Nightmare Lover

Thrashing in the throes of dreams had become common for her. Waking to the tears on her cheeks or skin crawling from some horror was routine. She sat up in the dark with her arms tight around her calves and rested her forehead on her knees. Slow breaths. She takes slow breaths as the latest alien, unreal sensation slips from her skin. She concentrates on pushing it down until only a tingle in her toes remains.

She lifts her head and her hair falls in a spill down her back. Looking into the corner she sees something not right. This isn't unusual, so she stays still. Sometimes she is still dreaming when she thinks she has woken up. Gooseflesh rises and her head lowers a little, warily, watching.

Stepping from the corner is a man. He has wings. He is undeniably the most attractive sight she has ever seen. Even as she watches him move for only a few seconds, his appearance changes to suit his intent. He's beautiful. He's fascinating. He smiles and says "Yeeeeah. I love that look." He stops to let her drink him in. She's not scared. Her breath is gone, but she's not scared. She says "What look?" He steps forward and takes a handful of her hair, pulling her head back. Her eyes are closed and inside her head they've rolled back, adding to her sense of imbalance, helplessness and anticipation. He starts at her collarbone and nibbles there, then bites a path along her neck, settling to ravage her mouth with a kiss. Her breath is back with a vengeance and her heart starts to pound. His mouth works its way to her ear and he whispers "That look. The one that says you'd do anything for me."

Her voice is teasing "I won't, you know. Everyone knows I'm stubborn." His laugh echoes in her ear and he lifts her and settles her gently in his lap, rubbing her shoulders until she moans with soft appreciation. His mouth is back at her ear and he says "Sure you will. Did you hear that? That moan says the same thing. I love that moan too."

She shrugs, but not enough to interrupt his rhythm. "I look and I moan. That's not much of a resume. Oh God, yes, right there."

His voice was by her ear again, and her spine melts by degrees with each syllable. "I love it when you say 'Oh God, yes' too. I know you're talking to me."

Her head swivels and she looks at him in mild pretend shock. "Okay, you're gorgeous, you're not that gorgeous."

He leans forward and stares at her, capturing her gaze for a long moment, his hand comes to grip her chin in strong fingers. Her skin feels to her like it's glowing. "That's your problem. You think the Gods are too busy to want anything to do with you. But you're wrong. We want lots to do with you. Lots."

Her breath is gone again, but her brows draw together and she says "What is this? I start a sexual fantasy and I get philosophy. I'm supposed to believe that God wants to hump me?"

He laughs and takes her hand, kissing it and holding it between his own, tangling his fingers with hers. "I wouldn't choose exactly that phrasing, which is of course why you did it. But yes, I suppose that's your Lord's Prayer. "Oh Almighty, please bringeth me a Mighty Humping."

She grins "With you as my Lord? I'm starting to see a pattern here. Really, do we have to call lust divine?"

He yanks her off balance, pulls her back hard against his chest, kissing at her neck again. "Yes. It's divine." He goes about convincing her ruthlessly. His hands stroke her breasts and his tongue traces the back of her neck, followed by his teeth. One hand remains enveloping one of her breasts, massaging. His other hand reached down to stroke between her legs, positioning her knees to the outside of his by skimming his hand along the inside of her thighs one at a time, slowly, hooking her knees along the outside of his thighs. Then he opens his own legs slowly, stretching her thighs apart and pressing her ass back against his cock. He watches her intently and sets about producing the exact moan he wants to hear from her. Her back arches into his chest and her head rolls across his shoulder in abandon. His fingers slip inside her, savoring the heat. His thumb presses gently against her clit and then releases, repeating, always one hairsbreadth too far away from satisfaction for her. She has to arch up into his fingers and then draw back when he suddenly thrusts and it's painful, too deep, too hard. She twists helplessly against his throbbing and appreciative cock and hears his laughter in her ear. He keeps her off balance until she's whimpering. He answers every soft little sound she makes with a reverberating whisper into her ear. Pleasure and frustration rise off her like heat waves in a mirage. He whispers little words of her beauty, her pleasure, and above all, her helplessness in his arms. He wrings breathless concessions from her body and mind inch by torturous inch. He knows exactly when she would start to beg if he asked her to. He doesn't ask her to beg. She wants to, which is why he won't let her. She's going to be denied even that. Especially that. He's waiting, watching, a little smile playing on his lips and then he hears it, the exact moan he wanted. He savors the sound and his hands withdraw from her. He pitches his voice in a perfect challenge and tells her not to make another sound. She bites her lip and strains against her own body and that is beautiful. He drinks it in. His hands slide down her forearms and restrain her wrists on the sides of his thighs, spreading her palms flat against his skin and muscle, holding them there with his fingers interspaced with hers like prison bars. He smiles and his head tilts back as her nails dig into his skin with frustration. He draws out the sense of curious detachment while her senses gather. He doesn't speak until her breathing has evened out and he's sure he can make sense of what he says. His voice is scholarly. He says "Okay, maybe lust is not always divine. Sometimes it's awkward. Sometimes it's just downright wrong."

She's angry now, heedless, and bites out "So every time I fuck you, an angel gets its wings?"

His voice sounds deeply offended but spiced with appreciation, his cock throbbing against her ass something of a distraction to both of them. "Screw angels. No sense of humor. I'm talking Gods, not servants."

Her head turns to the side and she stares at him, shaking her wrists. She looks at him meaningfully like she needs the things, like he's stupid for not taking the hint. She stares imperiously until he releases her with an indulgent nod. Then she sits up straight and throws her hands up in the air "Okay, so what does that make me? What am I Goddess of?"

He leans back on his elbows to push her further off balance, her thighs are still spread wide and his finger slides along the crease of her thigh and hip. He says "Me."

Her hands are crossed over her breasts now in mock pique. She rakes him with her eyes and then dismisses him as unworthy, the clear implication that he simply couldn't satisfy her, not that he chose not to. She says "Beside that."

He considers again for a moment and says "Okay, then. You are the Goddess of Potential."

Her brows furrow further "Bullshit."

He says "No, it's perfect. Think about it. You're smart. You're funny. You're sexy. You'd be the Goddess of Love, but you don't Love things as they are. You'd be the Goddess of Sex, but that's not enough for you. You always want more. You absolutely cannot stop fucking with things for two seconds, twisting it, demanding more. It can't just be what it is, you have to fuck with it. You want to twist the Universe to your image, nagging at it to shape up, be better. So the Universe wants to fuck you back because it thinks its just fine the way it is. You've been humping the Universe's leg and it's noticed." His hands settle on either side of her waist and grind her down onto his cock harder.

From his extravagantly outraged expression, she starts to laugh. He smiles gently at her, and then he continues, stroking her hair and smoothing it behind her ears, concentrating on this small act of order and saying softly "You see things other people don't see, you try to talk to trees, you apologize to cars. The unborn, the dead, the too soon and the too late make you cry. Your heart bleeds so much I'm surprised you have any blood left to pump through it. You're weak because of it. But I'll give you this, you've got a huge sense of potential in things. Even when it's not there. Especially when it's not there." He kisses her on the nose and ruffles her hair, enveloping her in a genuinely affectionate bear hug.

She sticks out her tongue. She says "I'm not weak. I know it looks that way 'cause you can make me moan all pretty and stuff, but people thought the sun circled the earth once too. It's all about perspective."

His smile deepens and his wide hand insinuates itself underneath her crossed arms and spreads out over the center of her chest. He twists his palm on the surface of her skin. "Then there's this."

She nearly faints from the shock and the loss of balance and strength. Everything she has is rushing to one spot beneath his palm. He expertly shifts her body and lays her across his lap with the back of her neck limp against his forearm, her ass cradled between his thighs as his purposeful hand presses between her breasts. His cock is tightening painfully against her hip and his own anticipation is fanning itself up from coals to flame. It's been banked but now it can breathe when he lets it. He appreciates the view of this helpless woman with a twisted little smile until something else takes over his expression and the energy that began deep inside her makes its way in its travels up his arm and he's feeding, unbound hunger and the first taste of real satisfaction etched on his features. His breathing and her breathing stutter together and his hand closes into a crackling fist, opening slowly to stroke along her body, removing every shred of clothing with no resistance, his fingers passing through cloth as if through water, leaving shreds soon forgotten and easily dismissed. He listens to her protests and whimpers, the little soft sounds that don't even know what they mean. He takes them all in. They all sound the same to him. Good.

She starts to cry, her eyes stay closed and she heaves little sobs, he rolls her like a rag doll and speaks with a thread of dark spiraling through every word "You are potential. Every sick little thought, every possible imbalance you could wreak on the world. Every change you could make to twist things to your will, it's in here." His hand twists again and she screams from the, sharp painful pull. "Give it to me."

Panic grips her and she starts to feel the loss of her identity, more than her body, vertigo and something familiar and alien at once, the loss of dreams and what she is. She flails and strikes out at him, and he retaliates each time, limiting her reach a little more with each strike she makes, enjoying the fight long enough to let it go on, but not at all to make her feel in any way that she matches him. He continues limiting the space she's allowed to occupy, binding her until she is pinned beneath him and she's stilled by his weight and her exhaustion. He wields his power over her easily, lazily and with relish. He holds her chin again and this time the pressure is not gentle or loving. His eyes bore into hers and his voice bites "Give it to me."

She tries to shake her head, but she's trapped, this is not human muscle or will. He grins and laughs down at her. "I really love this part. Let's do it your way, Pandora. I'm not leaving until you give up every last ugly thing you have hidden. Willingly. Lovingly. Joyously. Helplessly." His smile is angelic but his voice is caged possession. "You might want to say 'Oh God' now."

His hand passes over her face and with a soft murmur from his lips her eyes close. Her head tilts back and his eyes roam at will over her features, watching her lips, her lids, turning his head to take in everything. REM movements start behind her lids and when her body arches underneath his, he drives his cock deep inside her body to a scream from her that makes his spine thrill. One of his arms and his legs hold her perfectly molded to him, hard and throbbing deep inside. He doesn't have to move, because he's given her just enough space for her hips to thrash, and they do. He's intent on invoking every hunger he can from her. His other hand between her breasts glows softly and he bites his lip, whispering in her ear "We're going to keep going through everything until we hit something good." His features darken and lust splashes through his eyes, widening with surprised delight. "Oh, that's sick. I love it. Show me."

The room flows around them and they have changed, everything has changed. Time passes and genders swap, toys and props, planets and hells. Dizzying in scope and timeless in patience, playing out every desire of the hidden will until there are no more mysteries.

The scenes start out hidden, defiling, sick and twisted. Pain and screams, agony and retribution, damnation and horror darken and lighten their features and dance along their nerves.

Time passes and as darkness is slowly mapped through every bloody, painful inch, gray enters the emotions and they're closer to each other, and somehow more distant, energy doesn't crackle and leap, but becomes a gentler flow between them, underground, or the ground itself? It isn't clear yet.

Comfort with each other leads to unity, transcendence, light streaming along corridors of crystalline palaces, laughter and gentler, deeper understandings pass from their hands and lips and they hardly feel separate any more, surveying everything they've wrought from a great height, where everything looks beautiful, artful, poetic.

She smiles, her head in his lap, the flow from one to another seamless, humming, unquestioned, constant. Hunger is unknown. Yearning is pacified. He kisses the pads of her fingers and he's completely relaxed. They both look at the stars wheeling and bowing, their dance passing time and space at whatever pace they choose.

She lifts her head and kisses him sweetly, the most subtle currents passing through their lips and setting cells to vibrate in harmony. Her hand brushes his cheek and she asks "Have you decided?"

He kisses her palm and sighs "What if we're wrong?"

She laughs lightly "We're wrong all the time, aren't you used to that yet?"

His brow clears and he kisses her again, his fingertip resting on her bottom lip as he draws back and looks in her eyes. She says "There are more of us out there."

He shrugs "I don't need them. I need you."

She slides to her knees and leans forward, whispering "But just think of it...think of the Potential."

He closes his eyes and turns his head. She drags his face back and holds it there until he looks at her again. She speaks with a soft tone, but there's truth woven into it so it's supple and shifting. "We can stay apart until we want each other again, or we can choose rebirth. We can be here, together, forever, but we'll be alone. I can go back to my dreams, you can go back to your conquests, and we can start all over again, or we can try something new."

His eyes flare with an echo of need, something vaguely remembered, wisdom, perspective and experience remembering youth, awe and passion. "Hell of a risk to be taking with something so perfect." He blows out into space, making the stars part and then move back into their courses to make his point.

She understands and agrees, but she persists. "We've come so far. Do you really want to go to Nirvana and become bored and empty of all desire, need and interest? Or do you want to become something entirely new, stretch ourselves out and see what we are together, truly together?"

He grits his teeth. "I'll forget you when I AM you."

She says "No, never."

He stares into her eyes "You'll forget me."

She says "Impossible. You'll always be with me. We'll be us."

He looks at her "You can't just go on adopting every particle in the Universe until it's part of you."

She says "Why not? I adopted you, didn't I?"

He smiles.

She says "Yeeeeeah, I love that look."

His eyes sparkle with laughter. "What look?"

She grins, endless tones of meaning weighting her words "That look that says you'd do anything for me."

He shakes his head, he has no answer. His eyes are closed and he sighs, then his features light with mischief and he says "Bitch."

She grins and kisses him hard "Sucker."

He pulls her closer and says "Dreamer."

She traces his jawline and says "Creator."

From that platform, nowhere and nowhen in particular, a dream takes new shape and new will. Pure bright white strands coalesce from all the color they've gathered together. Drifting in potential states through time and space, it finds its home, takes its form, begins anew as something small, something young, something struggling to make something real out of all the dreams it finds waiting. Waiting to find the other parts of itself to make it whole again.