Note: you will understand this story a lot better if you read Part One first.
***
Chapter Eighteen
Once I'd become aware that I could bring my dream subjects along to different places and times just through physical contact, I'd initially limited those interactions to bedtime to pass them off as dreams. With the accidental encounter on the train, I was still presuming that, if I just randomly touched someone and intentionally took them off somewhere, there was a high likelihood of a freak-out that might continue even if I immediately took them back. Other than that was the issue of just randomly touching people to make that skin-on-skin contact. If I just grabbed someone's hand, took them away somewhere, they freaked out and I brought them back, where they were still freaking out and I was holding onto them, it had high potential for more than just awkwardness.
I had a pretty well established methodology to determine where anyone who struck my fancy lived or slept, so it just seemed easier to stick with the dream scenario. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that, if I could figure out a more-or-less foolproof way to make incidental physical contact with a stranger and take them someplace that wouldn't cause a freak-out, it would save me a great deal of recon time and effort. Of course, time was irrelevant but I was just thinking that it'd be nice if I saw somebody and could get naked with them without a lot of planning. I might not be able to get it to work and it might take a lot of experimenting and testing but, since time was irrelevant, I figured it could end up being worth it in the long run.
Between the dreams with people who I didn't have a history with and the regular encounters on the train with my new Latina dream lover (whose name, it turned out, was Inez), I always seemed to have a dream scenario ready to go. I hadn't actually had an opportunity to employ any of them with a random stranger to test out the feasibility of such an encounter and was still considering some of the logistics when another opportunity presented itself. Because I rode the train to and from work on a daily basis, there were a lot of people like Inez who I saw regularly but didn't necessarily know. Shelley was a different story because we'd been introduced by my neighbor who used to ride the train and who used to work with Shelley. I also knew from this neighbor that Shelley's husband was a slacker who couldn't hold down a job but also couldn't be bothered to take care of the house or the kids when he wasn't employed. Shelley worked full-time then went home and took care of everything there, too. It was no wonder she quite often looked exhausted. Despite this, though, she was still a MILF. She'd been on my list but I'd never quite gotten around to figuring out where she lived to do some recon. One morning, an opportunity presented itself and I couldn't resist taking a shot. Shelley got on the train, looking exhausted and took the empty seat beside me, giving me a weary smile.
"Everything okay?" I asked.
"I'm just stretched a little thin with the kids, the husband and the job," she replied, "which, unfortunately, doesn't actually translate into being thin."
"Oh stop it," I said, "you look great. It sounds like you need a vacation, though."
"I wish I could afford one," she replied, "both financially and time-wise."
"What if I could help you escape long enough to provide some tranquility," I asked, "without impacting your time or your finances? Do you think you could handle something a little unconventional?"
"What like meditation or something?" she asked, "I think I'm way beyond that at this point."
"Not quite meditation," I replied, "but it would be a pretty dramatic mental escape that would have an incredibly positive impact on your physical self."
"What the hell," she said, "I'm willing to try anything at this point."