This is something of a double feature of tales of Mark's Gifts, as he uses his talents to help both Ashley and Megan to fulfil their deepest fantasies.
I'll be taking something of a hiatus from Mark and his Gifts for a while. For those who have been following his adventures, rest assured there will be more to come in the future.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the kind feedback, comments and reviews.
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When he got home from Candy's that night, Mark was a little perturbed to hear raised voices from Pete's bedroom, and not the kind he'd been used to.
He understood it wasn't unusual for couples to fight but Pete and Jennifer's relationship, if it had even yet reached the level that deserved that description, was still very fresh. Although he felt it might be an intrusion, he couldn't help but reach out with his mind to find out what was going on.
In Jennifer's mind he could see frustration more than anger, really. As he delved a little deeper, he could see that whatever was on her mind had to do with their sexual relationship and, kind of automatically, he retreated. Whatever about Jennifer, Pete was his friend and he couldn't bring himself to delve into his private life without permission.
Still, as he climbed into bed, he resolved to keep an eye on the situation, wondering whether there was some way his gifts could help.
And then, because he couldn't help himself, he allowed himself to drift back into Ashley's dreams.
He found himself back again in that familiar corridor that reminded him of his time in college, bustling with people. As he had before, he couldn't help but notice that everyone he could see was a woman and each one was clad in the same white shirt with the plunging neckline and short pleated skirt with a kind of tartan pattern.
And as he had before, he couldn't help but notice how Ashley was just a little different, with her white shirt tied in a knot just below her firm breasts, her toned abdomen clearly on show. So she was quite distinct from everyone else as she stood with her back to a classroom door, looking left and right as if to see if anyone had taken note of her.
As she twisted the handle and pressed the door open, Mark's mind turned to the practicalities of making Ashley's fantasy a reality. Obviously, he had no access to a physical environment that would fit, a college or school, and he knew from her mind that she didn't possess the outfit she wore in the dream in the real world.
Still, he couldn't help a thrill of anticipation as he started to think about how he would have to improvise a solution. As he had ventured from his initial experiment with altering Rebecca's perception of reality through to his experience with Candy in the bar and the alley, his confidence in his gifts' ability to adapt was effectively total. He knew, instinctively, that he had the power to make it happen.
The next morning, Ashley was restless when she woke. For three nights now, one of her favorite fantasies had become the most vivid dream she'd ever experienced. She reflected that it wasn't unusual for her to have sexual dreams, but the intensity of the memory she could even now recall, every sound, every smell, was something she'd never experienced before.
Almost automatically, her mind formed an image of Mark. He, or at least an appropriately aged version of him, had taken the place of her old English professor in the fantasy lately. And it didn't surprise her. Since their first explosive encounter at the gym where they were both members, he had come to replace her fantasy partners in more and more of her dreams.
She started to wonder whether the length of time between her encounters with Mark was the reason her mind tended to drift to him more and more. She hadn't had sex with him in nearly a week and although she had hooked up with two other guys from a dating app in the meantime, she couldn't shake him.
And while the encounters she'd had with him since that first time in the gym had been just good old fashioned marathons of fucking, she couldn't escape the memory of that first time, of how incredibly closely it had aligned with one of her hottest and most long-standing fantasies.
It was this thought that led her to sit down at her laptop and click on the bookmark that had sat unused for so long. She smirked as the webpage appeared, the model in the outfit was an almost unbelievable doppelganger for her. Her close-cropped blond hair and bright blue eyes were paired, just like Ashley, with a toned physique, her sculpted abdomen drawing the eye.
She'd spent a long time looking for the outfit. She couldn't recall ever actually encountering it in real life but when she'd finally stumbled across the website she was looking at now, an off the beaten track treasure trove of erotic costumes, she'd known instantly it was just as she'd seen it in her dreams. Even the tartan pattern on the skirt was a perfect match.
When she'd first found it, just the knowledge that what she'd imagined existed in the real world had been a turn on in itself. She'd never actually considered buying it. Until now.
As she did the necessary to enter her credit card details, she felt a tingle of anticipation just at the prospect of being able to wear it, to further heighten the fantasy.
And then her mind returned to Mark again, to how he had already made one of her most vivid fantasies come true and she couldn't help but wonder if he could again.
In his apartment, Mark smiled as he saw this thought in Ashley's mind and the wheels of his own continued to turn.
He knew that, if he was to successfully help Ashley to fulfil her classroom fantasy he would need to use his gifts similarly to how he had with Rebecca. Then, he had made her believe that she was a different version of herself, a professional stripper of long experience while he'd made her believe that she didn't know Mark at all, he was just some random john to her for the duration of the fantasy.
For Ashley, he would need to make her believe she was that younger version of herself she pictured in her fantasy while he would need to assume the role of her professor in her mind.
He was unconcerned by the issue of location. With Rebecca, it had been a simple matter to allow her mind to picture her own apartment, her own bedroom as part of the strip club where her fantasy-self worked and he knew he would be able to do the same for Ashley.
He reasoned to allow another few days to pass before he would put his plan into action. This would ensure both that the costume would have time to arrive as well as allowing him to further heighten Ashley's eagerness and anticipation by reliving the same dream a few more times.
In the meantime, he spent some time with Eleni. He hadn't been physically with her since his return from London and although they were almost constantly together through the connection, their reunion was nevertheless an extremely pleasurable one.
While Eleni had been able to observe Mark's experiences through the connection, able to experience the pleasure of them vicariously, she was still anxious to get her hands on him. She reminded Mark that his gifts had just as much of an effect on her as they did on other women and Mark had to call in sick to work as he spent a full day and night in her apartment, reliving his experiences with her and bringing her back to the orgasmic heights of their first night together.
