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Stranger Things Have Happened Ch. 02

By: funky_quill



Madam Katrina was a clairvoyant-slash-psychic and she ran spiritual development courses at my 'new age' establishment. New age is a pretty generic term, but that's why I like it. It can include anything even the slightest bit eccentric, and I sell all sorts of things in my shop. Herbs, crystals, cards, Wiccan paraphernalia and Spiritualist regalia - you name it, I sell it, and to my constant amazement, rather successfully too. 

Madam Katrina says that after meditating, one knows if one has reached a state of inner peace because they smile without forcing it. I admit, my smile is forced, but in all fairness, I didn't really 'meditate', I just did a few breathing exercises. I decided to take the time to meditate after all. Hopefully, I would receive the inspiration I needed to continue the next chapter of the how-to manual that would accompany Madam Katrina's next workshop on clairvoyance. Listening to Coldplay hadn't worked. Now it was time to bring out the heavy guns. I was determined that the entire day wouldn't be wasted.

The clairvoyance workshop is basically to teach the average person how to talk to dead people. I know that sounds a little bizarre. It tends to make me shudder when I think too deeply about it. Apparently, that reaction is symbolic of a block my strict Catholic upbringing has erected as a barrier to prevent me from achieving a true state of oneness with the Universe. Text book reaction, so I've been told.

I browsed through my CD rack until I found my favourite guided meditation. After you let the narrator's voice take you down into the lower layers of consciousness, you get to the good part. Basically, you lay on the massive bed your subconscious mind dreams up and places in the middle of a long, beautiful beach. You lie there and listen to the waves break on the shore and that's not even the best part. My favourite bit is when you relax on the huge four poster bed and your spirit guide comes to escort you to this magical mythical place so the spiritual truths of the universe can be revealed. So far, my spirit guide is a small balding man called Peter who has a rather large paunch and an attraction to beer that has lasted past the veil of death.  

A shuddering sigh slipped out of my throat before I even realised it. Why couldn't I have a normal spirit guide like everyone else? You know, like a dashing hero with bulging muscles who lived some time before Atlantis sank? Or a higher form of intelligence from another planet, so evolved that they can make contact telepathically with people sensitive enough to receive their messages? 

All I got was a bald, middle-aged man with a beer gut, which he swears is a power pack for a sex machine. I suspect that there is no such person as Peter, alive or dead, and he never even existed, either. Despite what Madam Katrina says, I'm sure he is just a figment of my imagination. I sell a t-shirt that has the six pack joke plastered over it in bright red. My subconscious is merely picking up on things I see every day. I have no idea where picked Peter up but I wished it would take him back! 

Still, meditation is good for your heart rate and stress levels apparently, so it can only be a good thing. Maybe my subconscious would latch onto the man with the aqua eyes and would make him bonk me silly on the four poster bed plunked in the middle of a deserted beach in my mind! I can only hope and I'm entitled to fantasise I think. I mean, 'an' it hurts, none do what ye will' and all that. See? Even the Witch's tenet says it's okay for me to wish I would have an erotic meditation about some man I don't even know. Guilt free, self serving gratification that reduces your stress levels … better than chocolate really, isn't it? Better for your waist line too. 

I slid the CD into my surround sound system. I love music. It's probably my only indulgence and it sounds great on a good system. There's nothing worse than floating down into a deeper state of consciousness only to be ripped out of it by a skipping disk. It's actually painful when that happens. Like, I don't know, splashing hot tea on your thumb after having spilled it from your cup and on to a tea spoon as a result of your hands suffering a nervous twitch under a wrought iron table. 

I shook my head in an attempt to quiet my inner rambling and inhaled deeply through my nose. Madame Katrina's voice filled my lounge room in surround sound. I suppose it's probably incorrect of me to call the room I was sitting in a lounge. It's really more of a parlour, or was used as such when the original inhabitants built it any way.

Shoosh! You are supposed to be quietening your mind, not rambling!

"Take your phone off the hook …and ensure you will not be disturbed for the next hour while you meditate," Madame Katrina's voice floated from the speakers, "Check that your posture is straight, and that your clothing is comfortable…"

Posture. Check.

Clothing. Well, yeah, I'm comfortable. I'm wearing my favourite weekend dress, the sleeveless one that hangs to my ankles. It's pink and I usually don't go for pink but apparently I'm a cool colour person so I need to go for pink and blue tones to bring my complexion to life. Make-up does that too but I can't wear make-up. Yep... Allergic. I can't even wear mascara and if there are two things I firmly believe in, it's mascara and properly shaped and maintained eyebrows. Seriously, if your eyebrows are waxed, tinted the right colour and shaped properly, it opens up your entire face and mascara! Even the ancient Egyptians used it! Well, actually, they used Kohl liner but I bet if Cleopatra'd had mascara, she would have worn it. 

Alas, I can't wear it. It makes my eyes itch and weep. I wish I had those thick beautiful eyelashes that you see some people have naturally. The long sweeping ones that look like fans on their cheeks when they close their eyes. Like the man who volunteered to be Heathcliff's official rescuer, and really, let's be honest here, how unfair is that? He is a man for crying out loud! What does he need such beautiful eyelashes for?

I heard a groan in my mind. 

Oh will you shut up!

"...And let your mind become like a piece of silk….let all the day's thoughts, all of your worries….just sliiiiide away…" Crooned Madam Katrina.

Ok. I'm shutting up. 

I visualise a silk scarf and imagine my thoughts are little rainbow coloured bubbles. They float and slide from the scarf and disappear with a pop. 

"Allow yourself to take the time to relaaaaxxxxxxx…." Madame Katrina's voice lowered a notch and became dreamy. 

I love how she can do that. My voice is quite nasally and I hate hearing it on playback. I sound like Nanny Fran, only without the endearing accent. If I had the accent it probably wouldn't be so bad. I could pronounce 'here' as 'heya' and no one would accuse me of being a 'Queenslandah mayte". They'd probably raise their eyebrows in pleasant surprise and ask with faux British accents if I was from New York. 

Shut up! I mean it!

Okay! No need to scream!

"Breathe in for a count of five….hold your breath…..exhale…ahhhhhhhhhhh" Madame Katrina said.

…rainbow coloured bubbles popping off the violet scarf in my mind. I'll just ignore the black ones.

You don't want to piss the inner voice off do you?

No, I definitely do not want to do that. I've already answered it, proof that I'm insane. I don't want to see what it's capable of doing to my mind if I make it cranky. 

Last warning…shut…up!

Okay!

"You are walking down a set of stairs…a beautiful, quaint set of stairs that could lead to a mystical garden…and at the bottom you see a door…"

Yes! I see them! Oh …we are counting the steps down from ten... um...is it alright if I just chime in at number two? I missed the first eight.

Groan.

"You open the door," Madam Katrina's soothing voice floated to my ears, showing me where to go, how to negotiate the world beyond the veil.

"You see a long stretch of beach, glistening sand…and in the middle is a bed…." 

Oh please! Give me something GOOD in a meditation for once!

"You relax among the plush satin pillows…shimmering, gossamer curtains from the canopy over head float in the warm gentle breeze blowing in from the sea...and you feel safe ... relaxxxxxxxxxxxxx..."

I exhaled, completely emptying my lungs and a feeling of absolute calm washed over me. I heard the waves lapping at the sand. I felt the warm breeze lifting my curls. I'm pleased when I see the air in my meditative state doesn't make my hair go frizzy, the way humid air does. 

"You see a figure walking toward you…along the long, white stretch of sand..."

Please let him be a hunk... please! If I can't find love at first sight like my parents and grandparents did, at least let me have it in my subconscious, use the image of the Heathcliff's rescuer! Please?

"The figure draws closer… you recognise it is your spirit guide, come to help you on your path through life…"

I heard a large rumbling belch that would make Homer Simpson look like an amateur. 

G'day mate!

I was unable to hold my disappointed, heartbroken sigh and I fell back on the plush satin and velvet pillows...Ooo! One's leopard skin!

I love leopard skin. I have leopard skin print shoes and a matching handbag and the quilt cover on my bed is leopard skin and the other day, I saw in a catalogue that you can even get leopard skin house and car keys cut at the cobbler's! I ordered a complete set. I might see if I can get Heathcliff a leopard skin print name tag too - 

Still rambling, as always.

I rolled my eyes and thought/said, "Hello Peter." 

He looks the same as he always does, a short, balding middle-aged man with a beer gut, stretched over which was a t-shirt that said 'Beer: So much more than a breakfast drink'. He was smiling at me, his eyes twinkled mischeviously.

I sat up quickly. "Don't you dare!"

He wiggled eyebrows that were so bushy I swear he had more hair in those two small patches than he did on his entire head. Grinning, he dived, spread - eagled onto the bed. It rocked and bounced so violently after he landed that I nearly flew onto the sand. He threw back his head and a great roaring belly- laugh erupted from him.

I was furious, livid in fact. I usually get that way when I'm disappointed and the cause of my sorrowful state, laughs and jumps on the magnificent bed that my subconscious mind has dreamed up. 

I glared at him. "Why can't I just have a normal spirit guide like everyone else? Can't you arrange that?"

Peter gave me a bored look, "Oh and how do you suggest I go about lining that up, genius? I'm good but I'm not that good." 

I wasn't willing to give up so easily for once. 

"I just want one nice fantasy…I mean…meditation." I wheedled, "Can't you speak to the boys upstairs and arrange a substitute? Tell them we are having irreconcilable differences or something!"

Peter shook his head. "Nope, they only listen to that shit when it's a divorce."

"Then divorce me!"

"I can't! I'm not married to you!"

"Thank God for that!"

Peter gave me an indulging smile. The twinkle was still in his eye, the one that said clear as day he was going to do something else to me. 

"I won't." He said gently.

"Won't what?" I asked a little surprised, wondering if he could read my thoughts.

"Of course I can read your thoughts, you know that! Beyond the veil I'm a god." He winked at me and chuckled.

"Then give me a hunk for a spirit guide!"

"Like the bloke working on Marge's fence?" Peter asked.

"Well, yeah, he'd definitely do but there is the small problem that he isn't meditating or dead."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "Do you mind you insensitive woman? We dead people actually prefer the term 'passed over' if you don't mind."

"I'm sorry, passed over…but why is it that everyone else has the spirit of some Native American Indian for a guide and a wolf for a totem animal, and I have a beer swilling yobo and my totem animal is a wallaby!" I complained.

I frowned and turned away, a little furious at myself for throwing a tantrum but I couldn't do it in real life and this was my subconscious after all. I'd bloody well cry if I wanted to. 

"Why can't I have Tecumseh's big brother as my spirit guide?" I sulked, "He had his head screwed on alright!"

"Ha!" Peter crowed triumphantly, "He can't be all that good when you think Tecumseh was basically a spoiled brat!"

"That wasn't his brother's fault!" I argued.

"Of course it was. If Pucksinwah knew his shit he would have flogged the selfishness out of the little bugga early in the piece."

"Oh whatever!" I waved a dismissive hand, "Anything would be better than a drunken sailor who's stuck in some bizarre time warp on the Kokoda Trail."

"Don't you go knocking the Kokoda Trail." Peter scolded, "Do you know how many pilgrims march the same way we went every year and come out with some amazing spiritual revelation?" 

Peter looked at me with a serious expression. It bordered on being offended and I immediately regretted my words. I hadn't meant to make small of the sacrifices of so many, or of the spiritual gains of those who followed. I sighed and buried my head in my hands. It was for this reason that I avoided confrontation at all costs. I hated to make people feel bad, especially when I did it by saying something careless.

Peter reclined on his elbows and crossed his ankles. I noticed he was wearing Doc Martins. At least he had some taste. 

Answering my thoughts, Peter smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I've always loved Docs too. Pity they didn't invent them in dubya dubya two, we'd have kicked the Japanese out of Papua New Guinea and straight back to Tokyo, without the help of the Americans!"

I groaned and rolled my eyes, making the sound I can only make when I do something I regret and am exasperated because of it. 

"Please don't start with that," I pleaded, "you are supposed to be guiding my life, not boring me to tears with 'wories'."

"Nothing wrong with war stories me girl. If it wasn't for us you'd be eating with chopsticks now."

"I already eat with chopsticks." I said, my voice slightly raised, "Japan is one of Australia's foremost trading partners now, we are friends…well, it makes us a little cranky that they insist on whaling in our territorial waters but other than that, we get along fine now." 

I looked out over the ocean. It was blue and calm, a beautiful day in my meditation. Maybe not everything was a loss. I was effectively having a day at the beach that didn't end up with my car being full of sand. I couldn't really complain could I? 

"Nope." Peter smacked his lips together and looked over the ocean as well. "Can't complain at all."

We sat in companionable silence for a few moments. Peter's head move sharply to look at me, as he always did when he had something important to say. 

I groaned. "What now…?"

"Want me to tell you why you have a yobo as your spirit guide?"

"You will anyway." I said.

He ignored me and started speaking as though I had said 'yes please, I would love to know!'.

"Because, if I was an American Indian like the rest of youse blokes have, you'd think I was a figment of your imagination. Just as you think all your friends' spirit guides are loads of crap."

I looked at him aghast. 

"I do not think that!" I cried, indignantly.

"Yes you do! No point lying to me Missy, I can read your thoughts remember?" Peter winked at me as though he had scored some point in the argument. 

I warmed to the topic. "I do not think that…well, I kind of do, but I don't think they deliberately make them up."

"Whether or not they do is none of your concern." Peter gave me a superior, condescending look. "Now what did you want to ask me?"

I blinked at him. "Nothing. I don't want to ask you anything! I didn't even want you to come to my beach or turkey dive on my bed! I wanted a nice tryst in the sand with the bloody tradie working on Marge's fence!"

Peter narrowed his eyes slyly and smiled at me. "You know, I can't make anyone do anything. But, I hate to see me favourite sheila disappointed."

I furrowed my brow with confusion. "What are you going on about?"

Peter smiled. "Think quickly me girl, real life or in your mind?"

I heard a distant noise that sounded disturbingly a lot like my door bell ringing. I was overcome with an unreasonable sense of urgency, as though I had to answer quickly.

"Hurry up!" Peter prompted and the doorbell rang again. "What's it to be?"

Live dangerously for once!

The door bell rang, as though someone was standing outside my home holding their finger to the small button...

…And just like that, I was hauled from the deep state of meditation and my awareness once more in my neat little lounge. A static noise came from my surround system and assaulted my ears. I was surprised to realise that I hadn't even heard the CD had finished. That never usually happened. I always heard Madame Katrina's voice the entire time I was under. 

The doorbell rang again, startling me. The accompanying jump was a little belated; I was still a bit dazed.

"Okay!" I exclaimed, "Keep your pants on!"

I staggered to my feet and bumped my way toward the front door. When I tore it open, my eyes met the most magnificent round, blue eyes that I'd only ever seen the likes of once before…

"Heathcliff!" I gasped. 

For a moment, it looked as though my cat was suspended in mid air. After blinking a few times to clear my still blurred vision, I saw he was being held in two muscley tanned arms against a broad, defined - shirtless- chest. I knew if I allowed my eyes to keep travelling upward, I would see that startlingly white, picture perfect smile and those amazing aqua coloured eyes. I felt a migraine coming on.

Stranger Things Have Happened Ch. 03



For an instant I thought Heathcliff had somehow developed the ability to levitate, then I realised the man was holding him. I blinked, as I often do when I'm surprised and I tried to focus on his face. It was hard to see through the fly screen on the security door and my eyes were still blurred after being jolted so abruptly from my meditation. The man's massive body filled my doorway and it was probably a good thing I couldn't see him properly, or I would have lost myself in his eyes and teeth and shoulders.

"Your cat was stuck on the roof, meowing." The man said, his tone was accusing, "Didn't you hear him?" 

"Oh no, I didn't, sorry. I was meditating…" My voice sounded slightly muffled as though I was talking with my face hidden under a pillow.

"You meditate? What like Ghandi?" The bronzed Penis God asked.

I didn't need to see his face to know he was sniggering at me and probably derisively too. Cretin. Just because my world doesn't revolve around beer and topless waitresses at the workman's bar.

"Yes I do meditate," I said, in short and clipped tones, "And no, not like Ghandi." 

The tone of voice I was using was the most anger I ever showed, not that anyone ever usually noticed. Just for once, I wish I had the courage or temperament to 'spit chips' at someone, like the character Jack Nicholson played in that movie As Good as it gets. I laughed so hard during that movie I had to go to the toilet. Maybe I should try and develop some obsessive/compulsive disorder so that I have the backbone to tell people what I think for once. I opened the door to retrieve my cat and thought that maybe I should just do it now, to Mr. Smug Typical Bronzed Aussie Bloke.

"Thanks." I smiled begrudgingly in his direction and was very careful not to meet his eyes.

Yeah! You told him! Way to go girl!

Shut up.

"No worries. You can make me a cuppa as payment." The man smiled and winked.

He actually winked at me! Who does that? Who winks when they are conning a cup of tea out of someone?

I gave him a deadpan look and my eyes locked with his, completely against my will of course. I seriously did not do that on purpose! The last thing I wanted to do was look into those eyes and swoon and make a complete idiot out of myself again when I was trying to work up the courage to spit chips. It was too late though, I'd already looked into those amazing aqua orbs and I couldn't look away. There wasn't much left to do about it, but to admire them and notice that in the shade they were the colour of a stormy sea. 

In that moment, I thought I would probably make him anything he wanted…tea, coffee…babies. 

I gasped! Where had that come from? Oh please God, don't let me have said that out loud, I swear I will go to church on Sunday and light a candle for every dead relative I have and considering that everyone in my family is at least thirty years older than me, that is a lot of candles. I wondered if I would get a discount if I bought them in bulk.

"You know? Tea?" He reminded me, speaking slowly as though talking to an idiot.

At least it seemed that I hadn't said that I wanted to have his babies out loud because he wasn't running, screaming with horror down the road! Have his babies? Oh good lord! Where was all this crap coming from? I decided that I couldn't wait for the workmen to finished Marge's yard, get out of my doorway and stop saving Heathcliff.

I bet he would throw cute pups though…STOP IT! 

"Oh! Oh sorry, I'm still a little bit dazed I think…you know. Um… visiting with Ghandi and all that tends to leave me a little bit dippy…" I muttered apologetically.

Like you ever AREN'T dippy!

Shut up! I'm trying to concentrate here!

"Tea?" I giggled lamely, "I only have Earl Grey, is that alright?" 

I busied myself by reaching for my cat so I could bury my face in his fur and hide my blushing cheeks. I walked toward the kitchen and the door slammed shut behind me with a bang loud enough to hurt my ears. Startled, Heathcliff jumped from my arms. The little air cylinder thing at the top of the door, designed to close it automatically, needed adjusting or replacing, I wasn't sure which. 

I half mumbled, half stammered, "Uh, come in, sorry…I forgot about the door."

He smiled a crooked half smile and I felt my heart drop to my feet. All the good I had done by meditating was for nothing. My head was dizzy and my heart was palpitating again. I think I was breaking out in a sweat too. At least I had the presence of mind to stifle the lustful groan that threatened to worm its way out of my mortified mouth when I looked over my shoulder and saw him standing in the middle of my lounge room, looking like some long forgotten God of sex, surrounded by my tasteful 'shabby chic' furniture - for which, by the way, I developed a taste before Sarah Jessica Parker did in Sex and the City. 

"It's hot in here…" I fanned my face guiltily. "How do you have your tea?"

"Sweet and creamy like my women." He murmured.

I thought for sure that I was going to have a heart attack. What little presence of mind I had prided myself on retaining, promptly fled.

"Uh, um…so that's one spoon of sugar or two?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level.

"Three."

He stood behind me and trying not to pay attention to how close he was, I put the kettle on the stove. I tried to light the burner but my hands were shaking so much I had as much chance of igniting it as I did of being able to perform brain surgery. 

"Here, let me." He said, and he took the matches from my hands.

"Ow!" My finger stung where I had scalded it on my tea earlier. 

He furrowed his brows and held my hands. "Did I hurt you?"

I shook my head and tried to pull my hand out of his grip. His calloused skin felt like sand paper rubbing on my burned finger and it freaking killed! God! It was excruciating!

"No." I said, quickly, "You didn't hurt me."

I faked a smile that probably looked more like a grimace.

He narrowed his gorgeous eyes slightly and looked at me again, as though I was a seventeen year old drunk driver. 

Oh ye gads…I think I'm going to ... le gasp! 

"Show me."

I blinked, "Huh?"

"Your hand." He said.

He curled my fingers over his so that he could examine them. There was a massive blister on the tip of my thumb. Before I knew what was happening, he raised my hand to his lips and kissed the very tip of my finger where it wasn't burned. 

I swallowed hard. This isn't real. I must still be meditating …

You are, enjoy.

I swallowed harder. It felt real…as real as…oh hoe-lee- shit! He gripped the tip of my finger with his amazingly white teeth and was smiling wolfishly at me. Yes, wolfishly, not wallaby-ishly! He was looking at me as though he was going to eat me alive. I saw the tip of his tongue flick against my finger… shit…I thought I must have eaten something I'm allergic to, it's making me hallucinate. 

He pulled my hand slightly away from his lips and murmured. "There, all better."

"Huh?" I felt dizzy.

"My mother used to say that a kiss could heal anything." He said with a smoulderingly sexy voice that sounded exactly the same as Russell Crowe did in The Silver Brumby.

I blinked, yes; my vocabulary was reduced to simple eye movements. Oh God…I'm having a breakdown, or a schizophrenic episode. Too bad a kiss couldn't heal my nervous system. 

I turned quickly toward the bench again and reached for my little pottery jar, the one with the little pottery gumnut baby on it, who held a little pottery plaque that read 'Tea'… logically, since it was a tea caddy. Speaking about pottery, I'm seriously going daft, I just know it! I'm going loony!

"Do you like it strong?" I managed to squeak. Yes, I actually squeaked but it's already been established that I had little chance of being picked to star in a movie on the merit of my voice alone. 

Suddenly, I felt him lifting my hair away from my shoulders and warm breath washed over my nape. His lips followed; smooth, soft, silky - I froze, on the verge of passing out and tried to remember how to breathe. His breath flowed down my spine and left a trail of goose bumps in its wake, marking a passage that exploded between my thighs like fireworks. I jumped, startled, and this time my jump actually kept up with my startle and didn't resemble a Chinese martial arts movie where the actors lips moved out of sync with their voice overs and a few moments later an American voice says 'You dirty rat!' 

"What are you doing?" I sputtered.

He winked at me again and took a few slow steps closer. 

"I'm kissing your nervous system better."

My jaw dropped and mortified, I asked, "Did I say that out loud?"

He nodded and raised his eyebrows. He was still moving toward me and I took a few steps back until I was pressed hard against the bench. I was starting to get frightened. Had I let some bizarre serial rapist into my home? I looked at the door, hoping to see if the work crew was still in Marge's front yard and within hear shot of my screams, should I need to make them. I gave him a wary sideways glance.

He was looking at my braless chest again and drawled, "But to kiss your nervous system, I'd have to kiss your entire body, inside and out." 

That's it. I'm going to faint, any minute now. 

"Not very efficient." He added, and crinkled his nose in a way that made me want to trace the wrinkles with the tip of my tongue, "It'd be quicker if I just kissed the places where bundles of nerves are concentrated…like…." 

"My nipples?" 

Oh shit! I just know I said that out loud.

He lowered his head toward me and that Russell Crow-ish voice vibrated against my skin. 

"...And your neck…" He breathed the words, more than he spoke them. He grazed the length of my jaw with his parted lips and nuzzled my earlobe.

Oh shit…this isn't happening…am I being raped? And if I am, am I insane to be so incredibly aroused that he is rolling my nipple in his teeth? I can't remember the last time I had someone absolutely mung out on my tits. I'm not sure that any one ever has. The one boyfriend I've ever had was so conceited that we only ever bonked in front of a full length mirror so he could look at himself. Maybe he was gay or something, deep down, or maybe I was just so boring and unattractive that he would rather make love to himself than to me.

Oh, what a depressing thought…My nipple!!! 

Hooray for delayed reactions. What I had been prattling on about finally registered in my brain. The man was mauling my breasts! I really need to do something to make my actions catch up with my reactions. I must have an imbalance somewhere. I must remember to ask Madame Katrina if there is a crystal that will fix it; maybe hematite would do the trick.

"Stop it!" I grabbed his face with my hands and tried to push his head away from my breast and traitorous nipple, which was now standing at bullet like attention, encircled by a wet mark on my pink dress. I was furious, how dare he? "I don't know what the hell you think you are doing! In fact, what the hell are you doing? Because I certainly don't know what's going on! What I do know is that you had better get out of my home before I scream."

He smiled predatorily at me again, "No one will hear you."

I frowned. Ok, I admit it. I was frightened. 

"What do you mean?" I scoffed, putting on a brave front, "Don't be ridiculous, of course someone will hear me scream." 

He shook his head and leaned back slightly so he could eye me up and down. "No one will hear you. This is all happening in your head."

I opened my mouth to argue and then closed it abruptly. 

"Uh…" Nope…still nothing to say, let's try again. I opened my mouth, "I don't believe you…"

Yay it worked!

He slid his massive warm hands up my waist and cupped my braless breasts in his hands. The cold, saliva soaked material of my dress brushed against my sensitive, almost painfully hard flesh and torture my nipples further. The sound of Russel Crowe's voice rumbled in the hollow at the base of my throat and I heard my long rose quartz earrings clink softly. 

"I better tell you my name so you can scream it…"

Breathe…

I breathed. "What is it?"

His lips mouthed my arched neck and my eyes rolled back in my head. I decided that it might be fun to have a nervous breakdown after all. At least it seemed I might get off for once.

"Russel Crowe."

"No way!" My eyes flared open and I looked at him sharply. "Really?"

I tried to look at him while he nuzzled my neck but all I could see was the very corner of his lips, which were curling up into a smile. 

"Not really," He said, "I just wanted to prove to you that this is all happening in your mind by using something that was floating around in your subconscious."

The corners of my lips turned down as I considered this revelation and I nodded slowly as it sank into my foggy brain. 

"Oh ok. So I just enjoy this then?" I asked.

"It's what you wanted…"

"True…but I'm a bit nervous now."

He lifted his head slightly and sealed his lips around my chin. I wonder if it's possible to faint in your mind.

"Don't be," Russel Crowe's voice said, "Just relaxxxxxxx…"

Ohhhhhh ok…..

"What's your name…?" I managed to gasp.

"Alan."

"Easy to remember."

"I guarantee you won't forget it." He growled softly and rubbed his groin against my pelvis. 

I could feel his cock almost painfully hard against my hip and I tried to guess how big it was. I know it's not the size of the wand that matters but the magic it weaves. By trying to guess, I was prolonging the pleasure. Like when you get a present and shake it and listen to it before you unwrap it, smelling it and feeling it in an attempt to make the moment last. And I wanted to make this moment last because only God knew when I'd get a meditation like this again! 

I mean really, let's squeal 'holy shit' at the top of our lungs because here I was, about to enter into the most mysterious and sacred act of devotion, that of worshipping the hallowed phallus! And, I might add, with no chance of having an allergic reaction, getting pregnant, or catching any STDs. From the way my skin was erupting in shivers and goose bumps under his expert hands, I was more than likely going to get off too! Yippee!

It was…well, it was better than chocolate!

"Be quiet or you'll ruin the moment." Alan murmured with Russel Crowe's voice.

Mmmmm Russel Crowe. My eyes flared open suddenly. "You aren't going to throw a telephone at me, are you?" 

I thought it was a fair enough question. My subconscious was hauling out things I'd either read about or which had left impressions on me, and it was quite a big deal when Russel Crowe hurled a phone at that poor hotel receptionist.

"Shut up." Alan murmmured thickly and closed his perfect, beautiful, berry coloured lips over mine. 

That's it. I'm dead, or insane, or have fainted, or am having a drug induced hallucination in some green painted ward in a mental institution that my family had me committed to so they could steal my cat and use him as a stud to get their cats pregnant, so they could develop a genetically modified strain of super Birman that can rescue themselves from rooves, the tops of telegraph poles and stop a moving car with a single claw when sleeping under the wheel arch.

His tongue slid into my mouth and his jaw worked mine open until I could accommodate its entire fat, warm, wet length…oh fuck…he could kiss! I think his tongue must have blocked my nasal passages because for some reason, I was having trouble breathing. When panic started to rise in my chest, I reminded myself that I couldn't suffocate on his tongue because this wasn't real! It was all happening in my head! 

Oh!!! In that case, I'll just suck on it…oh yeah…that's hot. 

He tasted like…marshmallows, the white ones. I can't eat the pink ones; I'm allergic to the raspberry flavouring. My knees turned to jelly, or marshmallow, and I melted against his hard body like a blob of said fluffy white stuff does when it's held in the fire on the end of a sharp stick. I knew what I wanted to be impaled on, that's for sure!

He broke the kiss but it seems I had another delayed reaction in realising it because I couldn't move. I remained in the kiss-ee position, head dropped back, and eyes closed, mouth parted slightly with desire. I realised eventually that I must have looked like a prize idiot. I tried to move, with the intention of arranging myself with some dignity, but Alan's face remained hovering over mine. A thin glistening strand of saliva still held us joined. He slid out that magnificent fat, wet, pink tongue with no artificial colours or preservatives, which I'd nearly lost myself over when I'd sucked it down my throat, and licked the strand slowly, deliberately from my bottom lip. 

I didn't dare look at his eyes incase I lost all control, so I focussed on his high cheek bones instead, his square jaw, the little cleft in his chin. Oh ye gads! I loved men who had clefts in their chin. Funny I hadn't noticed it before because there isn't much that's hotter than that, apart from long black hair or big square shaped hands. Speaking of which, one of said hands was stroking my cheek with the back of its thick fingers and that magnificent, massive thumb danced in front of my lips. 

I wanted to suck it.

"Let's take this to your bedroom." Alan murmured thickly. 

I chewed my lip and nodded, slid my hands over his bulging biceps. He was now wearing black leathers, no shirt and the cement dust was gone and…oh yeah …hot… the epitome of hot…black leathers… rawr! 

"I can't move." I gushed.

He enveloped me with his massive, muscle bound body and lifted me until I could wrap my legs around his waist. Thankfully, I didn't squeak. Even though this was a figment of my imagination, I had my pride. 

"Oomph!" That's the exact noise I made when he dived onto my bed with me still attached to his body like an over grown baby Koala. I thought that 'oomph' was just a word authors used when they couldn't think of a poetic way to describe the sound of air being knocked out of their character's lungs. But people actually do make that sound. 

My stomach felt cold and realising that he wasn't laying on me, I opened my eyes. 

…And closed them again immediately.

Alan was standing over me, between my legs, which were dangling over the side of the bed and he was looking at me! How embarrassing! It was the afternoon too, so my room was flooded with sunlight. I couldn't even tell him to turn the lights off so he couldn't see me! I quickly shot my hands down to my thighs to check that my dress hadn't ridden up so far that I was flashing my undies.

My eyes flared and panicking, I tried to remember which panties I'd put on after showering. I hoped they were my Friday night set, the expensive French lace ones that cost me a small fortune, which I bought for the sole purpose of wearing on Friday night at the pub in case I picked someone up. Not that I had ever done so. I was far too cowardly. I hoped I wasn't wearing my comfy home body undies - the big white ones with little blue flowers on them that I wear when everything else is in the wash because I've been too busy to do the laundry. 

I frantically cast my mind back to when I got out of the shower, yes, I see it! I turned the faucets off, dried myself and wrapped my hair in a towel, put oatmeal lotion on my legs because I'd just shaved them and anything else gives me a rash…reached for my pink dress… and yes I can see them! Lying on my bed, hidden under my dress ready for when I got out of the shower…




Stranger Things Have Happened Ch. 03



Oh shit- bum- fuck! 

I was wearing my granny undies! The exact same type women threw at Tom Jones concerts when he was still young and hot. Freaking cotton tails! Why was I such a dag all the time? Why, just for once, couldn't I have worn my French lace Friday night undies on a Thursday afternoon? The undies that were shaped like two strips of lace that went up the crack of my arse and looked fantastic with suspenders! No one had ever seen them apart from me but dagnabbit if I didn't feel hot wearing them! 

Speaking of hot, my cheeks were on fire.  Hang a tick, this is my bloody meditation-slash-fantasy; I can just 'will' myself to wear my Friday night undies, can't I?

"Granny undies?" Alan asked, surprised.

Obviously not…

He raised a bemused eyebrow. I wasn't even sure if he lifted an eyebrow because I still had my mortified eyes squeezed closed, but the tone of voice he used was the kind that is usually accompanied by raised, bemused brows. 

I worked my jaw as though I was speaking and finally, words followed, "Well, it's my day off…" 

Yes, lame excuse, even I am big enough to admit that. He laughed softly and if I hadn't been so embarrassed, I probably would have moaned at the sound. I bit my lip and froze like a rabbit with myxomatosis. 

"Look at me." He said.

I opened one eye a small crack. Surely that wouldn't hurt. I slammed it shut again. Yes, it would hurt. He was a god - even if he was just a figment of my imagination. Oh shit. Who was I kidding? I didn't belong here, not even in my mind. Sarah Jessica Parker belonged here, or that slutty friend of hers in Sex and the City, not me. I am the bookish type. I'd probably be quite beautiful if I wasn't so bloody mousy.

No one wears cotton tails, not if they are any fun. Not even on their day off. Grannies probably didn't even wear them anymore, and women who did wear cotton tails on their days off, did not get men who looked as though they had just stepped off the stage of an all male review! Women who wore Friday night undies every day got men like that. Not the bookish types who wore undies that would probably only do it for Tom Jones in his hey day!

Men like Alan, who stood glowering over me, literally throbbing with the promise of hot, sweaty, animalistic, orgasmic sex like some primal spirit of lust in one of the Erotic Romances that I buy off the internet… (You know? The ones where wolves turn into elves who are hung like horses and bonk the heroine senseless? Sometimes four of them at once even and really, how good would that be! Only joking, kind of…) Anyway, men like Alan did not like cotton tails or the dags who wore them.

He was so beautiful and he even had that trail of black hair stretching down from under the shell like swirl of his navel that thickened and widened until it disappeared under the low cut waist band of his leathers. The kinds of hair that looks soft and smooth and just makes me want to comb it with my bloody teeth! He wasn't meant for someone like me.

"Open your eyes." He insisted.

I kept them shut, tight. "No. Look, I want to stop this now. I'm entirely uncomfortable and I'm not going to climax if I can't concentrate. There's just no point continuing so if you would kindly show me the way back to the quaint little door that leads to the quaint little stairs that lead up to the beautiful rainbow I have to walk over so that my consciousness can return to my dreary, empty, boring life, I'd be most grateful," I paused to draw a breath and then added, "I probably need to do some work with my inner child so if you don't mind, I'd like to wake up now." 

Alan chuckled with Russel Crowe's voice again, but I imagined there was a sinister edge to it.

I grew angry. This was my meditation after all and I was not going to put up with some figment of my imagination laughing at me. I didn't care how hot he was or how much his voice sent tingles up my spine! I simply was not going to put up with it. It was bad enough that I was mortified to the extent that I went frigid - even in my bloody mind for crying out loud - let alone having my mind bloody well laugh at me too! 

Rage built up in my solar plexus until it felt as though I'd swallowed a football, and it dragged my reluctant courage inexorably in its wake with the titanic force of a sinking ship until I was absolutely livid! For once I was going to bloody well say something! I was really going to give him what for, and I meant it! In true Marge, Irish grandmother style at that and with an added dose of Jack Nicholson's OCD character even! A veritable cocktail of neurotic rage was about to be unleashed on his arse so for his sake, I hoped he had battened down the hatches because cyclone Missy was coming through and I was raging at category five!

But my words died on my lips when I opened my eyes and my mouth remained gaping like I was a brainless twit.

Alan was gone. 

For that matter, my bed was gone as well, along with my leopard skin print quilt cover. My entire bedroom was gone and logically, it would follow that my house was gone too, along with my cat and my cream 1969 Morris with its silver hubcaps and white leather interior. What's more, it seemed that where ever it was that my possessions had disappeared to, so had the entire world! I seriously doubted the one that greeted my wide, horrified and confused eyes had a King's Court road in it, with a retirement village situated at the end of the street.



Stranger Things Have Happened Ch. 04



I seemed to be lying on a huge rug made from the pelt of some animal I didn't recognise. I bet that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would be fairly pissed to see there were animal heads mounted and hung all over the stone block walls. Where the bloody hell were they when you needed them? I don't say 'hell' lightly either. It looked as though that's where I was and I swear I could actually smell the sulphur. That's it. I've died and gone to hell for playing around with witchcraft and mystical stuff. Father Michael was right! I'm in hell!

"Not quite," said a voice.

I didn't know if I spoken out loud or if the man who sounded nothing like Russell Crowe read my mind. I felt an inexplicable desire to turn to see who had spoken but for some reason, my twisted brain knew without a single doubt that I shouldn't do that. So I didn't. It was easy to resist the urge really, since I'm basically a coward. I glued my eyes to the head of some bizarre kind of bear that had horns and frowned. 

Bears don't have horns do they? I know that could have seemed like a stupid question but considering my mind was obviously unravelling; pride wasn't much of an issue any more. I don't think bears have horns but don't quote me. I've only ever paid attention to Australian animals since it's much more likely that I will get attacked by a white pointer at the beach than by a bear in the woods. I know that some whales have horns. Or are they dolphins? I can't remember exactly but I remember seeing them on the Discovery channel. They were white and had a single horn in the middle of their foreheads like unicorns.

"Look at me." The not-Russell-Crowe voice commanded.

"Um. I don't think I will actually," I said amicably, "I'm kind of enjoying looking around at this mildewy, Gothic style chamber with cumbersome arched windows and stained glass I mean, it's not like I get to see things like this every day since the oldest building in Australia can't be much more than two hundred years old, because basically, Europeans have only been here for that long…"

"Look at -"

"Oh look!" I interrupted him, "Are they statues of Gargoyles that I can see? Please tell me they aren't turning to look at me…" 

"They are."

"I told you not to tell me that." I whined. "Oh good Lord! I even said 'please'!"

"I'm not good," The voice drawled, "but I am your lord, and you? You aren't in a position to demand anything. Look at me." 

I swallowed hard. "Oh …um…oooo! Torture implements hanging on the walls and they actually look genuine. They must have cost you a buck or two eh? To have replicas made to look so authentic." I giggled weakly and suddenly regretted having noticed them. 

"They aren't replicas and if you don't look at me, I'll be forced to use them on you." The voice threatened.

I closed my eyes and drew a shuddering breath. I didn't fancy the idea of having my fingernails pulled off but I liked the idea of looking at Alan-turned-Lucifer even less. 

Oh God, I'm so sorry! Please? I take back every entire Tarot card reading I've ever given or had…

I waited, but nothing happened. No rabid PETA group was going to burst through the heavy arched door to save me or the stuffed animal heads, and God was ignoring me. What's more, the compulsion to look at he-who-no-longer-spoke-like-Russell-Crowe was fast becoming irresistible. My head started to turn against my will as though a hand were pulling it, slowly, inevitably toward him and I really did NOT want it to, but it was like driving past a car crash. Some bizarre sense of morbid curiosity demanded that I look at him.

At last, my eyes met his, although I would rather have worked up to that. I was actually aiming for his chin first. After that I might have looked at his lips, his nose and reach his eyes last. It was all a bit much, having those searing, red glowing things so suddenly boring holes through my eyes and into my soul. After everything else that had happened, I was feeling rather fragile. His eyes had a rather beautiful shape and probably would have been entirely swoon worthy if the irises hadn't resembled that of a stoned snake. They captured mine and to be perfectly truthful, it was all becoming a little too much. 

From my peripheral I saw that he still had the cleft in his chin, which was a plus. He now had long shining black hair that was pulled back harshly from his face, but was still long enough to spill over his massive shoulders and I've already said that I find that look pretty hot. He wore a leather and chain harness of some sort - Oh ye gads, I hope he isn't some kind of crazy BDSM dude, you know, they can do some pretty spun things and I'm a wimp when it comes to pain - but he was also wearing the same leather pants that Alan had which was also a major plus. 

Rawr!

He was huge, towering almost. In fact, I think he may even have had a chance at making 'The Rock' look like a small boy playing with plastic dumbbells. He looked like the perfect villain actually. The writers of the Erotic Romance e-books I sometimes buy would love him! I didn't think that I would be bothered in the slightest if they wanted to keep him either. I frowned and held my breath for a few moments to explore the thought…nope, not even a twinge of jealousy! 

Basically, he was still as gorgeous as Alan had been - albeit in a sinister, I'm-going-to-eat-your-soul kind of way. He reached out a thick finger which was attached to a heavy square palm -Oh goodie! That hadn't changed either - then he winked slyly and tapped my nose in an almost chiding manner. 

"You need to be little more careful what you wish for, Missy." He said cheerily.

It was as though a spell of calm had been broken and I was free to move again. So, I did what any self respecting bookish type who wears granny undies on their days off would do. 

I slapped my eyes closed again and screamed like a heroine in a b-grade horror movie.

I'd like to say I pulled myself together in true heroine style, and, after I finished my frantic and repeated, extremely loud screams, I managed to smote snake eyes. But, I if said that I'd be lying. Not that I have a problem with lying, especially if it was to save my arse but truthfully, I thought I'd already gotten my soul into enough trouble without adding to my woes by compounding the disaster with falsities. I never usually bother lying because quite simply, I'm just not very good at it. 

The evil version of the Penis God, or PG for short didn't even flinch for the entire time I attempted to shatter his eardrums. Eventually, I realised my b-grade horror movie heroine act just didn't seem to be working so I stopped and rubbed my aching jaw. It was hurting pretty badly from being held so wide for so long.

PG moved to crouch in front of me and was so close that a massive, thick thigh was on either side of my body and his…er…wow!…huge package was at eye level. It seemed that the old wife's tale about thumbs and penis size were true, in his case at least.

He raised a sardonic eyebrow, "Are you finished?"

I froze and sucked my lips. Had he noticed my rather intense perusal of his bulge? Oh bloody hell, I hoped not! "Are you finished' is a pretty broad question and I didn't know if he meant to ask if I was finished screaming or if I was finished checking out his bulge. If he was referring to my screeching my head off, I would naturally want to continue if it annoyed him but a timely flash of light caught my eye, reflecting from the sharp edges of the torture implements that decorated the walls. Call me daft, but I had a sneaking suspicion it probably wouldn't be a good idea to make old PG angry. I suspected that to do so could be worse than pissing off my inner voice and letting it drive me to insanity, and let's face it, if I wasn't crazy, I was standing on the edge and my toes were hanging over! 

On the other hand, if he meant to ask if I was finished checking out the God between his legs, what could I say? Nice dick?

"Thank you." He smirked.

I buried my horrified face in my hands and didn't even bother to ask if I'd said that out loud. One thing was for sure, I didn't have to worry about burning in the eternal fires of hell. My cheeks were flaming hot enough to make me spontaneously combust! 

"You've finished screaming?" 

Oh, he had been referring to my screaming…

I peeked through my fingers and saw that PG had angled his face downward, trying to capture my eyes with his snake-ish ones. Through the little 'v' between my index finger and my middle finger, I realised that I could block out most of his face and limit my vision so that I could only see the cleft in his chin - which was just fine with me - and not his weird- me -out - eyes or his long black hair, bulging muscles or the impressive bundle between his legs. 

"Hmmm?"

Oh …clearly he wanted an answer to what I thought was actually quite obvious, that yes, I was finished screaming. I couldn't have continued even if I wanted to, and I kind of did. I froze. I could feel pain! More than anything else, that realisation told me in no uncertain terms that we weren't in Kansas anymore, Toto.

"Take your hands away from your face." PG commanded.

I felt compelled to obey and I wondered if he was using some kind of Jedi mind trick on me, like when I couldn't stop my head from turning to look at him earlier. I really did not want to look at him but of their own accord, my fingers began to peel off my face. I gritted my teeth, trying to force them to remain where they were. I tried so hard that sweat beaded on my forehead with the effort! 

When PG realised that his little Jedi mind trick wasn't working, the pressure on my hands to remove them from my face intensified. I gritted my teeth with the effort of holding them there but no matter how much I tried, my fingers were being inevitably pulled away from my face. They had been pulled back by some unseen force until they were poised, claw-like, a few centimetres away from my face. I groaned with effort and managed to pull them back a small way. 

Suddenly, PG snarled a frustrated growl and the instant he did, whatever it was that was peeling my hands from my face was released, quickly. Before I could stop them, my fingers slammed back and poked me straight in the eye! 

"Ow!" The word was an agonised hissed.

I rolled back and onto my knees as though by squirming, I could relieve the blinding white pain that exploded in my head. I don't think there is anything more excruciating than being poked in the eye. Child birth would have to come close, I would guess. Trying to push something the size of a watermelon out of a hole the size of a pea would probably be quite agonizing. Other than that, a poked eyeball took the cake.

PG chuckled low and with genuine amusement. He still sounded evil but I could tell he thought it was hilarious I had poked myself in the eye. 

I clenched my jaw furiously. For crying out loud, I couldn't even be abducted and terrified without someone laughing at me, not even in my mind! I was pretty sure that all of this was still happening in my mind and I didn't care if it wasn't. As far as I was concerned, it was bloody well happening in my mind and that's all there was to it. Like a good reader, I could suspend my disbelief for the sake of my sanity - what was left of it anyway.

"Let me see." PG's voice vibrated along my spine and I could feel his massive body hunched over mine. 

"No! Just leave it!" 

"I can make it better…" He drawled.

He gripped my jaw with one hand, turning my face in his direction and seized both of my wrists in his other hand, effortlessly removing them from where I had all but glued them over my weeping, aching eye. He removed my hands so easily that I kind of wondered why he even bothered with the Jedi mind trick. Maybe he just wanted me to know he could do things merely with the power of his thoughts. The bloody show off.

He pressed his lips against my eye. I don't think he opened them. He didn't need to I suppose, they were so full and firm yet soft at the same time that they just kind of enclosed my eye in that little pouty 'o'. 

Speaking of 'o', quite a long one escaped my lips on an exhalation of breath that left my body boneless in its wake as though I didn't have a skeleton at all and the breath I'd just released, was the only thing providing my 'bits' with any kind of structure. I literally melted. 

Worst of all, PG knew I had too because I felt his lips change shape and stretch into a lazy smile against my eye. Best of all, since I was obviously in no condition to put up a fight, he released the vice like grip he had on my wrists, which had actually been quite uncomfortable. He cupped my head in his large, warm hands and my thoughts scrambled.

He pulled away slightly and my eyes fluttered open. I have no doubt they were as dazed as my head was. Belatedly, I realised the pain in my eye had disappeared the instant he laid his lips on my closed eyelid. Just like that! I felt a sting in my thumb where I had burned it on my tea and not so belatedly, I jutted the injured digit up and held it in front of his lips, hoping he would take the hint. 

He did, and I lost myself in the perfect bow shape of his mouth when he caught the blister in his pouting 'o' …ooooooooo farrrk……

Oh yeah, kiss the blister on my thumb, baby!

Kiss the remnants of my sanity goodbye while you are at it 'cos there was nothing left happening in my head. All that was left was mush, which was of no use to man or beast and all it did, was pulse and quiver. It didn't even have the faculty to protest about what was happening. It was too busy mushafying to do anything more than use my mouth to release a carnal sounding growl when the entire length of my thumb was sucked into PG's warm, wet mouth. I definitely could not have reproduced the sound, even if I'd tried to. 

At some stage, PG had manoeuvred us until he was kneeling behind me and I was kneeling in between his spread thighs. My boneless body had melted itself liquidly against the hard ridges and clefts of his torso. His marble hard bulge pressed into the middle of my back and from my vantage point, I could see underneath his heavy square jaw. His muscles move hypnotically under his skin and I became lost in them as he kissed his way to my wrist. His long, almost canine looking tongue caught my eye next, when he lapped at the pulse in my wrist and I became mesmerised by the dimple in his cheek, which kept winking in and out of sight as he worked his jaw.

Oh.

Ye.

Gads.

He was perfect. If I could have written a list of everything I found attractive in a man, PG would be the physical embodiment. Admittedly, I find most things about men attractive, just because I'm allergic to them doesn't mean I don't love them. I decided with the few brain cells I had left that hadn't spontaneously combusted the way my cheeks tend to, the first thing I was going to do when I woke up was get a Tarot card reading. If this was a glimpse of some other place and not some kind of bizarre dream - slash- meditation gone haywire, I wanted to make sure that I got to come back here eventually…with him.

He seemed to have finished making love to my wrist and I have never ever experienced anything as erotic as that. He was entirely lost in the moment. His eyes were closed, his thick black lashes spread over his chiselled cheek bones like fans, (what is with all these men having thick beautiful eyelashes and I ask again, why they need them?) He curled my arm around his thick neck and after a few long moments, my brain finally registered that he was looking at me. If I'd had control of my body, I would have gasped and would probably have been startled. Helpless to do anything else, I looked at him in return, at the cleft in his chin, at the dimple dancing at the edge of his crooked smile… and panted. 

I gathered enough presence of mind to ask, "What's your name?"

He snorted the ancestor of what could one day evolve into a chuckle. "It's not Alan."

"Do you mean that your name isn't Alan or that you aren't Alan?" I asked.

"Both."

"Then who is Alan?" I started to tense up a little. I was all for a good consequence free fucking but I was prone to prudishness. The thought of actually indulging in said activity, when I didn't even know the man's name was a little off putting. He could have been anyone, even if he was just a figment of my imagination.

Ah! The wonders of evolution! PG's snort had finally developed into a chuckle that crawled into my ear and sent a heavy, liquid shiver down my spine that set off electric shocks in my nipples and a fire in my groin. 

His eyes seemed to drink in my features and he murmured, "Poor, fragile Missy. Scared of everything…"

I frowned, a little miffed and said rather indignantly, "I am not scared of everything."

"Scared of men," He continued as though he didn't hear my protest, "living her life behind a façade of allergies to keep them away…"

"I do not! My allergies are very real! You don't fake having an asthma attack when someone sprays something around the room." I argued.

"…Won't even fix the cylinder on her door because she likes to keep that security screen between herself and the world…"

"Oh crap!" I exclaimed, "I just haven't had time to fix it because I've been too busy running my business!" 

"…Looking to fill her lonely life with crystals and clairvoyants and fortune tellers…"

"Don't be ridiculous! I'm trying to give my spiritual evolution a jump start so that -" I stopped suddenly and pressed my lips closed in a tight line.

He raised an amused eyebrow, and I got the impression he already knew what I had been going to say but he asked regardless, "So that what...?"

I didn't answer and squeezed my eyes tightly closed, hoping that when I opened them he would be no more real than my childhood fear of the devil sleeping under my bed.

"Tell me." He nuzzled my cheek and his voice vibrated over my skin.

"You'll laugh."

"I won't."

"So," I took a deep breath and blurted too fast for my rational mind to stop, "I will be so spiritually evolved I won't have to be reincarnated and come back here again."

I waited for him to laugh. He didn't. He just curled a hand around my throat and used his thick fingers to tilt my head back. His warm breath wash over my lips and of their own accord, they parted under his.

"Poor Missy." He crooned and I tasted his words on my tongue, "All that time and energy wasted when all you needed was a nice, long, hard fuck to cure what ailed you, by someone qualified to give it to you."

My eyes flared open. For some reason, hearing anyone say the 'f' word out loud still shocked me.

He snorted again and his nose crinkled sexily over his smile. "And I'm that qualified someone."

He crushed his mouth over mine before I could say anything and literally began to devour me. Not that I'm complaining. I love kissing; I could do it for hours. I love it better than sex but from what I could gather, you could never kiss a man without having to put out. I suspected that not-Alan was not merely going to kiss me for hours and then pat me on the head and send me on my way. 

I tried to protest but my words turned into 'mmeummumm'. It's pretty hard to speak when there is a thick, hot tongue wrapped around yours like devil's ivy. I managed to wedge my fingers between his face and mine, breaking the kiss. Don't ask me how I did it because I'd be kidding myself if I thought I actually had the strength to pull him off if he didn't want to be. He had let me break the kiss.

He raised his eyes impatiently. "What?"

"Uh…" I swallowed hard and tried to find something, however small, in his snake like eyes to give me the courage to say …well, what was there to say?"I'm not wearing my Friday night undies…"




Stranger Things Have Happened Ch. 04



Groan.

Yes, even I had a hard time believing I had said that. Even for me, Queen of the Thoughtless Gushing Phrase, that was quite a shock. 

His eyes narrowed slightly but the smile didn't disappear, which I thought could be a good indication that I wasn't going to have the skin peeled off my back with one of the whips hanging on the wall.

"Don't let that trouble you," He murmured, "You won't be wearing any at all, soon."

I blinked.

He snarled.

Or growled, or made a soft rumbling noise as though he was unleashing a beast. Considering the way he attacked my mouth with his, comparing him to a beast was probably apt. He was still growling, or was that me? Oh I don't know. It was all a blur of animal noises and heavy breathing, gasps and mewling, whimpering noises, which I guess mostly, came from me. PG didn't really seem the kind to mewl or whimper. He mauled his way to my jaw and I was surprised that he was able to be so intense, feral even, without actually hurting me. 

He was still scaring the absolute crap out of me but it was more like the fear a person might feel if they were about to bungy jump off Centre point tower in Sydney or off a bridge in New Zealand or something. For the first time in my life I could relate to why those insane people engage in extreme sports. The sense of fear was thrilling. The only difference between me and them at that point, was that I wasn't going to jump off a building; I was just going to have some 'extreme' sex! Fucking even. Baha! I said the 'f' word…oh, I am naughty! 

"Eep!" Yes, that's what I said when PG pulled the thin straps of my pink weekend dress down over my shoulders. At least I didn't scream "Woaaahhhh that was narly dude!"

I think I even uttered 'Ohhhh fuck" when he twisted around by body, sucked half of one of my breasts into his mouth and massaged the other with his hand but I couldn't be sure, it was hard enough remembering to breathe. 

Panting, I managed to force coherent words from my gaping mouth, "What's your name?"

So I can scream it.

It didn't seem as though he had heard me at first but then he slid slowly off my bulging breast, grazing his teeth gently over the sensitive flesh until he could grip just my peaked nipple. I was surprised that it wasn't painful, well maybe it was a little bit. I think my body was flooded to saturation point with endorphins and all I felt was a sharp thrill of pleasure and a rush of wetness between my thighs… ohhh Goooodddd…. I could see his tongue pulsing through the corner of his smirking lips.

He looked at me slyly and I was surprised to realise that his snake like eyes were no longer weirding me out. There's a lot to be said for lust induced endorphins, isn't there?

"A thing named," he growled, "is a thing tamed."

"That's a long name." I moaned the words. Or was he saying that he wasn't going to tell me his name? 

Before I could question him further, his hand slid from my breast and encircled my throat again, his heavy arm snaked across my shoulders and held me crushed against his chest. He nuzzled my cheek and pressed his lips hungrily against the side of my face and his other hand skimmed down over my stomach, under my dress, the bodice of which was crumpled loosely around my waist, under my cotton tails, into my…

…hoeeewwwwllllleeeeeshiiiittt!

I wantonly parted my thighs without even thinking. I can't say that I'm especially proud of that, but ye gads! His fingers felt so good that any remaining thoughts of refusal I may have been entertaining, or morals I may have been harbouring, promptly disappeared. 

"Oh yessss…she likes this…." He growled softly in my ear while he nibbled it and rubbed his fingers along the length of my dripping slit. 

All I could do was gasp but yes, I liked it. I liked it so much that I was throbbing and a distant part of my mind was surprised at how wet I was. It felt amazing, his fingers were coated with my liquid arousal and they slid effortlessly between my swollen folds without dragging or catching. He massaged my protruding clit, which was so hard that I felt his fingers had to part slightly as they passed over it, just so they could remain in contact with my heated flesh. His hand stopped moving and he caught my lips with his again. 

I couldn't stand it. I was literally aching and the only way to relieve the build up of pressure between my thighs was to grind on his hard, square hand. I rolled my hips, dragging myself along his fingers before I even realised that I was doing it, and God…it felt sooooo good! Then I realised what I was doing and I stopped suddenly, my eyes flared with embarrassment and my cheeks spontaneously combusted again. 

He shuddered violently, his eyelids snapped open with an almost audible chime to reveal snake eyes glazed with desire (which surprised me since he hadn't even had to watch himself in a full length mirror to achieve that state), and he shook his head slowly. 

"Oh no Missy, don't stop now…you're driving me insane."

My eyebrows shot to my hairline. I was driving him insane? Me? The dag of the known universe, frigid, boring, granny undies wearing me? 

He bit his bottom lip and hauled his fingers along the entire length of my slit again and my head sagged back against him, lolled from side to side a few times until it settled in against the bulging ball of his shoulder. 

He murmured against my neck, "What do you want now Missy?"

I would have thought that was obvious, considering I was humping his hand like a horny Chihuahua. 

"Tell me."

I swallowed hard and licked my kiss swollen lips. "Ugghhh…"

He laughed silently against my saliva covered neck. "Tell me, or I stop."

Oh God, no! Don't do that! Not now!  "I uh…want to…um…you know." I stammered self-consciously.

"What?" He swirled the pads of his fingers around my almost painfully swollen clit.

"I want you to …you know!" I widened my eyes and gave him a loaded expression. I wasn't talking to an altar boy here; I was talking to sex walking. As if he didn't know what I wanted!

"You have to say it." He flicked my clit with his nail for encouragement and my body erupted from my groin up, as though I'd sat on a bolt of lightning.

"Oh God, I want you to fuck me for the love of chocolate!" I screamed. 

We both froze. Me with horror and him with…well, I don't really know what would make him freeze but when I looked at him, his expression was unmistakably spiderish. I've never seen a spider's face but I imagine they would have to have some kind of gloating expression when the fly went into their parlour.

He abruptly let my mortified body go and I slithered down his chest until my butt hit the ground. 

Well, that's that then. Well done Missy. You fucked that up didn't you? Yes, and I said 'fuck'. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck! Just like Cartman in South Park. 

Humiliation bled into the haze of lust that still held my mind captive and I tried to pull my dress back up to cover my exposed chest. I couldn't believe I'd said nor did that! I deserved to go to hell. Well, at least I didn't have to see PG again. It isn't like I'd run into him at the local pub on Friday night. I don't think the dress standards would allow a leather-and-chain clad demon to participate in 'happy hour'.

Suddenly, a massive hand encircled my wrists and the upward passage of my pink weekend dress was halted. 

"If you want it," PG drawled huskily, "Come and get it."



Stranger Things Have Happened Ch. 05



It was too late. Humiliation had polluted my well of lust, as surely as the salinity level had risen in the Murray River to make it all but useless to man and beast. 

"Look at me." He said in a soft but commanding voice.

Don't do it. Don't look at him.

"Oh um, I don't think…"

Too late. 

He captured my eyes with his and my mind turned into a blur of lust/salinity/Murray River…who actually gives a damn about the Murray River and what the hell is salinity? In the face of all that man meat…who cared about anything at all? 

He must have removed his leather and chain harness in the few brief moments where lucidity had tried to regain control of my thought processes, and he stood over me like a wall of muscle, all hard planes and sharp angles and maleness…oh ye gads! Normally I would have wondered if I was going to faint but in truth there wasn't much wondering going on in my mind at all. 

Meow.

He'd left his leathers on but had undone the laces that held the fly together, which I thought was very considerate of him. As though in a trance, I reached for his hips and felt the hard ridge of corded muscle that framed them under the soft palms of my hands. I felt like I'd been starved for a month and someone had plonked me in the middle of a smorgas board of meat and muscle and soft, long hair stretching from the shell like swirl of his navel and down under his...

Before I knew it, I was combing said hair with my teeth, just as I'd wanted to do to Alan, and I ripped his leathers down over his rock hard, round arse cheeks until the piece de resistance bounced from the confines of his pants and nearly poked me in the eye again. 

I gasped… it was the Holy Grail…

A long, throbbing shaft of straining meat and pulsating vein that rose above me and culminated in a glorious, flared, love-heart shaped head, the heat of which I could feel on the tip of my nose. I inhaled deeply, committing the scent of his maleness to memory and I nearly swooned as my senses were overcome with him. 

He buried his hands in my long thick hair. He didn't push my face toward his dripping cock or anything as coarse as that, but I did know that I wouldn't be able to pull away. It turned me on so bad it wasn't funny. More than anything else, his hands on my head, silently letting me know that he wanted me to take him in my mouth pushed me to the edge of what little sanity I had left. 

Unable to resist any longer, I flattened my tongue against the bulging vein that ran the underside of his shaft and dragged myself along it, as though it were a line leading me to better things. He hissed and a loud, long growl, wrung from between his clenched teeth, providing background music of the best sort to accompany my actions. It was better than Coldplay, and I could hardly believe that I was the cause of such a reaction. Me! Mousy, timid, boring Missy had made this fey, godlike creature groan! I wanted to do it again! So I did. I licked my way up the entire length of his straining cock, lapped deliriously at the come dribbling from his piss slit. He groaned again, a number of times and in varying pitches. 

I felt like a conductor leading an orchestra, making a musical masterpiece with a mere swirl of my tongue, a nibble of my teeth. I felt…powerful for once, and it turned me on like nothing else. I warmed to the task. Well, that's what I would say I did if I wanted to be delicate. The truth is, that a damn of suppressed desire exploded in my core, literally - it was running down my thighs - and I set upon his fat shaft of throbbing man meat in frenzy. I mouthed his tight sack, wormed my tongue between the balls held within until I could suck one into my mouth and roll it with my teeth. 

He was making strangled cries through his pleasure grimaced face, his hands weren't resting so gently on the back of my head anymore and I loved it. It was fascinating, it was almost overwhelming and I started gushing words that even now, I have no idea of their meaning. It was like some secret language of the forgotten Cock Cult and I was merely a devoted disciple. But it was more than that. It was his sheer maleness, so different to me, hard where I was soft, huge where I was well, not…  

At last I gripped his dick firmly with both hands and impaled my throat on it. I gagged slightly but I could feel it pulsating and twitching in my mouth and I wanted to swallow as much of it as I could. I pulled off reflexively after my muscles ejected it. 

"You're so big..." I murmurred to the one eyed monster. 

The tang of pre-cum filled my tastebuds and I growled, I wanted more…and if he wouldn't give it to me I'd suck it out of him! I meant it! I dived over his cock again, relaxing my throat as much as I could. My cheeks hollowed and instinctively, I pumped the base of his cock with my hands, trying to coax more of the delicious stuff out…

Suddenly his hand fisted in my hair and he hauled me to my feet, crushed me almost painfully against his massive barrel like chest. He slammed his lips over mine in a devouring, soul stealing kiss that sucked my breath out of my lungs and my tongue from my mouth. It was possessive almost, if that's the right word, it was almost territorial. It was as though he knew I was his, if only in that moment anyway, and he was taking what he wanted, staking his claim like a dog pissing on a fence. 

Ew, not a very romantic analogy…but there it was. And I wasn't going to protest, God no, I would have given it to him on a silver platter! My heart, my body…my soul.

You need to be a little more careful what you wish for, Missy.

Shut up. Go spoil someone else's fun with your meaningless warnings! It wasn't even original!

He shucked his leathers off his legs and pushed the now stretched neckline of my pink dress over the curve of my hips. His hands circled my waist and slid over my thighs. He squeezed my buttocks demandingly and moaned as though he liked what he felt, as though my curves were driving him nuts. 

The sound drove me nuts. That's for sure. I had an overwhelming urge to crawl inside him; I just couldn't get close enough. I wanted to bite him, lick him, taste him, squirm all over him and more than anything I just wanted him to shove something inside me. Preferably his cock…preferably repeatedly… it was frightening and exhilarating at the same time. I'd never felt anything like it but while my lust fogged mind may not have known what was going on, my body did and thankfully, it was running on auto-pilot. 

I slid my leg up the outside of his hard, ridged thigh and wrapped it around his waist until I could rest my calf on the jutting shelf of his hard round arse. He slid his huge palm under my buttocks and gripped my thigh, high enough so that he could hold it and tease my heated, swollen lips with the tips of his fingers. I moaned into his mouth and he lifted me until I could wrap the other leg around his waist too. I was delirious, overcome with pleasure and need. I thrust my pelvis forward until I could nestle his thick girth between my soaking pussy lips and then I brazenly ground myself against it. 

"What do you want, Missy?" He growled in my ear.

Dazed, I lifted my head weakly and my eyes flitted over his beautiful face. His lips were peeled back over his teeth in a silent snarl and I traced them with the tip of my nose, noticing for the first time that his incisors were shaped suspiciously like fangs, but there was just too much to look at to be sure and my eyes settled instead on his pointed ears. Funnily enough, I hadn't noticed them before. 

Was he an elf? So all those erotica ebooks I buy were right? Elves were hung like donkeys after all! Only, he didn't strike me as an elf, he was far more primal, rawer somehow, and he definitely wasn't light the way Legolas was in Lord of the Rings. He didn't seem the kind to tiptoe through the tulips. He was more thunder and lightning, if you know what I mean. 

I wanted to eat him. Had I said that before? I ground my face against his thick, corded neck. It kind of hurt my nose but I think I was beyond feeling anything but pleasure. I squirmed against his torso, trying to wiggle a little higher so that I could impale myself on him. The flared head of his cock dragged deliciously down the length of my slit until I felt the very tip nestle against my entrance… right where I wanted it… but before I could thrust myself over the end, he grabbed my hips, almost painfully, and held me still. 

"Tell me what you want, woman." He growled against my ear so deeply that goose bumps erupted over my shoulders and spread down my spine like dominos, erupting in a fresh wave of liquid arousal that doused his heated flesh. 

What did I want? 

Again, I thought that was kind of obvious but for the life of me, I couldn't get it together enough to form words. A strange, confusing sensation washed over me, which at first I thought was inside my mind but it seemed to be growing in strength. It pressed oppressively against my senses, my body, urging me to answer, but I couldn't. All I could think about was how much I wanted to bite his thick neck…

So I did. I didn't mean to bite him so hard that I broke his skin though, and I didn't realise I had made him bleed until the unmistakable, metallic taste of injured flesh and blood cleared my mind. I pulled back slightly and regarded the wound. My eyes flared fearfully and I lapped at it quickly before he could notice. 

I 'hehe'd' lamely. "Um, what do you mean?"

Oh shit! Stop bleeding for the love of chocolate!

"This is your last chance to turn back, Missy. Do you want to go home or do you want to see if you can stretch your sweet little arse around my cock?" 

He grinned at me but the smile didn't seem to hold any humour or tenderness. It was somehow eager and hungry. 

But what was I going to say? Of course I wanted that big dick inside me, ploughing me into oblivion! 

Opps…I said that out loud…

He roared suddenly and punched his hips upward, spitting me on the end of his thick rod like a Christmas roast! The force of his thrust knocked the air sharply from my lungs and my sensitive flesh burned from the suddenness of his entry. I dug my nails into his back and tried to scramble up his torso, looking for some relief. I hadn't expected that, I hadn't realised his cock was so bloody big either. I realised it now though, and it felt as though it was going to split me in bloody two! 

"Oh my God!" I gasped.

"Not quite." He drawled, "Nearly." 

He grunted and dropped to the floor with me still clinging to his body, impaled on it, and he began humping viciously into me the instant he could brace himself on the floor. I mean, it was good, and by that I mean…it was really really good, but the ferocity with which he was going at me continually knocked the breath from my lungs, and his weight was crushing me. I began to panic slightly, I couldn't breath but oh ye gods…that dick was blowing my mind, stretching me as it was, hammering into my body and punching me deep inside. All I could do was cling on and ride the tidal wave until it travelled its course.

Suddenly he dropped his hips, crushing mine underneath and against the floor. I sucked in a huge breath, grateful for the fact that he had to arch his back slightly to get the correct angle to grind against me…ohhhhhhh farrrrrkkkkk… he circled his hips as he thrust, rubbing on my clit again and again and again until I thought I was going to explode. I arched my back beneath him, gripped his arse and sank my fingernails into it, trying to get closer to him, to swallow more of him, although the intoxicating sense of fullness I felt told me he was already buried to the hilt inside me. I bucked my hips against his to meet the force of his punishing, exquisite thrusts.

My orgasm began to build in my pelvis and that odd sensation of oppressiveness swelled and swirled around me again. At the time, I just thought I was going to have an amazingly, eye popping orgasm and if anything, it added to the excitement, to the sense of danger I felt at playing with this enigmatic creature that I had no hope of ever even beginning to understand. It added to the sense of triumph that I had felt when I realised that something I actually did, had affected him as strongly as he did me. Well, maybe not quite as strong, I mean, I was pretty sure he'd had a bit more experience than I had so it wouldn't have had that same sense of newness for him. Maybe it was anticipation on his part. Since he obviously already knew that how good it was to …well…to fuck someone with such complete abandon…

And that's what it was, uninhibited, liberating abandon. Such an intimate, emotional act as it is, spreading your innermost, secret part and taking someone into it. And it is a secret part. One hardly goes around flashing their muff at anyone, do they? Like, you don't walk around all day; flash your bits and saying "Hi Fred!" Do you? I mean, sex isn't like a hand shake is it? It's intimate, can be uninhibited, and you put yourself in a position where if one partner isn't as overcome with lust as the other, it could be quite hilarious for one and humiliating for the other, couldn't it? 

He hadn't laughed at me though; he had been as turned on as I was. And really, when you think about it, how crushing would it be to have someone actually laugh at you mid bonk? I think I would die…

I thought I was going to die! 

So much pressure had built up in my pussy that it was actually throbbing and the only way to ease the ache was to ride that dick! My slick, hot tunnel clenched rhythmically at his straining, marble hard shaft, milking it, as though my pussy had a mind of its own and it was a hungry, sentient being that wanted to be fed…and like a cat, it wanted cream. Man cream. Preferably his and lots of it too! 

I knew in that instant that I had been spoiled beyond redemption. How was anything or anyone, ever going to compare to this, to him, ever again? 

Right when I was on the threshold, about to leap over the cliff of mind blowing climax, he stopped me. 

I squirmed encouragingly. 

He didn't move. 

I opened my eyes, frustrated. What was the bloody problem? 

His huge, impossibly handsome face loomed over mine, so close that I only would have had to move a hair's breadth and our nose and lips would have touched. He was grinning 'spiderishly' at me again.

"Tell me what you are thinking." He purred as though he already knew.

I swallowed hard and furrowed my brows slightly, confused about where this was going. I opened my mouth a few times but before any words came, he interrupted me.

"Don't lie, I'll know."

I cleared my throat and worked my jaw to speak but it wasn't easy to form a coherent enough thought to make words, considering that I was on the verge of orgasm and was hornier than I had ever been in my life! 

"I was thinking…no I was wondering…" I closed my mouth. I didn't want to answer. I'd sound like an idiot. 

"Tell me." He murmured and nuzzled my lips encouragingly. 

"I…I was." I rolled my eyes, exasperated. I wanted to come and clearly he wasn't going to let me until I answered so I spat it out before I could stop myself, "I was wondering how I would ever find anyone, after this, who could compare to you." I squeezed my eyes closed and waited for him to laugh at me. 

"Open your eyes." He said, gently.

I opened them a hesitant crack. I saw that while he still looked like the spider inviting the fly into his parlour, he wasn't laughing at me, and I found the courage to open them a bit wider.

"What if I told you I could make it so that you would never have to?" He drawled hypnotically, "Is that what you want? To belong to me?" 

I frowned slightly to consider what he had said.

"Don't think, answer." He said sharply and my thoughts fled.

For the love of chocolate! What's with all the talking? Just slam that meat into me already! 

In my frustration I blurted my answer out without thinking. "Yes!" 

His grin widened and he hammered his cock into me before I could explore the distinct sensation that I had just made a big, BIG mistake. I cried out half in protest, half with encouragement and he relentlessly ploughed into me again, bringing me effortlessly back to the edge, and when he spoke, he punctuated each word with another hard, deep stab of his cock into my depths. 

"Then. You. Are…. Mine."

I arched my back and screamed my climax into his mouth as it closed over mine. The swirling energy that I had felt building around me so oppressively seemed to peak as well and I felt it clawing at my soul. I began to struggle against his suffocating grip. On some level I was more terrified than I had ever been before or would ever be again but his hands curled around my shoulders like claws and he rode my explosive orgasm and matched it with his own…stream after stream of hot cum filled me and doused my womb with the force of a fire hose.

And as we rode the receding wave of our combined orgasm, I screamed, breathlessly, "Oh…my… GOD!"

To which he smugly replied, "I am now."

My eyes flared wide and I looked searchingly at him. Surely he was joking. All men thought they were Gods, didn't they? Even ones with eyes like snakes, the bodies of titans and ears like an elf…didn't they? Surely it didn't mean anything, did it?

His eyes grazed gloatingly over my face. The expression he had previously worn that reminded me of a spider inviting a fly to tea was replaced by a look that I imagine Mr. Spider would wear once he actually caught his fly…

I bit my lip… 

…And he threw back his head and laughed, loudly, triumphantly…

…at me. 

Bastard!



Stranger Things Have Happened Ch. 06



Something fat and heavy landed on my chest, jolting me from my deep slumber. My eyes flared wide and I sat up as quickly as I would have if I'd stuck a fork in a power point and given myself an electric shock. 

"Fuck!" I screamed. Yes. I said the 'F' word, again. I had been corrupted. 

My vision cleared slowly, I always had a hard time waking up. 

Waking up…Oh God! Please let that have been a dream! 

The heavy weight on my chest shifted and slid lazily off me when I sat up. It gave an indignant 'meow' in protest.

"Heathcliff! Oh thank GOD!" I gushed with great relief. I reached for my offended bundle of feline and hugged him gratefully to my chest. He looked like a fat fluffy rat, and at that point in time, I didn't think I had seen anything as beautiful in my entire life! 

Looking around, I saw that I was in my bedroom. Nothing was out of place, it was as neat and tidy as it always was. It hadn't been lifted and thrown around in a Tornado and dumped in some other dimension where extremely gorgeous looking elves of thunder and lightning seduced the unwary and tricked their souls from them. Things like that didn't happen in Australia after all. They only happened in Kansas. And Kansas was on the other side of the world! Heh. I scratched Heathcliff under the chin and his eyes rolled back in his head. 

"That's it." I mumbled into his golden fur, "I'm never going to meditate again. Madam Katrina is just going to have to find some other way to clear my spiritual blocks." 

Heathcliff purred at me in agreement. 

"I'm such a silly duffa! Yez I izzz!" I crooned happily.

Heathcliff purred a little louder and it sounded like it was in agreement but I chose to ignore the fact. I was too relieved that my little tryst in HELL had been a dream. It didn't even qualify as a figment of my imagination! My favourite weekend dress wasn't stretched and my granny undies were intact. So was my soul, if not my sanity. Smiling, happier than I can remember being for a very long time, I all but leapt from my double bed and sang my way into the kitchen…

…and stopped dead. At my quaint little round, distressed look table, sat 'the man'. 

Fuck! I was getting good at swearing.

"Alan!" I cried. Well, I kind of mouthed the word actually. That is, my lips formed the word but the voice that squealed it was barely audible. 

"Oh Missy, what have you done." Alan shook his head and looked at me with such dismay that I almost missed the fact that he was dressed like an Australian soldier from World War Two. 

I swallowed hard. "What are you doing in my kitchen Alan?"

"I'm not Alan Missy, I'm Peter. You know? Your spirit guide?" Alan come Peter said, still dismayed, to my dismay.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "Oh no…this isn't happening. I'm still bloody well dreaming."

"I wish you were."

"You know I am!" I insisted, my voice was laced with panic, "Peter doesn't look like a bronzed Aussie God, Alan looks like that! Peter looks like a little drunken brawler who spends Friday night at the pub ordering counter meals and putting raffle tickets in the thongs of topless barmaids!" I whined. Yes, I hate to admit it, but I did whine. I seemed to be making a habit out of that lately. 

"Open your eyes Missy. I don't have much time." Said a voice far too sexy to belong to a yobo.

I opened one eye a crack. Why did everyone want me to open my eyes all the time, all of a sudden? Why couldn't I just be like an ostrich and bury my head in the sand? You know, ostriches have it made -- the female ones do anyway. They bonk the males, lay the eggs and then piss off to plunder the landscape, leaving the males to rear the fledglings. It sounded like a good arrangement to me…

"Missy, stop rambling. This is important." The enigma at the end of my table said. 

I tried to pay attention. Peter's voice had a distinctly urgent edge, the kind of tone people use when they see something bad is about to happen. You know, like a massive huntsman spider about to jump off the ceiling as some unsuspecting person walks underneath it. I always think of huntsman spiders as the terrorists of the spider world, lying in wait, ready to pounce when you least expect them to. At least red backs have a web and they stay in the bloody thing, and don't hide in your linen cupboard waiting to leap out and scream 'surprise!' 

"Missy! Shut up!" Peter said, exasperated.

I conceded that maybe this was my inner voice or spirit guide or whatever he was personified. Only one voice ever screamed at me to shut up like that.

"I had a bad dream…" The words fell out of my mouth of their own accord.

Peter shook his head sadly. "No Missy, you didn't. I wish you had."

"Why are you dressed like a digger from World War Two?" I asked from a thousand miles away.

"It takes a lot of energy to appear corporeally like this so I had to do away with the glamour. I don't have much time Missy, I was lucky to be able to get this much." Peter spoke urgently, sadly, still looked dismayed…

But ye gads he was hot! Fuck me dead! He was gorgeous! And his uniform looked completely authentic, too. He was actually wearing a real slouch hat. Amazing…the detail…what a fantastic reproduction. Historians would go nuts over that!

"Missy, it's real, it's not a reproduction. I'm Peter, and for a time a very short time, I'm real too. I soon won't be and soon, you won't be either if you don't shut the hell up and listen to me." Peter hissed.

"But I'm not saying anything." My voice sounded robotic, and that surprised me a little.

"Your mind, it never shuts up for the love of all that's holy, and it needs to now! Listen to me!" He stood up suddenly from the table and gripped my shoulders. His hands felt warm, real, and more than anything, that realisation startled my dazed mind to focus.

"I'm so sorry Missy. This is my fault. I just wanted to give you a bit of a treat." He rolled his eyes self-consciously, "You know, a bit of a tryst in the sand and all that…you are so lonely."

My eyes narrowed slightly. "I'm not lonely. I have lots of friends. I have Heathcliff, and why do you look like Alan?"

Peter shook his head. "There is no Alan. That was me."

"But I burned my thumb…" I frowned. This wasn't making any sense. Well, truly, it never had made any sense but I was only just starting to admit it.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I should have waited until you were safely meditating before I started mucking around with your head." Peter was too handsome to look so apologetic.

I tried to smile. "It's okay."

He shook his head and heaved a shuddering sigh. "Oh Missy, it's not, seriously, it's not okay and I mean…it just isn't…okay..."

That really wasn't what I wanted to hear so I chose to ignore it. You know, if you do that, sometimes the things that bother you go away. Kind of like when you get bullied at school and the teachers tell you not to fight back, but to ignore the bullies and they go away when they realise they aren't going to get any fun out of you. Although, that never worked for me when I was at school, it just made the bullies work harder to get a reaction.

"If you are Peter," I said slyly, changing the subject, "Then what was with the beer gut and bad hair?"

Peter gave me a lazy smile but it wasn't cheerful. "You mean no hair. I had to appear like that to you Missy or you would have been too scared of me if I appeared to you as I am. I wouldn't have been able to help you at all. But this is me. They gave me to you because I passed over during a battle on the Kokoda Trail and since it's your favourite topic, we had a natural affinity." 

I pursed my lips to consider what he had said. "From your apology, I'm guessing you didn't end being much help after all…"

He groaned and dropped his head back on his neck, slapped his hand to his forehead. "Farrk…Missy. You didn't have a dream. That was real."

Dazed, I felt my way along the wall until I reached the table, and then I inched my bum around until I felt a seat beneath it. "Why did you change into freak boy from my worst nightmare? You should have stayed as you are. You know, you're pretty hot."

"He wasn't me. Missy, I'm so sorry. I suppose I got a bit cocky and the whole 'I'm a God behind the veil' went to my head but I messed up, bad, I didn't give you time to protect yourself…"

"You mean encasing me in white light?" I blinked slowly at him, "So that is for a reason? I thought it was just to make mediation and such a little more interesting and mystical and a little less boring." 

My voice was so quiet I could barely hear it over the hammering of my heart. Part of me didn't believe any of this was happening. The other part knew it was. Yet another part was still burying its head in the sand. I had more parts than a person with schizophrenia, it seemed. Wait, maybe I was schizophrenic. I sighed with relief. I could be a genius like John Nash, the guy Russel Crowe played in 'A Beautiful Mind." He was a real person you know, John Nash, a Nobel Prize winner. He overcame such a serious condition with just the power of his mind. It's amazing when you think about it, how people develop coping strategies to deal with their problems once they realise they actually have a problem. Maybe it's the realising that is the hard part.

I swallowed hard. "So what do I do now?"

Peter grew serious. "You have to disappear."

"What?" I almost screamed the word.

Peter grabbed my shoulders again and shook me lightly. "Missy, listen to me. He found you on the astral plane; he doesn't know where your physical body was, not yet."

I shook my head. The little part of me that was doing an ostrich impersonation decided it was a good time to reassert its authority and deal out some heavy duty denial. I told it to piss off and quite firmly too. I had a deep feeling that I needed to pay attention and that wasn't going to happen if I let myself float away to Missy land. I had to think seriously about what was going on. I had to approach it logically, methodically, analytically! There had to be a solution, even if it was something as simple as my needing medication for hallucinations and a mental breakdown!

"Wait," I held up my hands, "Wait, who he is? Or better yet, what he is?"

"You've heard of the Trickster?" Peter inclined his face, trying to catch my eyes. He didn't have to chase hard. They flared wide at the name. 

"Puck?" I breathed.

"Puck in Celtic mythology, Loki in Norse mythology, Juha in Arabian mythology, Raven, Cree, Coyote, the Fox in French mythology…"

"Gyddion." I murmured and my voice sounded as though it came from a thousand miles away.

Gyddion was one of the trickster's other names and I realised chillingly, that name had been with me, floating around in my head for as long as I could remember. 

Peter narrowed his eyes and looked at me sharply. "No, Gwydion, Welsh Mythology."

I rolled my eyes. "So? I missed a 'w'."

"And a 'd'." Peter was still looking at me strangely.

I held up my hand to stop him and nodded erratically. "Okay, stop. Whatever, I think that considering the circumstances, it should be fairly understandable if my spelling is a little off. I get it. The Trickster." 

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my forefinger and my thumb -- yet another use for the small motor movement that had turbo boosted man out of ape-dom. Squeezing the pressure point there sometimes helped relieve a headache and I had a freaking whopper coming on, too, but I couldn't afford it. I had to think. The headache would have to wait until later. 

"Okay." I said with more conviction than I felt, "I have to disappear. Makes sense in an entirely nonsensical way. How will that stop him from finding me eventually? I mean, I gave him my bloody soul!" I stopped suddenly and looked hopefully at Peter, "Isn't there a cool down period on transactions like that?" 

To my great and everlasting disappointment, he gave me a sad, wry smile. "No. Not enough people from the department of consumer affairs have passed over to make that happen yet. But I hear it's in the pipelines."

I snorted. "I know you are telling the truth, everything concerning the DCS is 'in the pipelines."

"To answer your question," Peter continued, "Disappearing won't stop him from finding you. What it will do is slow him down until I can find a way to get you out of the mess I've gotten you in. Oh Missy…can you forgive me?" Peter was so sincere and so bloody gorgeous too for that matter, how could I not?

I smiled gently. "Not a freaking chance. Get me out of this mess and I'll think about it."

He chuckled. 

Suddenly, his eyes flared wide and he looked around as though panicked. 

"Missy, Missy run!" Peter hissed frantically.

"Peter?" My voice trembled fearfully. I had a pretty good dose of panic and frantic happening myself. The man was fading before my very eyes. "Peter! Peter what's happening to you?"

His lips moved and his face was contorted with a frenzied urgency but he made no sound. I heard not a word he said. 

My door bell rang. I looked at Peter fearfully but he shook his head 'no' and mouthed the words, "Don't answer it, Missy, run!" 

The doorbell rang again, far more insistently this time and Peter had little more consistency than a funnel of steam pouring from my kettle but he was still visible enough for me to see him screaming 'RUN'. 

I didn't have time to flap my hands indecisively as I normally would. I didn't have time to wheeze or get a headache or have an allergic reaction either, worse luck. At least I knew how to handle them. I grabbed my leopard skin handbag -- I never went anywhere without it -- and ran out of the back door.

Marge was hanging her washing on the clothesline in her backyard and she waved cheerily to me, as she always did. I must have looked a bit of a sight because she did a double take. 

"Missy?" She narrowed her eyes slightly, "Everything alright?"

"No," I answered and ran to the fence. "Throw me your milk crate, Marge, quickly!"

I looked over my shoulder and scanned the back door to my home, and then I scanned the yard and the side fence. Thank God I had thought to get that sealed! I turned back to Marge, who was looking at me rather strangely, as though she thought I was strange. That was fine; I thought I was strange too.

"Marge, please!" I was so anxious that I raised my voice slightly. I never did that. 

Marge moved as though I had lit a fire under her arse and she disappeared from my sight for a moment, reappearing again shortly after her milk crate flew over the fence. She had a pretty good arm for an elderly woman! 

I scrambled for it and for once wished that I wasn't wearing my leopard skin, kitten heels. They were flat-ish, but they weren't designed for scaling six foot high fences. I took them off and threw them over the wooden palings, threw my handbag after them, looked frantically behind me once more to make sure some oversized elf with a God complex wasn't bursting through my back door, and then shimmied over the fence with an agility that surprised me. I suppose that all the adrenaline pumping through my veins from being so bloody terrified may have helped.

Marge blinked at me when I landed and fell hard on my bottom. She slid her hands under my arm to help me to my feet but I'd already done that myself. Maybe the constant workouts with Danita had gone some way toward increasing my strength and fitness. I scooped my handbag off the ground and picked up my shoes. 

"Missy, are you in some kind of trouble?" Marge eyed me warily.

Uh…yeah…obviously, I don't go jumping back fences as part of my fitness routine.  "Yes Marge, it would seem so." I said, slightly surprised at how calm I sounded when on the inside, I was screaming my head off, "Don't worry, it's nothing too serious and should be sorted out soon but I wonder if you could do me a favour? If a strange man with big ears asks where I am, say you don't know?" 

Marge nodded and then she gave me a suspicious sideways glance. "The police? I'll not lie to the police for you Missy."

I shook my head. "No, no it's nothing like that Marge. It's just…I don't have time to explain um…old boyfriend trouble…"

Marge nodded enthusiastically. "Ah, well why didn't you say so? Don't worry lass; I'll deal with him if he gets the courage to knock on my door!"

I smiled gratefully. "Thanks Marge, you're a gem!"

"Here, I'll let you out the side gate. It leads straight into the alley and then straight to the cab rank." Marge smiled indulgingly. She really came into her own when she had a wild colonial boy to whip down to size. Suddenly she looked hard at my earrings. "They're pretty earrings dear; do you sell them in your shop?"

I lifted a hand and felt the long pewter and rose quartz earrings. In truth, I'd forgotten I was wearing them, even though they were my favourites. "Madam Katrina gave them to me."

"Such an unusual design and very beautiful!" Marge said in a queer voice. Then she shook herself as though coming out of a daze, and held her gate open for me to pass through. "Anyway, good luck my dear!"

"Thanks." I said a little warily, confused by her reaction to my earrings.

I didn't have time to indulge in any obsessive compulsive analysis of the situation though, remembering I still had a God with the eyes of a stoned snake chasing me. I ran under her hibiscus trees and slipped through the gate. As Marge had said there would be, there was a wide cement path come alley running between the houses. Strangely, I couldn't remember having seen it before but that wasn't unusual. I'd never been one for discovery unless it was on the Geographic channel. I didn't even know my own neighbourhood, obviously. 

My bare feet stung from running along on the cold cement. My soles were soft from always wearing shoes. They never used to be like that. Like all Australian children, as soon as school was finished our shoes came off and we ran around bare foot. I would have been able to run on cement for ages, when I was in high school. Sadly, I wasn't in high school now, when things were so much simpler and all I had to do was dodge the girl's toilets if Dianne Cooper was in there. 

I dropped my kitten heels on the ground and quickly slid them on. I was pleasantly surprised to find I could run in them. I burst out of the alley and onto the crowded main street of town, right next to the small cafe I always bought my morning coffee from. My shop was only a few blocks away and I realised I could have walked to work, all this time, had I known about the alley. 

I looked around frantically, smiling apologetically to annoyed pedestrians when I realised I'd been holding up the flow of traffic on the footpath. Three yellow taxis were lined up in the cab rank just in front of me, exactly where Marge had said. I ran to the first one and leapt into the back seat, breathless.

The cabby raised a stern eyebrow and looked at me disapprovingly over his shoulder for making the cab bounce when I jumped in. 

"Where to?" He asked in a gruff, no nonsense voice. 

Where to? Good question. 

I said the first thing that came to mind. "Number two, Oakland Avenue, please."

The driver nodded and eased the cab smoothly away from the curb. I sighed, settled back into the seat and put on the belt. After taking a few deep breaths, I had almost convinced myself that I'd just had a very bad neurotic episode of some kind. Surely, it was nothing some strong psychiatric medication couldn't fix! I smiled happily, and felt better instantly.