Mike Reynolds was naked and standing in an old churchyard. Above him the moon shone brightly in the night sky. The night air was cool enough to raise goose bumps on his exposed flesh. The long grass felt damp beneath his toes. A thick layer of white mist, enough to cover his feet up to his ankles, flowed over the secluded graveyard.
Mike didn't know what he was doing here. He thought he was asleep in bed, but this felt too real to be a dream. His senses were sharp and fully in focus. He felt the crispness of the night air. He felt the dampness of the grass sticking up between his toes. He heard an owl hooting in a nearby copse.
She waited for him on a raised gravestone. Her narrow face was whiter than the moon and glowed with its own luminescence. Her long black hair was swept back and flowed down between her shoulders like a waterfall of shadows. Hers was a cruel beauty; icy, perfect and utterly irresistible.
A shawl or cloak, raven-black like her hair, was wrapped around her pale body. Mike saw only the tops of her pale shoulders. A pale white hand emerged from the darkness. She looked down at Mike with cold blue eyes and beckoned him with an elegant finger. Caught, hooked like a fish, he couldn't resist and stumbled up the small rise towards her. She smiled with full lips the colour of a bruise.
Mike didn't know what he was doing here or even if this was real. All he knew was he had to go to her, to be with her, fulfil her desires.
This was wrong.
She opened her arms and her cloak opened out with them. Her slender white body sat at the heart of unfolding darkness. Around her the complicated folds of her spreading cloak quivered with an obscene life of their own. It looked like the membranous wings of a bat, the midnight black material held together by a complex framework of thin bones. The edges of the cloak were ragged and the bones extended outwards into long, curving black hooks.
She transfixed him with her piercing blue eyes.
Come to me.
The words resounded in his thoughts without ever having passed through his ears.
No. Wake up. He had to wake up.
Come to me.
He stepped forward into her embrace. Her arms came together behind his back and pulled him onto her. The black folds of her cloak wrapped tightly around him, enveloping him in darkness.
He felt the sharp pinpricks of hundreds of needles all across his body. The pain was immediately numbed as an icy liquid flowed into his veins. At first there was discomfort and then it was swept aside by a tsunami of euphoria that flooded his body and dissolved his mind.
Her black folds pulled tighter, dragging him down into endless darkness.
*****
Mike woke with a gasp. He was disoriented at first, but then he recognised the dim walls of his own bedroom. It was still dark outside. Dawn was a long way off.
That dream again. The pale girl and the graveyard. The same uncomfortable tightness in his boxers.
It was never a proper wet dream. Even though he always woke with a massive erection straining against the fabric of his nightclothes, there were never any stains or dampness. The dream always took him close to the edge of ejaculation, but never over.
For which he was grateful. He feared what might happen should the dream ever last long enough for the apparition to bring him to orgasm.
Shivering, Mike slid out of bed and walked awkwardly to the bathroom.
*****
"Mike?"
Mike's eyes flicked open. He realised his head was nodding down towards the keyboard. His boss, Greg Snow, was staring at him with a concerned expression.
"I'm worried about you," Greg said once they were both in his office. "You look tired."
Mike was mortified. He'd fallen asleep at his desk, right in front of his boss.
"I haven't been sleeping very well," Mike admitted, hanging his head.
"I want you to take a couple of days off," Greg said, "and go see someone. She's unorthodox, but she's very good from what I've heard."
"But the deadline," Mike said.
"It's an order," Greg said firmly. He looked at Mike with a warmer expression. "You're my best developer. If we're going to have any chance of repairing the damage left by those cowboys over at Streamline Software I need you firing on all cylinders."
*****
Come to me.
Soft membranes slid over his naked body. He was wrapped in darkness, his movements restricted, his limbs pinioned at his sides.
Bony ribs dragged against his flesh. He felt something sharp scratching his skin. There was brief pain as his skin was punctured. Icy venom flowed into his veins.
Mike woke with a gasp.
*****
"How long have you been having these recurring nightmares?"
"A few weeks now," Mike replied.
He was a little embarrassed to talk about it, but not as embarrassed as he'd thought he'd be. Inari Kitson helped. She projected a calming aura that put Mike at ease. That surprised him as well. He'd always used to feel a little uncomfortable in the presence of pretty girls and Inari was strikingly beautiful.
Her face could have belonged to a model. She had long, platinum blonde hair so light it was almost silver. This was no blonde airhead though. Her blue eyes sparkled with intelligence and she was immaculately dressed in a no-nonsense business suit. She was here to do a job and wasn't about to let her appearance become a distraction.
She had a psychiatrist's couch, but perhaps sensing Mike would be uncomfortable lying on it, she'd motioned him to one of the comfortable black armchairs instead. Mike had been reticent at first, but gradually he'd picked up more composure until he'd described the dream in full detail.
"Interesting," Inari said. "You describe the dream as a nightmare and yet you wake up with a full erection. When you are in the dream, do you feel arousal or fear?"
"Both," Mike replied. "I see the girl and I want to be with her more than anything, but that isn't me, it's like something else is making me feel this. And as I get close to her a feeling of anxiety grows inside me, like I'm walking to my own doom."
Inari was impassive as she wrote down some notes.
"Have there been any nocturnal emissions?" she asked.
Nocturnal emissions? What did she...? Oh.
Mike blushed.
"No," he said. "The dream always ends before I... uh... come."
Each night the dream seemed to take him a little closer though.
"After you wake do you ever attempt to finish yourself off manually?"
Mike blushed again, remembering his furtive night time trips to the toilet.
