An Experiment in Dreaming

Chapter 2 - Mona misuses the dream-scanner

Geoffrey's session of the experiment was on Friday night and he did not see Mona after this until by accident on the following Thursday evening. Sitting at a table in the Student Union bar with some friends from the athletics team, Geoffrey passed on a piece of scurrilous gossip he had heard from an old girlfriend: Professor Cable ('Randy Andy' as everyone except Mona knew him) had apparently bagged his fifteenth blonde student of the year; a record for him.

Unfortunately, Mona was sitting at the next table, having come in for a drink with Claire prior to that night's experimental session. Mona rose fuming and accused Geoffrey of spreading malicious lies. Geoffrey was shocked: he knew nothing of Mona's affair with Andrew Cable and could not understand her reaction.

"Why are you defending him, Mona? Everyone knows what Randy Andy is like? Ask Claire" he challenged, somewhat indelicately.

Now it was Mona who was shocked. Her first thought was that the obnoxious Geoffrey had learned her secret and was using it to taunt her, spreading vicious rumours about Andrew to humiliate her.

"I am not defending him," she lied: "I just despise gossip."

But her face was bright red when she rushed out of the pub, closely followed by Claire, who looked angrily at Geoffrey.

Geoffrey sat and thought about what Mona's outburst meant, trying not to believe that the obvious explanation was the true one, that she was one of Randy Andy's conquests; or, worse, that Mona and Professor Cable were lovers and she was ignorant of his real character.

Mona had started off at a run to confront Andrew with the rumours when she heard Claire calling her to slow down. Mona was a lot calmer now and allowed Claire to catch up. Somewhat breathlessly, Claire asked Mona where she was going and what about tonight's experiment. This was a fair question. Mona took her responsibilities seriously and would not waste Claire's time nor let the experiment fail; but she wanted to know if the gossip was true. Or did she? Suppose the gossip was untrue or a trick by the odious Geoffrey, how would Andrew react to her believing it? Come to that, how would he react if the gossip were true?

"I don't know where I'm going," Mona finally answered, "except away from that bastard, Geoffrey, and the foul rumours he made up."

"He didn't make them up," Claire assured her: "He only spread them."

"So you believe the rumours, do you?" Mona demanded.

"Can we go somewhere to discuss it, Mona?"

"That means you do believe them, Claire."

"Please can we go somewhere private, Mona?" Claire implored.

Mona instantly decided.

"We'll go to the lab. I need to be setting up soon anyway. Come on!" She strode in fuming silence all the way to the lab, with Claire at the double, trying to keep up.

Mona unlocked the door and they stowed their bags. When they were sitting, Mona asked Claire what she knew.

What Claire knew was that Randy Andy had propositioned her in her first year, again in her second year and had certainly taken a friend of hers away for the weekend.

"I know that's not true", Mona began to insist before she stopped herself from admitting she knew Andrew went home to his wife and children at the weekends; but she had inadvertently betrayed her secret. Mona looked down as tears began to collect in her eyes. Claire went to hold her friend but Mona resisted sobbing and sat upright in her chair, raising her head, in firm control of herself. Claire spoke softly:

"Mona, I had no idea about you and Professor Cable, I really didn't. Nor, to be fair, did Geoffrey. ... I am so sorry, Mona. ... Mona, please talk about it if you want."

Mona did not want to talk about it. Nor did she want to confront Andrew now. She knew Claire would not lie to her but she did not want to believe her.

"I'd like to speak to your friend who is seeing Professor Cable, Claire."

"Is that a good idea, Mona?"

"I want to say one thing to her. There'll be no ranting or raving."

"It's not my secret to reveal, Mona."

"... I understand, Claire. Do you know if they are going away this weekend?"

"Yes, I think they are, Mona."

"In which case, there is nothing to be done for now. I'll speak to him when he gets back. Shall we get on with the experiment?"

Mona's preternatural calm was scaring Claire. She wished the girl would just collapse in sobs, but Mona's resilience was impregnable. Claire meekly complied and helped get the laboratory ready for the night's experiment, dressing the bed with clean sheets and pillowcases.

Meanwhile, Geoffrey had contacted some old girlfriends (he had many to choose from, all of whom were on good terms with him) to ask discretely if there were anyone Professor Cable was seeing more often than the usual flock of bimbos. None knew of any particular girl, or they would not tell Geoffrey unless he explained his reason for asking. That would compromise Mona, so he did not explain; none the less, Geoffrey was sure his guess was correct and he walked over to the laboratory to try to talk to Mona. He was quite pleased, however, that Claire unlocked and opened the laboratory door to him.

"Your presence will not help matters, Geoff," Claire wisely informed him.

"I know, but I want you to give a message to Mona. I know I upset her, though I do not know exactly why, and I just want to apologise. Can you let her know, please?"

"I will, Geoff. I believe you acted innocently, however stupidly."

"I certainly am innocent," he insisted. "But," he asked in a whisper "are you telling me what I think you're telling me about Mona and Professor Cable?"

"I am not telling you anything," Claire whispered back, "and you must promise to keep it to yourself," she added, spilling the beans.

"I promise, Claire. I don't want Mona to be hurt."

"You care for her?"

"I do, Claire."

"Well I wouldn't tell her that just now: she loathes you."

Claire shut the door and Geoffrey went away, somewhat dejected and very thoughtful.

That night's experiment went ahead as usual, though it started a little later than normal. Nor did Claire find it easy to sleep. They recorded only one dream. As was so often for Claire, the dream was a violent sexual fantasy. Of all people, her imaginary assailant tonight was Geoffrey.

***

Mona was working by night and sleeping until the afternoon so she put into action a plan she had devised on Thursday night only when she got up at 2:30 on Friday. She rang Geoffrey's mobile phone and, quickly putting off his concern for her, told him to turn up as usual for that night's experiment.

Meanwhile, she wanted to know the name of the subject of the gossip about Professor Cable, the 'fifteenth blonde'. She visited a couple of places where students went to gossip: the pub, the café and the Union bar. She learned what she wanted in the bar.

Her name was Carol Weaver. Mona slightly knew the girl: they had friends in common; so it was not that difficult to get her number. She phoned Carol while on her way to the laboratory.

"Hello?" Carol answered.

"Hi, Carol. It's Mona Macready here. We've seen each other around the campus."

"Oh, Hi, Mona. I remember you. What can I do for you?"

"Please will you give Andrew Cable a message for me."

"What do you mean, Mona? I am not in any of Professor Cable's classes."

"That's all right: this is a personal matter, not a schools matter."

"I don't know what you are insinuating, Mona, but I find it offensive."

Carol's evasions confirmed in Mona's mind that the rumours were true: sometimes it pays to be a psychology student.

"I didn't mean to offend you, Carol, sorry."

"What do you want with me, Mona?" Carol asked.

Mona hesitated. She had the confirmation she sought: she should just end the call now, but there are some people who cannot stand on the edge of a precipice without feeling the urge to jump in. Mona jumped.

"Can you tell Andrew that I will be around on Monday morning to collect my stuff from his house?"

"What stuff? Why don't you tell him yourself?"

"An overnight bag, a night dress and some slippers; ... because I want to speak to the son-of-a-bitch as little as possible. Thank you, Carol."

Mona ended the call. She was no more emotional at the end than she had been at the beginning. She ignored the ring tone when Carol phoned back immediately and nonchalantly dropped her mobile phone into her bag as she strode. Mona had no time for hysterical blondes.

At the laboratory, Mona put the next stage of her plan into action. She took out some equipment that was designed for a second experiment some time in the future, in which Professor Whitehill hoped to make the subjects repeat their dreams by playing the recorded brain patterns back to them. This required the use of 'inducers', components much like the sensors in the headpiece that read the subject's brain waves, but designed to create dream images in the brain.

Mona took Geoffrey's headpiece from its hook and swapped its sensors for the inducers, clipping them into place under the cloth lining. The headpiece connected to a computer via a cable. Mona unplugged the cable from its communications port and plugged it into another port. That done, she sat at the terminal to sort through the recorded dreams, choosing the program she wanted to run.

All this kept her busy until late evening, when she realised she was hungry and went for some food, getting back to the laboratory at 10:30pm, shortly before Geoffrey arrived.

From the moment of Geoffrey's arrival, Mona was professional, dressing the bed and preparing the brain-recording equipment. Geoffrey clearly wanted to talk to Mona but she pretended to be too busy and ignored him entirely. After reading for a while, Geoffrey decided he was tired, so he changed in the washroom and got into the bed wearing the cloth headpiece. Because of the changes she had made, Mona could no longer monitor Geoffrey's brain waves but she went through the motions of telling him the sensors were working fine and that she would begin recording now, wishing him a good night.

Though it was past midnight, Geoffrey was awake, lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Mona looked into the laboratory and saw Geoffrey's eyes were open, reflecting the moonlight that lanced across the head of the bed from a high window. She put on the room lights and walked boldly over to Geoffrey.

"You want to say something to me" Mona accused.

Geoffrey was at a disadvantage, lying down in a bed and dressed only in jogging bottoms; but he sat on the side of the bed and removed his headpiece.

"I want to apologise for upsetting you."

"You know very well I am more than merely 'upset' and you also know why, so mock and despise me as much as you want."

"Mona, I don't want to mock or despise you at all. I do not know for certain what you think I know, but if there was something between you and Professor Cable, then I am deeply sorry for mentioning the rumour that hurt you so much. You have my complete sympathy."

It was a nice speech and did not deserve Mona's angry retort:

"Screw your sympathy, Geoff. You couldn't be happier."

Geoffrey controlled his temper. He got off the bed and stood in front of her.

"You are wrong, Mona. I am very unhappy for you. I had no idea at all about your affair with Professor Cable."

"It was not 'an affair'. I am not one of your sluts who go with just anyone. We were in love. ... At least, I was," she added quietly to herself.

Geoffrey did not make the mistake of taking her hand, though he wanted to.

"Believe me, I am truly sorry to have caused you misery."

She ignored him.

"I'd rather you crowed over me," she cried bitterly. "I'd rather you mocked me, despised me, told everyone how gullible and stupid I was; how easily seduced; how fondly I went after the one man who took me seriously; how I have no more sense than a bloody schoolgirl!"

She was blisteringly angry.

"I have been degraded and shamed but you are 'sympathetic'. Well I've told you what you can do with your sympathy."

"I don't know what to say, Mona."

Mona was on the edge of the precipice again, looking down into the chasm. Again she didn't hesitate.

"Don't say anything, Geoff. Here's what you can do: you can fuck me."

"What?"

"Fuck me. Use me. Degrade me. Right here and now. Treat me like the whore you think I am."

"I don't think you are a whore, Mona," Geoffrey protested.

Again she ignored him and steamrollered on:

"I want you to fuck me now, Geoff. No love, no romance, no promises, no sweet words, no gentle caresses. I want raw, rough, animal sex from you. Right now! It's what you want as well, isn't it?"

"Yes ... but not like this. Not now," he said, quietly. "Since we've been doing the experiment together, Mona, I have admired you more than I can say ..."

Mona scoffed and turned to stamp away back to the office, but Geoffrey took hold of her arm.

"Mona, I really am not to blame for the sins of Professor Cable."

Mona turned back to free herself from him but stayed facing him, apparently under complete self-control. She stood for a minute, her eyes shut. When she opened them again, the blaze had gone out.

"You are right," she admitted, calmly. "And fucking you would probably make things worse."

Mona was quite serious in wanting sex with Geoffrey. She felt cheap and dirty because of how Andrew had used her but in response she wanted to become even cheaper and dirtier. If Andrew had used her like a whore, then she would be a worse whore for Geoffrey. She did not deserve to feel so wretched. It wasn't her fault. But she would give herself to a man she despised even more than Andrew and then it would be her fault: she would deserve to feel wretched ... and then, just maybe, the pain would go away.

"Perhaps we should call it a night and go home," Geoffrey suggested, kindly. "I don't think I will sleep well or have pleasant dreams."

This statement seemed to alert Mona's scientific mind:

"All the more reason to stay and do the experiment, then" she said, adding: "I am all right, Geoff. I am sorry I made a fool of myself. Forget everything I said. I am under a bit of strain at the moment, as you know. ... We should stay and do the experiment. Work will be better for me than moping at home."

If Geoffrey had been worried by her drastic change of mood, he was even more disquieted by the unemotional way in which she had just spoken, as if she were reciting from a script. The woman in front of him seemed softer: she lacked Mona's cast-iron certainty, her sharp edges. Although he could never imagine Mona moping, he agreed that work might be the best remedy for her; and Geoffrey did not trust her to go home but feared she would go to confront Professor Cable, with untold unpleasant consequences. He therefore reluctantly agreed to go back to sleep while Mona set up the experiment again.

Despite his genuine concerns for Mona, Geoffrey did manage to fall asleep. When Mona was sure he was dreaming, she started the program to induce the recorded dream she had chosen into Geoffrey's brain. The dream Mona had chosen was Claire's most recent, in which Geoffrey had raped her.

When Geoffrey groaned and clenched his fists, Mona thought the program was working. She only hoped that he would be playing the part of Geoffrey rather than Claire, the humorous consequences of which she could appreciate even in her current, slightly irrational, state of mind.

Geoffrey dreamt that he and his girlfriend were in a nightclub. (He did not know his girlfriend was Claire, of course.) She had been acting the bitch to him all evening. Stroppy and rude, she had ignored him while flirting with any man who came near her. She didn't want to dance when he asked her but went off dancing with some stranger when he went to the bar. Finally he'd had enough of her behaviour. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the nightclub and (as happens in dreams) straight into their apartment.

He flung her down on the bed. She mocked him, daring him to do his worst.

Meanwhile, Mona had stripped off her clothes and walked silently into the laboratory. She got into the bed beside Geoffrey, gently pulling his shoulder so that he turned over onto his front as Mona slipped underneath him. She spread her legs so that Geoffrey lay between them, his penis hot and hard against her belly.

In the dream, Geoffrey ripped off all his girlfriend's clothes and threw himself onto her, trapping her arms over her head, thrusting his stiff penis into her without warm-up.

Geoffrey was thrusting for real on Mona but she had to guide his penis into her vagina for him. Once slotted in, however, even the zombie Geoffrey made an efficient, if not sensitive, lover.

Dream-Geoffrey put a hand around his girlfriend's neck and started choking her. The real Geoffrey robotically obeyed this programming and started slowly throttling Mona. She realised for the first time how dangerous her search for sexual degradation might be.

Mona's hands were free but it took all her strength to remove robot Geoffrey's fingers from her throat. She gasped with relief when she successfully guided his hand onto the pillow, which he gripped as readily as if it were Claire's throat in the dream.

Geoffrey now thrust harder into Mona, who wrapped her legs around his waist.

Unfortunately, the dreaming Geoffrey's lack of awareness meant he could not control his arousal in time with Mona's: his program had one command, to fuck the bitch as hard as he could. Geoffrey was following this program to the letter, thrusting ever harder and faster. It was uncomfortable for Mona.

Then Geoffrey obeyed the command of the program to take his girlfriend's breast in his mouth and bite. Mona shrieked and put a hand over her mouth to stifle her noise and avoid waking Geoffrey. She struggled to remain quiet when Geoffrey bit her hard again; but Mona's body knew better than Mona's mind how to respond. Her back arched and her pussy washed with her juices.

Geoffrey moved both his hands to her breasts and gripped them viciously, pushing himself up on his arms to pump her at full speed. Mona let her legs fall down and closed her eyes, succumbing to an arousal she had not wanted, as her zombie rapist brought her to the edge of orgasm.

But Geoffrey got there first, his penis throbbing as he shot out a load of warm cum, his frantic grip on her breasts making her gasp with pain. A few more thrusts brought his orgasm to an end, the program having run its course, after which robot Geoffrey collapsed onto Mona, his penis softening in her vagina, some of their combined fluids dribbling down her buttocks onto the bed.

Mona struggled out from under Geoffrey and crept to the washroom to clean herself. She arranged her hair, checked that his handprint on her neck was not noticeable and returned to the office to dress, having fulfilled her desire for animal sex and violation.

Geoffrey woke when Mona turned on the light and discovered he had ejaculated in his trousers and on the bed. Groaning, he stripped off the headpiece and rushed to the washroom not looking at Mona, who had returned to the Professor's office. Geoffrey cleaned himself up as well as he could and put his day clothes back on. He had forgotten the content of the dream but, emerging from the washroom, it suddenly came back to him and he froze, feeling ill to the pit of his stomach.

"Oh my God!" he exclaimed to himself, "I committed rape! How could I do such a thing, even in a dream? Why didn't I wake up? I even came! This is sick!"

Geoffrey sat down, trying to come to terms with the meaning of the dream: was he a rapist at heart, in his unconscious? He knew he loved and respected women, never showing them any violence; but what if deep down he was the character in his dream. He looked up when Mona came back into the laboratory. She saw the shame and guilt in his face and had a moment of regret, which she suppressed because the arrogant bastard deserved what she had done.