Dreams of Darkness Pt. 01

Just a few points: firstly this story is written in British-English so the spelling and grammar may well differ from that of the particular dialect in which you were educated.

All sexual activity within this story takes place between adults aged eighteen or over. The terms 'girl' or 'kid' are used to indicate familiarity between the characters and are not descriptions of age.

Constructive comments and feedback are welcome... I often answer by email.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story takes place in the same Universe as my "Making Dreams" stories but about five years after the events that they covered. However, you do not need to read them first as "Dreams of Darkness" is free-standing (although a few characters and locations turn up in both). I have drawn upon the ideas found in other writers' work which I have developed and hopefully given my own twist. I would particularly like to thank Betsy Leohtar, Sara H, Tabico, Trilby Else and Zorkmeister: although only the latter posts stories on this site.

Finally I would like to thank Paul Rosseland and Charles Hadruprider for editing this story , correcting the numerous typos and for their helpful suggestions for improvements. This story is much better for their hard work.

Dreams of Darkness.

There are strange things lurking beyond the outer limits of

'The Circle'.

Part 1 -- All in the Mind.

By Writer345©

I've been asked to tell this story, which might even be true, so I'd better let the old "me" start things off. There have been several versions of me over the last few years and they're all different. Thinking about it, and yes I can still think, the old, original me is definitely the best one to start things off, so here goes:

1. Our Beginnings.

The Opening -- Everything starts somewhere.

You can't blame me, it was all Angie's fault really; well at least it was her idea anyway, so like I said, you can't blame me! It was the oldest story in the world: she fancied a girl who was so straight that you could use her as a ruler and yet Angie still wouldn't take "no" for an answer. Then one thing led to another and eventually Angie and I were sitting in my van outside the girl's house at half past three in the morning waiting for her bedroom light to go out. Ah, the power of unrequited love.

But that isn't the half of it. If only it had been, then my life wouldn't have changed the way that it did. Oh, I'm happy -- that's something Angie and I had in common, we both believed that people should be happy. Angie was fantastic! Angie was beautiful! But all that changed as well.

Okay, I need to do some explaining, don't I? Well, as you've probably gathered, Angie's my best friend: we've known each other since long before we started school and that's more years than I care to remember. We've always been inseparable and got called 'The Terrible Twins' on account of the things that we used to get up to when we were kids. Not that we look much alike or even have a great deal in common looking at us. Okay, so we've both got long hair; I'm a classic red-head, by the way: red hair, green eyes, pale skin and freckles. I've got a red-head's temper to match which has always tended to get me into trouble: lots of it.

Angie, the other 'twin', is a bit shorter and much darker with raven-black hair, hazel eyes and lovely golden brown skin... 'Angie' isn't short for 'Angela' either: she's an 'Anjika' and is as much a typical Indian as I am a typical Paddy. Angie Gupta and Siobhan (pronounced 'Shivorn') O'Rourke are still inseparable thirty-odd years later.

So how come we're so close? Well we were born in the same month back in 1984 and grew up next door to each other in Whitmore Reans, one of the rougher parts of Wolverhampton. We were both the butt of casual racism; only nobody called it that in those days; the idea hadn't really been invented at that time as nearly everybody was racist back then. This is why I tended to keep my cool when I got called an 'Irish bitch' (well I am Irish and I could be very bitchy) but when I heard someone refer to Angie as a 'Wog' I tended to see red and explode. My nickname was "Basher O'Rourke" and I always took care of my mate... Someone had to as one of the things that we had in common was that we were both 'outsiders'. I'm too young to remember the cards that people used to stick up in shop windows. You've probably heard of them, as they always said something like:

Room to let,

No blacks, no dogs, no Irish.

Like I said, I'm too young to remember them, but they hadn't been gone that long. Yes, Angie and I were outsiders and got pushed together by the racism of the time. When I upset the other white kids they called me a "wog lover", and when Angie upset the other Indian kids they'd scream something at her in Hindi that she'd never translate but I'm pretty sure that it meant much the same thing.

What else had we got in common? Well we both like girls and have done so for as long as we can remember. And before you ask, she was my bff not my girlfriend: sadly, we were both too dominant to make a go of it as lovers... Oh, we tried when we were younger and didn't know any better but it just didn't work as we both needed to take the lead. There have been arguments over the years; we even had a fight on a couple of occasions. Both were times when we fancied the same girl. But the arguments never lasted and we were soon knocking around together, much to the disgust of our respective families, neither of whom can understand why we aren't married and trailing after husbands with broods of kids in tow.

Things really came to a head when the Guptas tried to fit Angie up with an arranged marriage. We were both at Ludlow University at the time and one thing led to another and neither of us went home again. Yes, we were at the same University: fate seemed intent on keeping us together. Angie said that it's the Gods that are doing it, well she would as she's a Hindu and they've got more Gods than us Catholics have got saints and that's saying something.

We've done everything together, except for the bit about having sex: we were so close that some of our friends thought that we were partners... Well we were, but not in the way that they thought. Angie and I were there for each other; we were bff's: best friends forever, what could be better than that? Well fucking her would, but that really was a non-starter.

We shared a student flat and when Angie's brothers tried to snatch her and cart her back to Wolverhampton so that her father could force her to get married, I sort of intervened. There was a scuffle during which one of them pulled a knife on me. My temper flared up and I kicked at his hand and he sort of stabbed himself in the stomach. Things were suddenly serious but the ambulance crew and the police saved his life and then Angie and I were 'invited' to assist the police with their enquiries.

Things turned out okay as the only fingerprints on the knife handle were her brother's, so we were in the clear. But then the story of the 'arranged/forced' marriage came out and both brothers were done for assault and attempted kidnapping, while her parents were warned as to their future conduct. All things considered, it turned out better than okay in the end.

Later that year Angie helped me through a particularly bad patch. You know, the usual student thing: panic, stress, anxiety. This is where having a best mate who's a psychologist really came into its own. Okay, okay, I know that she was still a student, but she really helped me by teaching me how to relax. She'd dim the lights, get me staring at a candle and speak all soothing-like as she gently massaged the back of my neck... It worked every time and I'd sort of gently drift off to sleep.

When I woke up, I'd always feel better; everything that had been troubling me would seem to have slipped back into proportion and I'd be calm once again. Sure, the problems would still be there, but they'd feel controllable and would no longer threaten to swamp me. Angie helped me to get everything into proportion. Hell, I'd had a smoking habit which I know had annoyed her -- she even managed to get me to want to quit and I did. She showed me how to keep my stress levels under control which kept me off medication or worse, so why wouldn't I do a little thing like stopping smoking if it made her happy?

She even had this 'magic' phrase that triggers me to relax, it's in Hindi, which is yet another language that I do not speak (hell, I don't even speak English properly). The phrase sounds something like miri simver vadoo, which is the nearest that I can get to it. I don't have a clue as to what it means, but I do know that it relaxes me and keeps the demons away. When I'm getting stressed or anxious and Angie can see that the breathing exercises that she taught me aren't working, she speaks softly to me, talks me through my problems and somewhere along the line she slips in the phrase. Then hey presto, the stress, the anxiety and the depression slip into the background and life is okay once again.

As I said, we were always there for each other, Angie and me: we grew up together, chased girls together and did everything that we could to make each other happy.

So what's all this got to do with Angie and me sitting in my van outside some red-head's house at half past three in the morning? Patience! I'll get back to that sooner or later. Oh, you're intrigued? I guess I'd better get back to it right now.

Her name was Emily Morton: red-head, nice plump body, curves in the right places, attractive face. She came from Devon and Angie fancied her to the point of distraction. Only trouble is, Emily was straight. She worked at Red Fox Packaging, the same place that we did. Angie, the psychologist, was Personnel Manager while I was the computer geek in charge of the IT department. Yes, we were both senior management while poor Emily was just a lowly clerk in accounts.

Angie first saw Emily at her job interview and I guess that's when all of the trouble started because Emily got the job despite the other two candidates actually being qualified!

She really wanted Emily and kept asking her out but kept getting 'no' for an answer. The red-head, it seemed, was incapable of seeing my best friend as anything other than an office pest. If only Angie had given up and moved on to pester someone else... But no, neither of the Terrible Twins gives up easily.

"You've just got to help me," she begged one day, sounding particularly miserable.

I shrugged. "Sure, our kid, but I don't know what I can do..."

She chuckled sweetly and gave me an angelic smile. "Oh, I'll think of something."

"Sure!" I joked. "We could always kidnap Emily; then you could brainwash her and everything would be fine, so it would!" Me and my big mouth!

Angie chuckled and then looked thoughtful. "Don't worry, Shiv, I said that I'll think of something." And she did!

Angie and I shared a large Victorian house; we were both on a good wage and because we were best friends, buying a place together seemed the obvious thing to do. We had our own rooms but shared the kitchen and the living room. The house was big enough to give us some personal space if we needed it. In fact it was big enough to rent out rooms, which we often talked about but never quite got around to. The main stumbling block being: what women in their right minds would want to share a house with a pair of over-sexed lesbians? Since then, all of the extra space has been put to a good use, so renting out rooms has ceased to be a possibility.

Okay, so what led to us sitting in the van early on that fateful morning? Well Emily is what did, that's what; or rather that's who. My throw-away offer to help, well I never thought that anything would come of it and I didn't give it much thought. It was one of those offers, the sort that comes back to really bite us in the arse.

Over the next week or two I noticed that Angie seemed preoccupied and increasingly kept herself to herself. After work she'd snatch a hurried meal and then vanish upstairs and go into the room at the back of the house where she kept her books and her computer: her study, she called it, although during the previous five years that we'd lived there she hadn't done much studying and had spent most of her time there playing computer games, watching lesbian porn or reading on-line stories on various web sites including Literotica, which was also a favourite of mine.

Oh, she still did her fair share of the housework and still grumbled about it.

"Yeh!" I remember agreeing with her then adding: "Why don't we get a maid?" (Yet another one of those throw-away remarks.)

She stopped dead with her beautiful hazel eyes staring straight ahead in that preoccupied manner that some folks slip into when they're deep in thought. Suddenly she returned to the present, leaned across and kissed me on the cheek.

"Siobhan, you are a genius," she exclaimed before scurrying off back to her study.

Mystified, I went back to cooking my own supper. Later that evening she called me into her sanctum and showed me another story web site that she'd accessed.

"It's called the 'Erotic Mind Control Story Archive'!" She proclaimed.

I glanced at the solid text on the screen. "Oh? What's it got?"

"Well, erotic mind control stories, silly!" She giggled. "It's like Literotica, only it specialises in mind-control; you ought to take a look at it, some of the stories are good. It's at www.mcstories.com/ and you don't have to be a member, either. Go on, have a look at it, you'll like it."

But I never did, or at least, I didn't then. If I had, we probably wouldn't have been sitting outside Emily's house at 3:30 am, for a start, and would have avoided all that that led too. No, like an idiot, I went back to watching television, and forgot about the story site.

A couple of days later Angie got a visit from her old University tutor, Dr Wendy Dryden. Not that I saw much of her as they both vanished into Angie's study and were still there when I went to bed.

I should mention that Wendy Dryden was destined to play a major part in my life although I didn't know it at the time. I suppose that it was a bit like the butterfly effect... Butterfly-Wendy flapped her wings which resulted in a major hurricane on Planet-Siobhan.

Next morning my friend handed me a DVD. "Can you put this on Emily Morton's computer and set it up so that only she can see it?"

I took the disc, it was labelled ' Psychology Dept.14#1' and was in an unmarked plastic case. I looked at it. "What? You want me to install this in her computer?"

Angie shrugged and gave me a heart-melting look. "Oh, come on, Shiv, you did say that you'd help me seduce her."

I had a distinct feeling that I was going to regret this. "What is it, a declaration of your undying love?" I asked, almost mocking her.

"Yep, something like that," she said dryly, "well, Valentine's Day is coming up and I just want to surprise her."

I looked at the disc that she had handed me with obvious suspicion. "I don't know. It's a bit unprofessional."

"Come on, Shiv, you're the system manager," she pleaded. "Nobody will question you. You are always tinkering with office computers and besides, nobody else knows how the set-up works!"

I handed the disc back to her, feeling very guilty. But it just wasn't right and besides, we could both lose our jobs if anyone found out about it. I said as much to Angie but she just looked at me and spoke very quietly. "Miri simver vadoo!"

I blinked and the disc was back in my hand, and I was feeling very relaxed. I remembered my promise... Well it can't hurt, can it? I nodded. "Okay, Angie, seeing that it's you and there's nothing objectionable or abusive on the disc. There isn't, is there?"

She shook her head causing her gorgeous long black hair to ripple and flick outwards in the way that only a woman's hair can.

"Or sexual?" I pressed her.

She shook her head again.

"Or obscene?"

"Siobhan! What do you take me for?" she asked, her expression being one of injured innocence.

"A very desperate dyke, that's what!" I chuckled.

She laughed. "Yeh, well... Guilty as charged, guv!"

Well, I did as she asked, and what happened? Absolutely nothing that I could see, nothing at all, that's what.

Angie and I went our own way and Emily went hers. Or at least she seemed too. Though I did see her chatting to my friend a couple of times over the next few days; once in the corridor and once by the water cooler in a corner of the main accounts office where she worked. Now this was something that had not happened before as Emily was well known for being rather homophobic. So maybe whatever it was that had been on the disc had softened her attitudes a little. Who knows?

2. The Long Tongue of the Law.

Evening all, mind how you go!

I guess that I must have pushed Angie's plan to the back of my mind for a week or so and life went on. I went to work, I came home and I went to the club that we were both members of: 'The Fish on a Bicycle' in Edgbaston, Birmingham. It's a well-known lesbian club that you may have heard of.

For the first time since we were kids, Angie and I seemed to be leading separate lives. Hell, she didn't even come to the club with me. I mentally shrugged: she wasn't my 'significant other' was she? My best mate, yes! My lover or girlfriend, no! Chance would be a fine thing!

I picked a girl up at the club and brought her home for the weekend, which was something that I'd done before. We had both done this loads of times, sometimes together, other times, separately. Casual sex was one of the things that kept us going. Sometimes we even shared the girl, if she was willing, that is.

Well that Friday night's visit to the club resulted in me getting to know Prita Desai very well indeed. It was about two o'clock on Saturday morning when I showed her into the living room which we had to ourselves. I turned the lights down, selected a romantic track or two on the stereo and opened a bottle of sweet white wine and attempted subtle seduction. It was met with:

"You don't need to go to all that trouble. I just want you to fuck me!" Spoken with a thick West Bromwich accent -- and who says that romance is dead?

She was in her mid-twenties and pretty with bobbed raven-black hair, golden-brown skin and hazel eyes... Remind you of someone? I handed her a glass of wine which she downed in one and asked. "Haven't you got any beer?"

With a sigh I pushed the cork into the wine bottle and took it back to the kitchen where I exchanged it for an 'Empress' Ale (the best Indian beer brewed in Leicester). Needless to say, Prita declined the offer of a glass and drank it straight from the bottle, which she didn't open with her teeth, although I would not have been surprised if she had.

Okay, she seemed a lot rougher than the women that I normally associate with so I just mentally shrugged, muttered, "Come on then," and led her upstairs to my room. In the back hall, the light shining from under the door of Angie's study told me that she was still up. I poked my head around the door and said, "Hi."

She returned the greeting but didn't turn away from the computer screen that she was reading.

"This is Prita, she's spending the weekend with me," I announced. We tended to inform each other of the presence of 'house guests' if only to prevent the shock of chance meetings in the wee small hours on the way to or from the bathroom.