sleep for hours, her body getting all reheated every time she thought about how tight I felt inside of her. It really was a tight fit. I’ve always had a biggish dick, but I think it’s even thicker now, and maybe half an inch longer? I cup the palm of my free hand under my balls, trying to measure, and would guess that I’ve gained an extra third or so of mass there. “…some place warmer and softer than the ground beside the bay,” Sophie says, her voice still husky. I didn’t catch all that, but I get it. We need a place to be, away from our parents with a roof over our heads. No problem in the future, when I live in a college dorm, or later have my lopsided apartment. But here at seventeen the options are limited. “God I want you in my mouth again,” she tells me, all breathy. “Keep telling me what you like when we’re together, and how you like it. I want to learn, David. I want to drive you fucking crazy…” “Sophie… Maybe you’re not aware, but my penis is listening in on this conversation. It’s very demanding, and says to tell you that if your folks are working at the diner, I could come over right now.”

“This evening,” she repeats. “I’ll make it worth the wait, I promise. My dad’s off today and he’s puttering around the house. Besides, I think I want to go to the mall today where I might, oh I don’t know, browse Victoria’s Secret to see what I see.” Definitely a gifted tease. She’ll increase the sexiness of whatever she chooses, but that isn’t what I’m thinking about now, because I suddenly remember a detail from this day. Dan got brand new boat shoes — they were on his body when he was found — and some other things for his overnight fishing trip. Today is Saturday, and I think he leaves tomorrow, early Sunday morning. It can’t happen. Either I have to confront him, try to head him off somehow, or… Millie. And Millie it is. *** “Sophie’s out shopping,” she says in way of greeting. “I could be convinced to tell you where if you mow my lawn and promise to build that deck on the back of the house.” I probably wince, because I remember how hot she was for a deck, and then how she lost any interest after Dan passed. It feels so strange being here, under the same curved roof as my yesterday, with Millie looking spooky-wonderful, much younger than the version who helped me out in a time that hasn’t happened yet. She was still a fine-looking woman in the future, only now I see how losing Dan aged her a bit extra. She looks really good here, the main reason why Sophie looks so good. “I’m here because I need to talk with you,” I say, putting about fifty hash brown orders of determination in my voice. “Can you carve out ten minutes?” Her eyes dance around the diner — it’s the late breakfast crowd, and it truly is a crowd compared to seven years from now. I can see for myself that things are too busy. She only has one young waitress as help, and she’s going to put me off until later. “It’s really urgent, Millie. I don’t know how else to put it. We have to have this conversation now.” Her eyes narrow. She whispers, “Sophie’s pregnant?” I can’t help but laugh. I’ve been wondering whether she might be able to sense that her daughter and I hooked up last night, and here she’s telling me that she thinks we’ve been at it for weeks or months. “No, no, it’s not that. Please, Millie. Just ten minutes. Somehow.” Her eyes tell me she’s acquiesced, although she doesn’t look happy about it. I take a seat in the most private booth available and she uses the black phone behind the counter — no cell yet — to call for back up. In less than fifteen minutes a thirty-ish woman arrives to spell her. I know that woman, has an ailing mother in a nursing home… Can’t remember her name, a problem I’ll probably have to deal with for a few days. “Shoot,” Millie says, sitting across with a cup of hot tea warming her hands. “This had better be damned important.” I’ve rehearsed some of it in my head, but nothing ever sounds right. “Dan’s going on a fishing trip,” I begin.

“That’s right. Leaves tomorrow morning.” “You can’t let him get on that boat.” “Why not?” “You just can’t, Millie. In fact, the boat shouldn’t go out at all.” The friendly eyes go wary. “Somebody did something to Phil’s boat? What do you know, David?” “Just that Dan can’t go on that trip, because it has tragedy written all over it. I… can’t explain it any better than that. You just have to trust me on this. You have to.” “Dan and Phil Wheeler have had this fishing thing planned for weeks. Dan’s going, and I’d just like to see you try to stop him.” “You have to stop him, then. He’ll listen to you. That’s why I’m here.” She looks deep into me, silently probing, and I try to let everything I know rise onto the surface of my face somehow, hoping all to hell like she can pluck the truth out of my flesh on some unseen I Ching frequency or whatever. “Dan will listen to me,” she finally says. “He’d put up a hell of a fight but I’d win, because I always win. So you came to the right place, with the right idea. Only… why should I listen to you? I really like you David — we've always been close, and I know how Soph feels about you. But just coming at me with this… this… request… I don’t know what to make of it, I really don’t.” This is where I rehearsed — never to my satisfaction — some kind of rambling monologue about whether she remembers how I used to have dreams about crossing a bridge, and how I was always afraid to do it. I have this idea that I can tell her that she’s standing in front of a bridge right now, she and Dan together, only they can’t see that it’s there. She needs to cross it right now, and the only way to do that is to just trust me, to have blind faith that I know what I’m talking about, and not let Dan get on that boat. In some ways it’s a great and impassioned speech in my mind, suitable for cinema. Only there won’t be any swelling string accompaniment to pull at her heart, and what do I do when she simply replies, “No, this is crazy”, or, “I won’t lift a finger until you tell me how you think you know this thing you can’t tell me”. And Millie is a sensible woman, so why wouldn’t she answer like that? “David, I’m afraid I can’t…” she’s beginning to say, her hands on the table like she’s about to get up. “Your coins!” I blurt out, the words present almost before the thought is. “You don’t have to take my word for it, because you’ll trust your coins! Just do a reading on…” “How do you know about that?” she asks, her voice hard and low. She glances sideways to see whether anyone is listening to what we’re talking about. “Did you and Sophie…” “No, no. I just… I just know, Millie. You have that little box with the coins your mother gave you, and…” “Jesus! How do you know that?”

“I can’t tell. You just have to…” “Now listen here — I don’t play around with this stuff, David Sand. It’s a very serious business to me, and I don’t… I can’t believe we’re…” She’s turning red, almost looking like she could take her teacup and smack my head with it. I’m guessing that she never told people back now about her mom passing those coins to her, so what I’ve said just doesn’t compute, or she thinks I’ve spied on a hidden diary or something. I’m deep into it, and there’s nothing to do but double-down. “Millie, I know you only do a reading when somebody is in a true emergency situation. You’re in one, only you don’t know it. Can we just go that far? If you can’t trust me enough, then trust your coins. They’ll help you. They’ll show you.” She’s staring at me. Just staring, with an expression suffused with so many contradictory things that it begins to hurt and I have to look away. I’ve either failed, or placed Dan’s life in the roll of three coins, as though I know they won’t mislead, which I don’t. I feel all charged, and scared, and when I bring my focus back to Millie, she’s already pushing out of the seat, showing me that our conversation is over. I open my mouth and she shakes her head vigorously, shutting me up. “Not one more word about it,” she says. “Not to Dan, not to Sophie, not anyone ever. You promise me that.” “But…” “You promise me that, David. Hope to die.” “I… promise,” I say, wishing she hadn’t put it that way. And that’s the end of it. *** Time must be malleable, because the next seven hours pass like they’re seventy-seven. I’m anxious about Millie and Dan, and fill the afternoon by brainstorming on a place where Sophie and I might be able to go at each other without getting cold or bitten. Bill Perkins' cabins come to mind — cabin three served me beautifully in the future, and I might be able to work out some sort of yard work deal with Bill, occasionally renting a cabin through sweat equity. Doesn't do it for me, because the word would get around, and it feels kind of like sacred space belonging to Mary, or sex with Mary. Thinking outside the box, I get this inspired idea — unless it’s more crazy than inspired — which leads me into the city, where I have a totally strange encounter with my future landlord, Mr. Johnson. He doesn’t know me for boo, but I know him, and all the stories he’s told about his grown kids, his collection of rare baseball cards, the time he met Cal Ripken, the history of the hardware store’s founding. Without being too obvious, I use my wealth of biographical leverage to establish one of those instant connections that rarely happens, and in about forty minute's time I'm the newly adopted sort-of son/grandson. We strike a deal where I’ll provide free carpentry work on the unfinished upstairs apartment — my apartment — in exchange for being able to use it every now and then as my totally informal love shack.

It’s a real kick, touring the space I know so well in its half-finished state. All the mismatched windows are already in place, with several of the crooked walls blocked in with two-by-four studs and occasionally some unfinished drywall. The kitchen is nonexistent, the electricity not yet going. I’m lucky in that the bathroom fixtures work, even if the bathroom itself is nothing but wood studs with a ceiling and raw floor, not a bit of privacy. My bedroom is filled with carpentry debris and piping, and I clear it all away, opening all the windows as I sweep to let the wind carry the dust where it will. When I’m finished the space is not at all presentable, but it’s relatively clean. I buy a futon mattress from an incense-filled store that won’t be on this block in a few years, along with a small table and some candles. I pick out some sheets with Navajo-like symmetrical designs in rust and black, and the effect in the primitive bedroom is construction-nouvea with a New-Age Spartan twist, which will have to do for tonight. Back home I shower, feeling kind of edgy. It’s understandable — the testicles I soap and rinse are far too big, and I still don’t know whether Dan is planning to get on that boat. If he is, I’ll have to go down to the launch in the morning and… I don’t know, maybe hit him with a baseball bat or something. I’m sure he’ll love me for that, especially when he learns I’m also boning his beautiful daughter. All this anxiety is amplified, because my nerves are in that state where they pretty much believe I’m going to make love with a really hot girl later in the night. And I might be — it all depends on Millie, or her mother’s coins, or the whims of whatever mystical things drive readings like that. I was going to pick up Sophie at eight, but she calls ahead of time, and tells me she’s coming to get me instead. “My mom and dad are having a terrible row,” she speaks in hushed tones into the phone. “I’ve got to get out of here!” I take it as a good sign, although I’m not really sure until after our first passionate kiss inside Sophie’s car. “I don’t even know if I want to go back home tonight,” she begins. “My dad bought all this new fishing gear today, and when he got home my mom came at him like four days of fishing is no different than going to Las Vegas to screw a bunch of bellydancers or something. She was, like… demonic!” “So is your dad still going?” “No way. She won’t let him, even though he’s been looking forward to it for weeks.” “Any chance he’ll ignore her, and just do it?” “Nope. She has these… these ways, of controlling him. She doesn’t play fair.” “What ways?” Sophie laughs, dimples deepening. “Is it too gross to think about your parents having sex?” I get a mental picture of Millie as she is now… Truth is, she's pretty fucking hot. So I picture my parents going at each other in bed, which they’ll be doing much less of fairly soon. “Maybe. Probably.” “You might have noticed that my mom is still a good-looking woman. I think she… She’s probably good in bed, is all. She has this box hidden at the back of her bedroom closet, filled with little outfits and… things. She’d probably die if she knew I knew about it. Anyway, whenever they get too angry with each other, they disappear for hours, and afterwards my dad’s like a sleepwalker with a cartoon grin drawn on his face. When I was a kid I thought mom must practice voodoo on him, the way he’d suddenly change. Anyway,

it’s safe to say they won’t notice how late I come in tonight.” “I think I might envy them.” “That’s bullshit. I’ve seen how much power a woman can wield from knowing how to turn a man to jelly in bed, and I’m going to learn how to do that, too. With you.” “I feel like I just might be the luckiest guy in the world.” “You are,” the full lips confirm. “Then you must believe you can keep up with me.” “You fucker!” she laughs, reaching over to give my cock a too-hard squeeze. “Are you challenging me? Because if you are…” “You’ll what?” “Tell me where to drive and I’ll show you what.” I can cross Dan off my list, too. Only I think I just added a new one, because in my mind I see: 16. Goad Sophie when it comes to sex. Because she’ll fall for it. Because she wants to fall for it. *** I give Sophie the candlelight tour through our very own slice of crooked construction privacy. She giggles when she sees the futon set up on the floor, asking how on earth I came across the place. I decide that rather than concoct some white lie, I’m just going to slip my hands under her blouse and start pinching her nipples, to see whether that knocks the silly questions out of her head. It does. With the manipulation of her tits producing the same kind of effect as the night before, I don’t think she’s even sure where she is after a couple of minutes. It could be that these very fine breasts were always itching to be fondled by me, because I was always The One for them. Either that or my dream commands leaped back into time right along with me, gifting this girl with nipples so sensitive to my touch that I can send her into a convulsive orgasmic state just by going at them hard enough. I want to think it’s the latter. I will think it’s the latter, because if I got bigger balls somehow, why couldn’t Sophie end up with nuclear nipples? I send them into critical mass almost entirely with my tongue, making them glisten, their thrilling texture defined by the wavering light of the candles. With her naked body a pale yellow-orange shape writhing on the Navajo background of the sheets, Sophie comes, arms and legs thrashing, her vocal chords stressing. Thankfully it’s a cool night, so when I have her in a more breathless condition I take a moment to lower the windows I have partway opened, afraid that someone will call the police. There is an addictive element in having a girlfriend who can come just from having her beautiful breasts manhandled enough. I search for a way of blending our desires by smearing her boobs with her juices, and guiding her into fucking my cock with her tits. She might not have even realized it, but with some side pressure from her hands, Sophie has enough up top to do it. We could use more lubricant… And I've no sooner had the thought when she directs me to get the baby oil from the bag she brought along. I like the

way my girlfriend thinks ahead. I like it even more when we resume the tit-fuck, my big cock gliding inside of cleavage made all slick and shiny. It's hard to say which of us enjoys this more — she has two tits to my one dick, but she comes elsewhere, whereas I explode right where we're fucking. Sophie smears my cum into the mix, making her soft flesh even slipperier, and we just keep going, the tit-fucking faster and harder, me coming again from the glorious bouncing boob-job, Sophie coming again and again as my fingers twist and pull at her nipples. In time she draws me to her body, and we just lie there together, panting, reeling, smiling open-mouthed while staring up at that familiar — to me — crooked ceiling. Barely able to speak, Sophie hoarsely asks what I’d like next. “Because I’ll do anything you want,” she adds. “I mean that, David. Nothing is out of bounds… if it turns you on. I’m yours. Oh God, I’m yours, I’m yours…” I could tease her, telling her that she’s getting everything backward, that if she’s going to be the expert she seems to think her mother is, I’m the one who’s supposed to be expressing that kind of devotion. It isn’t a moment to tease her, not in that way. I do tease her, though, with an index finger that wets itself inside her pussy, then slides with deliberate craft to her anus, applying just a bit of pressure. I could never get Sharon or my other smattering of future girlfriends to go there, to try. They might have liked it. I might have liked it, only I don’t even know. “Anything,” Sophie whispers, arching her body so my finger slides in of itself. I probe, amazed by the grip. She gasps some, then takes my wrist to pull my finger out. “I thought even more ahead,” she grins, standing, telling me she’ll be right back. By candlelight I watch her duck between studs, taking her sex-condiment bag with her. Pretending that I can’t see her every movement in the next room, she slips her legs into black fishnet stockings, her torso wrapped inside a waist-scrunching corset with sinful undercups that lift her tits into two milky-fleshed meals. When she returns to the bed, I can’t help thinking that she looks like a blonde angel of sex to Mary’s dark one, and this fallen angel has a tube of thicker lubricant in her hand. We detour a bit as I dine on the breasts so scrumptiously displayed, which gets her screaming again, and gets me driving my dick inside her pussy, getting it all wet, and getting Sophie primed. I don’t skimp on the jelly when I'm ready, and then she’s on all fours with her back arched, offering herself to me. I just love the bubbly shape of this girl's ass, and it’s a slow smooth glide inside, Sophie uttering drawn out moans and surprised gasps with only half of my cock spreading her open. A cautious rocking minute of experimentation morphs into a harder boob-swaying rhythm, morphing again into deep satisfied gasps, breathy urging to go faster and harder, my hands wrapping around to compress her tits, digging into the flesh around her nipples, pulling them out and twisting, deep-milking her supernaturally sensitive tits as we rock below, her ass smacking hard, ripping me into the most forceful coming of the night, this night of nearmiracle tightness and breathless cries, hearing “Oh God Yes! Yes!” repeated at full volume, this exquisite girl I never got to fuck nearly mindless with hard-assed fucking come true, her gorgeous young late bloomer of a body accepting my cock again and again, front, back, fucking it, sucking it, going at each other until our hormones are eventually placated, passion turned to exhaustion, panting into the night sounds of the city, which lull us towards sleep. I blow out the candles and we lie there spooned together, my front absorbing Sophie’s warmth, thoughts fluttering without direction from the present to a future that feels like the past. I didn’t think of it like this when I finagled my way back into this shell of an apartment, but I have the sense that I’m repairing the future somehow. I had a couple of awful breaking-up fights with Sharon in this very room, and my last

moments in this space involved blood, and the cops, and three deranged women whose minds had become like something out of an X-rated Invasion of the Hormone Snatchers film. Sophie can go crazy-horny, too, but only when we’re fucking, or preparing to fuck. I suppose things could change, but so far I can’t see where she’ll end up in a straightjacket, blathering to anyone about how much she needs my dick pounding into her. I sigh a two a.m. sigh, awake with my body all sex-relaxed. I didn’t ask to be a teen again, just like I never asked to have my brain tinkered with. I’m not completely comfortable with being here in this time, in this younger body… At the same time, I’m being given a second chance. I can do things better, can maybe even make some things better. I’ve been here just one day, and Sophie’s entire family has a different destiny. I might have an altered destiny, too, which seems like a very good thing. I can see where every day that passes will take me farther away from a replay of events just as they happened before, which I have mixed feelings about. Which things are important to hang onto, and what do I willingly let go of? I could give up living in this apartment again, for instance, without shedding too many tears. Too much history here, and if I had the money to do something different, something better, why wouldn’t I try that? I’ll have to examine those feelings often, I suppose — whether to feel nostalgic for some experience already lived, or whether to strike out in a new direction to see where it leads. It could be fun to do some crazy things I never really considered before — a road trip across the country, perhaps, or an extended trip to France. Just as long as I get my cameras back, and my motorcycle. I mean, some things are non-negotiable. And Mary Poole? Would I do her again, the same or very differently? I can kind of see her as my awareness gets more fuzzy, sometimes mistaking Sophie’s warmth for the touch of Mary’s body. I’m in love with two women, which is socially and ethically problematic. Unless all the rules don’t apply, because I don’t even know one of the women yet. No one woman will ever be enough; we both know that. Yeah, we do. Because there is no Sophmary Morapoole. I don’t even think I could have sculpted a wonder of womanhood like that. *** I stare at the list glowing eerily on my computer screen. I wrote it up just today, so why can’t I remember the reasons behind the strange numbering system? The numbers aren’t the typical 1, 2, 3… Rather, I typed them out as 2/1, 2/2, 2/3. I think it must be that I was preoccupied with the idea of second chances, so I made the numbers reflect that. I’ve already taken some second chances, and succeeded at improving things. It looks like that from my perspective, anyway. I skim my notes, my eyes stopping at 2/6. That one reads: Do not stress over successfully altering the future. I remember writing that. What I don’t remember is drawing the little symbol that follows, of a snake eating its tail. I skim down and see that I drew the same thing after 2/14: Find Mary Poole.

I’m pretty sure that I added that symbol because these two things are related, something about the second chances especially important. Checking ahead, I see one item on the list I don’t remember typing in at all: 2/17, which reads: Save my parents from splitting up. No snake symbol afterwards, but this one stands out because I’ve crossed through it, as though I changed my mind. I shouldn’t keep my parents’ marriage from unraveling? Why, because I shouldn’t, or because I can’t? Feeling uneasy, I scroll down to the next one, which is the very last one. 2/18. Nothing is written afterwards, but the spine-chilling numbers do not sit alone. I’ve drawn the snake symbol multiple times here, which makes me feel… Anxious? Determined? Scared? All of the above, I think. But mostly just too weak, and far too small.