I fumbled my keys trying to get them into the lock, cursing quietly. It was already warm out, the air thick and muggy with moisture. The walk from the bus stop had only been perhaps ten minutes but in the cloying heat I'd worked up a thin sweat, so once I got into the shopfront I quickly locked the door behind me and popped back into the staff toilets to splash a little water on my face. I knew it would be a long and quiet day.
It had been just under a week since my breakup with Serah. I'd been experimenting with the daydreams when I could, but not with anywhere near the degree of success I'd had in her room: I'd had a night out paid for in the small local club, just by nudging the bar staff to hand over drinks, but it felt cheap and dirty. I'd discovered that the daydream-power weakened to the point of vanishing as I drank, too.
Besides that, I found myself starting to feel a little guilty. I missed something crazy like eighteen calls from Serah the day after the breakup, and had a whole load of text messages asking and begging for a chance to meet up again. From the sounds of them it was perhaps some lingering effect of my changes, and call me a coward but I wasn't ready to face up to those just yet.
I sighed, and dried my hands. As I flicked off the bathroom light and made my way back out to the front I heard a knocking on the front. I bounced the last few steps out onto the floor and waved, but the figure squinting in obviously couldn't see into the darkened interior, what with the sunlight being so bright outside. I paused a moment.
Her name was Shannon, and she was my front of house staff for the day. We worked in a little burger joint, and she was a pleasant and competent coworker to be on shift with. It had been her eighteenth birthday this very week- I'd briefly met up with her and one of the waiting staff at a bar before I'd gone out that night. I took a second to scan her up and down.
Shannon was hot. She was one of the sporty girls I had fancied when I was that age, and though I was a little older than her now I had to admit the feeling still stirred in me. Maybe it was the tight leggings and cropped tops. Maybe it was the shape of the thighs and waist in them, all gentle arcs and smooth curves. Shannon in particular had an impressive chest on her, too, good round tits that seemed supernaturally perky for their size.
I shook myself from this reverie and hastened to the door, twisting the key.
"No, sorry ma'am: we don't open for another half hour," I joked with a mock-apologetic grin. Shannon grinned back and pushed past me.
"So funny," she said, putting emphasis on 'so'. She strutted through to the staff area, and I wasn't surprised to find my eyes wandering down to her round butt as she did. Good old Shannon and her leggings- you could always count on her to be wearing something too tight, it seemed. I followed her through after a moment.
"How did your party go?" I asked, as I started turning on the coffee machines and lights on my way.
"Urgh, better you don't ask," she groaned from ahead.
"Yeah?"
"Fucking bitches," she said, poking her head around the doorway to glare at me, "ruined it. I was going to be meeting Bradley from the physio class, right? And we've been, like, messaging, forever. At least a couple weeks."
"Hmm," I said, frowning slightly and nodding in sympathy as I squeezed past her in the doorway.
"Well that whore Megan, from dance, she turns up and is barely wearing anything." Shannon pulled a face, widening her eyes and setting her jaw. She had lovely thick lips that pouted as she grimaced, continuing to tell me about the various trials and troubles a teenage girl faced in this brutal dating climate.
Dating might have been a strong word, really. I got the impression from our various talks that Shannon was perhaps, potentially, maybe... a bit of a slut. When I'd seen her out this week I'd been dazzled by the incredibly low cut top she had on, and by just how high up the kinky little short shorts she was wearing rode. Maybe, I reflected, that was why I was so absorbed by her various assets this morning. While she continued on her epic, I had another thought.
I began to let my mind wander, this time with more purpose. I'd found from my experiments with the bartenders that establishing a connection with someone was easier when I thought about this 'power' as something abstract- when I daydreamed about daydreaming, I guess. That's what I did then: I imagined my imagination seeping out and settling around Shannon's head, imagined it seeping through the thick brown locks that tumbled effortlessly around her shoulders. She paused, stumbling over a word. She briefly frowned, but it passed.
I guess that with Serah I had known her well enough that the bond had already been there, which was why broadcasting was so easy. There were obviously some other variables involved, for some people to be affected more than others, but this meta-imagining I was doing made it a much more sure thing. With the connection established, I began to imagine.
