Life Is but a Dream

Jane quietly packed up her lab that night, not looking forward to the trip home. Ever since she'd come to

Paradise Springs

she'd been uncomfortable just walking outside.

It wasn't that it was a rough area, quite the opposite. It was a location of opulence, an affluent town where everyone was a millionaire and where someone like her just didn't belong.

She was not rich. It wasn't like she was broke either, but she was born into a working class family and every dollar she had was one she'd had to earn by working.

She was a research scientist for a large pharmaceutical company, recently released from the bonds of academia and apprenticeship to run her own small study. They'd known her work was a long shot but they'd also known it had a lot of potential, which was why they'd sent her to

Paradise Springs.

The bloated hospital there had all the resources she'd need, most of them barely used, and being so far away from their main offices they figured their competitors wouldn't even notice she was there.

Unfortunately, she couldn't say the same for the locals, who'd made it clear from day one that they knew she was there and they didn't like it.

She'd even intentionally pack up slowly at night, just hoping that she wouldn't run into any one on her way home. Still, as the darkness drew in, she knew she had to depart.

---

It wasn't much later when the door of her lab opened again. A small group of people began to sneak in, their leader one Martha Andrews. She was the town's 'queen bitch' and one of the strongest opponents of Jane's residence there, believing it was one step away from allowing in hoodlums and even blacks.

Behind her followed her husband Arthur and a few of their richest friends.

Martha eyed her desired target, a large white box situated on a bench across the room. She stepped as quickly towards it as her insistence upon decorum would allow, smiling a wicked grin. This will be delicious, she thought to herself.

"This is it," she said, signalling the others to come over. Her husband had located the light switch and illumination filled the room.

"Shouldn't we keep the lights off?" a voice asked from the back. "We don't want to be seen."

"It's my hospital, remember," Arthur harrumphed. "I can go into any lab I please, any time I please."

"Oh, right, sorry," the voice said apologetically, knowing it was a social sin to doubt the power of a man like Arthur in a town like this. Yet it was widely known that his wife held the power in the relationship.

"Will you hurry up?!" she scorned them all. They didn't need to be asked again, and were soon gathered around her.

"So what do we do, exactly?" another voice asked. Martha never took her eye off the machine to deign to discover who it actually was speaking. "Do we just speak into that machine and tell her to leave?"

"It's not that simple," Arthur answered. "The doctor's been studying the effects of subconscious beliefs. She's found a way to implant a belief in a person's mind, sort of like how you can have a strong intuitive feeling about someone without being able to explain it. We're going to make her believe that her machine doesn't work. We're also going to make her think that she doesn't belong here, that she should leave and never come back."

"Yes we are," Martha cut in. "But we're not going to make it that easy on her."

A series of exchanged glances passed around the room.

"But the plan was..."

"I don't care what the plan was. People like her are an affront to this town. She's not going to just want to leave because we tell her to. She is going to humiliate herself and leave because she has no choice."

Again, the group was uncertain, but at the same time no one liked the audacity of some poor person coming to this town for any other reason than to serve them. Slowly, the tone turned from concern to curiosity to eagerness.

"What did you have in mind?" Arthur asked, speaking first.

"It's simple," Martha replied with a malevolent smirk. "Have you ever heard of lucid dreaming?"

Only one person nodded.

"That's when you dream and you're aware it's a dream, so you can do whatever you want without consequences."

"Exactly," Martha confirmed. "We're going to make Miss Jane think that that's what's happening; that everything she's experiencing is a dream and she can do whatever she wants, no matter how embarrassing it would be to do so in the real world, or what dark truth it exposes. Then we just have to wait until she does something particularly humiliating before we let her know the truth. She'll never show her face in this town again."

Arthur laughed boldly, seeing why he fell in lust with Martha in the first place. He knew that if he thought he had the freedom of a dream he'd probably strut naked down the hospital corridors or introduce a nurse or five to his eager hands. For a woman as shy and repressed as he'd found this Jane to be, to do that sort of thing for real would be even worse than he could imagine.

Everyone murmured their agreement to Martha's plan.

Pleased, she pointed for her husband to start work on the controls. "You said you knew how to use this thing."

"She showed me how to use it," he said. "It's really quite basic. You just start by holding this button down and recording a message of what you want the person to believe."

He indicated a button on top of the device. Martha eagerly depressed it and began speaking into the little speaker on top of the device.

"This is just your dream..." she said, viciousness in her tone.

"Not like that," Arthur stopped her, hastily adding on, "honey." Martha eyed him and released the button. "Apparently it confuses the mind if you refer to the subject as 'you' because when they hear it from within their own mind, it's like saying 'you' yourself which must mean someone else. The same problem happens with calling them 'I' because hearing 'I' referred to in someone else's voice makes them reject the idea of the thought being about them. You need to refer to them in third person."

Though annoyed that he didn't mention this earlier, Martha depressed the button again.

"This is just Jane's dream. None of it is real. Jane will experience no consequences, no need for privacy. Jane can do whatever she wants and everyone else is just here to serve her, to cater for her whims."

Martha again released the button and this time Arthur nodded, pleased at his wife's deliciously evil streak. "Now all we have to do is to start transmitting the message to her."

"Good, and how do we do that?"

"Well, basically the device works on subaudible soundwaves. You just have to broadcast those soundwaves to the subject. Given some of the people who were supposed to be treated by it will experience paranoia and try to get rid of any sort of speaker we gave them, she developed a way to broadcast it by the mobile phone network to a specific number. We just have to enter her number like this..." Arthur began to type the number which he'd acquired earlier from the staff register. "And hit send."

Martha happily did the honours and the machine began its transmission which would run all night, hopefully cementing the thought in place by tomorrow.

"Excellent. This time tomorrow, I think we'll all be in for quite a show."

---

That night, Jane went to bed with a strange feeling in her head. Maybe it was because it sounded like a side effect that some of her subjects had reported having when she was treating them, but she couldn't help but to wonder about the future of her research.

There was still so much uncertainty. At the moment she was still being forced to isolate her patients in protected rooms for their therapy so that the soundwaves didn't affect other patients nearby. She'd probably never get the mobile phone delivery system to work properly. As she fell asleep that night, all she was sure of was just how unsure of things she was.

---

The next day she went about her morning routine as always, brushing her teeth, getting dressed, doubting what she was doing in this town.

She made it to her lab at the usual time and nothing immediately seemed different, though she felt that pervert Arthur Andrews watching her more than usual. It wasn't that he wasn't attractive, but he was the type of man who liked to take advantage of having power over women and that was a significant turnoff for her.

She continued to work throughout the morning, but nothing felt quite right. Sure everything looked normal, but then she began to question whether that was true or not. Suddenly the realisation struck her that maybe it was that sort of normal you experience in a dream, where nothing makes any real sense but until you wake up you think it does.

That didn't feel nearly as crazy as it should have.

"Could it be a dream?" she asked herself.

She was still in

Paradise Springs,

she'd spent her morning working in a lab, she'd even found a tear in one of her favourite shirts. It sure seemed like a waste of a dream to her.

Nonetheless, the thought dominated her mind as she took her break for lunch. She headed out to a nearby café where the employees were poor enough to be nice to her. The street looked normal, the people paying her as little attention as normal.

Unable to shake the feeling, she decided upon a simple test. Sandra, a socialite and utter bitch, was passing her, attempting not to even look at her like she was just a beggar who'd ask for loose change.

"Excuse me," Jane asked, "Can you tell me the time?"

"It's 12.15," Sandra answered, surprising both of them that she did so. She never spoke to someone of Jane's class unless ordering something.

Still, Sandra felt like none of this was real. Somehow she knew that this was Jane's dream and she had to give her whatever she wanted.

"Thanks, you know that's a really nice watch," Jane commented, and without even thinking Sandra handed it over. She found it strange that she'd never thought before about that fact that this was Jane's dream and she had to obey her, but now it seemed very clear.

Jane felt herself convinced of what she'd already known on some level already. This

wasn't

real.

Suddenly the thought of lunch at the café didn't seem quite fitting. There was a fancy restaurant nearby where she could never get a reservation but she was going to go there today. Still, her casual outfit just didn't seem appropriate for the place. She should be dressed in something elegant and black much more like what Sandra was wearing.

She snapped her fingers, expecting that it would make her outfit change into something new like when a genie on TV did that. Disappointed, she looked down to see nothing had changed. She still had no doubt that this was a dream, but it would seem that she was still forced to obey real world physics. Maybe if something impossible happened it would force her to wake up and she certainly didn't want that.

Looking at the waiting Sandra, who had until now held Jane in such contempt, Jane had an idea. She would have a fancy dress to go to the restaurant.

"Your dress," she said boldly. "Hand it over."

Shock filled Sandra's face as blushing, she stripped her dress down over her body and wiggled her way out of it. She then obediently placed it in Jane's waiting hands and brought her arms in to cover herself as best she could. She was standing Justin her bra and panties.

She'd never felt so exposed, as everyone passing by in the street turned to watch. Everyone thought it was just Jane's dream and so they couldn't intervene, but that didn't stop them appreciating and in many cases enjoying Sandra's humiliation. Surveying the woman before her, Jane decided that she just hadn't quite gone far enough.

"Your bra and panties too. I want them."

Resigned to her fate, though internally struggling with everything she had, Sandra unhooked her bra and then placed it over Jane's arm. She then put her thumbs in the waist of her panties and pushed them to the ground, quickly handing them over too.

Now she was left standing in the street, completely naked for everyone to see. One arm crossed over her breasts, the other hand moved between her legs to cover her vagina. Even still, she knew everyone on one side had seen her pubes and everything else when she was pulling down her panties, and everyone behind her could still see her ass.

Everyone was staring as Jane surveyed her handiwork. Now she really appreciated that fact that everyone here was at her whim.

She looked at Sandra's outfit in her hands, contemplating the best place to change into it, when she realised she didn't have to. Sandra watched with dread as Jane walked over to a nearby bin and happily threw her clothes in there, leaving her stranded in the nude, or at best rummaging through the trash in the hope that some of the dignity that had just been thrown away could be salvaged.

Happy with what she'd done, Jane looked at her and said, "Go home, Sandra. Go suck your husband's dick. Oh, and by the way, don't even think of covering yourself until after you're done."

To her horror, Sandra dropped her hands from her in front of her to her sides, and she bolted, letting everyone see everything from her supple breasts to the single mole on her fair white arse. She ran home as fast as she could, having to wait for the maid because she had no keys, then running into where her husband was sitting and dropping onto the floor in front of him.

---

"I like this dream," Jane said happily, as Sandra bolted away.

She had decided that there was no reason to dress up for a fancy restaurant, quite the opposite. She started by kicking off her shoes. Then in front of everyone in the street, she happily dropped her pants, revealing her shapely white legs and even winking at a watching man as she did so. Normally she'd never be so bold, but this was after all just a dream and so she had no reason to hold back.

Her panties were nothing special, just a plain red design. So she gladly dispensed with them next, standing proudly with her tidy bush on display for all to see.

Of course next she crossed her arms and pulled her shirt over her head, then as the piece de résistance she dropped her bra on the ground.

Everyone was looking at her naked body, her perfect round hips, her fair skin, her lush full breasts and her most feminine lips just right there between her legs.

She didn't mind at all. In fact, the sun felt great against her skin as she walked down the street. She quite liked that everyone was watching and she even noticed a few men had erections.

She never normally felt that desirable, but here she had no doubt was. She walked up to a man who owned a local 'gentleman's club'. He liked showing off women's bodies, like she was showing off hers now.

He tried to hide his arousal, nervously shifting himself in his pants.

"No don't," Jane insisted, eyeing him up. Though she was the naked one, he was the one who now felt like he was in one of his shows. "I guess it's kind of a nice one you have there."

She placed her hand against the front of his pants and he moaned, then she began to stroke him through the fabric. He moved to lower his pants, anticipating that was what she wanted.

"No, keep them on," she replied, determined that if he came it would be in his pants and that everyone would know.

She continued to stroke him until he was moaning, embarrassed that everyone here could see him but not really caring as he felt himself drawing closer to orgasm.

"Oh God," he cried, so close...

Then she stopped.

"That was fun, but I'm bored now," she teased, and he looked at her pleadingly. He knew the world existed to serve her and he couldn't even touch himself for some relief if she didn't want him to.

"Don't worry, dear," she answered. "I'm not going to be too mean. You see that pole over there?"

There was a street lapy nearby and he nodded that he did, his erection straining against his pants.

"Well you can rub against it until you come," Jane said with a laugh, and in utter humiliation that's what he did.

She left on her way, hearing him behind her moaning and crying out in the unmistakable way of a man who's just come in his pants and will have to walk home like that.

Making it to the restaurant, she smiled as she walked inside, still completely naked and once again the centre of attention. Everyone stopped and looked at her naked body.

Casually Jane ran her fingers over her nipples, teasing them.

Martha and Andrew were there out for lunch, and at first as they realised what was happening they were overjoyed thinking that their plan had come to fruition and Jane was here to humiliate herself. Quickly however that was replaced with the knowledge that this was actually just Jane's dream.

"I want a table," Jane announced to the waiter who greeted her.

"Of course," the waiter answered. "As you can see we are fully booked at the moment, but..."

"It doesn't matter," Jane replied. She knew the man would find her a table, but she had a more fun idea.

She walked in to the restaurant, casually slipping between tables, even grabbing a carrot from someone's plate, rubbing it against her chest and then happily putting it back down.

She arrived at the Andrews' table to be met with a contemptuous stare from Martha and her husband.

It was amazing that even in her dream, some of their real life personalities seemed to be bleeding through.

"Get up, Martha," Jane demanded and the woman did so, standing up beside her own chair.

"You know Martha I always thought you were a slut," Jane added boldly. "More to the point though, you're a bully and I don't like bullies."

It was clear there were vile things just waiting on Martha's tongue which she wished to say but couldn't.

Jane happily took her seat from her, sitting naked at the table, her breasts still clearly visible to all.

"I want you to lie down over my knee and pull up your dress."

Her face burning with humiliation and anger that Jane was dreaming this, Martha reluctantly did so. She felt so certain that she was about to get a spanking in front of a restaurant full of people as Jane began to rub her hand over the round cheeks of her arse.

Martha tried to avert her gaze from the onlookers who would be watching everything that was about to happen.

Then she felt Jane's fingers gripping the top her panties and suddenly Jane yanked them upwards, wedging them in her arse crack and straining against her pussy.

"Ow, fuck!" Martha cried out.

"Well, that's not a very ladylike thing for you to say," Jane replied, thinking her punishment did indeed seem so much more appropriate for a bully than a simple spanking. It was also kind of funnier too, especially since Martha couldn't pull them down without Jane's permission and so her panties were permanently stuck up her arse until Jane told her otherwise.

Jane watched the woman wiggle in pain for a few moments longer before finally telling her to stand up, which she did, though her dress remained pulled up at the back showing off the fact that her panties were still lodged up her arse. Her posture clearly reflected this fact.

Amazingly, the woman still managed to maintain a degree of her natural bitchiness in her eyes. Jane had to wonder if perhaps their respective states of dress were helping Martha still feel superior, so she reached up and pulled down the front of her dress, plopping her breasts out for everyone to see.

Martha had never felt such humiliation as she realised that everyone could see her panties up her arse, her breasts on display and that she was doing everything this moneyless girl was telling her. Sure, it was only a dream, but somehow the humiliation felt real.

"How do you feel?" Jane asked her.

"Angry," Martha replied honestly.

"You don't like that everyone can see your breasts?" she asked teasingly.