you can't complain now, ireshi. '+gt; it seemed to him that the day was dragging on delibe

  you can't complain now, ireshi.  ;'>


  it seemed to him that the day was dragging on
deliberately.  it was intensely frustrating.  realising that
there was nothing better to do about it, he deliberately
tempered his mood and concentrated afresh on his work, which
seemed mundane compared to that which really drove him.
  when he stopped his mind from wandering, the work seemed
to progress faster, and almost before he knew it, it was
time to leave. unlike his less fortunate fellow-travellers,
he didn't find commuting on the train to be a mind-numbingly
boring experience; he had his visualisation exercises to
occupy his mind.  on the outside, he appeared as the others
did, clutching a hand-strap, swaying with the train's
motion, staring off into space; possibly the only visible
difference was a slight smile on his lips.  inside -
  he was imagining a puzzle-box, about eight centimetres on
a side, dark red, almost black wood, ornate copper patterns
inlaid on all sides.  he'd seen it once, in a film; as an
exercise, he'd memorised the patterns and reproduced them
later for further study.  comparing his sketches with the
designs in the film and noting the differences, two weeks
later, had been an illuminating experience.  now, he
mentally rotated the box, every detail fixed and solid in
his mind's eye; he moved his viewpoint towards it, skimming
one side like a low-flying aeroplane, copper curlicues
flying past `underneath' him. the jolting of the train as it
stopped brought him out of his reverie; this was his
station.  he got off, all the while keeping the image of the
box in his mind.
  this habit had led many of his associates to consider him
to be a bit distant; sometimes they repeated what they were
saying to him, unsure if he had heard them.  he was willing
to accept this; he wasn't particularly concerned if they
thought he was strange.

  he sat at home, alone in his darkened living-room, no
television, radio or stereo.  despite some mild hunger pangs
from skipping lunch he decided to forego his evening meal;
he undressed, took a shower, went to the bedroom and lay
down on top of the covers, naked. he relaxed his body by
degrees, all the while maintaining a mental image of a
transparent toroid, taking slow, deep breaths, ignoring the
occasional rumblings from his empty stomach. he could feel
it; the conditions were right, and as he gradually slipped
into sleep...

      he was underwater, drifting about aimlessly, huge
    towers of coral around him.  small shoals of tiny
    grey triangular shapes drifted past, spinning like
    propellors.  his body was moving with the graceful
    arching motion of a dolphin. he turned over and
    floated with his arms outstretched for a time,
    enjoying the way the light rippled on the wavy
    surface above him... he seemed to be sinking, the
    surface becoming more distant... when suddenly,
    something broke the surface, diving straight for
    him. it was a naked girl, with short
    copper-coloured hair. she writhed through the
    water, trailing bubbles, like a torpedo - she
    wasn't going to stop - she got closer, and he could
    see her brilliant green eyes glittering in the
    darkness of the water, her feral grin, just before
    she hit -

  he awoke with a gasp, his eyes open wide and staring into
the darkness of his room.  the image of the girl was burned
into his awareness; if he was any sort of an artist he could
have drawn or painted her exact likeness.  he lay still
until his pounding heart- rate had returned to normal, then
he turned the light on, found his dream diary and wrote it
all down.  it was only half-past one in the morning, so he
got into bed and eventually fell asleep, with visions of
mermaids, baring their teeth at him, suffusing his mind.

  the next day, he was as eager as ever to get through work
and return to his dreams.  he visualised diligently; the
ornately- designed box was one of his favourite images, but
on the train home, he tried to picture the girl he had
dreamt about that morning. the basis of the image came to
him easily, and he filled in the details as he liked; her
flashing green eyes, the wavy bronze of her hair, her slim
figure which cut through the water effortlessly, the
gleefully wild smile which had haunted his thoughts.  he was
grateful for the distraction as his stop came up; he felt
the stirrings of an erection as her image became more
detailed.  he returned his attention to the puzzle-box as he
walked home.
  on arriving home, he somewhat distractedly performed
mundane housekeeping tasks while listening to some ambient
music, then settled down in his armchair to compose himself
for sleep.  during the past year he had, after some
experimentation, established a set of yogic exercises which
could bring him to a bonelessly relaxed state within ten
minutes.  he performed these, luxuriating in the warmth of
his home; it had started raining just as he arrived that
evening, and this lent a special kind of snug comfort to the
situation.  it was about eleven before he got up, stretched
and moved to the bedroom.

        he felt as light as a feather; he could see the
      posters on the walls in fine detail, even though
      he knew that his eyes were shut. Experimentally,
      he levitated into the air, slowly rotating until
      he was facing downward, almost as if he were
      lying on the ceiling.  he repressed a surge of
      excitement... he had done it again; this was the
      sixth time he had been able to wake within a
      dream... the visualisation exercises helped
      immmeasurably.  eager to try something radical,
      he drifted to an upright position a few inches
      off the floor, and floated to the bedroom door.

        he got a surprise; he had been imagining a
      desert of bright crimson sand under a violet sky;
      instead, he found a bottomless green void, marked
      out in places by yellow streams of luminescence.
      he recognised it from a book of science-fiction
      illustrations; at any moment, he expected the
      beetle-like starship that went with the picture
      to appear. he drifted out into the emptiness,
      glancing back to ensure that the door to his
      bedroom remained.  when he turned back, it was
      there; a huge, concrete-grey alien spacecraft, in
      the hyper-detailed style of Chris Foss and Angus
      McKie, shaped like a giant beetle.  he was amazed
      at the clarity of the image; he could focus on
      any particular detail of the ship (and there was
      an abundance of that - rails, hatches and spiky
      antennae seemed to cover every available
      surface), look away and when he returned his
      attention to the detail, it was unchanged. the
      ship turned to face him and began approaching.
      he remained calm, floating in the void; as the
      ship got nearer, he could see into a bay-window,
      lit from within. there was someone inside,
      sitting at a console. immediately, he
      concentrated on this aspect, excited with the
      prospect of communicating with someone else in
      his dream.  by the time the ship got close enough
      for him to see clearly, the occupant had left the
      room. he floated right up to the window, pressing
      his hands against the glass (which felt unusually
      cold) and peering inside.  it looked like a
      control room from any of a dozen science-fiction
      films he'd seen, banks of switches and screens
      and blinking lights. movement off to his right
      caught his attention, and he turned -

        he was momentarily stunned.  what she was
      wearing could only be described as a rubber
      fetishists' space-suit; as he revelled in the
      look of slick, shiny black rubber stretched over
      her appealing form, he was reminded of something
      that Harry Harrison had written about `sexual
      dimorphism in science-fiction illustration';
      while guys generally wore clunky, device-ridden
      space-suits, the girls tended to be clothed in
      skin-tight apparel that, while not being at all
      functional in terms of protection from the
      rigours of deep space, served their purpose
      admirably; that purpose being titillation.  He
      began to feel slightly uneasy; altough he had
      been concentrating on detail recently, this was
      by far the most involved dream he had ever had,
      and he wondered about the possibility of outside
      interference.  but from who? and how?

        it was a few moments before he raised his eyes
      to take in her bemused look; once again, he
      experienced a mild shock (and he knew he was
      dreaming now); it was the girl he had dreamed
      about the previous night.  her short
      golden-copper hair framed one of the most
      beautiful faces he had ever seen. it was corny,
      but he couldn't help visualising a glint of
      star-light in her vividly green eyes, and as he
      did so, it appeared (so he maintained a modicum
      of control here...). her lips moved, but he
      couldn't hear her words; he tilted his head to
      one side and tried to reply, but found that
      whatever medium they were drifting in wouldn't
      carry sound (he didn't bother to try and
      understand why he could breathe in it if he
      couldn't be heard in it; that was typical
      dream-logic, or rather, lack of it). she frowned
      slightly and nodded to herself as if confirming
      something she had suspected. she held out her
      hand to him, and as he drifted closer, he noticed
      a name-patch over her left breast; it was written
      in one of those futuristic, difficult- to-read
      fonts that resembled the work of subway graffiti
      artists, but it appeared to say something like
      `SADK', or possibly `SADIK'.

        she turned and floated away, around the
      bulkhead of the ship, and he followed, puzzled by
      the fact that he'd never met anyone that she
      resembled.  most of the people he usually
      encountered in his dreams were recognisable
      distortions of his associates, or people he'd
      seen on the street that day, but she was
      completely unfamiliar. he knew that if he'd met
      someone like her, he'd remember it. she bent over
      and dived into a small hatchway which protruded
      from the side of the ship like a set of puckered
      lips; he watched her lithe form disappear, his
      attention roaming the length of her
      rubber-encased body...

  suddenly, he found himself lying on his bed, unable to
remember the transition from the dream-state to wakefulness.
instead of remaining calm and working his way back into the
details of the dream, he got up and paced agitatedly, trying
to force his mind to remember.  as a result, all that he
could come up with were a few fragmentary images. it was
almost five a.m., too late to get back to sleep if he wanted
to get to work on time, so he made his bed, got dressed and
idly watched television until it was time to leave.

  all during that day, he was frequently disturbed as more
fragments of his dream appeared, like wreckage surfacing
after a shipping accident.  he made notes in his dream
diary; on the evening train, the image of the
beetle-spaceship came to him, and he practically ran home
from the station in his eagerness to locate the book with
the image.
  he found it under a stack of a3-format Hans Rudi Giger
softbacks, and located the picture in a moment.  it was a
collection of works by an association of British
science-fiction illustrators who called themselves `Young
Artists', and there it was - the beetle-shaped starship,
identical to the one in his dream in every detail.  As he
gazed at it, the more deeply-buried fragments of his dream
surfaced, and he experienced a dazed feeling as he
remembered the suit she wore.  from not being able to
remember more than a few details of the dream, he found
himself recalling the entire sequence in detail, up to the
point where she entered the ship... and...

        ... he followed her in.  it was dark inside; he
      could see enticing glints of light delineating
      the curves of her hips as she moved through the
      narrow tunnel (abruptly, he wondered if this was
      symbolic of anything... it seemed terribly
      Freudian).

        she emerged into sudden brightness, a large,
      spherical room, soft white light glowing from a
      hidden source. when he turned to check the
      entrance (a habit he had aquired in his limited
      experience with lucid dreaming), it had gone.
      when he turned back, she was drifting before him,
      arms limply beside her, her head quizzically to
      one side.  they simply regarded each other for
      what seemed to be at least five minutes
      (although, by now, he was familiar with the
      disjointed way that time passed in dreams), and
      then her right hand slowly moved up to her left
      shoulder, pressing a contact there, with a
      snapping sound that he could feel. her slick
      black suit peeled back, a slit running down from
      the contact at her shoulder, between her breasts,
      around her waist and behind her. underneath it,
      her skin was - orange? no... he drifted closer,
      and saw that she was wearing a sheer layer of
      orange rubber underneath the black suit. she
      grasped his hand firmly, brought the palm up to
      her mouth; all the while keeping her eyes locked
      on his, she kissed his hand, her hot mouth and
      tongue smearing wetness over the palm and between
      the fingers. it was the most arousing thing he'd
      ever experienced, until she placed his hand over
      her left breast, pressing his wet skin against
      the nipple which strained against the thin
      elasticity. he felt it grow hard against the palm
      of his hand; he pinched it, feeling the rubber
      squeak under his touch. her eyes half-closed in a
      lustful expression of self-indulgence; she turned
      her face to the left, gritting her teeth,
      snarling in the grip of the erotic sensation.

        he heard a familiar buzzing sound somewhere
      behind him, signalling the approach of the end of
      this dream.  he didn't fight it, knowing how
      futile struggling had proved in the past;
      instead, he admired her shapely form, which grew
      indistinct as the white light around them blazed
      brighter...

  he awoke, sprawled on the bedroom floor, his face resting
on the open book.  he rolled over and lay on his back, eyes
closed, careful not to force his memory as he went back over
the dream.  when he felt that he had the salient points well
in mind, he got up, located his dream diary and wrote it all
down.  he cast a bemused glance over the previous  two
months' entries; the average length of each entry had
increased exponentially with each week.

  he glanced at his watch; it was almost two a.m., but he
didn't feel particularly inclined to try and sleep. he
needed something to keep him awake until it was time for
work; he went to his dusty shelf of infrequently viewed
videos, and selected one at random: `Eric The Viking.'  he
slotted it into the betamax and spent a frustrating five
minutes getting the television tuned to whatever station the
VCR was pretending to be this week before settling down in
front of the screen with a large mug of warm cocoa.
  he wasn't really concentrating on the video; he had the
volume turned down almost to the point of inaudibility. he
was preoccupied with the vision of the girl in his dream.
  the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced
that he *must* have met someone who looked like her, and
impressed him enough that his subconscious had stored the
image for later incorporation into his dreams.  instead of
racking his brains and trying to remember, he opted for what
he called the `Bill Lee' method (from an early chapter in
Burroughs' `Naked Lunch'); he let his mind wander casually
from one topic to another in the hope that his subconscious
(which he had lately come to regard as more efficient and
reliable than his regular consciousness) would make some
connection.
  he sat there, idly sipping cocoa and half-watching the
figures on the screen; he finished the drink and set the cup
aside, precariously balanced on the chair's arm.  his head
tipped back, and soon, he had slipped into another dream.

        he was leaning on a tree, at the broad mouth of
      a river, staring out to sea.  a viking longship
      was drawing towards him. the rigging was burning,
      and the patterned sails flamed fiercely, yet
      somehow remained unconsumed.  the oars at the
      side were idle; there were no crew frantically
      scurrying about, suppressing the blaze. it came
      closer, and just as it beached itself in the
      shallows, he noticed a single figure clinging to
      the snarling upright figurehead, dressed in
      Viking battle-gear, complete down to the horned
      helmet.  the hull pushed up on the bank far
      enough so that he could see the flaming sails
      reflected in her helmet.

        it was her.

        in one hand, she carried a club with serrated
      ivory horns embedded along the leading edge; she
      wore a neat, knee-length green tunic, with black
      furs slung over her shoulders, others encasing
      her feet. a broad shield was strapped over her
      back; she unslung it and tossed it to the ground
      before him.  she approached him with the same
      feral grin he remembered from his first dream, a
      wild glint in her eyes. he regarded this as too
      fantastic to be accepted even for a moment, and
      so he merely leaned against the tree until she
      stepped up to him, hooked the end of the club
      through his belt and tugged him forward to fall
      on his knees before her. she stripped a doeskin
      mitten from one hand, grabbed a handful of his
      hair and dragged his head back to meet her gaze.
      her smile faded when she saw that he wasn't the
      least bit afraid; a knife appeared in her other
      hand, the point resting at the side of his
      throat.  she prodded him with it, drawing a slow
      trickle of blood, then holding his head securely
      with one hand, she undid the ties of her tunic
      with the other, shrugging the furs off, stripping
      her clothes from her slim form and tossing them
      to the ground. she twisted the handful of his
      hair in her grip and dragged him closer, pushing
      his face towards the light patch of silken fur at
      her crotch. repeated promptings with the knife
      soon brought him to an understanding of her
      desires, and he began half-heartedly stroking at
      her exposed labia with his tongue and lips,
      inspired to more vigourous efforts by the feeling
      of the knife-point underneath his left ear. by
      the time she had been stimulated to the point of
      dropping the knife, he was too involved with the
      process to want to escape, his arms wrapped
      around her thighs, hands cupping her buttocks,
      pressing her to him. both of her hands were now
      buried in his hair, fingers writhing as his
      tongue teased the slippery folds, darting around
      the pink nub nestled within, drawing gasps of
      pleasure from her.  as he slowly brought her
      towards orgasm, he could feel her legs trembling
      with the effort to remain upright; her scent was
      almost overpowering, making him dizzy (this had
      to be the most detailed dream he had ever had!).
      suddenly, she cried out and clutched his head,
      digging her fingers painfully into his scalp,
      pressing his face to her, one leg over his
      shoulder, gripping him tightly.  they rocked in
      an unsteady fashion for a moment, and then,
      slowly, he fell over backwards, his knees
      splaying out painfully as he fell on his back
      with a jarring thud, she kneeling over him
      awkwardly.

  with a shock, he found himself awake, in his lounge-room.
the chair had toppled over backwards, but what surprised him
the most was that she was there, still sprawled over him,
her knees hooked over his shoulders, her pubes pressed to
his face.  she drew back slightly; their eyes met, and her
expression was every bit as surprised as his.
  he scrambled backwards from underneath her, backing up
against the bookshelf, unable to avert his gaze.  she
kneeled there for a moment, smiled slyly at him and then
_faded_, exactly like a special effect. within moments she
had been reduced to a faint vapour-like shadow, the view of
the far wall rippling slightly as she vanished.  he
scrambled to his knees and lunged forward, only to clutch at
empty air.
  he spent the next half an hour feeling his head for signs
of concussion and wondering if he was going insane.  he had
felt her thighs pressing against his cheeks; she was real.
he was sure of it. and yet...

  it was almost three in the morning, and despite the fact
that he'd already taken two short cat-naps, he felt
exhausted; he managed to crawl to his bed and fall into a
deep, dreamless sleep.