An Experiment in Dreaming

Chapter 4 - Mona gets what she thinks she wants

***

There was an athletics meeting on Sunday. Geoffrey was not competing but went to the team warm-up to help and stayed to lend his support; but he was so downcast that he was neither help nor support. Afterward, instead of going to the pub with the team, he had a lonely dinner at home and went to bed early, feeling useless. His every waking thought turned to Mona.

After sleeping on it, Claire did not take her disappointment with Geoffrey on Saturday night very seriously. She was too happy for young Sarah, who had kept Zorba enraptured in her room all Sunday. They emerged only to use the bathroom or to replenish their supplies of cornflakes and condoms.

Mona spent Sunday sleeping until the evening, when she was alternately angry and miserable. Fucking Geoffrey had not alleviated her feelings of self-reproach: she felt no better for having tried to feel worse. Mona felt she had leapt from the precipice but not yet hit the ground.

Even the scientific success of the brain-wave inducers barely interested her. However, she did have a plan for Monday.

***

Early Monday morning, to Geoffrey's complete surprise, Mona woke him with a telephone call.

"Hi, Mona," Geoffrey answered, trying to focus on the bedside clock. "What's up?"

"I want you to meet me at the entrance to the laboratory building at eight o'clock."

There was silence.

"It's polite to make a response of some kind."

"Are you sure it's me you want, Mona?"

"If you treat me like an idiot, Geoff, I will go without you. ... 8am: Lab building."

She rang off.

At 8am, Mona arrived. Geoffrey had already been there ten minutes.

"Follow me," she commanded.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"You'll find out when we get there."

They walked out of the lab building, across the street and off the campus, heading to the town. Most of the houses along the road were student accommodation and suitably grubby but when they got into the town and turned down a side-street, the houses looked like people cared for them. Mona marched up the steps to the front door of one and rang the bell imperiously. Geoffrey had not asked any more questions and Mona had not spoken for the twenty minutes of their journey.

The door was opened by Professor Cable.

"What a pleasant surprise, Miss Macready. Please come in."

"This is Geoffrey Warner," she said, marching past Andrew.

"Hello, Mr. Warner, I recognise you from the athletics team. You did extremely well in hurdles this year. Please come in."

Geoffrey and Professor Cable shook hands.

"Thank you. The team did very well, Professor: I was only average."

"I am sure you are being modest, Mr. Warner," Professor Cable suavely assured him, leading them into his sitting room. "I am just preparing breakfast. Can I offer you anything? I have coffee, tea ..." Mona shook her head, "... toast?" he asked, looking at Geoffrey.

"No thanks," said Mona, firmly, "we're not stopping. Did you get my message, Andrew?"

Professor Cable glanced at Geoffrey when Mona used this familiar form of address and from Geoffrey's lack of surprise gathered that he was in on the secret.

"I did, Mona, but I did not understand it," he replied. "Can we discuss the matter privately?"

"No, I want Geoff to hear what we say."

"Why?"

"It's quite simple, Andrew. I was fucking you: now I am fucking Geoff."

Professor Cable was more offended at her abrupt tone than by her vulgarity.

"Please, Mona, do me the courtesy of talking to me privately."

"I'm going to fetch my stuff, Geoff," she said, ignoring Professor Cable. "I'll be a couple of minutes" and without asking permission, trotted upstairs, leaving the men alone.

"Did you put her up to this, Mr. Warner?" Professor Cable asked.

"You realise how silly that question sounds, Professor? It is Mona we are talking about."

"I see what you mean. ... Look, I don't know what Mona told you about us ..."

"Nothing at all, so far, Professor, except what she just said."

"Really? ... Well, the truth is that I love her and want her to stay with me, so would you be kind enough to leave us alone for a few minutes so I can straighten out this mess?"

"I would, Professor, if I didn't love her myself."

Geoffrey did not know why he had said this. Perhaps it was simply to deflate the pompous man in front of him. Maybe any stag will confront another stag and not back down simply because he is another stag. Yet Geoffrey's admission was also a profound self-revelation.

"Is that so? How well do you know Mona, Geoffrey? May I call you Geoffrey?"

"I prefer 'Mr Warner', Professor. I don't know Mona very well, though we have been acquainted three years. I look forward to knowing her better."

Mona entered to catch the end of what Geoffrey said and gave him a suspicious look.

"Well, that's all my stuff," she said, holding her overnight bag and another small leather bag. "I've taken this bag to put my CDs in, Andrew. Come on, Geoff, let's go."

"Just like that, Mona? You have nothing to say to me?" Andrew asked.

"No. Just like that, Andrew. Goodbye."

"I love you, Mona," he said, "Please stay and talk."

"You love me, Andrew, yet you slept with Carol Weaver and took her away this weekend when you were supposed to be visiting your wife and children. And you slept with fourteen other bimbos. What do we have to talk about? Come on, Geoff," she repeated, emphatically, "we're going."

Geoffrey obeyed, thanking the Professor for his hospitality but Andrew stayed in the hallway, staring at the closed door. He mumbled to himself "But I didn't!"

Outside, and striding back to the university campus, Geoffrey said:

"OK, Mona, I understand. You've used me to get even with Professor Cable and I admit I enjoyed the look on his face; so are you satisfied now?"

"No, not yet, but I will be. As for you, what did I hear you say to Andrew about me?"

"I hope you heard me say I loved you."

"That pissed him off, did it?"

"I didn't say it to piss him off, Mona. I meant it, though I didn't actually realise it until then."

Even the forthright and determined Mona stopped dead at that statement. Geoffrey bumped into her and held her to prevent her falling. For a moment she shut her eyes and relaxed in his arms; then she shook him off and faced him aggressively:

"You bastard!" was all she said. Then she turned and raced back to the University.

***

At 10pm, Monday night, Mona was in the laboratory, making the bed and preparing the equipment for Steve's session that night. She heard the door open and assumed it was Steve a little early, so she carried on. It was Geoffrey. He walked up to her and quietly spoke her name. She turned, not hiding her surprise at his effrontery.

"I know what you're doing, Mona," Geoffrey said.

"Is that right, Geoff?"

"I've read the dream reports. All of them. Including Claire's last one."

Mona was silent.

"You did something with the dream scanner to make me dream Claire's dream on Friday."

She still said nothing.

"Mona, I know why."

"Really?"

"I do not know your whole motivation, but I know that hating me is part of it. I thought it was just my personality you despised, Mona, but it is far deeper than that. Mona, what did I ever do to make you hate me like this?"

Mona stood still for a moment to decide; then she sat down at one of the laboratory benches, indicating that Geoffrey should do so too. He sat opposite her.

"Do you remember how we met?" she asked.

"No. I think I've always known you since we first got here. We were in the same neuro-science classes since the beginning."

"Yes, but we did not speak to each other until we met at a party during the first term."

"I'm sorry, I don't remember. There were lots of parties back then."

"I know. I went to many of them, trying to make friends and meet people. I especially wanted to meet my kind of man and I finally did meet him at that party. He was tall, athletic and reasonable-looking, though not classically handsome; but his most alluring feature was that he was interested in ideas. You know how rare it is to find people interested in ideas and not just in feelings or opinions? When I spoke to this man, he didn't open with the usual chat-up lines, asking me what my star-sign was, what I was studying or the bands I liked. He asked me what I thought about. He wanted to know my mind. We discussed books and poetry and films and philosophy. I was smitten."

Geoffrey knew she was talking about him. He had been like that at first, until he started taking the easy route in relationships; but he still could not remember the party or the conversation.

"What happened?"

"He was only drinking beer but he got very drunk and started slurring his speech. His friends brought him another pint, which he gulped down. Soon he was completely plastered. He started talking gibberish. He said he'd never met a girl like me, and similar nonsense, then put his arms around me and tried to kiss me. The interesting, cultured, intelligent man I'd known for a couple of hours had turned into a groping ninny, so I pushed him away and walked off. Later I saw him, even more drunk, going upstairs with Cindy Maxwell and Karen Curtis."

"Oh my God! 'The nympho twins'!" Geoffrey exclaimed.

"I don't suppose you were much use to them, you were so drunk."

Geoffrey honestly did not remember anything about that party, nor about the following day or two, though he learned afterward that friends had spiked his beers with vodka because it happened to be his birthday.

Geoffrey now thought that, if there is a benevolent god who allows drunks to fall over without breaking their limbs, then there must also be a malevolent god of drunks who wipes the memory of a man who spent the night with the 'nympho twins'. The same demon also caused him to alienate Mona from their very first meeting.

Geoffrey sunk his head and kept silent.

"Since then, I have watched your career with disgust." Mona continued her harangue. "I have lost count of the number of vapid females whom you've chased, easily won and boasted about. When I think of you, I think: What a waste! There goes someone who could have been a real man, but he was interested only in meaningless conquests. It's not as if modern women put up any resistance; as if you have to work hard to get students to shag you. Meanwhile, you spurn meaningful relationships with any woman who has a soul. I suppose you think such women are demanding or difficult or expect fidelity."

She stopped to breathe in and Geoffrey had a moment to speak.

"Mona, you are exactly right about me except for one thing: I have never boasted about any woman who has been kind enough to make love to me. The women I have 'chased', as you call it, have just as often chased me. When we meet, we make love guiltlessly, for joy, and we always part as friends. I suppose I do prefer uncomplicated women ..." adding quietly, as if to himself, "at least, until now."

"Well, it's manly of you to admit some of your guilt."

"I'll admit more than that. I was once exactly the facile man you describe, flitting from one short relationship to another, especially in the first year of university. I was like a starving man presented with a banquet and I leapt in, grabbing food from every plate. It was wrong and stupid but since then I have learned to savour my food. And I have never been unfaithful during a relationship."

"Do you think that makes me think any better of you?"

"No, you shouldn't think better of me, Mona, but you have misjudged my girlfriends. You are wrong to accuse me of chasing after easy conquests: all my girlfriends have been healthy, honest, loving women, not sex-mad sluts, nor 'conquests', nor notches at the end of my bed-post."

Mona was silent for a minute, thinking hard; then she quietly admitted:

"Maybe I have misjudged your girlfriends, Geoff. I am hardly better myself, sleeping with a married Professor as if it was the great romance of the ages." Now she was bitter again. "To Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Isolde, add the names Andrew Cable and Mona Macready. It doesn't quite ring true, does it? Hell, I don't even like romances!"

She paused and they were silent for a few minutes. Then Geoffrey returned to the main reason he was there.

"I completely understand why you hate me Mona and you are right; but what do you have against Steve?"

"What makes you think I am planning anything for Steve?"

Geoffrey got up and walked to the computer, where he pointed to the communications ports, saying:

"Didn't the headpiece plug into a different comms port before?"

It was a brilliant bluff on a nearly empty hand, but something in Mona wanted her to confess. Maybe the fact that Geoffrey knew part of her secret made her want to admit the whole to him. At the same time, any desire she had to induce zombie Steve to fuck her had now evaporated. Her misery was complete and there was no escape, not even in meaningless rough sex.

"Is it fair to do to Steve what you did to me, Mona?" Geoffrey asked, still bluffing, thinking she wanted only to embarrass Steve with a wet dream for some reason.

Mona did not answer but indicated that Geoffrey should stay put while she went to the Professor's office. She came back with the leather bag in which she had taken away her CDs from Andrew. She solemnly handed it to Geoffrey. He looked inside and saw a packet of condoms, a tube of lubricant, two strips of linen material and four lengths of soft rope.

"What are these for, Mona?"

"Work it out for yourself, Sherlock" she answered, pushing him toward the laboratory door. "Steve will be here soon. Goodnight, Geoff."

Geoffrey obediently left. He did not want to be there to try to explain things to Steve. Some of Geoffrey's apprehension was eased because he took the bag away with him and by what he thought was the resumption of Mona's old sarcastic manner. But what the use of the ropes and stuff was, he could not say.

Then Geoffrey remembered the content of one of Steve's dreams, in which a blindfolded woman was tied to a table by her wrists and ankles, her legs splayed almost in the splits, her arms at right angles from her body, her head lolling over the edge of the table. The table was on a pivot, so that the woman could be held vertically or horizontally, head up or head down. Steve had the woman upside down and fucked her throat while he licked her out. Afterward he had gagged her and fucked her first vertically and then horizontally.

While Geoffrey was slowly walking down the corridor, recalling what he could of Steve's dream, Steve himself turned up. He greeted Geoffrey and they spoke a few words, then Steve carried on to his session, leaving Geoffrey with his own bemused thoughts, which suddenly became both very clear and very dark. He realised what the contents of the bag were for:

"Good God!" he said to himself, "Had Mona been planning to enact Steve's dream herself? And did I actually have sex myself with Mona on Friday?"

It was too late to rush back into the laboratory. There was nothing to do but go home and confront Mona again in private on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Mona had switched Steve's headpiece for a normal one, plugged the cable back into the original comms port and loaded the software for a usual recording session.

***

The next day was Tuesday. Geoffrey called on Mona in the afternoon, when her housemates were out and Mona was up from her day's sleep. He brought the leather bag. Mona answered the door in her bathrobe, with her hair in a towel. She let Geoffrey in but did not speak to him. She made them both cups of coffee, which she carried to her room, indicating Geoffrey to follow. Geoffrey had never been in her room before, which had a small table, two wooden chairs, bookcases and a bed. They sat on the chairs and sipped their drinks.

Mona indicated to Geoffrey that he should speak.

"Mona, last night I thought I knew what you were doing, but clearly I was wrong."

"Clearly."

He put the bag on the table and removed its contents, placing them in front of her.

"I thought you revenged yourself by embarrassing me, causing me to have a wet dream; but it was not that, was it?"

"No, it wasn't," she admitted.

"Did we have sex on Friday night, Mona?"

"Yes."

"I raped you!"

"No. I raped you."

Geoffrey leant back in his chair, trying to take it all in.

"Why, Mona? What's it all about?"

"I told you that on Friday."

"You said you wanted a degraded and meaningless kind of sex from me. Is that it?"

"Mostly."

"I don't understand."

"And I don't intend explaining. Is that all you came to see me about? In which case, I need to dress and get going. Thanks for the visit, Geoff."

"Mona, this is not rational behaviour. What were you planning on doing to Steve last night with all these things? I am worried about you harming yourself."

"I am touched by your concern, Geoffrey, but I don't need or want it."

"I meant what I said yesterday morning. My concern is genuine."

"How sweet! Geoff. You're in love with me," she mocked. "The problem is, Geoffrey, that I have been loved and betrayed by a better man than you, so I can tell you, there is no future for us. ... And now that I know what you're like in bed, I am even more convinced that life with you would have been one long disappointment."

Geoffrey could see she was deflecting his main question by goading him. He knew he ought not to defend himself from such a stupid accusation; but he did anyway:

"I was unconscious!" he protested.

"Even unconscious, Andrew would have been a better lover than you ..."

"Be serious, Mona."

"... I suppose it's because he's bigger."

"Mona!"

"Don't worry about it, Geoff: Andrew's just a more of a man than you are."

Geoffrey stood up, slamming his chair backward.

"You are angry, Geoff, because a man twice your age is better in bed than you. What kind of wimp does that make you?" she taunted.

Geoffrey stormed around the table, grabbed Mona roughly by the shoulders and forced his mouth on hers. She responded eagerly to his passionate kiss for a minute, folding her arms around his neck; then she bit him.

"Ow, you bitch!"

She smiled and raised a defiant chin.

Geoffrey pulled the towel off her head, grabbed her by the hair and held her head back. Seeing excitement shine on her metallic green eyes and flush her cheeks, he kissed her again, holding her tightly by the waist. Again, she melted into the kiss, her arms around his shoulders. She held this kiss for about two minutes before she bit his lip.

Geoffrey was prepared for this. He pulled the bathrobe from her, spun her around and held her arms securely behind her back. He grabbed one of the ropes from the table and used it to tie her arms together, crossed at the wrists.

Mona did not say a word. She did not even grunt from his manhandling.

He pushed her forward onto the bed. Using another rope, Geoffrey tied Mona's legs together, crossed at her ankles, spreading her knees. Then he took the linen strips and gagged and blindfolded her, tying the material more tightly than was necessary. He turned Mona over to have a good look at her, noticing the teeth marks on one of her small round breasts. He squeezed the tit roughly.

"Did I do that?" Geoffrey asked.

Mona nodded.

"Good," he said and put his mouth to her other breast, licking and sucking for a minute; then he bit down hard. A muffled scream was the first sound Mona had made since her plan to goad Geoffrey into fucking her had borne fruit. He bit hard again, drawing another scream from her.

"Now they match," he concluded.

Mona felt the pain in her breast but she felt the sexual excitement in her whole body, especially down her spine. Geoffrey could see her sexual response in her glistening pussy and hear it in her breathing. He pulled away from her.