I am not a maker of lists by nature, mostly because I have a hard time sticking to them. Nevertheless, I spend part of this early Saturday morning on my computer in my bedroom, trying to organize my thoughts.
They need organizing, because every minute that passes, in a past that my senses confirm as real, tells me I have an often horny and sometimes-slackerish teen on my hands. He’s a kid named David Sand, and let me tell you — some potential there, but it never came together for him, and then the world fell apart under his feet. He got a few moments where he could spread his wings and fly, and it might be a sign of good
judgment that he didn't try flying too close to the sun. Then again, it might only be that he was too focused on getting laid.
On a mission to set the poor guy’s life straight from my position of superior experience and utter existential confusion, I come up with a hierarchy of must-do’s, which goes like this:
1. Write down what I remember of every dream I’ve had since I stopped recording them. Multiple times now I’ve missed rather obvious warnings from the subconscious mind, and it’s disconcerting as hell that I’ve had two dreams featuring a poisonous spider.
2. Call Sophie. We hooked up last night and that was not a casual thing. A phone call early today is a must.
3. Fuck Sophie again. I think my dick came up with that one all by itself, so I question whether it’s actually number three. My dick probably cut in line. What a dick.
4. Figure a way to keep Sophie’s father off that boat. In fact, try to have the entire fishing trip scrubbed.
5. Believe that I’m really here until something proves otherwise. For better or worse, I appear to be living a life where somebody pushed a reset button. It might be hard being a teen again, but I think I’d go batshit if I constantly resisted the evidence bombarding my senses.
6. Do not stress over successfully altering the future. It looks like I can, because Sophie and I got in each other’s pants last night. Good — the future I know sucks. It needs changing.
7. Believing that I know the future, figure a way to use that knowledge to make some dough. Nothing horribly illegal, just immoral. Which still makes me too clean for most positions in corporate America.
8. Get decent camera equipment a.s.a.p. Obvious.
9. Get a motorcycle. I mean, what an opportunity. A bike just like my old one would almost be new.
I look at these things and I think I can do them, although some of it will take more time than I’d wish. I go back to number one and start to think about the recent dreams I’ve had… And I get this niggling need to add to the list, rather than writing down the dreams. That’s probably why lists don’t work for me, because my mind keeps getting excited about new things, and the early stuff quickly feels old.
Crap, everything is old to me in this reality, except me. Like this yuckbox of a desktop, with dial-up internet instead of high-speed.
Duh.
10. Get a computer that isn’t a piece of crap, and high speed internet. If it's even available here yet.
11. Figure out what’s up with Gina Marie. Is she really contemplating a photo shoot of some kind? Why?
What does it mean?
12. Try to lucid dream when I sleep. I need to find out what I can still do in my dreams, and what I can’t.
13. Find Mary Poole.
That last one is for no particular reason — I just feel like I have to. And I must be superstitious, because I
don’t like seeing Mary’s name next to unlucky number thirteen. I employ elevator logic by leaving thirteen a blank, making her number fourteen, and — big surprise — I upend the purpose of the list by starting right there, clicking on my tortoise browser and typing her name into the search engine. After a bit of waiting, I see that there are a lot of Mary Poole’s around.
I need to type something else to bring the search closer, only I don’t know crap about Mary, do I? I’m pretty sure that she’s my age, or close to it — she’d be a junior in high school, or perhaps a senior. But fuck, that’s all I know. I have no middle name, no exact date or place of birth, no idea where she grew up or where she went to school, no parents’ names, no hobbies, no nothing. She could be a cheerleader, or a debate team leader, or a singer in an obscure band, or touring with the freaking circus…
I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to think. We talked about my dreams, then hers, and the rest happened in on a bed. I never got to know anything about her, except that she had life-altering sex dreams in her teens, and she got a degree in behavioral science. With nothing else coming to mind, I try adding “behavioral science”, and get nowhere. What did I expect — she wouldn’t have studied that yet. I try her name with
“dreams”, and that doesn’t help either. I got nuttin'.
And what would I do if I found her? She doesn’t know me here — she barely knew me there. Stymied, I glance at the top of the list, then re-begin at the beginning by creating a new folder named “Dream
Notebook”, and start writing down what I can remember. The dream about the Enterprise bridge feels self-explanatory — my mind was fucked up from whatever they were doing to me at the facility, and that disorientation carried into the subconscious. All the rest was like a gathering of previous symbols,
culminating in crossing the bridge, which was either a real time-bridge or… Or nothing, per number five above.
Only two things strike me as being peculiar. The first is the insignia on Mary’s uniform, of a snake eating its tail. That symbol has shown up in so many dreams now that I’d be a fool to keep ignoring it. I need to know what it is, and why it won’t let go.
The other oddity in that dream is Mary, telling me to remember how much she loves me. I keep thinking of that as the real Mary tearfully letting go, but the real Mary never got the chance to say those words. They were uttered by a dream woman, a figure inside my own head. So what does it mean to have an anima figure say goodbye like that? I don’t really know, but it’s no coincidence that the helpful and sexy dream women appeared right when the butterfly pattern came into being. Could it be that the new potential to relate with myself within my own sleeping head knew it was being killed off, my brain/body connections returning to normal, that special ability feeling the need to say farewell?
That’s one of those loopy ideas I’m almost afraid to ponder, because it makes me feel sort of weepy, like a piece of me did die, or sacrificed itself so I could be here now. Moreover, I’d have to assume that I always knew, deep down, that I’d end up back here contemplating these questions, because the messages about crossing the bridge appeared early on. However that happened, the bridge served as an escape hatch to back here, where I could flee the consequences of all the mind-sex — the heat — that I’ve understood needed to be there for the bridge to ever be formed. It’s like a circle of cause and effect, a real loop, where what created the means of escape also created the need to escape in the first place.
I make myself type that idea, followed by what I recall of the dream where I created a clay statue of Mary.
It was the beauty of her body that got to me, especially when I carved her further, making everything almost ridiculously sexy. If that version of Mary was also a dream woman, not the real one, then what would it mean that she came to life when my spunk sprayed on her? Is she also a symbol of the new connections that
were formed, the unique alignments fueled by a newly available amount of sexual energy?
I think that’s mostly right. The changes I made to the Mary statue were really tiny — except for her tits, which became so freakin' sexy that I really must not think about them if I want to get anywhere here — yet that little bit of tweaking created a creature that just oozed sexuality. I get the feeling that the changes to my brain in the lab were exactly like that, just a few itsy-bitsy enhancements cascading into all that heightened sexual need, and the miraculous abilities that appeared to satisfy that need.
Only not all of the enhancements were symbolic. I stayed hard non-stop with Sophie last night, and if any of being here is real, then my balls are for-real bigger than they used to be. Somehow when I ended up back here, one of the things I dreamed about resulted in physical changes to my actual body. It’s possible that the other enhancements, the lucid dream abilities, followed me here, too… But if so, why would the dream Mary need to say goodbye like that?
I won’t know the answer to that one until I lucid dream, if I can. I had those kinds of dreams before entering the lab, but extremely rarely. And if I can still do weird stuff while in my light body, I’ll need to be a
hundred times smarter this time, to avoid repeating my mistakes. I think about how awful that all became; I mean, I’m not going to lie — getting all that sex was fabulous. But except for Mary, they all became too deranged, like their brains were nothing more than an extension of their snarling pussies. And what they did to my poor dick in their fuck-frenzied state…
Shivering, I go to the dream with the black widow spider being stalked by a scorpion. Other than a sense of extreme danger, maybe even evil, I’m not sure what to think. I had that dream as everything was turning to shit, my cock being damaged from too much fucking, the cops and possibly Eduardo in my apartment. It could be that I sensed all of that around me, the sting of the scorpion representing the physical pain my body felt, the spider a symbol for… I don’t know, maybe Eduardo, or the NSA with its tangled web of deceit.
That explanation sounds pretty good, but it feels wrong. If it was just that, then why have another spider dream here in the past? The NSA couldn't have followed me here, could they? The newest spider dream has few clues because it was kind of story-less, focusing on the black widow maintaining her web after it was damaged by the wind. Or repairing it. Repairing it like Eduardo said, “We changed his brain; we’ll change it back”? Or is it more like the way I’m thinking of repairing what’s going to happen to Dan, trying to alter an unfortunate event that's part of my history?
I write all of that down, wishing I could ask Mary for help. Being back here I've not only lost Mary as a lover, I've lost the one person I knew who could help me unravel these images. Either I need to become a thousand times better at reading dream symbols, or I need someone trained or gifted in the art to help me.
Which prods me into adding another important thing to my to-do list:
15. Get some books on symbols, or find someone with a gift for dream interpretation.
Maybe… Millie? I don’t know if reading the I Ching is anything like reading a dream, but it’s a place I might start. I need to talk with her today anyway, because number four is calling out to me, and I have to do it, even if I’m not sure how.
“Dan will not die like he did,” I speak out loud, thinking positively. “I won’t let him.”
Am I talking to myself when I say that? I sure hope so, because I’d hate to think whom I might be challenging.
* * *
I call Sophie, which means I can scratch two things off the list now. She sounds drowsy, her voice all low and sexy with sleep. She’s happy to hear from me, and doesn’t waste much time in asking whether I want to get together in the evening, where we can find someplace private to… talk.
Her annunciation of the word “talk” is not very different from having her lips reach right through the phone to wrap around my dick. I have a question about Sophie's sexual enthusiasm; it's not so much a to-do, so I didn’t write it down. But I want to know — has she been affected by the dream commands I aimed into her from the future? It sure seemed that way last night, with her tits so amazingly responsive, her need so extreme.
The only way I can answer the question is to keep fucking her, watching to see if she goes sex-deranged or can keep things more together. It’s the kind of science experiment I can get enthusiastic about, so I reply to her usage of suggestive language by telling her that I might want to talk with her for hours tonight, coating her body in adjectives and rubbing them everywhere, maybe even slipping a few adjectives inside of her.
Sophie makes a sound so delicious that I feel like I’m right there in bed with her, watching a finger slip into a dripping slit. “Make sure you rub some adjectives on my breasts,” she plays along. “You don’t know…
how much I’m dying to feel your words there. I can’t stop thinking about how that felt last night. If your…
words, get to me like that again… I might become…”
“Excited,” I say. “Stiff. Engorged.”
“Oh! I’m… touching them…”
I believe her, and draw out the word, “tex-tur-al”, hoping it will glide right around her beautiful nipples like my tongue wants to do.
She hisses on the line, and it isn’t an act. Making sure that my door is locked, I slip off my pants and underwear, grabbing hold of my straining cock. I’m not going to masturbate — it’s obvious that I’ll get Sophie soon enough, and that we’ll fuck like rabbits again. I take the opportunity to inspect my equipment as she tells me how she couldn’t sleep for hours, her body getting all reheated every time she thought about how tight I felt inside of her.
It really was a tight fit. I’ve always had a biggish dick, but I think it’s even thicker now, and maybe half an inch longer? I cup the palm of my free hand under my balls, trying to measure, and would guess that I’ve gained an extra third or so of mass there.
“…some place warmer and softer than the ground beside the bay,” Sophie says, her voice still husky.
I didn’t catch all that, but I get it. We need a place to be, away from our parents with a roof over our heads.
No problem in the future, when I live in a college dorm, or later have my lopsided apartment. But here at seventeen the options are limited.
“God I want you in my mouth again,” she tells me, all breathy. “Keep telling me what you like when we’re together, and how you like it. I want to learn, David. I want to drive you fucking crazy…”
“Sophie… Maybe you’re not aware, but my penis is listening in on this conversation. It’s very demanding, and says to tell you that if your folks are working at the diner, I could come over right now.”
“This evening,” she repeats. “I’ll make it worth the wait, I promise. My dad’s off today and he’s puttering around the house. Besides, I think I want to go to the mall today where I might, oh I don’t know, browse Victoria’s Secret to see what I see.”
Definitely a gifted tease. She’ll increase the sexiness of whatever she chooses, but that isn’t what I’m thinking about now, because I suddenly remember a detail from this day. Dan got brand new boat shoes — they were on his body when he was found — and some other things for his overnight fishing trip. Today is Saturday, and I think he leaves tomorrow, early Sunday morning.
It can’t happen. Either I have to confront him, try to head him off somehow, or… Millie.
And Millie it is.
* * *
“Sophie’s out shopping,” she says in way of greeting. “I could be convinced to tell you where if you mow my lawn and promise to build that deck on the back of the house.”
I probably wince, because I remember how hot she was for a deck, and then how she lost any interest after Dan passed. It feels so strange being here, under the same curved roof as my yesterday, with Millie looking spooky-wonderful, much younger than the version who helped me out in a time that hasn’t happened yet.
She was still a fine-looking woman in the future, only now I see how losing Dan aged her a bit extra. She looks really good here, the main reason why Sophie looks so good.
“I’m here because I need to talk with you,” I say, putting about fifty hash brown orders of determination in my voice. “Can you carve out ten minutes?”
Her eyes dance around the diner — it’s the late breakfast crowd, and it truly is a crowd compared to seven years from now. I can see for myself that things are too busy. She only has one young waitress as help, and she’s going to put me off until later.
“It’s really urgent, Millie. I don’t know how else to put it. We have to have this conversation now.”
Her eyes narrow. She whispers, “Sophie’s pregnant?”
I can’t help but laugh. I’ve been wondering whether she might be able to sense that her daughter and I hooked up last night, and here she’s telling me that she thinks we’ve been at it for weeks or months. “No, no, it’s not that. Please, Millie. Just ten minutes. Somehow.”
Her eyes tell me she’s acquiesced, although she doesn’t look happy about it. I take a seat in the most private booth available and she uses the black phone behind the counter — no cell yet — to call for back up. In less than fifteen minutes a thirty-ish woman arrives to spell her. I know that woman, has an ailing mother in a nursing home… Can’t remember her name, a problem I’ll probably have to deal with for a few days.
“Shoot,” Millie says, sitting across with a cup of hot tea warming her hands. “This had better be damned important.”
I’ve rehearsed some of it in my head, but nothing ever sounds right. “Dan’s going on a fishing trip,” I begin.
“That’s right. Leaves tomorrow morning.”
“You can’t let him get on that boat.”
“You can’t let him get on that boat.”