Dreams Ch. 01

To some it may have seemed we were rushing the use of the "L" word, yet between our friendship and my dreams I did have that loving feeling. Further, I equated having sex with making love, so there was some crossover in my thinking.

Tom then said something that stopped me in my tracks. He spoke softly, even tentatively: "I've been dreaming about you these past few weeks." I jerked away so violently he initially thought I was falling off of him and grabbed for me.

"What do you mean? What dreams? Be specific!" I ordered in an elevated voice.

Tom looked worried. He said, "Calm down. I wish I knew you better, I'd tell you some details. These were ... well ... I'm embarrassed to admit they were dreams of a sexual nature." He paused as I studied him to see if he was messing with me in some way; had Mar put him up to this in some way? Had she shared with Tom the intimate descriptions of my dreams I'd shared with her? As I studied him, I decided his remarks must be genuine from the sincerity with which he spoke.

"Go on," I urged with a tinge of suspicion in my voice. "Tell me. I don't care that they were sexual, just tell me some of them." I surged my hips again, Tom's cock still in my vagina even in its flaccid state.

He said, "I've known you from work for over a year. I had this ... well, a flaky rule for myself that I wouldn't date women at work. I didn't want the complications that would occur if I broke up with someone I dated on less than hospitable terms." He looked deep in my eyes, "Anyway, I had a dream about four weeks ago, and you were prominent in it. I recognized you, and I even remembered it the next morning. I don't know what you thought, but that was one of the reasons I've started to stare at you in the cafeteria. I guess I was making sure you were real."

"And?" I urged, suspicion still evident in my tone.

"And then, I dreamed of you again ... and again. At first, it wasn't every night, but the frequency increased."

I ventured, "And, in your dreams the level of our sexual escapades increased too? We started to do kinky things?"

Tom nodded with a puzzled expression on his face.

"I started having dreams too," I admitted. "The timeframe is close to yours, even last night. I couldn't be sure it was you, but my Dreamlover as I call him certainly could be you."

Now Tom was on guard. He said, "You're kidding, right – just saying that to humor me along?"

"No," I said emphatically. "My dreams were VERY realistic – sometimes even with physical evidence of some kind which spooked me out. You can ask Marcella. I told her every day what I dreamt about. She didn't put you up to this, did she?"

"No, no!" He insisted. I believed him. After a pause he added, "A couple of nights she appeared in my dreams too. You were the central person – my love object, but she was there too."

"Did you dream about us having a lesbian encounter one night about ten days ago?"

"Yes," He said slowly with an air of disbelief. "And a couple of nights later I fantasized that the three of us made love together."

"Gangbang with me last night?" I asked, making a big jump.

I could see the color rise in Tom's face. He blushed, nodded, and quietly said, "Yes. You were spectacular. I didn't know all the other men."

"How many men were there – in your dream?" In one sense I couldn't believe I had the audacity to ask such a question of this man, yet I had to know whether we'd had identical dreams.

"Six of us – and in the end you found a way to have sex with all of us at once. You were wild – I guess we all were." Tom reached up and started to tweak one of my nipples. The move sent little rifle shots of pleasure through my body straight to my clit. I leaned in and kissed him, partly to let him know it was OK that he'd shared such lusty details.

I hadn't shared the particular details of my gangbang with Mar, but they were exactly what I'd recalled from my dream. This was eerie.

He said modestly, "When I'd awaken in the mornings I had dreams, I would find the remnants of ... well, I'd cum in my sleep – a wet dream, I guess. But, I could sometimes tell there was another aroma – it wasn't all just me. Last night I discovered it was you – your juices. I don't know how that happened."

We talked more. Tom would tell me about a dream and I'd fill in details, and then I'd tell about one of my dreams and he'd fill in some of the details. Without doubt, we'd shared exactly the same sexual dreams.

I stroked Tom's chest as we both thought about what our words had implied. Finally, I asked quietly, "Do you hope I'm the girl of your future dreams?"

"Yes, Ariel. Yes, I do – in a sense. But, at the risk of blowing it, you should know I have some unconventional viewpoints about relationships, marriage, sex, and making love. I can guess how I got them, and I'm probably stuck with them although I could try to change. I'm hoping you can put up with them, because I really want to grow a relationship with you – a long-term relationship."

On that note, I uncoupled from Tom, lifting my nude body above his until his cock flopped our of my pussy back onto his belly; a dollop of our combined mixture of semen and my passion juice followed before I could block my opening with a hand. I rolled onto the bed beside him. We both laughed at my antics to not pollute the bed further than we already had with our body fluids.

I slid off the bed and pulled us both into his shower. I was hungry and insisted that we dress and go someplace for breakfast. After a stop at my apartment for a change of clothes, we ended up in a place called the Broken Egg not too far from the local community college. Because it was Saturday, the coffee trade was down, and we actually were able to find a place to sit and talk privately.

After we got our bagel and egg sandwiches, I said, "OK, talk!" with a touch of humor to my voice. "I want to hear about your philosophy about relationships, and then we'll see where we're going to take our relationship." I ran a finger up Tom's arm in a loving gesture.

Tom had known our breakfast agenda on our drive to the restaurant, so he'd had some time to get his thoughts together by the time we were seated at a sidewalk table. He laughed at my prod into his inner thinking. I suddenly realized how confrontational I sounded and backed off as I also blushed. Such aggressive behavior wasn't normally my stay.

"There's some background you need," Tom began. "I was raised by ... well, you could call them hippie parents. It was pretty much a commune. We all lived in a big house in Eugene, Oregon – right on the edge of the Oregon campus. My mother and her boyfriend taught there. All told there were eight adults and ten kids in the house most of the time I grew up. It was a big, happy family."

He peered over his glasses at me and went on, "As I got older I realized the adults all loved each other, and, of course, they loved all the kids. I grew up with four dads and four moms. It was great. We were encircled with love."

"When I got old enough to understand what sex was all about, I realized the adults were all sleeping with each other – not at the same time, although sometimes they did. I just observed there was a lot of trading around going on – night-to-night, and even moment-to-moment. At first, I thought it was sort of gross or weird, but then I saw how much caring and love they all had for each other. All us kids were the beneficiaries of all that love and support. We all grew up pretty well adjusted to life and certainly well socialized."

"By society's standards things occasionally went way over the top. For instance, one of the mom's took me aside in my late teens and taught me all she knew about making love and sex. I'd been a virgin until then. Of course, like most kids, I knew some stuff. One of my quasi-sisters and I had messed around a lot with sex by then; you know, mutual masturbation and even what passed for a blowjob and eating pussy from her in those days, although we were pretty inexperienced."

I nudged Tom a little: "So, how did I measure up?" If he was such an expert, I thought I could at least improve my techniques under his tutelage.

Tom smiled and squeezed my hand. "You were wonderful, of course, and you should know that I don't compare. It all goes with my philosophy that there's no such thing as bad sex." We both laughed.

He paused and then took the lead again. "There's one more concept I need to toss out to you to set the stage for my philosophy about relationships. Do you know about memes?"

I nodded and volunteered, "They're ideas or concepts, right? Concepts that are culturally or socially based that are passed along from one person to the next – like a gene is physically passed along."

Tom nodded and said, "Right. All that is background to some of my ideas about relationships. I'll blurt them out, and you ask me about any principle you're curious about." I responded by encouraging him to go on.

"OK," He said. "Most of what I have to tell you is about memes that I don't abide. I'll start with monogamy. It's not my thing. I was raised in a polygamous environment and saw it work. In reality, we live in a polygamous society; most people just do their 'multiple relationships' one at a time, and when they break the one-at-a-time rule, all hell is apt to break loose."

"We know people can love more than one person at a time, but we exclude sex – in theory, although everyone also knows that it's not only nice, it's also a key ingredient in a serious relationship. Why not live with all the doors open? Why not create an atmosphere of love and live in it?"

"Monogamy or exclusivity for some people comes about because they don't feel their own self worth or feel they can sway with the ebb and flow of life's relationships. They have to lock them in, often using sex as bait for exclusive behavior – 'I'll only have sex with you if you don't see anyone else.' In my book, that's manipulation and I don't like it."

"Monogamy and exclusivity also create the backdrop for jealousy – a not very nice emotion. Instead of wanting to see you, my love, be happy – possibly through additional relationships, I pout, stamp my feet, and carry on in a purple rage until you behave according to my rules. Basically, I am asserting my 'ownership' rights on you, and I'm being manipulative about it too. None of that feels very healthy to me."

"I've known some couples where neither one tolerated relationships of any kind with outsiders. I don't mean sexual or even love relationships, just routine friendships. They were so jealous they made it impossible for each other to know anyone outside the marriage unless it was as a couple. Now those are relationships doomed for failure."

"Most of our media is couple oriented – advertisements, photos, websites, and on and on. Hell, they've even made it not all right even to be single. You have to couple up, and in most places it has to be boy-girl, although we're starting to accept gay and lesbian situations in the more liberated parts of the country. Alone is bad – we play on people's fear of rejection, lack of love, and failure to feel whole unless they're in a relationship. More manipulation."

"Go on," I encouraged. I'd never taken the time to think about concepts like Tom was espousing.

Tom took a deep breath and continued again, "So many people expect the 'other' in a relationship to 'make' them happy. Now, I can 'share' your happiness and joy; however, I can't 'make' you happy. You've got to do that for yourself. It involves your mental attitude, not necessarily what I do."

I looked puzzled. "How's that work?"

"Well, suppose I fix dinner and I prepare liver and turnips, something most people don't like. Now you are happy that I fixed dinner, but unhappy that I fixed something you don't want to eat. So I made you happy one minute and unhappy the next. The truth is, it's your mental attitude that made you unhappy. If you loved liver and turnips you'd be ecstatic about my culinary efforts. Well, the same holds true for all the little things we watch our partners do. We can see them as either 'making us happy' or 'making us unhappy.' The truth is, it's our own thinking that does that."

I said, "But if I go off and fuck someone else, am I not making you unhappy?"

Tom laughed and said, "No, I make myself unhappy if I judge your behavior bad and unacceptable, or I make acceptance of your act conditional on whether you loved the other person or whether I loved them too. I can make it really complicated. I can forgive, but use your act of infidelity as a bludgeon to manipulate you for years to come. I'll try to trade on your guilt and my moral rectitude for decades. If you won't comply or I am so intolerant as to not forgive, I'll divorce you and try to take you to the cleaners."

He continued, "Usually, I'll insist on knowing the reason why you did it too. My own insecurity might make me feel unloved, but if I were rational I'd see you didn't do that. Judging, holding expectations of others, and needing to know the reason why, are three ways to make yourself unhappy and create a lot of anxiety for yourself. By comparison to all these negatives for your other relationship, I might instead share in your erotic joy, hope you had orgasms beyond your wildest imagination, and even hope you might share the whole encounter with me so I might also gain some erotic benefit from it – possibly while we make wild passionate love. And, one more step, I'd probably suggest you bring your lover into our relationship so we could both make love to you – just like in our dreams a couple of nights ago. And, just to set the record straight, that is more how I think."

I nodded understanding, but I still wanted to think about that aspect of what he was saying.

Tom took a sip of his coffee and went on, "We also propagate this idea of a 'soul mate' – an idyllic friend and romantic partner you are supposed to form a lifetime relationship with. Reality lies elsewhere. The term 'soul mate' enables society to preach the meme that relationships have to last forever and that marriage with a soul mate is the perfect end goal. Your partner should be your best friend and that's whom you should marry. That's bullshit! The divorce statistics show that all these memes are being routinely broken and unrealistic, not to mention the unknown stats for all the other people that stay in a relationship or marriage yet know their partner is someone far from what a 'soul mate' is defined to be."

"Somehow society expects two imperfect people to form a perfect relationship – and even to become soul mates. The world doesn't work that way. All relationships are flawed in some way, we just need to recognize that and move on. Everyone needs to work at nurturing their relationships, yet so often we sit back and put the duty entirely on the other person. Sometimes, a partner will only discover this about their mate after they've become married."

"We also have some crazy expectation that a relationship will last forever. Why not be happy that a relationship lasts for whatever period it does – a week, a month, a year, or a decade. Why force it go longer that it should? They are what they are. Sometimes broken relationships not only can't be fixed, they shouldn't be fixed. If it's in a marriage, it's time to end it – peacefully and amicably – and move on. Forever is a long time, and, most of the time, is an unrealistic expectation."

Tom sipped his coffee again and then went on, "Oh yes, why marriage? For tax reasons, I can see it, but otherwise I'm not a believer. Too often it's taken as ownership – slavery – and I'm back my problem with monogamy and exclusivity. I'm not sure I've seen a marriage that isn't loaded with restrictions."

I asked, "But what about commitment? Isn't marriage a commitment about love?"

Tom responded, "When does that commitment occur?"

I thought for a moment and said, "Probably for most people around when they get engaged."

"And what are they committing to?"

I paused and said slowly, "Monogamy. Exclusivity. To limit their love to only their fiancé."

Tom said in a measured voice, "To be owned by the other person? To obey a set of arbitrary rules? To set and abide by new boundaries? To feel guilty when I can't make you happy?"

I mumbled out something like, "Oh. I see the other side of the coin. But, it can't be all that bad. A lot of marriages survive."

Tom caught my eye and said, "Do you expect to get all your satisfaction in life from one person?"

I shook my head no.

"Well, commitment is nice, up to a point. The point is where I need to reach outside of the two-some we create to fulfill some other needs – even sexual needs, and I emphasize those only because there are so many taboos about them. I'd rather see 'commitment' mean I am devoted to helping you find your own growth, success, and happiness. I will go out of my way to introduce you to people that can help you in these areas, particularly when I can't."

After a pause, Tom added, "I love you. I don't need to be married to do that for you. I am already committed to you for all these things. "

I muttered "Wow" under my breath. This was some deep thinking.

Tom took a long drink and gazed around the intersection we were seated at. He made a jump of some kind in his thinking about his philosophy. "Of course, we have all sorts of rules about sex, and we break those rules all the time. You can't have sex outside marriage unless you're single – and in love. No sex on the first date ... for women – I think there's a double standard there too. Men need to be the aggressors about sex – women aren't supposed to be; it's unlady like. Sex is crucial for a relationship to work. Masturbation is naughty and should only be done in private." He paused. These are just some of the memes that any sane person would wisely examine and probably toss aside. Again, why saddle yourself with a rule when you don't have to?"

There was a long pause as we both sampled our breakfasts and coffee. As another thought popped into Tom's head, he laughed and said, "I can give you one more meme about sex that'll stretch your mind; why can't you have sex with your sibling? We have rules about no brother-sister sex, yet that's often where the most love in the world lies for some people. I understand the stricture that you shouldn't have children if you're that close genetically, but with all the methods of birth control available today, there shouldn't be an issue about forming a familial relationship, yet we close off that avenue of love for so many people."

I asked, "Didn't you have sex with your sister?"

Tom said, "I had sex with a couple of my sisters after we were of age. We'd been taught to love each other and we did, in every sense of the word. I loved two of my mom's sexually too. If I were to go back home or see any of them today, it'd still be acceptable behavior amongst us. Just because we live a thousand miles apart doesn't mean the love isn't still there."

"But they weren't your real sisters or mother. You called one your 'quasi-sister'."

"In every sense of the term, they were my sisters, just as though we shared the same parents. One of my sisters that I loved was, in fact, most likely my blood relative." Tom chuckled and added, "In the commune, the question of parentage was questionable for several of us kids. She and I did sort of look alike. No one was ever that curious to do the testing."

My eyebrows went up on that one, but as I thought about what Tom was saying I could see his point. I speculated about what sex with my older brother Josh would be like for a brief moment, and then decided to put that idea on the backburner to think about later. I smiled briefly on the idea, and how it would blow my brother's brain apart if I came on to him sexually. Personally, I liked the idea.