Synopsis:

Another BigCloset TopShelf story.
I had posted this story in the old BigCloset. It has gathered dust for over a year. Originally in several parts, it's now been spell checked, smoothed a bit, and released as a single piece.

Who knows, maybe I'll even work on a sequel....

Story:

I really hate breaking a nail when I'm not even able to afford to get a manicure now and then. I grimaced and shook my hand then looked. Blarg. No wonder it hurt. I had broken it back up into "the quick", as my mom has always called it.

I sighed and rolled my eyes, then decided it would majorly suck the life out of me to let the nail fragment and the associated jagged edges go untreated for one more second. Not having any nail clippers handy, I picked up a large pair of scissors and trimmed the worst then took a coarse emery board from my pocket and buffed away the worst of the edges until I had time to make all things (as) right (as possible wit my nails).

I checked the clock as I went back to work and noticed I only had part of an hour left until my shift was over and smiled. At least that much was good. I hadn't been sleeping well, lately. I had been crying a lot, also. I mildly cursed some of the fiction I'd been reading, then cursed myself for being soft-headed enough to read it when I knew what it did to my emotional state, then cursed myself again, just on general principle. I briefly wondered if my friends would growl at me for the disregard for I showed for my self-esteem, if they had known.

My shift ended with only minor life suckage and I went home to the *major* life suckage in my life. Oh well. No good deed goes unpunished. I cursed myself again, but proceeded out to my car and drove home. My son was enthralled with an episode of Robot Wars on the satellite receiver in his room. I managed to leap several feet, coming to a thunderous landing beside his bed as I shouted "HELLOOO!!". Of course, as I'd predicted, he was completely consumed with his show and never heard me coming. He levitated about 18 inches off of his bed then landed and bounced gently.

"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!," he screamed. "You know I hate that! Why do you keep doing it?"

I fell on top of him and started smothering his cheek in kisses. I said, "Because I loves ya and I wanted you to know I was home!" I didn't miss too many chances to use every movement of my lips to keep kissing him as I spoke.

He finally tired of the kisses and began struggling. And giggling. I'm glad he was giggling. He's my height and in better shape than I am, though I still have enough of a weight advantage that I can always win at (mostly) fair wrestling matches. I eventually pinned his arms around him in a bear hug and sat up, taking him with me, and kissed him one more time and told him, "I jes loves ya so MUCH!" and set him back on his bed.

"DAVE!!!" I heard, and managed to stifle my groans. That didn't keep me from pouting. I stopped a moment, then wandered in the kitchen to find something cold and wet to quench my thirst.

"Ya?"

"What were you doing to him?"

"He's my love lump and I'z kissin him silly! I gave him 50 kisses!"

"Well, if anyone ever heard him, they'd call the police 'cuz it sounded like you were killing him. Especially after you shook the house doing whatever it was that you were doing." She kept up her lecture, but I simply tightened my diaphragm and projected in a good stage voice, "WhatEVEr! He knows I love him, and so does anyone else that spends any time around us."

"Well, I just worry, that's all. What are you doing in there, anyway?

"Looking for some iced tea or something. Looks like we're fresh out. Fudge bunnies. I guess I'll have some ice water, instead."

I heard her muttering and remembered why I called her the spousal abuser. I shrugged and went next door and let myself in and disarmed the alarm. I filled a 44-oz sports cup with ice and rearmed and relocked. I filled the cup to the cap and wandered in the living room and plopped down in my recliner and pulled up the organ bench with my computer monitor on it. I ignored some more mutterings from the spousal abuser and put my keyboard across my lap and logged in to my session. I suddenly realized I should have brought a snack, then realized that it didn't matter because I'm too fat and shouldn't waste food, anyway. I shrugged mentally and called up my various messengers: Yahoo, MSN, AOL... but I'd stopped using ICQ because of its security issues. No one really on so I checked my email. I dumped a total of 187 spam messages from 4 different accounts, and answered a few surveys. (only 800 more points from one company and I can get the complete Friends, the 5th Season on DVD!)

After a few minutes, I was done with all that and checked a few TG fiction websites, then logged into the Undernet. It was pretty dead and 2 of the 3 redneck haters were chatting a bit in my favorite channel so I did the mental shrug thing again and logged out of Undernet and switched to Dalnet. There were a few old friends in my favorite DALnet channel. I chatted a few minutes and realized none of them were really in a good chatting mood and the people who were didn't speak English natively. I wasn't in the mood to be an English professor tonight, so I logged out of there, too. I turned up my internet radio station and made a request to the DJ on duty and started playing FreeCell and dabbling with various poetry and lyric ideas.

I was off the next day, so I wasn't worried about when I went to bed. After it got late, I went back to BigCloset to see if there were any new postings. I read one or 2 and sighed. So many of them were based on magic or some other wonderful occurrence that would almost have to be supernatural. I suspected that magic, or what we think of as magic, wasn't impossible, but we didn't have the secrets of it, yet. I also wasn't too impressed with the chances of it being nearly as powerful as imagination would have it, even if it was discovered. I was much more positive about various forms of psionics. I'd potentially manifested various effects of that, myself.

I went back to playing FreeCell and surfing and occasionally IMing DJs and friends until around 11PM and got up to make myself a snack. I came back, cleaned out the spam, again, then wrote a short poem. It was only a few lines, but it had a nice feel. I was feeling good, so I even posted it to my website instead of waiting the normal few months before doing it out of boredom.

By the time I had all the edits, beautification, and testing done, it was almost 1AM. I'd actually intended to stay up longer, maybe much longer, but my eyelids were getting droopy. I shrugged to myself, murmured "What the fudge blarging bunnies..." and thought to myself *There's no use being superfreak. I'll get some rest so I can better enjoy my day off*.

I wandered through the dark into the bathroom and did various bathroom things that are done before going to bed, taking extra time to make sure my teeth were extra clean, giggling at how well I functioned to even be able to brush my teeth in the dark, then rinsed my brush and wandered back into the bedroom. I actually managed to slip into bed without waking up the spousal abuser and curled up on my side and realized I was wide awake. Blarg. I tried to be very still and let my mind wander. I thought some about the stories I'd read earlier and thought, *sheesh, there has to be a way to do some of those things. My mind can do so many things... why can it not make me less ugly and maybe make my life a little easier?*

I don't really remember too much after that. I guess I went from wide awake to wide asleep in very little time. The next thing I knew, I was running across a parking lot. I'm not sure why. I just knew I was really in a hurry. Something made me leap, and then I was flying. My speed increased until I was flying several times faster than I could run. I suddenly realized (a) I can't normally fly (b) flying is cool (c) this was probably a dream.

Just to check (c) I flew a few circles and then stopped and hovered in mid air. "Wow." I suddenly wondered if I could fly in space in my dream of if my subconscious would follow normal rules. WHOOSH. I was rocketing straight up like Neo from the Matrix. It felt wild. I was yearning to do this in real life. To be able to escape. To live for a change. I began chanting a mantra: "Escape... escape.... escape.... escape.... ". The fabric of the sky suddenly changed... and ripped....

I was disoriented for a moment and stopped and hovered. I shook my head and realized I was hovering over my bed. Another look yielded the fact that I was hovering over my own body. Erk? My own body? Yes, there it was, my own body, right next to the spousal abuser. Ohhhhhhh! I'm still dreaming! I shrugged, then decided to enjoy my dream. As I blinked, the sheet disappeared from over my body. No, it was still there, I could just see through it. I could also see through the shorts and Tshirt I had worn to bed. Oh my blessed fudge bunnies. I'm ugly as sin. I thought to myself *Sheesh, why is my darned body hair so dark and coarse? Why do I even HAVE body hair?* About that time, it all disappeared. I grinned VERY happily. My facial hair went the same route. Just to see if could create as well as destroy, I made my longish hair just plain long, filling my hairline and as I did. Now, instead of hair just touching my back, I had long, beautiful, thick, glossy hair to my waist. YaY!!

My grin was so big, my face was cramping and my teeth were getting cold. *Well, if I can do all that with hair, I don't have to be fat, anymore, either....* With that thought, I went from a plump size 18 to a nice slender shape that I was guessing would be a size 8. Wanting to stay in proportion, I was deciding what to do with my breasts, sizewise

And I woke up. Elton, my mutt, was leaned up on the foot of my bed with his paw on my foot and whining to go outside. *ARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH! Darned dog.* I muttered and slipped my glasses back on to maximize the ambient light and walked with him to the back door. I connected the clip hook to his collar and released him outside. As I was stood up, I almost screamed. *OUCH! Why the blessed fudge bunnies does it feel like I'm pulling my own hair?* I starting running my hands through my hair and realized it was because I was kneeling on some of it. Erk? *My hair is long enough to kneel on it? Oh blarg, the dream worked!*

I took a deep breath and stealthily slipped back into the bathroom. I closed the door and turned on the light. Wow. The entire dream had worked. I took off my clothes and looked at my body. I had hair on my scalp. I had eyebrows (which I realized I'd arched as I'd stripped the hair from my mustache and beard shadow). I had long lovely curling eyelashes. But no whiskers. None. I felt my heart race with the thrill I felt. My body was simply completely bare of hair. I didn't even have any pubic hair. That caused me to realize, that while I had a very feminine waist, hips, buttocks, and legs, I was only about large A or small B cup, breastwise, just like I had been before the dream. Blarg. My hands and feet hadn't been affected, either. Not that my hands were a dead giveaway. But I'd certainly like something more feminine. I didn't like my jaw line, either. And I was still male. Blarg. But, I was probably 80 or 100 pounds lighter. Schaweeeet.

I slipped back into my sleeping clothes, turned off the light and stealthed my way back into bed. Wow. She still didn't wake up. Talk about a *ahem* dreamy night. I spanked my own hand for that, but softly, to not wake her up.

Then she was shaking me. "Dave, Dave, wake up... I'm too sleepy... Elton is barking. Can you go let him in, again, please?

I did the industrial strength sighing thing and staggered to the back door and let him back in the house. Why the blarg does she have to wake us both up?

By that time, I was awake and my night vision was at 100% and I softly padded back into the bedroom and curled up with my back to the spousal abuser. She decided she want to cuddle (darned body heat thief!!!) and spooned into my back

And screamed in my ear.

Gawd, I hate when that happens.

I rolled onto my back and looked up at her as she almost killed herself leaping out of bed without untangling from the sheets, first. I stared up at her and said, "What the fudge blarging bunnies is your problem?" I even managed to sound miffed and stifle all giggles at her awkward landing.

She glared at me and said, "Who the fuck are you and what the hell have you done with my husband?!!?"

Oh gag.

I started peeling back sheets and getting back up. The third time that night. Blarg. She hopped over and turned on the light. Blarg. I blinked in pain. At least she did, too. I smoothed back my long hair and put on my glasses.

"What the FUCK have you DONE to yourself? I mean, your face is the same, but your hair... and your so damn skinny! You even have BOOBS!! You didn't look like that last night, What the FUUUUUUUCK did you do?!!?"

I cringed at the foul language. I've worked in prisons and don't use language like that. Why did she have to do it? I mean, like, she's a minister's daughter. He doesn't speak like that, either. Heh. I tossed my hair back, reminded myself how good it is that I always practice good posture because I didn't have to stand any straighter, and calmly replied, "If you're through being a sailor, I'll let you answer your own question. I've been here allllll night long. With you. In bed. You know if I'd been doing anything to change my appearance this much, you'd have been awake and screaming at me. So, how do you think I did it?"

She gave me her standard 'Don't you dare use logic on me' look. Schnicker. That never works. "I don't know. I don't guess you did. But some damn thing happened. You didn't look like that last night."

Two points for the spousal abuser. She finally got something right. Even if she did have to have such a foul mouth. I decided to get it all over at once. I noticed it was 4:23 AM as I skinned out of my shorts, underwear, and T-shirt and let them fall to the floor. Ka-ching. Her eyes doubled in size. Ka-ching. She had an anxiety attack strong enough she fainted. I jumped forward and caught her. I artfully guided her fall into a fireman's carry and dumped her unceremoniously back into the bed. I aligned her body, fixed the sheets, turned off the light, and went back to bed. With any luck, I'd duplicate the dream conditions and have some more fun.

I reached for the air raid siren going off beside my bed while I was mentally berating myself for not unsetting my alarm before going to bed. Blarg, It's my day off and I'm awake at.... 6AM. Wait. No, my watch has the real time, and it's 5:51AM. I'm an idiot. Well. I guess that's already apparent to those around me.

I shrugged as I got up and carefully walked around the bed until I could make sure Elton wasn't nested in some position where I'd step on him and scare him silly. Then my waist length hair fell into my face.

Waist length hair. Wow. It's still there. It's not a dream. Wow. Blarg. I didn't have any more lucid dreams last night. I really would have liked to make some more changes. Oh well. I might even have to stop telling people how fugly I am, now.

I glanced over at the spousal abuser but she'd rolled over and buried back down into the sheets. Good. I can borrow her keys that much more easily. I need to go next door and weigh. I found her purse on the dining table and slipped out the back door. After disarming the alarm and turning on a few key lights, I unlocked the room with the medical scales. I put the range slider on 200 lbs. I stepped on. THUNK. YaY!!! WAY too heavy! I slid the range slider to 150 lbs. +Thunk+. To light this time, but not by a lot. +tap tap tap+ 152 1/4 and balanced. Wow. I'd been 248 1/4 just a couple of days ago. I'd lost 96 lbs.

I turned off all the lights, rearmed the alarm and locked everything and went back to the house. I set the oven to preheat as I came in and started making coffee. Mmmmmmmm I love grinding my own coffee. Two scoops of decaf hazelnut beans with one scoop of chocolate beans.... ZZZZTT for 5 seconds... Nectar from the caffeine gods on the hoof. Heh, talk about mixed metaphors. I finished preparing the coffee maker and opened a can of Grands biscuits. The oven finished preheating as I put the last biscuit on the pan. I put the pan in the oven and set my timer for 15 minutes.

I softly called to Elton suggesting he might like to "go outside and peepee". I could almost hear him thinking about it, then he came trotting to me and I put his run leash on him and turned him out.

I snuck into Don's room and laid down beside him on his bed. Gawd, the sleep of the innocent. He never even stirred. I gently kissed his cheek. His eyes popped open. And shut. And popped open. And shut. And popped open and then focused on me. His brows went up. Then down. He made a face scrunchie worthy of a cat. "Dad???" I could literally hear the extra question marks in his voice.

"Yes, sonny boy?" I was suddenly realizing he had no idea what had occurred this morning.

"Dad? Is that really you?" He was slowly crawling out from under the sheets from the far side of the bed from me and watching me closely.

I sighed and got off his bed. "Yes, love lump, it's me. I've lost a few pounds *like 96 YaY!!*. My hair is a little longer *like 24 inches YaY!!*. But I'm still your dad. You're good with that, right?

"You look really different, dad. I mean, you look like you, but you don't." The look he had on his face completely disarmed me.

I took a chance and started walking around his bed with my arms spread for a hug. I was completely relieved when he didn't try to avoid me. As I was hugging him, I whispered in his ear, "I love you, sonny boy. I love you like I don't love anyone else in the world."

He whispered back, "I love you, too, dad. You just surprised me."

I dropped the hug and stepped back, grinning widely. "I guess I surprised me, too. I'm still not quite sure how all this happened, or if it can be duplicated or used in any other way. I do, however, plan on trying, heh." I winked at him. "Now, it's my day off and I've been hoarding back some coffee money. I guess I'm going to have some new clothes. By the way, I have biscuits in the oven. They'll be ready in a few minutes."

He smiled and nodded and I went to the living room to check my computer. Hmm, no email but Spam +click+ and that's gone. Oh, good music on my internet radio station. While doing a low key chair dance, I played a few games of free cell until the timer on my watch beeped. I let the dog in as I passed the back door and then washed my hands. I got the biscuits out of the oven and poured myself a cup of coffee and put my biscuits on a plate.

I called Don to come get his biscuits. I went back into the living room and sat down to eat biscuits while taunting chatters on Dalnet or Undernet. I found a few likely victims in one of my regular channels.

After some breakfast, coffee, taunting and jokes, I was feeling a bit more energetic. I decided that I was going to have to get some clothes together before I had to go back to work in 48 hours or I'd be really miserable. I showered and found some warm up pants with pockets and a drawstring waist that I managed to make workable. I topped this with a T-shirt and put on some sandals. After grabbing my money, cell phone, and keys, I was as prepared as I felt I could get, so I set off for Wal-Mart.

I decided that 2 pair of black denim jeans and a few polo style shirts would do for now. I went straight to the women's wear side of the clothes section and picked out 3 pair of black denim jeans in sizes 6, 8, and 10. No one seemed to notice I was male which suited me just fine. The size 10s fit just fine. I left the 6s and 8s at the counter at the fitting rooms and got a 2nd pair of 10s.

That done, I browsed the clearance racks and found some fairly plain polo style tops... on the racks next to the clearance racks. Oh well. It's Wal-Mart. I'm still getting decent prices. I got 1 in size large (black, of course) and went to the fitting rooms again. It was just a bit roomy but that was fine with me... especially if I was able to get back into the proper dream state to make some more changes. I wanted nice breasts, darn it. I had been on estradiol for 4 years before I couldn't afford the annual checkups and had to quit a year ago. I was tired of being a large A or small B.

I paid my way out and went home and put on my new clothes so I could wear something that fit. As I came into the living room, the spousal abuser noticed that I actually looked good. Before she could launch into one of her signature tirades, I played a trump card. "I've been hoarding my computer consulting money and I have enough to take you to lunch at On the Border, if you feel like driving that far."

Ka-ching. She's a sucker for eating out. She looked at me again and decided to pick her battles and to take the free lunch while it was offered. She changed her top and I herded Don into fresh clothes and we set off on the 35 minute trip.

The pablano chicken did the trick. She had a good time and was actually civil. I had chicken fajitas. Normally, I plow through a plate of fajitas like I haven't eaten in a week. This time, however, it seemed like I was still full of biscuits and I'd only eaten 2 instead my normal 4. I shrugged and put the rest in a to-go box for later. We were next door to a large movie theatre with enough screens I had to use my fingers and toes to count, so we strolled over to see what was playing.

We found a nice comedy and I let her pay this time. Wow. Make a note: feed her pablano chicken more often.

We rode home quietly and just as we were coming in, the phone rang. One of our church members for whom I did computer work was calling to see if I'd like to go to the range and shoot pistols. Does Microsoft need quality assurance help? Of course!

I got out my .45acp, ear protection and a box of cheap shells I keep for just such an occasion and made up a travel mug of ice water. By the time I was done putting my hair in ponytail, he was outside honking. He gave me a triple take when I came out, but he recognized my face (I think) and my pistol (I know for sure) and seemed OK enough so we were good.

We bought a pad of targets at the range and started plinking. I went to the 20 yard line and tried to relax and focus at the same time. After a few cleansing breaths, I took aim and nailed the 10x ring. That did the trick and I proceeded to shoot a 1" group. I waited for the all clear, then put up a new target and reloaded, this time making sure one was in the chamber and reloading the clip.

On the commence command, I put all 10 rounds in the 10x ring as quickly as I could and waited for the all clear. Bah. 1 1/4" group this time. I think my new size and lowered body weight was affecting my endurance. I borrowed my buddy's Czech .32 for a round. 8 more rounds in the 10x ring in a 1" group again. The lower recoil helped a lot.

I was starting to realize there might be downsides to being a woman, or at least looking more like one. Oh well. I could buy a smaller caliber pistol.

I gave his pistol back and moved to the 25 yard line and fired out the rest of my ammo. I consistently shot a 2" group at that range. Not bad but not wonderful. I knew now I needed to research a lighter pistol with less recoil. Oh well. I still had 40 hours before I was due back at work.

We drove back, stopping to buy a fresh box of ammo each on the way back, 2 for him, since he had taken 2 pistols.

I spent the rest of the evening on the computer chatting, listening to music, and researching pistols I couldn't afford.

I went to bed fairly early, since church was the next day. On a whim, I researched lucid dreaming, but only briefly, just before getting up to brush my teeth and put on shorts and a T-shirt for bed. At that point, I realized I'd not eaten since lunch and I wasn't hungry. So that's how you can forget to eat. Amazing.

It'd been a long but fun day and I was hoping that I'd fall asleep fairly quickly and that I would dream lucidly again. I was sooo interested to see what I could do now that I knew the potential available to me.

Certainly enough, in only a few minutes I was dead to the world....

I woke up the next morning and didn't remember dreaming. Fudge bunnies. I'd had some real inspirations for what I wanted to try this time, too. And now my first day off was over and today would be church. For some reason, I had popped into consciousness a bit before 7AM. Oh well, I had time to make sure all my clothes were clean before church so I gathered up all my new clothes, even the ones I hadn't worn yet, as well as some black undies and black socks. I set the water for cold, small load, added the detergent and patted down all the pockets as I added in the clothes to be washed. Once I had all that started, I wandered into the bathroom and started the hot and begin stripping. Clean clothes, clean me.

I took a long leisurely shower and enjoyed the total blarg out of not having to shave anything anywhere! I got out smelling nice, my hair conditioned and softer than silk. I toweled my body and slipped into a bathrobe. I hung up that towel to dry and got a fresh one to dry my hair. I toweled it dry and then lowered my head and dried my hair upside down to give it as much lift and body as I could, considering it was waist length and straight. I flipped it back over and played with it briefly. I couldn't decide if I wanted it to fall neatly down my back and put up with it blowing in my face while I was outside or if I wanted to do some kind of upswept 'do for a more formal look. I finally twisted it gently into a single rope of hair doubled it up and pinned it in place with the ends fanning out over the roll I'd just made. It actually looked very nice. Who'd a thunk it?

Now to deal with the aspersions from the spousal abuser. I wondered back to the laundry room and thankfully the spousal abuser was still asleep so I was reprieved for another while. The washer finished spinning as I walked in and I tossed the wet laundry into the dryer with a couple of dryer sheets, cleaned the lint trap, and set the autodry for just a bit more time than normal to make sure my jeans got nice and dry.

I was guessing the laundry would take about 30 minutes or so to dry so next stop was the kitchen. I set the oven to preheat and then ground some coffee. I washed out the carafe and the coffee basket, put in a grounds filter, added the water and started a large pot to making then got out a can of biscuits. I got the biscuits on the cookie before the oven was preheated and got out the skillet to make sausage and eggs. I'd just sprayed in the non-stick skillet when the oven light snapped off, showing it was pre-heated. I put the skillet down and slid in the biscuits, starting my 15 minute timer as I did. I put some reduced fat sausage in the skillet and browned it well and set it aside over the burner that had the oven vent in it and then scrambled several eggs with shredded cheddar.

As the eggs congealed, I poured myself a cup of coffee, adding a very large splash of Hershey's syrup for... umm.. well, it had to be holiday somewhere for something, and stirred it in well. I sipped the coffee and tried to cook the eggs as slowly as I could so that the biscuits wouldn't be too far behind. They still lacked about 6 minutes so I streeeeetched the time as best I could. I got out some plates while waited. Five minutes. I checked the silverware for spots. Three minutes, thirty seconds. I gave up and scooped eggs onto two of the plates. I added some sausage patties to all three plates. I decided to put some extra flavor in my eggs so I added yellow mustard and chili powder and mixed it well.

Finally!! The biscuits were golden brown so I divided them between the 3 plates. I put the plate with no eggs on the table for Don and poured another cup of coffee. I stacked both the other plates on my left arm and picked up the two coffee cups in my right hand, doing a nifty imitation of a waitress. I summoned up all the grace I could muster and walked into the bedroom to wake up the spousal abuser. I was hoping the fresh hot breakfast and coffee would wake her in a civil fashion. In fact, the aroma had her eyes open before I said anything. She sat up in bed and realized why I was there and started getting out of bed. She noticed my hair but I handed her the coffee I'd poured and fixed for her and she scowled but sipped quietly as I lead her back into the living room. I sat my cup down by my chair and handed to her a plate and silver, made sure Don knew his plate was on the table and then sat down myself.

It wasn't wonderful eating while being glared with the strength of a weapons grade laser, but I had managed to get my eggs just as I liked them so I tuned her out and focused on eating. I checked my various email accounts as I ate and also looked to see if BigCloset had any new stories. I noticed that two more were posted overnight and one of them looked pretty good. I minimized BigCloset and cleaned the Spam from my accounts. I answered a couple of MSN group messages and turned up my internet radio station while I read the new stories. One of them I just gave up and closed because it was too much into pain and humiliation. I dealt enough with that in real life I didn't want to read about it. The other one was a good read and I finished it quickly.

I locked my screen for privacy and gathered up my dishes. I grabbed the spousal abuser's dishes on the way by and took them all in the kitchen while she muttered an entire dictionary of invectives about my manhood, my emotional state, my sanity, my parentage and ancestry, and other things I did not bother sticking around to hear. I put the dishes in the sink as Don was also bringing in his. He'd heard the edges of the muttering and gave me a sympathetic look. I left him to do the dishes and went to check my laundry. The spousal abuser threw a shoe at my head as I went by but I ducked to let it sail by and caught it as it bounced off the wall. I frowned but put the shoe under the edge of our bed and went on to the laundry room. I checked and all the clothes were nicely dry so I went back to the bedroom to dress.

When I put on the undies I realized that I should have bought more while I was buying jeans. I checked my watch. I realized I had more than enough time to run to Wal-Mart before church, especially since I don't do Sunday School (an old thing from my childhood). I gathered up some money, ID, and my mobile phone. I actually got a parking place near the front of the store because it was still so early. I sailed in and was going to get my normal size 8 undies when I realized I'd be duplicating my current wardrobe and realized I had no real idea what I wore anymore. Oh my. I found one of the women working near the fitting room and explained that I'd lost 96 lbs. and that I needed new undergarments and had no idea what size I wore anymore.

I guess my hair and my smooth hairless face combined with the fact that I'd come from the women's lingerie section completely fooled her. She asked what size jeans I was wearing and gave me a considering eye and then decided I'd be a size 5. She helped me select some little thongs and some dip front bikinis for when I didn't have to worry about panty lines or just wanted more comfort. They were stretch knit cotton so I wasn't worried too much. If they were close, I'd probably be happy enough and I could get nicer later. I was about to walk off to pay when she said "I notice that you're not wearing a bra, and even though you're small breasted, you might enjoy your new slim shape with more support."

I froze. My eyes blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Then I remembered to breathe. "Umm.. sure... but again, I have no idea what size." She asked me if I wanted plain or pretty and if I had a color preference as she found a tape measure and pulled me behind a couple of large racks. I told her that I wanted something not white, but close to white and something that would encourage cleavage somehow someway. She produced an ivory full cup bra with formed cups and handed it to me grinning. Wow. It was heavy. "It's a gel bra. It's heavy, but it really makes cleavage and it does it more comfortably than you might think."

This nice lady was helping me find a bra. It was her suggestion. I'd always wanted to wear a bra as long as I could remember. Now I looked like a woman. Evidently I also was presentable as one, even though I had to really work to keep my voice acceptable. And now I was going to go to a ladies dressing room and try on a bra. A gel bra designed to maximize my cleavage. MY cleavage. I could almost hear birds singing. As it turned out, the bra fit perfectly. I was a 36A. Not huge, but it was a start. And with the "push up" effect of the gel pockets, I looked like a large B or a small C cup. I briefly wondered how many shoes I'd have to dodge.

Shoes. I was wearing trainers. Men's trainers. They'd always been too wide but they were so comfortably padded that I'd worn them anyway. I was wearing all black. I decided I need some basic black flats. I went back to the back of the store and picked through the selection. I was still women's size 11 or 12, depending on style and cut. I'd have to fix that in the next lucid dream. I finally found something fairly plain and flat in a charcoal. They were size 11, but they fit well enough so I added them to my growing pile of purchases. I decided to go ahead and just wear the women's trouser socks that I'd worn in, rather than messing with some kind of hose. Again, being early was a blessing and I was able to pay for my selections without having to wait in line. I took my sacked purchases and drove home.

When I got home, the spousal abuser was in the shower. I set my purchases down on my side of the bed, out of casual sight. I went back into the living room and pulled up winamp and yahoo messenger and MSN messenger and AIM and checked on a few friends. I had a sudden inspiration and wrote a new poem and that inspired a new set of lyrics. I looked over them critically and then showed the poem to my friend, one of my adopted net sisters for whom I'd written it. She loved it and so I named it for her and dedicated it to her:

Sarah's Song
Dedicated my sister Sarah. I love you.

Sadness has its place
To climb way up
You gotta start low
Then go go go

Happiness is good
But, just sometimes
You need to be sad
To know good from bad

I've had much pain
I've been beaten down
I've had regrets
But I'm not dead yet

I can't forget hope
I have to keep going
Every day is new
A chance for me and you

I could pick pain
I could pick loss
But that's no deal
I choose to heal

I then showed her, and a few more friends, the lyrics I'd written. I sighed because I could write lyrics like falling off a log but I was pretty helpless to write melodies for them. I posted the lyrics to my friends in hopes that I would inspire a melody in someone's head, even maybe mine!

I'm told I'm nice,
I'm told I'm smart
I'm told I'm sweet,
and have a good heart

I just want to live
and not be a pain
I gave up on love
I won't try again

Sometimes I feel lost
Sometimes everything hurts
Sometimes I can't think
Sometimes my heart sinks

I try to be nice,
I wanna be cool
I can be a drama queen
I can be kinda mean

Scared doesn't mean dead
and helpless doesn't mean hopeless
Being unsure in my head
Doesn't mean I have to give up

I try not to take,
or hold out my hand,
I try to hold on,
and give all I can

I work till I drop
I work till I'm blind
It doesn't really matter,
It still hits my behind

But I won't give up
That's not my plan
I'll just keep on going
The best way I can

I'm not the best there is
But that's not the deal
I'll keep on going
Till I'm all healed

Scared doesn't mean dead
and helpless doesn't mean hopeless
Being unsure in my head
Doesn't mean I have to give up

Maybe someday I'd hear my song on the radio. Stranger things have happened!

By the time I had them posted to my web site and cleaned and properly linked the spousal abuser was bathed, dressed, and made up. She dropped into her chair across the room from me. Now understand, I was in a plain black polo, plain black jeans, and my men's trainers. The only overtly feminine thing I was displaying was my hair. The rest was all in my sack hiding by the bed. This didn't keep her from berating me about what an embarrassment I was to her. I very pointedly took my eyes off my monitor, looked her full in the face, and then I took off my headphones and stood up.

"Let's see what you think in a few minutes." I went to the bed room and changed into a slinky black thong, my new bra, and my new flats. I pulled a wispy tendril of hair down on either side of my face and let it trail down over my newly enhanced bust and blew a kiss at myself in the mirror and walked back into the living room and sat back down in my recliner. And I immediately dived back out of it into a shoulder roll and bounced back up to my feet to stare at my spousal abuser where she'd tried to pounce on me. "That impressed, huh?" She screamed like a feral animal and jumped at me again. I hopped backwards, then took off for the back door. She'd landed on all fours so I had plenty of time.

She broke into sobs as I reached for the door knob. I made the mistake of pausing. "You hate me! You can't go out in public like that if you love me!" Where the blarg does she come up with this? I made the mistake of responding to her. "Umm, yanno, I woke up like this after spending the night in bed with you. You need to wake up and smell the toxic waste. What I'm wearing I'm wearing because it's appropriate for the body I have, now. If you loved me, you'd stop the violence. In fact, if you loved me, you'd have never started the violence years and years ago." Ewps. Wrong thing to say. She growled horribly and got up to run at me. "Go ahead. Hit me again. Give me an excuse to press charges on you. I'm 20 pounds lighter than you are, now. I might could even get aggravated assault charges on you out of it."

She didn't hear much of what I said because of her growling. But me facing her down without moving put her off. "What??!!??" I repeated myself. She kicked at me but I just turned and she missed me. Then something happened that had never happened before. Don came out of his room. "Mom. You can't hit Dad anymore. It's not right." He'd never defended me a single time in all his 12 years. Her mouth fell open. "You just don't know what's going on. Look at this freak and how...." "MOM!!! It doesn't' matter! It's not right to hit. He's not hitting you. You can't hit him."

At this point, her maniacal fury focused on her new obstacle and she drew back to slap him. When she tried, she found her wrist captured, twisted behind her back, and her feet kicked from under her. "Touch him and I can defend him and no court anywhere will do anything about it. You've gotten away with it with me for 15 years but you're not touching him." She struggled but I had her in a compliance hold she wasn't going to break with just struggling. "Don, did you see her kick at me?" He turned his big green eyes up at me. "Yes, dad." I hated to do this but I could see that the cycle had to be broken. I couldn't wait on the dreams. "Don, if I call the police, will you tell them she was trying to hit and kick me?" My heart was breaking because I knew his heart was breaking, too. But we both knew the spousal abuser had reached a dangerous stage. "Yes, dad, but do I have to?"

The spousal abuser couldn't stand it any longer. She couldn't break my hold on her, but she screamed like a mad woman. "Noooooooooo! You can't DO that! He's my son, not yours!! You're a god damned FREEEAK and you're going to HELL!! Don!! You have to tell the police that he was beating me and holding me down! You can't let him do this, I'll go to jail!" To my complete amazement, her ordering him to lie gave him strength to face her. "No mom. I told you, this is wrong. I know you've been hitting and kicking dad a long time. Now you're trying to hit me, too. You always told me if anyone tried to do that to me, to tell you or dad or someone who could help me. That's what I'm going to do."

My heart swelled with pride. I wanted to hug and kiss him for 3 or days. I directed him to get the phone and dial 911. It looked like a 2nd graders' Sunday School class wouldn't have the normal teacher this morning.

While Don was calling the police, I pulled her back into our bedroom and used the compliance hold to its very best effect while I somehow managed to find some shorts and a T-shirt and shrug into them one handed, changing grips as needed. I had just gotten her into the living room and was sitting down on the couch with her in front of me when the police knocked on the door.

Don came in and opened the door and again surprised me, "Hi, my mom has been hurting my dad for along time and today I made her stop and she tried to hurt me. He had to protect me and now I called you and he has her in here." He finished opening the door to show us to them. They came in almost literally scratching their heads. The sergeant that had come along to back up the two officers looked at me long and hard.

"Hey, I recognize you. Kind of. I think. But aren't you a guy? I mean the guy who runs the local photo lab? I'm sorry, this is really really confusing." I grinned and answered, "I kind of sort of am and kind of sort of used to be, but now I'm me, whatever that means. This happened to me in my sleep and no one knows why. Meanwhile, as badly as I hate to do it, I need to press charges on her for trying to assault our 12 year old. She was going to beat on me and he told her to stop and she got so furious for being interrupted, she tried to get him. I had to restrain her forcibly to protect him."

I mentally crossed my fingers and hoped we didn't both go to jail, leaving Don out in the cold until something could be arranged. The sergeant looked at me and blinked. Then he looked at her and blinked. Then he looked at Don and blinked. "Oooooooo-kay. So, you're holding her down because......?"

"Because," I answered, "firstly, I'm protecting my son from further threat and secondly, I'm holding her to release to your custody for an official arrest. She had already attempted to injure me multiple times this morning and became enraged when I prevented her from striking my son. I used minimum force to ensure compliance and held as gently and as carefully as I could to minimize pain, injury, and discomfort."

The sergeant sighed expressively. "My first impulse is to lock up all three of you and let the lawyers fight it out. But, are you sure he's only twelve?" Even the spousal abuser laughed. "Yes, sarge, he is only twelve." The sergeant nodded. "Ok then, the law is pretty clear. You took the correct and proper action and she looks unmarked and unharmed and you have a collaborating witness. I'll leave an officer here to take your statement and take her down for booking." He had one of the officers take my son to his room to get his statement.

He looked at me. "You realize this is going to be a media circus what with how you look and so forth?" This time it was my turn to sigh. "Yes, but here I am for all I am. I guess I'll deal with it when the time comes." He grimaced. "It won't be pretty, I'm afraid," he said. We will do what we can within the framework of the law, though, to keep you from the worst of it. You've helped us before with some critical photographs and we don't forget favors like that. Well, I better get her booked." He had already taken her from me and had cuffed her to walk her out to the car.

The other officer had finished getting Don's statement and left with him to follow him back to the station to help process and book the spousal abuser. The last one, who stayed to get my statement, was one with whom I'd worked before with various photographs and other such issues. He was a nice guy and had always been respectful and didn't seem to be any kind of person who let his uniform, badge, or authority go to his head. He looked at me and shook his head. "I know who you are. I know you are, or at least were, a guy. But you look really good. Like a woman. How much weight did you loose?" He was trying to keep a straight, professional face, but I could tell he was struggling.

I took a deep breath, "I went to bed and had a weird dream. When I woke up, I was like.... not ugly.... or whatever. I mean, I don't know how it happened. As far as I can tell, it happened overnight, by itself. So, the spousal abuser was going nuts. She's always hit on me, since just a few months after we got married. At first I thought it was funny. Cute, even. But I was young, dumb, and didn't have much in the way of life experience. By the time I realized how bad it had gotten and what mess I was in, I had been married a while and had a kid. I figured no one would believe some Sunday school teacher would be doing all that so I kept it to myself."

He managed to keep his eyes from popping out of his head, a very good trick after that story and asked, "So this isn't a new story? And your son knew about it? What made today different from the past?" He was shaking his head slightly and kept moving to make notes on his notepad then pulling away his pencil as though he just didn't know where to start.

It suddenly dawned on me. "Oh, if you hadn't asked me in just that way, I wouldn't have realized. He sees me as a girl, a woman. He's been taught all his life to not just not hit women, but to protect them if he can. I thought he had just gotten fed up with her abuse of me. Oh well. He was still in the right place at the right time. There is no telling how long this would have gone on if he hadn't intervened. It was time to stop the cycle of violence."

He finally started writing and asked various questions, establishing a time line, pertinent details, getting me to give him a narrative of the entire ugly incident. I knew they had separated us to get our stories independently to see if they matched. I was amazed that it had all gone so smoothly. When we were done, I accompanied him to the door. As I stepped out on the front porch, I noticed the police cars had drawn quite a crowd. Ut oh. Our preacher was among the on-lookers. I stepped out to approach him. He saw me and did a double take, but I knew by now he'd heard of my sudden transformation and he came towards me, too.

I stopped a few feet from him. "Hi preacher. Umm.... you might be short a Sunday school teacher this morning. I think she's going to be a bit.... tied up for a while."

He scowled darkly. "Can you take her class? You're pretty sharp and since you usually don't attend Sunday school at all, I know you're not otherwise need anywhere else." Ouch. "As smart as you are, I know you could pick up and do something." Ooops, now I'm trapped. "Besides, it appears you are responsible for her not being available so you can help fix the problem." No way, Sherlock.

I drew myself up to my full 5'11+", still less than his 6'2" but as my face hardened, I saw his color drain slightly. Tersely, I responded, "ExCUSE YOU! What I did... for what I am responsible.... is... I protected my son from imminent danger. She made her own decisions and I simply minimized the damage. If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for not doing more to check and see what was going on in the life of one of your own Sunday school teacher. NOW... I will help, but if you want me, I'll be in a dress and wearing make up and I'll will have my hair nicely arranged. If you can deal with that, I will substitute this once."

To my amazement, he shrugged and said, "Fine. You'd look ridiculous dressed as a man and I believe women should always wear dresses and appear as feminine as is reasonably possible, given what ever they are doing at the time. I accept your offer to substitute and if you like the class, you're welcome to take it over until such time as you either change your mind or your wife is once again available." Sweet. The first major stumbling block to be socially accepted as a woman turned out to be a non-issue.

I said my good byes and uneasily eyed the crowd but turned my back and went back inside to get ready for Sunday school. I still had about an hour. Now I needed a dress. Oh, and makeup. I had some that I had squirreled away from when I still had to hide what and who I was that should be fine for an emergency like this. I found a purse the spousal abuser had discarded after she'd grown bored with it, I put my money, phone, keys, and ID in it and slipped into some sandals and rushed back to Wal-Mart.

Somehow, I managed to get the exact same front parking spot and jogged inside. I grabbed the same lovely woman from lingerie and asked her what I should do for a nice Sunday school dress. She found me a beautiful royal blue number with an elasticized waist and sent me to jewelry to get some accessories. A triple ear piercing later, I was ready but realized my new shoes were black and I had a royal blue dress. I checked my watch. I had 37 minutes left until Sunday School. I hustled to the shoe department as quickly as I could with any grace and managed to find some strappy 3" heel sandals that fit, even though they were mostly clear Lucite with subdued silvery straps. Oh well, with my shoe size, I couldn't be too picky.

I even managed to get to a checkout lane just as the person before me was leaving so I didn't have to wait in line. I paid and made it back to the house with 22 minutes left.

I walked into the Sunday school area with 1 minute to spare, wearing only light makeup but still looking pretty good in the royal blue with gold jewelry and the clear sandals. I'd found some hose in the spousal abuser's drawers and used some of her perfume. I got some odd looks but it seemed that I was expected. My assistant grabbed me by the hand and pulled into the classroom and asked me if I had looked over the lesson. I shook my head and asked for a lesson book. She scowled at me but I knew she was too big a chicken to try teaching, even to a room of easily pleased 2nd graders.

As it turned out, it was Daniel with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was fairly certain I remembered the story and noticed that the flannelgraph visual aides were ready and the kids were even semi-quiet. "Hi kids! Do you kids like ovens?" I grinned as they scowled at me. "Well, do you like what comes from ovens? Like cakes and cookies and biscuits and muffins and pies?" Now I had their attention. I had furtively shot glances at my assistant several times and realized she was impressed. The lesson went pretty smoothly from there and thanks to a fortunate coincidence, the assistant and brought some cheap cookies that helped me illustrate the lesson. I had them so captivated that we didn't even do a craft.

When we got done, they were disappointed and asked when I'd be doing the class again. I dismissed them to go to church started straightening the room. The assistant stepped in front of me and just stared. "I have no idea what you have been popping or smoking or whatever, but I want some! You look great, you sound great, and those kids thought you were Barney the dinosaur or Glenda the good witch or some damn thing. Damn, listen to me cuss at church. Do you see what you've done to me? I have never, ever seen those kids pay attention to a lesson like that! But why did you did you call the cops on Julie (the spousal abuser)?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I can't discuss for legal and criminal reasons. After all, what if you are called as a witness or for the jury or something?" Good save, huh?

"Well, I guess so. Oh, we'd better get our fannies up to the sanctuary for services." She lead me up and for the first time in years, I sat at the front of the sanctuary instead of hiding in the back. I even sang in the choir. She had me sit with her and her family and afterwards, she insisted that Don and I come to lunch with them and that they would pay for it all. Normally, when I was along, they made us pay for our own but always paid for Don's and the spousal abuser's if I wasn't present. I could get used to this.

We sat and chatted after lunch, everyone avoiding the obvious issues of me, the spousal abuser's current status, and how NOSY they wanted to be, but knowing I would never give in. I had a reputation for being extremely stubborn when I didn't want to discuss something.

Don and I went home when lunch and chatting was over and he went to play with his computers, game consoles and the other myriad things 12 year olds have these days. I went in the living room and laid down on the couch to contemplate my current status and circumstances. A bit later I realized I was flying...

I'm sure that I my physical body must have been grinning madly, because dream-flying is a real blast! And, because I was aware of my actions, and was now controlling my path, I had control of the dream. Ain't lucidity wonderful?!? I began my mantra.. "I must esCAPE!!... I must esCAPE!!... I must esCAPE!!... " And, so empowered, I directed my dream path up and up and up.... rocketing ever faster towards the fabric of dream space/time... until I could almost hear and feel a rip as I tore into physical space while still in the dream state.

The elation I felt as I looked down on my own physical body as I hovered over it in dream state was beyond my meager abilities to describe. Finally!! I was back in dream state, lucidly, and able to fix a few more things of myself and in my life. Well, first things first. Most of my body was good: my weight was good; I loved my hair; I still had my height.... Now I need to tune up a few things I had missed.

Staring at myself, I visualized myself standing and *poof* my physical body was standing by the couch before me. I visualized myself naked in order to get an unobstructed view. I lengthened my legs and neck and shortened my torso, especially my waist, but kept my height constant. As I did that, I also shrank my waist and flared my hips to get a more hourglass silhouette. I also slimmed the barrel of my chest so that I could wear a smaller bra size and also so that my breasts would be closer together. That done, I also pictured myself with larger, very firm and wonderfully shaped breasts. Scanning my body, I slimmed my feet and hands, also making my feet smaller. I narrowed my jaw, making it and my brow line both lighter.

I looked myself over again, then made my entire head a bit smaller and allowing my eyes to remain about the same size so that they would be more prominent and I also gave myself a small, cute, pert nose. After adjusting my vision so that I no longer needed glasses and giving myself full, pouty lips, I moved on to the obvious. Calling up all my knowledge of male and female internal and external anatomy, I revised myself into a true and complete female. At that point, I noticed 2 things: my dream state body wasn't changing with my physical body and I had no sensation as my physical body changed. I did a mental shrug kind of thing and visualized all the same changes to my dream state body and, of course, they all happened. Oddly, I still noticed no different sensations.

I adjusted a few more small details, basically just fixing or removing scars and blemishes and evening out my complexion and skin tone. I also adjusted my voice so that it wouldn't upset my new image. As an added thought, I gave myself a nice, healthy-looking tanned complexion, but without the damage that comes from a lot of sun exposure. I redressed myself, visualizing a nice bra/panty set in leopard with a black garter belt and hose, black slip and LBD. I threw in nice, subdued makeup, and lightly curled my hair, and added a smattering of silver jewelry: earrings with emeralds, matching neck chain with pendant, matching charm bracelet, matching anklet, and matching watch. I had gone from, just recently, thinking I was the ugliest (mostly) human on earth, to finding myself very attractive.

Realizing I was done with my body for a moment, yet not wanting to waste the dream state, I sailed through the walls of my house (wow, I can do that?) out to my car. I slowly went over every inch of the exterior repairing every dent and ding and giving it a new car shine. I reached through the hood to the engine computer and turned up the max RPM in 5th gear from 4000 to 6500 with a thought. Ha, that should raise the top speed of my car an appreciable amount. While I was at it, I cleaned the interior, upgraded the stereo to an AM/FM/Tape/CD/mp3/R/RW/XM satellite (with no need for a subscription!) and repaired the blown speaker in the passenger door and added DVD players for both back seats.

Just as I had repaired all the old complaints on the house, in general, and was thinking I should upgrade the entertainment center and my computer(s), Elton struck again.

Oh well, reality calls...

Glaring down at Elton, supermutt, bionic home alarm, food disposal, carpet vacuum, and general love puppy, I knew I couldn't be mad. He couldn't help needing to go outside to get a bathroom break. sigh That didn't relieve my frustration any. He looked up at me with his beautiful brown eyes and I knew he loved and trusted me in a way that precluded strings or conditions. Sighing again, I suggested in a slightly baby-talk tone, "Wanna go pee-pee?" He bounced happily as I got up from the couch to follow him to the back door. I clipped him to the run lead and opened the door to let him run find all his favorite places to do his business.

As I closed the door, I leaned back against the door frame and sighed, again, and thought about all the really extremely cool things I could do if I could achieve the proper dream state on demand. Wait. I was in dream state. I did things to myself. I did things to my home and my car. *Note: I'm an idiot for not thinking of these things sooner* Self-deprecation complete, I pulled the neck of my dress out and looked down. Wow. Bewbs!! Making the obligatory dash to the bathroom, I pulled up the skirt of my dress and pulled down my panties. Wow. No penis. No scrotum. I was finally, really, completely a woman. I knew I would be making some more adjustments and fine tuning quite a few things, but going from an ugly, geeky male (pardon me if I puke) to a tall, slim, (at least) moderately attractive woman (YaY!!) in a very short amount of time, relatively speaking. I was laboring under no illusions that a reasonable time to adapt would be required.

I started looking around the bathroom. Yes! the tub was much larger, equipped with Jacuzzi jets, sliding doors instead of a curtain, multiple shower heads, and steam vents. In my virtuosity, I'd made just these kinds of fixes, upgrades, and improvements all over the house. I wandered through the house viewing all the changes. The kitchen was a true work of art. Suddenly, I was in the mood for a drive. Picture completely wicked grin *here* I grabbed my purse and found Don. Being only 30 minutes away from a world class high speed race track, I was suddenly really, really wanting to see how fast my newly tweaked rice rocket would go. I arrived at the track completely wired and frustrated because I didn't want to get pulled over but I did want to see how fast my ride would go, now. I finally found the business office entrance and, after speaking to a number of people, found the proper person to arrange an impromptu high speed run. It cost me an ungodly chunk of cash for inspection, insurance, and access, but I didn't want to chance a high speed run on a back road somewhere. I made sure that Don would have a good view from the stands and then submitted my tight little ride to their (very) in-depth safety inspection. I read and signed some insurance papers and a release or two while I was waiting, then found I was required to have a helmet. I thought I was going to be delayed for the while it would require to drive back into the city to find a helmet, but one of the secretaries was a lipstick biker chick (they have those?) She loaned me a neon pink full face helmet that happened to fit pretty well. The inspection had been completed during my quest for a DOT approved helmet so I strapped in and putt-putted out to the start line. I watched the starter climb into the flag stand and got ready. With a prayer that I'd time it well and not stall out or otherwise have a blonde (driving) moment, I peeled out in fine style as the green flag dropped. The second gear rubber burning red line shift was gratifying beyond words and I continued to press the rice rocket for all it was worth. Mmmmmmm..... this was about as relaxing as burning through a few boxes of .45acp ammo! I got a microchirp from 3rd gear and tried to push my foot through the floor pan. Gawd, I really really love driving too fast. At least this way I was doing it in a socially conscious, legal, and properly safe way. Especially since my son was watching. Heh.

As I grabbed fifth, I gritted my teeth and prayed (again). Before, when I had found an opportunity to max the car (in a much less safe and legal fashion, but I *had* been alone and the car was still fairly new) I had uttered a word not worthy of a true lady when I realized that, though max revs in 4th equated to 120 mph, 5th was limited to 125 mph. It was a very disquieting means of limiting, too, as the fuel injectors simply quit injecting at 125 and then restarted the injection process at 124. It was a very ragged motion, as a result, shaking the various portions of my anatomy in a very uncomfortable way. This time, however, I smoothly accelerated past 125 and began searching for the upper limit of the engine's power curve. 130... 135... 138... 139... 140... Every ounce of my will gathered and urged the car to go ever faster... 141... 142.... I vacillated between 141 and 142 for an entire lap and more. Certain, by now, that I had worn a rut in the floor pan from pushing the gas pedal, I released the pressure and let the little rice rocket coast. Its slim efficient shape had no problem coasting the rest of the 1.5 miles of the oval I slowly eased into the inspection area, putt-putting in as I had out. The mechanics had been monitoring my progress and were amazed that a production four door Korean sedan could exceed 120 mph, even though I'd told them earlier that I knew from personal experience that it would go at least 125. Don came running in at that point and begged for a ride. My maternal instincts came on full power, now. Expecting to have them back me fully on safety grounds, I said to the inspector, "Umm, I'm sure that safety regs and so forth would forbid that, wouldn't that be so? I mean, would it even pass inspection to take a passenger?" Of course, I should have taken him into my confidence before depending on the answer I was expecting. "No, actually, your ride is tip top shape, you seem to be a quite excellent driver and your insurance is for one driver and one passenger. He is welcome to ride if you so desire to take him. In fact, when his turn is done, I'd like a ride, too. The only reservation I have is I would like to check the tire sidewall temps. I'll be back in a moment." Gag. Shot down in a breath. On the other hand, I am a reasonably proficient driver and I had just tweaked it and had it inspected by a polished professional. Shrugging to myself, I had decided it would be ok if he approved the tires as he came back nodding. "Ok, then", I said, waving Don to the passenger seat, "let the fun resume." I putt-putted back to the starting line and repeated the entire process again. Don was whooping like he'd just won a state level football game as I came back in for my tire check. I stayed in the car this time and accepted the inspector as my passenger after he okayed the tires. He grinned like a Doberman looking at a freshly cut steak as we rolled to a stop at the Start/Finish line. Taking the green flag, I actually went even more smoothly than I had the previous two runs. I held 142 for almost two full laps this time, at the inspector's urging. That was when I noticed the man in the flag stand waving a checkered flag with all the flair of someone flagging for the Indianapolis 500. I shook my head and grinned and didn't let up until I had completely crossed the start finish. Braking hard, but carefully, I brought it down in time to make the exit safely, and plodded back to the inspection area. The inspector grinned at me again as he lifted his lanky frame from the other seat.

Don and the other mechanics drew up near me in a loose semi-circle as I swung around and stood from the little sedan. Don had his trademark conspiratorial grin that he couldn't quite keep from his face when he had a secret. Another man pushed into the space of the semi-circle and spoke, "Hi ma'am. I understand you don't know too much about NASCAR or the other forms of racing?" Ut oh. I was sure the resulting full body blush was lighting the inspection area better than it has ever been lit before. "Well, umm, no. I mean, I like the pretty cars and I really like going fast, but I don't watch much TV and I never have really be able to afford tickets." I wondered if shiny disco balls would look good in the light of my blushing. The new man smiled. "Let me introduce myself. My name is Ron Parker. I doubt you've heard of me, but I intend to win the Nextel Cup next year. Have you ever driven a real race car?" Oh my. In my best lame fashion, I asked, "Does a '66 Mustang hardtop with a custom paint job and oversized rear tires count? I got it up about 140, once. Does that count?" I was sure, at this point, my full body blush was pushing at least 3000 watts. How could I possibly be blushing any harder than I had been at first? He grinned at me, "Would you like to drive a car that would go 200 mph?" My blush faded as I turned kind of white, instead, thinking of going that fast. "You would let lamoid nerd girl like me go that fast?" No, please tell me I didn't just flutter my lashes and gush as I said that. Please, no. I don't gush and I certainly don't flutter my lashes (unless I'm like, you know, doing it in jest). What have I done to me? His grin got even wider, his teeth eerily reflecting the glow of my now returning blush. I'm doomed. He managed to keep all his pearly whites showing as he answered, "You're not a lamoid and you don't appear to be a nerd. You do, however, seem to handing 144 mph juuuuuust fine. I'd like to see how you do in something faster and more powerful. I have one of my crewman looking for you a racing suit now, and the helmet you've borrowed will be just fine. My car is ready, fueled, and inspected. Ralph here, your last passenger and the track's official chief inspector can verify that for you, himself. What do you say, will you take it out for a few laps?" Oh my. That sounded so intelligent, I said it out loud, "Oh my". Just for luck, I said to myself again. Oh my. This time, I tried to achieve a more complete communication, "Umm, sure. but this whole racing suit thing... do you have, like, a ladies room for me to change? Do you even have anything that will come anywhere near fitting me? Are you sure you want me driving your race car? Don't those things cost, like, a quarter million dollars, or some astronomical figure like that?" He seemed impressed that I knew how many zeros to put on his investment. "Well, let me see if I can answer your questions in order: Yes, we have a ladies room; yes, I think we can find a suit that will fit you, a lady friend of mine used to like to take my cars out and she was about your size and height and they only have to cover you well, not fit like something you would wear to a wedding; yes, I do want to see how you handle my car as it has never been topped out and I'd like you to be the one that gets the first try, and yes, my car was a very expensive investment and you have about the right number of digits in the figure you named, but I won't get any closer to that, if you don't mind. After all, I don't want to sound like I'm bragging or any thing." He chuckled a moment then asked, "Do you mind if I have one of the men move your car to the VIP parking lot? I'll have one of my crewmen bring in my race car so that you can just drive it out from here." As he was asking me that, a mechanic handed me a pink fire proof racing suit that clashed only mildly with the neon shade of the helmet I was holding. Slightly bewildered, I offered him the keys to my car and let the biker chick secretary lead me to the ladies locker room. She was very amused that I had raised so much interest from the guys. She helped me get out of the dress and heels and loaned me a pair of trainers and some sweat socks to wear with the racing suit. Figuring I was as ready as I'd ever be, I let her lead me back to the inspection area where I was introduced to his race car. It was some kind of Pontiac (I think? I need to ask him later so I'll appear really smart and knowledgeable about NASCAR racers. HA!) Two of the guys helped me climb into the window and showed me the various controls and gages. They were fairly certain that my skill with the 5 speed in my rice rocket would be enough for me to figure out the 6 speed transmission in the race car. They showed me how to start it, then put up the safety screen over the window. I pulled down the visor on my helmet and carefully nursed the car out onto the track.

I roared off quite well, surprisingly, as the green flag swirled in the flag stand. I didn't push too much as I went up through the gears, testing the feel of the car. Wishing I had a helmet with a radio hookup, I was most the way through my second lap when I noticed a chalk board near the Start/Finish line that said "147mph". Ha. I had been going almost that fast in my sedan. Down shifting a gear, I hammered the throttle and roared through a curve, then popped it back into 6th. Redline was -- wait... does that say 8500 rpm? oh my -- 8500 rpm. Oh my. I held on until I was doing 6250 rpms and crossed the Start/Finish and held it that way for an entire lap. As I came back around, the chalkboard read "182mph". Wow. I floored it and watched the tack climb. The car felt a tiny bit fluttery as I was nearing 8500 rpm so I backed off a hair, holding it just over 8000. Two full laps later, I say the board reading "208mph". I knew the car would go faster, but not without some tweaking for it, and some practice for me. I tried holding a steady 8250 rpm and the fluttery feeling returned, but not as badly. I managed to hold on for another full lap, then gently braked down to a much safer speed as a "victory" lap. There was no chalkboard up to tell me if I had maxed any faster, but I gingerly pulled into the inspection area, anyway. As it turned out, my best lap was 213 mph. Wow. Ron was not a happy camper to find out about the fluttering sensation I had gotten. However, as it turned out, he'd had a boatload of sensors on the car, as well as all kinds of video rolling, just for the post-drive diagnostics so that he could adjust and tailor the machine. He wasn't happy but he was prepared. He promised his crew chief would go over all the numbers tomorrow and begin working on the adjustments on Tuesday, after the computer sims had had a chance to do their magic. Then he asked me if Don and I would care to go get some dinner. Dopey, dopey, naive me. He was making a pass at me and I was way too new to being a woman to realize it. Of course, thinking it had to do with the car and all that entailed, I accepted. I mean, after all, Don was invited, too!

I really need to never go out in public again. At least unless I have another woman with me, preferably one that is not afraid to beat me over the head with something large and heavy when I display such obvious stupidity. I'd say "until I learned all the ropes and rules", but clearly, I'm incapable of such a thing. Anyway, Don asked me what kind of food was my favorite. Not forgetting that Don, despite the fact that he's built like a football lineman, even at age 12, is the world's most finicky eater, I asked for something that did Italian and that a good basic pepperoni pizza was required to keep Don happy. After a trip back to the ladies locker room to put my dress back on, Ron grinned in a slightly inane fashion and muttered into one of those walkie-talkie equipped cell phones and then offered me his arm. Ut oh, why are all those alarm bells going off in my head? I managed (I hoped) to keep the distasteful look from my face as I gingerly took his arm with one hand and let him lead me through a maze of rooms and offices to, I found out later, the VIP parking garage. My car was there, as well as his limo. A liveried driver was waiting on us and asked if Don would prefer to sit in the back with us, or sit up front with him and play with the radio and the GPS? Blarg, more alarm bells. What is making that happen over and over like that? Of course, enamoured by the promise of cool electronics (he kept saying something about moving maps) he leapt at the chance to sit in front with the driver. Ron helped me into the back seat and practically ran around and clamored in the other side like he was running from a fire. What was up with that? He sat down by the door but grinned at me like I should get the joke by now. Joke? What joke? He picked up a handset, flipped a switch, and told the driver everyone was ready and the car smoothly took off. It suddenly dawned on my I wasn't wearing a seat belt and I started looking for one.

Ron's face lit up as he saw his chance and immediately leaped across the width of the limo and landed very snugly against me and produced a seat belt for me. "Umm, thanks, I don't know how I missed that." Being raised to be grateful for rides I couldn't afford to restaurants (that I probably also couldn't afford) for food (that I had no intention of paying for, after all, he invited Don and I after he bragged about how much that really sweet race car cost), I kept my mouth shut rather than opine that he was really sitting so closely when there was soooo much room in the three seats that made up the rear area of the limo. He started asking me about if I had been to some Italian restaurant before of which I'd never heard. When I told him no, he began telling me what a wonderful place it was and how he'd known the owner for years and how I'd just loooooove the food there and how even Don would be won over because they had such great pizza. Ha! Don eats Wal-Mart pizza from the microwave. I managed to not snort openly. When he managed to smoothly put his arm around me, I suddenly realized what I had done and why I kept hearing alarm bells... which were now major air raid sirens, and klaxon, and other various loud jangly noisy things. It dawned on me I would need the ladies room and some time with my cell phone so I could call the other women with whom I worked. The miserable witches. They would laugh themselves silly over this. If I lived long enough to tell them. Now, how does this breathing thing work again?

Now, what was it I was doing? No, trying to do. Yes. Trying to do. But what was it? It seemed so important when I was trying to remember it before. Oh. Yes. Breathing. Yes, breathing would be such a wonderful, marvelous idea. I'm so glad I thought of it. Wait. Thinking about breathing is not quite the same as actually breathing. Somehow, I managed to minimize the gasping sound that would have revealed itself, had I not ever so artfully covered my mouth with a large cloth napkin and stifled my various breathing passages as adroitly as possible. Hmmm. Breathing is good. Yes. I must make a note. Breathing helps one to avoid anoxia. And asphyxiation. And quite possibly several other large, cumbersome words starting with a. Or any other letter for that matter. Suddenly inspired, I breathed again, but this time seeming to cough and choke. My eyes lightly misted with tears from the effort of self-control I was (attempting) to exert, I excused myself as demurely as possible and evacuated as stylishly as possible to the ladies' room. Gag. Being a woman might be harder than I thought. I quickly hacked out multiple recipient text message outlining my peril and sent it beaming through the cosmos, took advantage of the facilities, and then approached the sinks and the large mirror. As I repaired the damage to my makeup, I heard my phone acknowledge a text message. Grrrrr. Sure laugh it up at the new girl. Oh. Wait. They don't know I'm completely female, now. Or that I've *ahem* softened my look even further. Wait. That means they think it's even funnier than it is. Blarg on a biscuit. They will pay. Meanwhile...

The suggestion that Yvette sent me was just what I needed. I guess all this male attention was rattling me. I put away my cell phone, finished my makeup , and patted my hair back into place. Checking myself in the mirror, I was kind of surprised a powerful, wealthy man like Ron would be interested in me. I am, to an uninformed observer, a mom of a teenaged boy, tall, feminine... but not beautiful. Average. Possibly even "cute". Mildly attractive. But not beautiful. Powerful, rich, wealthy, active, worldly men like Ron should not be interested in an only average mom like me. Well, taking advantage of appearances, I had the perfect and irrefutable excuse to flee this as soon as we eat enough to be respectful and reasonable. I don't think I can even stand that much, but an orderly tactical retreat seemed to be the best plan. I made my way back to the table, Ron standing and seating, Don making a superhuman effort to not chuckle or snort. Ron seated himself as he said, "I took the liberty of ordering for you, with Don's aid and suggestions. Our food should be here, shortly, and I already see the salads coming this way, now. Don said you'd want some iced tea for your beverage, with Splenda. This restaurant doesn't have Splenda so I sent my driver to the grocery store down the road to buy you some. Oh, and the manager has informed me that from now on, Splenda will be on his condiments menu." I fought desperately to keep my eyebrows from rising, not exactly certain how successful I would be. "Oh, thanks, Ron, and thank you, too, Don, for helping him. Don, please tell me you didn't go overboard ordering? I'd hate for Ron to feel like you were taking him to the cleaners." Ron laughed heartily and merrily. Our waiter rushed up with a cut crystal glass of ice water and began patting Ron on the back and trying to help Ron regain his breath. After a few sips of water, Ron had regained his mirth enough to say, "Take me to the cleaners? I can see how you'd worry about something like that. After all, he's a great big strapping boy; huge for his age. Feeding him must cost a significant portion of the GDP. But... he only ordered one pizza. I ordered the other two for him to take home for later." Oh my fudge bunnies. What is he trying to pull? "Umm. I see. Don, did you thank Mr. Ron? He's being very generous and gracious." As I was speaking, our waiter, wearing the name tag "Marcus" and a waitress named "Gloria" started serving our salads, refilling beverages, making sure we had silverware close at hand, and otherwise fussing over us. Also, Ron's driver appeared during the chaos, whispered in Ron's ear, and handed him a small sack of something. Realizing it was most probably my Splenda, I asked for some lime to go with the lemon that had been served with my tea. I smiled at Ron and held out my hand for the Splenda. Ron smiled back and handed me several packets and gave the sack back to his driver as he said, "Gentry will keep the rest in the limo for our future outings." Ut oh. Future outings? I wasn't even good with the first outing! I smiled again to cover my consternation and forked a nice bite of salad to prevent any need to respond verbally. I really need to figure out how to use the dream state to avoid these situations. I just didn't really see any real way to make that happen. But then, women have been dealing with advances from men for centuries with out the advantage of dream state reality enhancements. I guess now it was my turn!

Somehow, I managed to get through the salad and most of the way through the entree without my head exploding, collapsing with respiratory arrest, stroking out, or hyperventilating into a panic attack. Thank you, Lord, for all those years of selling electronics to rednecks at Radio Shack. To this day, people don't realize I'm shy to the point of pain. Something about learning to be sociable, polite, and civil or starving from lack of earning commission. Hunger is, truly, a powerful motivator. All the self control, grace, and manners I'd learned during that time carried me well. Maybe too well. As the meal progressed, I was feeling more and more like Ron was seeing me as his dessert. Yes, I love chocolate syrup. Just not on me. Realizing I was rapidly approaching the point of being "pleasantly stuffed", I lightly mentioned. "Wow, Ron, you were so so so right! This food is wonderful beyond words. I wish Don and I had more time. I would so really love to sample some of their desserts... but... I have the early shift at work tomorrow and it's also a school night." A well-timed and aimed glare escaped Ron and squarely targeted Don, who wisely buried himself in plowing through the last slice or two of his pizza. Ron's face fell so catastrophically I felt physically dazed. He sputtered, "Wait wait wait... tonight can't already be over! Can't you chat over some cheesecake? Or, umm...." He sighed. "School night? I guess I can't really fight that. As far as you working, though... how would you like a new job?" I was so glad I had just swallowed and was carefully dabbing my lips with a napkin as he said that. That level of surprise could easily end up with me on the receiving end of a Heimlich maneuver. *Whew* One more catastrophe narrowly avoided. "Job? What kind of job?" I was so very suspicious because I knew that driving race cars required various licenses, at least when done competitively. Ron grinned in that "have I got a deal for you" way he had. Oh dear. I turned my mental BS detectors to maximum sensitivity. "How would you like to go to work for my car development crew? I have built cars for other teams for a while. My crew chief was very impressed at the way you handled a green car and how you accurately homed in on problems, how to fix them, and, more importantly, what was right and how to cash in on those things, too." My BS detectors all went red at once, and I was almost certain that those close to me could hear the audible tones as they activated. Swallowing a large gulp of tea, I looked at him quizzically. "Doesn't that require some sort of special license? Or at least some kind of training or experience? And what happens if I crash one of your shiny new toys? Or one of them blows up? I'm a mom. I have a son that needs me." He shrugged eloquently as he replied, "You obviously can handle fast cars. You won't be actually racing, so the risk is greatly reduced and you don't need a license. To be honest, you did such a wonderful job today, I'm not worried about you crashing "one of my toys" and my cars just don't "blow up" unless something very very bad is done to them, first. I won't lie to you. This is not a risk-free job. However, you'll be driving cars designed to be survivable even when rolled or crashed at 180 mph. We've come up with a comprehensive air bag system to compliment a full roll cage and we always use the latest, greatest, and best of all safety equipment available. The point is, though, I am a fantastic judge of driving talent and I'm not worried about you driving my cars. I'll pay you $25,000 per delivered car. With your communication skills and my mechanical crew, you shouldn't have any trouble certifying 3 cars per year. But, really, I think you could easily put out more like 8 cars per year. I have orders for 20, so I have plenty of work for you. What do you say? Tell you what; I'll even cover your benefits. I bet I can safely double whatever benefits you get at your current job. What do you say, will you do it for me?"

$75,000 per year starting out? Blarg. And with double my current benefits. I could feel my eyes glazing. "Umm, wow, Ron, this is like a few tons of bricks falling on me all at once. Can I have 24 hours to decide? Not to mention that if I say yes, I'll need to put in my normal two weeks notice and so forth." Being the arrogant so-in-so that he was, he took that as a sign that he was going to get his way (or that I was at least weakening) so he felt safe enough to be gracious, "Darlin', of course you should think it over! Twenty four hours is just fine with me. In fact, how about is I send Gentry over to pi...." AcK! He's trying to be too darned close to me all the darned time. "No, we don't need Gentry. Meet me at the IHOP on the highway in town at, say... 6PM tomorrow night. You can buy me an omelet and I'll have you an answer by then. Oh, Don is crazy about IHOP, mind if he tags along?" Thinking that would be a deal-killer in itself, I was oddly surprised he didn't seem even affected, much less upset, when I mentioned bringing my bouncer-sized son. Now I'm wondering is he attracted to me or is he flirting with me because he really thinks I am an asset or is this something I did in dream state without meaning for it to happen? I was fairly sure that it wasn't a dream state thing. So far, that has always been part of a lucid dream where I had been forced to take a very proactive role in order to achieve the proper setting to make any changes. That meant he was acting very familiar with me and doing flirty things like slipping his arm around me because he was (1) attracted to me and acting on it; or (2) he wants something from me and is kissing up in a really extreme kind of way (meaning he really thinks I'd be an asset to the development team. Could this be possible?); or (3) some blend of 1 and 2. My curiosity was piqued. My back account was, too. The opportunity to make $200,000 per year without using dream state antics... sounded just dreamy to me. (Please pardon the pun, I couldn't resist!) As I forced myself to not hold my breath while he answered, "Of course bring Don. A beautiful woman like you needs constant attention and tending. The size he is, he should be a pretty good body guard!" He laughed at his own joke, "Ok, 6PM at the IHOP on the highway, but put your two weeks notice in at your other job in the morning to save us all some time." He would have smirked but he covered it by taking a large sip of his wine. Sneaky devil. I glanced over at Gentry and then at my watch. Surprisingly, Ron got the hint immediately. "Gentry, please take Mrs. Reasoner and her charming son home, now. I'll have one of the house staff pick me up in a bit. I have some business to attend that makes his table just perfect for what I have in mind." I eyed him coyly. "Mrs. Reasoner? Of course you're going to dump all the formal jazz and call me Dee. And I just realized. I never introduced myself. I guess you got my information from the paperwork I filed to drive my car at the track? Oh, and if Gentry drives me home, I won't have my car for work in the morning." He smirked unabashedly this time. "Dee. Dee. It rolls of the tongue so easily. Yes, I got your name from your paperwork. As far as Gentry driving you home and you not having your car, I'll have a company pace car waiting at your house by the time you get there. Just leave your keys with Gentry. He will see to having your car lovingly serviced and detailed and it will be waiting on you at the IHOP tomorrow night at 6PM." Cheeky, sneaky devil. Well, it would be kick to drive a pace car tomorrow. Especially since it was my day off. I hadn't used any vacation time, either. I could probably get away with putting in my notice and using vacation time to serve it out. My boss loved me and I hoped that wouldn't change now that I was quitting. Oops. Fudge bunnies. Yes. I'm quitting. I guess I knew it all along. So did the sneaky cheeky devil, darn his gold plated hide. Well, at least I would enjoy the dance. "Ok, that sounds like a nice idea. Thank you so much for supper and I'll see you tomorrow night." This time it was me that smirked as I handed my keys to Gentry and followed him to the lime. I get a two week vacation and I am pretty sure I can wheedle him out of another two weeks before starting work with him, on his nickel. Also, I home school Don. We would have 4 weeks paid time off to relax and get used to a new lifestyle!

Of course, Gentry got us home safely and we met the crew that had brought the pace car to my house. I collected the keys and thanked them and went on inside. From the mutters I gathered that they approved of "the boss's new woman". Gag. I refuse to contemplate the full ramifications of that! After a nice bubble bath, I slipped between the sheets in a nice satin baby doll nightie set and wondered if I would ever be able to enter the dream state on command. In fact, that was my last thought as I drifted off to sleep...

The air was thick and oppressive. My limbs felt heavy and sluggish. I was so tired I didn't think I could force myself to move. I took a step, somehow, reaching deep, deep within myself to find the strength I needed to go on. I felt some inner, unreasoning... something. Not sadness. Not fear. I'm not sure there is a word to describe it. I knew I was trapped but not by why or what or how. I only knew I must keep moving. Somehow. Suddenly, I realized my circumstances. I was dreaming. Or maybe nightmaring (wait... nightmaring? Is that a word? Should it be a word? Fudge bunnies, no more spicy Italian food so soon before bed!) Looking down at me, I pictured myself is a tall, trim woman dressed in a fashionable leotard and tights with nice cross trainers. Well. Why isn't that working? This is my dream (err.. nightmare?) I frowned and growled and mentally DEMANDED my chosen outfit. Heh! It slowly faded into place, replacing the dreary and shadowy rags I'd been in before. Next I demanded myself a nice double mocha with whipped cream and a chocolate chip chocolate fudge biscotti. Mmmmm. Nothing like a coffee break to give you a new perspective on a problem. And that mocha was simply dreamy! I giggled at my own pun. Hmm. I usually have better humor than that. I guess that part of my brain is more asleep than others. Anyway, now that my control seemed to be solidifying, I started pondering why I was having a nightmare. Realizing it was my own inner turmoil over Ron and how fast he was trying to move me (us?) and the fact that, other than him hitting on me and my not even liking sex, much less men, it was a great job. After all. I'm getting paid to drive really fast in really cool cars and making obscene amounts of money doing it and I am pretty sure I can write my own rules; like demanding Don have a place to do his home school in an extra office while I go in big circles at ridiculous speeds. Sheesh. if it hadn't taken me so long to see the obvious answer, I'd be a genius. Maybe I'm just on the RBS scale (really blarging smart) rather than being a genius. First, I need to achieve that special dream state. That might be a problem, though, since I'm not flying and I still pretty much feel like I must weigh as much as a new Beetle. Spinning some mental focus into turning a passing cloud of smoke into a tall pedestal table, I put down my coffee cup and turn my thoughts in on myself. It seems that I'm just psychically tired from first dealing with my spouse (wow, now that I'm not saddled with her, I feel more sadness and worry for her than anger. I guess I'd just been too close the entire problem for too many years to see how much it was souring my life) and now feeling trapped by Ron because if I take his offer, I am trapping myself and if I don't take his offer, I'm letting myself down. Decisions, decisions! But, more importantly, how do I accumulate the needed psychic energy to be able to get my dream strength back and so I can fly out through the dream/real world barrier? Thinking back, I realized that mental focus and large amounts of need and desire had been enough to change the conditions up until now. Maybe I could will myself back into a high energy state. Now was the obvious time to deal with Ron; otherwise, I feared my psychic energy level would take so long to recover that I'd end up trapped in another hopeless relationship all over again. Promising myself I'd never ever enter in another romantic relationship, I drop into a loose lotus position and close my eyes. First, I picture a beautiful pastoral spring setting. I feel a nice crisp, cool day and hear birds singing and insects chirping and buzzing about. I feel lush, green grass beneath my sexy tushie. I sense the comforting flow and babble of a near by stream cascading over rocks and around a bend. Finally, I picture a wonderful warm, yellow sun in the sky, smiling down on the glorious panorama I have built. I begin to drink in the rays of light and warmth from the sun. I imagine them flowing through me, causing me to glow with health and vitality. In my mind's eye, I see myself floating from the grassy bed of the valley where my body has been resting. Up, up, up, rising faster and faster I go towards the barrier I so need to break. I let my limbs fall slack as my ascent accelerates, becoming an elongated fleshy arrow to the heavens. Just as I'm trying to focus in more and more speed, the membrane splits as my body pierces it like a bullet through a pane of glass.

I finally let my eyes open as I spin into the physical world in my dream body. My relief at achieving the proper place in dream state is beyond words. I know that my ability to change things is really limited only by my imagination and my resolve to change things. Realizing my current problem is Ron and how he sees me, I know I must start there. Since I'm unwilling to change myself, I have to change Ron, or at least how he thinks of me. Thinking of all the tricks and tactics I know, I realize that almost anything I do to him will change him fundamentally and that doesn't seem fair to him. Thinking more deeply, it comes to me that rather than stop the river I should give it an easier path for it to flow. Rocketing through the ceiling of my home a few thousand feet into the air, I reach myriad tendrils out through space to find his unique aura. I touch on it very soon, in a sprawling monstrosity of a home (edifice? castle? small third world country? fifty first state?) only a few minutes drive from the race track. Then, suddenly inspired, I re-enter the house and pick up my sleeping body. I find a home near Ron's that is up for sale and use the power of the dream state to furnish and customize it. I lay my body in the bed of the master bedroom and picture my belongings out front in a moving van. Not trusting my growing abilities quite completely, I fly at the speed of thought back to my old home and carry Don, fast asleep, to the new house. I arrange the back yard for Elton, complete with a doggy door (that is locked shut until I get done dreaming) and a climate controlled dog house complete with auto-feeder and auto-waterer and then bring him to his new home, too. Not content with the current state of my wardrobe, I filled my bedroom closet with beautiful clothes and shoes. Now that I am more confident I'll be able to finish without being disturbed, I jet off to deal with Ron.

Reaching his home, I sail through the walls into his bedroom. Happily, I find he is not alone. The woman with him is young, probably mid-20s, tall, brownish-reddish hair, and nicely built. In fact, her hair is almost my color, she's almost as tall as I am, and her build is similar to mine. Wondering if this is coincidence, pattern, or some unconsidered other alternative, I poke through her purse. Hmm... from her license, I see she is 28 and her name is Linda Argyle. I don't see anything to cause me to believe she is married, but I find no evidence to the contrary, either. I do notice she is not wearing a wedding band. Staring at them sleeping cuddled together, I ponder my options when a slightly wicked thought occurs. I lightly approach Linda's dream barrier. Peeking through it, I see she is enjoying a childhood memory of a favorite doll. Sneaking over and peeking through Ron's barrier, he's driving an Indy race. Slowly, I push the two barriers closer and closer until they touch. I forced my hand into the tensioned area where the two barriers met and using all my dream strength, picture them joining... slowly opening a small door between them, then finally merging to become a large egg-shaped globe. Sneaking through the new combined barrier, I put Linda in a large white wicker chair in the winners circle in a fluffy frou-frou white dress with a matching ribbon in her hair and another around her neck. She smells of a very light perfume of lilacs and she is smiling happily, playing with her doll. Don roars up having narrowly and heroically won his race (I didn't want it too seem too easy! As Don jumps from his steel stead, his eyes naturally fall on Linda. She looks up at him and their gazes lock. He removes his helmet and slowly approaches her, enraptured. Granting them the dream tunnel vision thingie, I let the focus of their thoughts narrow until they are alone and fixated each on the other. As Ron reaches Linda, he gracefully falls to one knee. As one, they clasp hands, the doll falling to her lap forgotten. Asking in an astounded voice as though he was the first to ever utter the words, he asks her, "Where have you been all my life?" Linda smiles and without answering leans over and kisses him softly, taking his breath away. He unzips his fireproof suit and reaches in to remove a small felt jewel case. Opening it, he asks, "Linda, you are the woman of my dreams, please marry me!" (Yes, I'm being trite, but then, I need this to be pretty much a storybook scene. I need her to keep him occupied!) Pouring every bit of positive mental attitude I've ever possessed into the link between me and them, I flood Linda with warm fuzzy thoughts and she responds, "Of course, Ron darling. I'll love you for the rest of my life." Her eyes are bright and her smile soft and seductive. Heh. Mission accomplished! I'd used Ron's own imagination to make up the engagement ring. I slipped it from the dream back into the box and took it and the doll with me as I carefully returned them each back to (separate) dreams of their own making as I once again parted their barriers. Putting the open box on Linda's night stand and the ring on her physical world finger and then propping her doll against her purse, I smiled at my craft. I was fairly confident that when Ron appeared at the IHOP, Linda would be all smiles and in tow.

Ok. Time to review. I have a job lined up that will keep me grinning and well-fed for the foreseeable future. I have a nice new home. (Ooops... gotta take care of the deed before I wake up!) Vehicles and money aren't a problem. (Oh, I have to move the pace car to my new house, too!) My son is happy and I will see to his welfare and future being tended. Oh. I guess I should put some happiness back into Julie's life. She'd always wanted to live near her parents. Flying toward their hometown at the speed of thought, I quickly found a nice home for sale only a couple of miles from her parents' house. Through some creative financing tricks (find drug money, take away drug money, pay for house), I arranged for her to have a clear title to the house and moved her possessions into it. I gave her most of our old furniture and kitchenware and other shared items. After all, a small castle like what I had now called for new, castle worthy junk, not our early American garage sale junk giggle. I carried her sleeping body to her new home, put her car in it's garage and flew back to fix up her mess. I left her a record but showed that the charges were dropped so that she would have incentive to live a calmer, less violent life. Using lessons learned from housing her, I paid for my home and set up my paperwork.

Realizing that I had maybe, just maybe, gotten things rolling for everyone to live happily ever after, I headed back to my body to re-enter it. Settling back into my dream world, I relaxed and defocused, but, I think, as I drifted back to normal dreams, I was flying!

The End (or is it?)

Notes:

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