Beloved Daughter.

Elizabeth had never met this blushing girl, leave alone that she ever 'did' anything with her. And yet she knew exactly what the girl meant. That knowledge spread a warm arousal in her, with the same pulse and rush as the blush she saw in the girl's face. There was no sudden shadow, no claw, no pain. Hot fingers took hers and she floated over the grass, past flower beds and shrubs to a place of cool green shadows, a copula of leaves, dappled with sparks of sunlight.

The forest floor beneath it was soft and yielding with a layer of last year's autumn leaves, breathing an earthy fragrance. Busy fingers unbuttoned her ruffled gown just like her own fingers were fumbling with the girl's dress, knowingly, purposefully. 'Let's do it again,' oh yes, now she remembered, didn't she? She didn't, really, yet she did. Her fingers roamed an expanse of pale hot flesh as if they knew. Her lips met with the rose petals, finding them thick and soft and moist. Her entire world became a kaleidoscope of swirling fingers, lips, skin, breasts and shoulders, bellies, knees and lips again, until it was all just a roiling ball of pink cotton candy, pulsing with sighs and moans and birdlike twittering.

Lilian.

The night after Lilian Morley found the picture of Elizabeth-Ann Morley, she lay awake. That wasn't unusual. With her mother's demands and all her other frustrations, she'd been a poor sleeper for months. It might explain the tired look she usually found in her mirror when she prepared for another day at City Hall. She did the town's P.R. there, or rather, she did most of the work for a man who got most of the money for it. Through a mutual acquaintance he had offered her the job when she needed the money after breaking off college to nurse her mother. There were hardly any jobs in her small crappy town, except as a cashier at the supermarket, maybe, or a toilet cleaner at the local motel. All she had was high school and a year in college. The man had smiled as he told her he couldn't offer more than minimum wages; now, a year later, her workload had doubled, but her income had hardly increased.

The man was a creep with wandering eyes, always moving stealthily around the office, when he was in at all, making skin-crawling remarks, covering her desk with files before leaving for lunch at eleven a.m. and returning around three, reeking of alcohol -- if he returned at all. She always felt dirty after seeing him, although he never touched her or right-out harassed her. This morning, though, two days after her mother's cremation, he'd called her over to his office, closing the door behind her. He sat down at his desk and watched her as she stood waiting, his fat lips pouting under his gray, motley moustache.

"I hear your mother died," he said. "My belated condolences, I'm sorry I couldn't be at the funeral." She just stared at him. He'd been on one of his numerous 'vacations.' "You see," he went on, "your mother and I go way back, did she ever tell you? Same schools and all. Not that she gave me the light of day; I guess she was too po-pu-lar for that." He stretched the word sarcastically. "She was a real little cock tease back then, you know," he proceeded, "a little whore who did it with all the jocks. No wonder she never knew who knocked her up." Lilian felt a flash of rage choke her.

"I... I don't think," she began, but he came from behind his desk and towered over her, grabbing her shoulders.

"Elizabeth Morley," he hissed, his stale breath hitting her. "That is very wise of you. Don't think. Now get back to your dreary little office and try not to make another mess of your stupid job!"

Lying in bed, Lilian's head was a bitter cocktail of hate and despair, rage and helplessness. She knew she should never accept what he did and said. She should quit, find something else, why didn't she? But she had no money to move and start elsewhere and no means to go back to college. She hated being a victim of the potbellied bully, reproaching herself for the way she'd let it happen to her. She should have gone to HR and complained, but she remembered a girl from administration who'd told her she would, and she'd lost her job a week later.

Usually, as she lay awake like this, she would, after a crescendo string of 'fuck its' and 'damn asshole,' get up to find a bottle of cheap white wine. It usually helped her slide into a sleeplike unconsciousness that gave her a hangover in the morning, but never the wholesome energy of sleep. This night was different, though. She lay awake, didn't she? But was she awake? Then how could she feel this sweet, balmy breeze and hear the humming of insects? Is it possible to slide from one kind of awareness into another and leave your sleeping body behind, wrapped in sheets, your weak mouth drooling on your pillow?

Lilian knew the world she stepped into, the dazzling sunlight, the soft sepia-colored grass under her bare feet, a long white dress swirling around her legs. Towering over her was a house with turrets and many windows, the mansion of the ancient photograph. On the lawn lay two croquet hammers, thrown away beside a wooden ball. From two of the windows hung bed ware, a sheet flapping in the breeze. Nobody was around but the birds and the distant, cotton clouds in a bleached-out sky. And yet, there were... presences. Persons maybe, voices, or was it just the wind, sighing "Lilllliannn...?" No, it was a voice, and it pulled at her.

Her bare feet slid through the pale grass, forcing her in a direction, while ignoring the pounding of her heart or the hot rush of her blood. There was a small grove behind the house, darker brown against the washed-out sepia. In its sun-spangled shadows something moved, a body on a bed of discarded clothes. Coming closer, she saw a naked girl kneeling over another naked girl lying still under her. Huge pale eyes watched Lilian out of a colorless face. She knew those eyes, that face, as it morphed from a smile into sheer panic, her traits distorted, her mouth wide open as she screamed in mute terror.

Ethan.

The intern's eyes went wide as her small fists struck his chest. Pushing her against the copier, his free hand groped her tits, small but firm, their nipples hard. 'See?' he thought, 'she wants it. They all scream and protest, you know, but they love it, they love my cock, the fucking teases.' He forced his knee between her thighs, pushing up her short, slutty skirt as he tore his zipper down. When his raging cock slid past her thong into her tight cunt it quickened her sobs into panting gasps. He closed her mouth with his hand and pushed.

Ethan McAllister had an urge. He'd always had it, ever since he turned fourteen. It was a hunger, an always present need. And it wasn't something that happened once in a while as it does with most of us, it was pretty much always there, clouding his mind, not even needing an outside stimulus. It was a craving that might start in his lower belly, spreading quickly throughout his whole body, settling as a nervous drive in his blood, a drive to have a woman and fuck her. Any woman.

It would help if she was young and pretty, specifically where her chest and legs were concerned, but when the urge got enough time to gnaw and fret and develop, any female hole was good enough -- willing or not. Ethan had been known to harass women, using his power over them and his money to make them comply. If they didn't, he just forced them, and the fact that none of them had gone to the police didn't mean it wasn't rape. Then the woman at the Opera happened, and the nightmares started, robbing him of sleep and sapping his energy.

Terror is one thing, horror is quite a different emotion. Oh, sure, your heart races like crazy and the little hairs bristle in your neck; there is this bitter taste in the pit of your stomach, and your breath sticks in your dry throat. Horror paralyzes, just like fear and panic do, but while it overwhelms you, it seduces you, seeping in, penetrating each pore, each cell, eating away at your soul. Then it starts molding you, morphing alien fear into something that is part of you, something addicting, almost familiar. You're terrified, but you can't look away, can you? You can't keep it out, and in the end, even while you know it is insane, you start welcoming it.

If things hadn't been so awful, Ethan might have seen the irony of it all: the rapist raped, because, yes, horror rapes you, swallowing your resistance until all that remains is ugly, perverted lust. Ethan woke up from his nightmares sporting an erection, his sheets sticky with the messy emissions of his unconscious body.

Liz.

Under the copula of leaves, Elizabeth Carlson felt her naked body melt into the pale girls' embrace. Fingers touched her in all the intimate places she'd discovered and explored on her own since the changes hit her. These fingers, though, were not her own, and they were expert. They made her arch and stretch while her mouth gasped; her moans were muffled by a long, sinuous tongue. A sickly-sweet perfume clouded her mind as her body opened, expanding beyond possibility until she herself was a cloud, caught in a cage of multiplying tentacles. A dozen hands, it seemed, pulled at her chest and belly and thighs as if plucking her feathery flesh off her melting bones. Another dozen lips and tongues and mouths sucked at her openings and her nipples and the dent of her navel, draining her. Sweet weakness soaked her as the darkness under the copula increased. She would disappear, wouldn't she, sucked into emptiness? Did she mind?

Then she felt another presence. A tall shadow blocked the blazing sun, blowing an icy breeze on her skin. Liz woke, laying on the therapist's sofa. Her head rang with the echo of a soundless scream.

Ethan.

"Go home, Ethan, you look like a ghost." Annabeth Flynn smiled as she told him, but her eyebrows knitted in a frown. She was right, he knew. He must look wretched, he felt wretched. Looking over at his personal assistant he saw her face surrounded by a pulsing halo, her features blurred as if seen through a screen of Vaseline. Oh God, he needed to fuck her. Even as weak as he felt, his cock burned, throbbing in his pants and sucking up ever more energy. Struggling through the mist that surrounded him, he knew he could never follow up. It had been like this all day, all week, really. Aroused by every set of eyes, sway of tits, swishing of legs, clicking of heels, he'd choked with frustration. Was it the lack of sleep or was it the sickly-sweet horror of his dreams draining his energy and making his vision blur?

Leaning back in his leather designers' chair, watching the woman, a thought crept through the mist that covered his mind. He couldn't catch it. It was something about Annabeth this week, these days. She was a stunning redhead with green eyes and a freckled skin. He remembered how she first stepped into his office. Her legs, her chest, her easy smile, the way she moved had thrown relentless coals on the fire of his urges. But it hadn't fanned his virility like it always did; it had confused him, making him stutter and stumble like a schoolboy. It had taken him minutes to fight back, finding his usual blustering self again. Was that when it began?

He'd known she had the job the moment she entered. He had to have her and of course, he would have her, don't be silly. After fighting his way back through his sudden weakness, he started flirting, dishing up every corny line in the book, offering to take her out to lunch, dinner, theatre, making creepy compliments and stepping up to sheer harassment. She just kept smiling, he remembered, like a mother smiles at a naughty child, shaking her head. She blatantly teased his naked ache, striking him with blind jealousy whenever she was friendly with colleagues or clients. And yet, he'd never touched her. Why couldn't he just grab her like he'd done with other teasing sluts? What was happening?

Now, as he stared out of red-rimmed eyes, she looked different. He saw ashen-blond hair on her, bleaching out the red. Her skin turned pale and waxen, her eyes into sapphires. The woman he saw was the woman at the Opera. Blinking, the apparition dissolved into a Vaseline halo, just to return, the eyes growing, pink petal lips smiling with irony, teasing, mocking. Blink, change, blink, red, blink, ashen. Green, sapphire, blink, blink. His body burned, the urge spread, but he was paralyzed, feeling everything and nothing. Like he'd felt everything and nothing this morning, as a busty blonde had stepped into the elevator, smiling her teasing smile. Or when that new young intern with the generous Latin ass had bent down to pick something up as he passed her cubicle. He'd felt everything and nothing, swaying with exhaustion. What the fuck was going on? He was a roaring furnace, consumed by its own burning.

So, Ethan nodded, gathered his things and went over to the elevator, walking like an old man, his shoulders lost in his once tailor-perfect jacket.

Lilian.

Lilian Morley called in sick. After waking up from the exhausting dream and realizing that her day would be even more of a nightmare, she'd found her phone, her fingers searching through a forest of cobwebs and shadows still lingering from her dream. Her voice had been convincingly raw, and after she broke off the connection, she sank into a quagmire of unconsciousness that kept her out for hours.

When she finally woke up around noon, she felt weak, but it wasn't from hunger; she felt no appetite at all, just a drained, empty feeling. She took a very hot shower and watched her naked body in the steamed-up mirror. She looked pale, almost translucent, seeing prominent cheek bones under large eyes, sunken cheeks, the sharp edge of her collarbones and the shadows of her ribs. Her breasts seemed pointier, her nipples darker. Her fingertip trembled as she drew an outline in the mirror's moisture, making water run down like tears.

Donning her bathrobe, she tried to drink some tea, sipping it reluctantly. Maybe she should call a doctor, but even the mere thought tired her. Before finishing her cup, she must have nodded off again, sitting in her chair. When she shook awake, evening darkened her windows. She should feel better after all this extra sleep, but she didn't. Why wasn't she hungry? A new cup of tea was cold before she'd emptied it. Then her phone rang.

There seemed to be nobody at the other end, just a rustling sound, like leaves in a wind. Then a woman's voice said her name, almost in a whisper. She knew the voice, of course, although there was no name, but it conjured up a dark house, a bleached lawn, a white sky.

"We should meet, Lilian," the woman said. "I need you to meet me and my... friends." There was a slight hesitation before the 'friends' and a small chuckle after. There were faces in her mind as the woman said 'friends' or rather, presences. One was of a girl, a naked girl, lying still. Leaves rustled louder.

"See you tonight," the woman said, right before the connection ended.

Annabeth.

On the day of her job interview, two weeks ago, Anna-Elizabeth Flynn knew she hated the man the moment she entered his office. Cheap greed was written all over his face, adding a rancid layer to its obvious handsomeness. She knew faces like that, she'd been married to one.

Having fled from her adulterous and abusive husband, too hurt to even think about a clever divorce, any chance of a job was essential to her, and this one was prestigious and well-paying. The pale, blond woman at the agency had been adamant that she'd go at once. It would be a healthy career move, so, even while feeling his eyes undressing every part of her body, she swallowed her disgust and smiled. Then the change hit her. Not that it felt like a change, there and then, more like an adjustment of her eyes. It was like when you stare into a children's kaleidoscope and turn it, watching your vision shift into fragments that slowly slide into a new reality. Or, rather, an illusion of reality. It may have taken seconds, but when it was over, the man in front of her had changed too. To Annabeth he looked pitiful now, a puppet of his own disgusting needs. Like her husband, she mused, like her father.

Annabeth had always been a shy girl, in high school, at college, where she fell for a guy she considered self-confident, Stephen Moore, her future husband. His cocky self-assuredness was a character trait she admired, probably because it made him like her father. More probably, because self-confidence was the one thing she lacked. They married when she turned 21. It gave her a new status that she thought worked wonders on her self-esteem. But at the man's office, after feeling the change, she knew it had only been a veneer compared to what she felt now, looking at the awful man she'd be turning into her new boss-puppet.

Smiling her brand-new mocking smile, she sat down, folding legs she now knew were as much of a weapon as the tits she pushed into her silk blouse, or the green eyes that looked at him from under perfectly trimmed eyebrows. She'd hardly answered his questions, he'd hardly asked questions that needed answering. Five minutes later, she had the job. And him.

That same night, she had a dream (or was it?). It made her slip into the sweet confusion of her first sexual experience with a woman, a woman whose face she never saw. A sun-speckled grotto of leaves arched over her as her bare back rested on a bed of fragrant leaves. Closing her eyes, she felt two hands spreading her legs, hair tickling the skin of her inner thighs. Then a wet, darting tongue hit her like a bolt of electricity.

For Annabeth sex had hardly ever been a tender thing. Her own fingers had been there, of course, but never a tongue, let alone a woman's tongue, let alone a very experienced woman's tongue. This wasn't a dream, was it? But it surely couldn't be reality; it was so infinitely more, making her come and come in a train of spastic climaxes forcing her body into the cramps of impossible arches.

"Anna... Beththth," a voice lisped, and she woke up, her body shivering as a sparkling film of sweat evaporated.

The next morning, she walked into her new boss's office, carrying two mugs of steaming coffee. Her hips swayed in a new, leather pencil skirt, her calves flexed as she walked on five-inch heels. How could she feel comfortable wearing a low-cut blouse, acting like the cliché of a porn-secretary? Then again, why did she even wonder? Sitting down on the edge of his desk, she leaned forward, boring her green eyes into his as her lips curled into a sardonic smile.

"Sleep well, boss?" she asked, placing the mug in front of him. His eyes were in her cleavage, where they belonged. She really should do something about his tight collar and tie, he must be needing the air. He wrestled, she knew, again fighting a way back to his usual macho self, but all it did was contort his face.

"Please, ehm," he said, pushing his chair back, "let's get through our appointments for the day, Ms, ehm, Flynn." Annabeth smiled and rose, ironing herself back into a professional stance. Sitting down in the proper chair, arranging her legs and her paperwork, she started their day.

Liz.

Elizabeth Carlson had her second meeting with the blond therapist. She didn't want to, but she found out she couldn't stay away. As she walked into an empty waiting room, she picked up an old magazine before sitting down. It was about real estate and had a special on old country mansions. Opening the magazine at a random page, she at once recognized the house, even though it looked different, the windows, the terrace, a tower... It must have been renovated. 'Oh, come on!' she scolded herself, renovating a house that only existed in a dream? But, well, there it was, wasn't it? On the next page she saw an old picture, a brownish snap shot of a Victorian girl in a white summer dress, pale hair, pale eyes, pale everything. It was the girl from her dreams, dancing on the lawn. She looked like the daughter of her therapist.