Britt awoke in the morning, muzzy-headed from last night's wine and more than a little disquieted by the dim recollection of a strange dream. Her sheets were a twisted mess and damp from sweat and something she was reluctant to investigate. An inexplicable post-coital funk hung in the air. She found herself naked and her nightie lay in a heap in the corner. She never slept naked. Must have been some dream, she thought.
She stood gingerly. Her head pounded dully and several nameless muscles in her abdomen and legs ached.
She padded to the bathroom and left the light off, not wanting to set off what was now only a low grade hangover.
What did I do to myself? she wondered. Her nether regions were chafed and sore, despite having been kept far from her boyfriend's hopeful overtures and groping fingers. Britt had begged off last night, stubbornly declining to go to Mike's place and steadfastly refusing to issue the expected reciprocal invitation. She was tired, perhaps a more than a little drunk, and not interested in yet another clumsy and inadvertent quickie that left him apologetic and prematurely wrung out and her wondering if that was all there was.
She stood before the mirror. Weak morning light trickled into the bathroom from between the slats of the venetian blind. A stray beam glinted off something brilliant and metallic at the center of her right breast. She'd left her glasses on the nightstand and had to lean forward and squint. Her head pounded.
It was a nipple ring.
She stared dumbly at its reflection. As though expecting a different result, she looked down.
Her nipple looked otherwise normal, if a little distended by the thick gauge of metal that ran through it. Gold, she noted absently. There was no sign of a wound and no apparent tenderness. It was as though the ring had been there forever, though it hadn't been there when she had gone to bed the night before. Of that she was sure.
She fingered the ring. It was thick and heavy and completely round. She could discern a design etched lightly on its surface. There were no ends, so she could not make out how the ring would have been inserted. Or, for that matter, how to get it off. She tugged at it gently to ensure that the nipple was indeed pierced. It was.
She lifted her breast in a cupped hand and squinted a little more. There. She could see it now. The ring was adorned with two little nubs. They looked something like horns.
At that moment, the dream that was suddenly more that a dream came rushing back to her.
"Oh God," she whispered, and sat heavily on the edge of the bathtub.
She woke in the dark to an immense weight pressing onto her, just below her breasts. She'd been dreaming of the witticisms she'd failed to articulate in time at the party. The clever retorts. The snappy ripostes. She knew she was beautiful and smart, but in her dream she was beautiful and smart and witty.
It was a moan that woke her. Hers, she guessed. The weight felt like it would crush her ribcage. It was difficult to breathe.
She opened one eye.
"It's about time."
There was what appeared to be a half-naked man straddling her, barely discernible in the streetlight that filtered feebly through the blinds.
"Wake up, princess." The voice was deep and mellifluous, like Barry White's.
She opened the other eye.
"That's better."
She thought, This had better be a dream...
"This is no dream, princess."
If this was no dream -- and it didn't feel like she was sleeping any more -- then there really was a half-naked man with a Barry White voice sitting on her.
She opened her mouth to scream and a large hand covered her mouth and pressed her head into the pillow.
"You don't want to do that."
She did want to do that. Scream like a banshee. Bite his hand. Fight tooth and nail, for there was no good reason for the presence of a stranger in her bedroom in the middle of the night.
