Within Ch. 01

Authors Note: This story is very long, and very detailed. There won't be any sex at all for quite a few more chapters, so if you're looking for straight up porn, this isn't it. I love feedback, and the more feedback I get... the faster I write. Thanks for reading.

As soon as I stepped inside the door onto the worn blue carpet, I knew there was something different about this house. I was only fourteen at the time. Generally oblivious to the world at large, except for the small bubble in which I lived, unordinary things were, well... out of the ordinary. My life was fairly mundane, with small spots of excitement, like being allowed to watch a movie with a PG-13 rating. Neither of my parents quite knew what to do with their child who lived in her own fantasy world, full of dragons, knights on horseback, and unicorns that pranced through shadowed glades. Both being devout Christians, such things as dragons were works of the devil, and the fact that I believed in such nonsense was a constant source of puzzlement to them, as if they couldn't understand where I got such nonsensical ideas.

I wasn't a very practical child; my head was inclined more towards books and my own fantasies than such stable, upright things as school and George Washington's biography. Truth be told, as far as reading materials went, I had a strong dislike of anything that wasn't fiction. I had the idea set in my stubborn little brain that if it was non-fiction, it wasn't any good. Namely, I couldn't use my ample imagination, which jumped at any chance to get out of the small, but fertile field that was my mind. Non fiction couldn't be fun, because it had already happened. You couldn't change it in your imagination, or put yourself in its place. In actuality I suppose you could. But to a fourteen year old there's a world of difference between putting yourself standing on a curb during the Montgomery bus boycott to riding on a pure white unicorn, hair flying behind you, riding to save the man of your dreams from the dreadful dragon (which turned out to be friendly once you charmed it with your sparkling wit). Of course a bonus to dreaming in fantasy land was you could cure all your own faults as well. Instead of dull blue-grey-green eyes (that just couldn't make up their mind as to what color they wanted to be), you had sparkling eyes the color of the ocean, or as your love told you 'The color of the sky on the most beautiful day on earth.' Instead of frizzy, mouse brown hair you had long, flowing golden tresses, or in my case, red tresses. I'd always had a fascination for red hair, I suppose it had something to do with the fact that my father had red hair, and I simply adored my father, except when I hated him.

In my dream world I had deep, emerald eyes and long, curly auburn hair and alabaster skin... quite a contrast to reality. I really had mouse brown hair, eyes that couldn't make up their mind to a color, and freckles everywhere, along with the usual teenage scattering of those horrid red spots they affectionately dub pimples. I had been blessed with a speedy metabolism, and I never had to worry much about my weight. If anything I was maybe a pound overweight, and very rarely that, most people tried to make me eat.

My parents, thank god, never stuffed food down my throat once I was in my teens, though my mother still made the occasional snide comment about my eating habits and how much junk food I ate. My mother lived off of snide comments. Her daily sustenance was blame-everyone-else-for-the-problems-of-the-world. All you had to do was open your mouth and say anything and she'd instantly blame it on someone. I'd say something like... "These eggs are cold." And I'd get... "You didn't get to the table fast enough, I called you." Or I might say... "Oh drat I can't find the dog's leash." And get "I told you to put it where it belongs; it's your own fault." I swear I think the woman got off on the words 'Your fault.' You didn't even have to try to blame her for anything and she'd defend herself. My father on the other hand, not being able to stand my mother (who could) threw himself into his work and was rarely, if ever seen, and then only long enough to make a few comments and go to bed, where he commenced to snore like a lawnmower, only worse.

My father did everything in a big way, snored, got mad, made decisions, sneezed... I remember once sitting in church with my fellow sniveling sixth graders on the third floor with some snappy old lady making us sing dull hymns and listen to a boring lesson on why exactly Moses had parted the Red Sea, as if any of us cared. The absolute bliss of her droning, boring voice was shattered by the sound of a foghorn that sounded like it had a ballistic missile shoved down its throat. Everyone looked at each other in alarm, (the teacher didn't have anyone to look at so she stared at the white board in shock). I calmly stated "My father sneezed." For a moment no one heard me, so I repeated myself. Heads turned in unison and stared at me in shock, as if wondering how on heavens name one person could create such a noise and still be with us on this earth. Of course, in silent defense of my dear father, I defiantly stared back until the teacher harrumphed and went on with the dull lesson. I got home and politely informed my father that unless he wished what small social standing I maintained with my fellow Sunday scholars to completely dissipate, he was to desist from sneezing in church. He found something incredibly funny in that, though for the life of me I didn't know what.

My parents were determined I grow up without outside influences from all the other boys and girls "in the world" which was my parents title for children not in my church. So I, with a lonely eye, watched with envy the neighborhood children getting on the bus every morning to go to public school, while I wearily trudged down into my basement to face my mother and a dreary day of home school. I didn't learn much, my head was always disappearing into the clouds, much to the dismay of my mother, who didn't quite like the idea of instructing a headless daughter. Yet despite my lack of said head, she was always telling me to use it. "I didn't know." "Next time use your head!" I never knew quite what she meant. I was quite tempted to lop off said bodily part and throw it at her the next time she said that, who knows, maybe that's what she meant. At the age of seven I was given my first pet by a rather understanding family friend who realized I was an intelligent, but quite lonely child. She bestowed on me a rat of some proportions, a black one, whom I immediately dubbed whiskers and my mother changed to Primrose.

My mother was like that, she had to be in charge of everything, and she always knew just how everything should be done. She basically ran my life until I was around nine, at which point I rebelled against her making all my decisions for me, and was immediately pronounced "unmanageable" and "rebellious." I certainly wasn't trying to be rebellious. There's just something wrong when you receive a toy bear and want to name it Bear and your mother insists upon calling it Buttons. I mean really. It's not her bear. If she wants to name it that so bad she can very well go out and procure herself one of her own.

I didn't even like bears that much, I was a horse fan. I think all young girls are at some point. My mother, however, loved bears to the point of obsession, and as a result, my entire bedroom was decorated with bears. It should have been a museum, there were bears on the walls, bears on the bed, bears on the dresser, bears everywhere. I remember quite vividly that my silent rebellion against this treatment was to make sure the room was as filthy as possible. When I changed my clothes, I managed to land an article on all eight of the biggest bears in the room...unintentionally, of course. It wasn't my fault you couldn't see them. By the time a week had gone by, my room was no longer decorated with bears, but rather with clothes, and I was quite satisfied with myself and my cleverness, until my mother collected all the clothes to wash. Then the whole horrid ritual had to start all over again, but such is the life and trials of a nine year old.

When I was eight, we moved to the wretched hotness of the desert that people call California. I took an immediate dislike to the weather, I was a pale child, and the sun was not my friend. I, however, adapted, as so many times we are wont to do. After four years of living in a somewhat large house that had low rent, the landlord, an unkind old fellow, informed us he was selling out and moving to the Bahamas, and we were to find alternate lodging within thirty days. My parents scurried around like chickens with their heads cut off looking for another rental. A mutual friend of the family told us about a small house for rent on a street not too far away. My parents jumped at it and immediately whisked me into the car and off to investigate the house. We pulled up in front of the 'for rent' sign and stopped. The house was small, fairly so, our previous house had been two stories, while this house was merely one. The other house had been a lovely slate blue with brick trim; this house was a faded yellow-beige with even more faded blue trim. The front yard was small, with one lopsided, misplaced tree off to one side, about twice as tall as I was (which wasn't very tall). We all stared in silence. My father spoke up in a grim tone after a few moments. "Let's go look inside."

The landlord, who was a land-owning fireman, was renting out his childhood home for almost twice as much as our previous house had cost, but my father, in dire straits, agreed. I had lingered outside, peering at the dirt lined flower beds underneath the dirty windows, and after giving my parents enough time to make the tour, I followed. My feet carried me inside the door, onto the faded blue carpet, and I stopped. Something felt different. I couldn't quite place it, but something just felt strange. I stared about me, as if half expecting to see something gruesome drawn on the walls, or one of those chalk outlines on the floor. I shook my head after a moment, told my overactive imagination to pipe down, and followed my parents into what was to be my room.

Small, with two windows on either side (it was a corner room), and one small closet. I had been accustomed to bigger rooms, but this would do. I never spent much time in my room anyway, except to lay my tired and tousled head down on the pillow and lay my troubled mind to rest. Most of my day was spent outside in the backyard, acting out all sorts of tales with my toy horses in the tall grass, or reading inside on the sofa.

My parents moved on down the hall and I stood in the middle of the room by myself, mentally putting all my furniture in its place in the room, then I realized my mother would arrange the room the way she wanted, and it was useless deciding where I wanted things. A breeze blew across my face and the back of my neck and I turned, I hadn't remembered the window or the door being open, but they must have been to allow a breeze.

The air was musty, almost stiflingly so, and I crossed to the window to open it further. To my shock, the window was closed. I thought nothing more of it, why should I, the other must have been cracked. It took me quite a while to figure out how to open the window, Socrates and Shakespeare were not beyond my capacity, but apparently a simple window mechanism was. I finally figured it out and the window swung open with a creak. Strangely enough, the air that poured in on the sunny day was warm, not in the least bit cool. I wondered then where on earth the cool breeze had come from, and after some thought determined it must have been a wind blowing off from the ocean. I crossed to the other window, and stood on my tiptoes to further open it. I struggled with the turning wheel for a few moments before I realized that the latch was still fastened. So the wind hadn't come from here either. Strange. I shrugged it off, my fertile mind for once not romanticizing the incident, and I ventured off to explore the house further.