Chapter 21

Tina woke just as the light was filtering into her bedroom. She was a little groggy, and something felt a little off. Wasn't there supposed to be someone else here? And... wait, today was the first day of school, right? Her mind quickly cleared though, and she went into the bathroom to take care of things. Still, as she looked in the mirror, she felt as if something... maybe someone?... was missing. How odd.

Ken wandered around the house for a while. He'd practiced already and felt kind of at loose ends. The large mansion was empty at the moment, which made the huge place feel odd after an entire summer of it being filled with people. Ari, Tina, Genie, Bill and Eric were all at school. Gary and Annette were out somewhere, Joan was at the office, and Jane and Sally had taken Christine and gone out for a little shopping. It still concerned him that Sally rarely, if ever, left the Mansion grounds without someone else from the Circle along. Since, at this point in time, he couldn't actually picture her taking classes with Sensei, something that might just make her feel a little safer, this could turn into a problem. He sighed, booted up the laptop he was keeping his notes on, and lost himself in planning.

The house came alive with the influx of people returning from school and work. Tina was still feeling a little out of sorts, because she couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. She just couldn't put her finger on what. Ari and Bill were discussing a class that they had together, and Eric was playing with his daughter. She was starting to walk now, and oddly enough, not getting into things. Yet. Ken noticed that her balance was quite remarkable for so young a child. He'd also noticed that Eric was bringing her to the classes he and Sensei taught -- not that she was learning anything, of course. But then, as he thought about it, he wondered if that was true. She never made a sound during class, and she always seemed to be intently watching them. Ken didn't know anything about small children, but even so, her behavior seemed a little odd.

Once her Dad put her down, Christine walked over to Joan, and gave her a big hug. Now that she had something to come home to, Joan was rarely at the office late. Next, the child found her mom, who picked her up, and held her to her breast so she could eat. Ken wondered when Sally would put her on solid food. He shook his head and smiled, wondering how long it would be before Joan was pregnant. He knew she wanted a child badly, and he knew she was physically capable of carrying one to term.

"Joan," he said, a little later that evening, "when are you going to be moving in with us?"

"Huh?" she asked, looking over at him and sipping her wine. As usual, she as working on her laptop.

"I said..."

"I heard you," she smiled. "I'm just not sure how to answer that."

Ken smiled and said, "Well, an answer of 'soon' wouldn't be bad."

Joan shook her head. "It's bad enough I'm spending so much time here as it is. I know that Sally and Eric won't move out, though, even though I have plenty of room at my place."

"Don't tell me," Ken said, "you feel like you're taking advantage of us, right?"

Joan closed her laptop and looked at Ken. "Yes. I do."

"Look," he replied, "I can understand if you need your own space. At the rate we're going, I might have to find money somewhere to actually add a wing onto this place. But if you're not moving in here because you think you're taking advantage of us, then that's foolish. You're not."

"You know, I feel so comfortable here," she said. "It's a little confusing in some ways."

"How so?"

"Well, I never thought of myself as a particularly religious person," she replied, making him blink. "But the ritual we did made me feel... complete in a way I'd never imagined. Sally and Jane and I have been talking a lot about your religion and I must say that I like what they've been teaching me."

She sounded like she had more to say, so Ken just waited.

Joan gave him a cocky grin and said, "It goes without saying that I was surprised to learn that you are a Priest."

"Yes, well," he temporized, "I was a bit surprised when that happened, too."

Joan started to say something, then stopped. Ken cocked an eyebrow at her but she shook her head.

"Naa," she said, "you'd think I was nuts."

"Oh? Try me," he replied. "I'm a Priest, after all. I'm supposed to be understanding of people who are nuts."

"Gee thanks," she said dryly. "I just... well, I've been having these very vivid dreams over these last few months. I mean, at times, they're so real that I could almost swear they weren't dreams. And there's always this woman in them. Then, at the last ritual, I could swear that I saw her. My memory must be confused, because of course she couldn't actually have been there, no matter how real it seemed. It's all a little embarrassing."

"What does she look like?" asked Ken.

Of course, Joan described Lea.

"Has she bothered you?" he asked.

"Bothered? Aside from the dreams being so real, I can't say I'm bothered, no," replied Joan frowning. "But she seems so real."

"Maybe she is."

"Oh, Ken. Don't be silly. If I only see her in dreams, then how could she be real?"

"Are you so sure they were dreams?" he asked, smiling.

"Of course they were dreams," Joan said with a short laugh. "No one could be that impossibly beautiful."

Ken shrugged and replied, "So, if She's just a dream, what's got you bugged?"

"I guess that she seems so real, that sometimes I can't be sure."

"Then maybe," smiled Ken, "She's not a dream, after all."

"You're not helping," frowned Joan.

"Of course, I'm helping," he said, his smile growing larger, "I'm listening, aren't I?"

"Well, yes. But don't you have any suggestions?"

"I always find it very peaceful to walk in the Garden," he said. "It can help to clear your mind; maybe even help you decide what's real and what's not."

And that was all he'd said, remembered Joan as she lay beside her lovers that night. She had ceased to be amazed by their capacity for love-making -- and by her own eagerness to join them. She was acting like a hormone-laden teen, and at her age, it was a little embarrassing.

Joan's body was sated, but her mind just would not relax and let her sleep. Her thoughts were spinning, going from one topic to another, but always revolving around her dreams of the woman. Finally, she decided to get up, since she didn't want to wake Sally and Eric with her restless shifting. Joan padded downstairs, naked of course, and poured herself more wine. Goose bumps raised on her skin from the slight chill as she left the kitchen and wandered outside, eventually finding her way into the Garden. She smiled, thinking of Ken's earlier advice.

"It was good advice," came a lilting voice.

Joan jumped, spilling her wine, then spun around.

"Oh my god, you almost scared me to death!" she said as she looked up.

"May I help you with that?" asked the woman, indicating the wine Joan had spilled on herself.

Joan completely forgot her wine-soaked skin. Hell, she forgot to breathe. This was her, the woman that kept showing up in her dreams. Joan was sure though, that this was no dream. Beyond that one small piece of knowledge, thinking was simply not possible. Breathing wasn't so easy either. Feeling... that she could do. Despite her earlier love-making, she felt her breasts swelling, her sex filling with blood, and her thighs getting wet. Her nipples were hard points, pushing toward the woman, who was moving toward her.

As had happened in her dreams, the long, warm fingers closed around hers and took the glass from her hand. The woman took a sip, then formally offered the glass back to Joan, holding it for her as she drank.

"You ache for a family," she said. "You have one, here. You want a child. Eric, who is one of my Priests, can give you one. You worry about your age. Don't. I have accepted you. My Circle has accepted you. When will you accept us? When will you stop denying yourself what you truly want?"

Joan tried to find her voice and form words. It was so difficult to think through the erotic haze covering her mind, but slowly, she was able to get out the two word sentence: "I'm afraid."

The woman nodded. "Of course you are. You have lived a life in which there was no room for your spirit to grow and be complete." She tilted her head. "Is there room now? Will you make the room?"

She smiled at Joan, then walked toward the edge of the Garden, disappearing as she reached it. Joan's breathing slowly returned to normal, and her mind began to function again. She sat in the grass, no longer chilled, and closed her eyes, her mind beginning to work and her body calming. Why was she afraid? There were many reasons, she supposed, but were her fears worth losing a chance for happiness?

Hours later, when she finally got back to bed, she sighed happily as she snuggled up against Eric's warm body. His arms went around her and he held her tight to him, warming her chilled skin.

Joan wasn't the only restless person in the mansion. Bill, too, was often having difficulty sleeping of late, even after Genie -- and whomever else they brought to their bed -- did their best to exhaust him. School was going well, his fiancée was wonderful, one of his programs was getting ready to be released... what was it that was making him so restless?

Several things, actually, he realized one morning while on campus. He was accomplishing the things that he'd always hoped he would: school, creating commercial-level applications, and -- wonder of wonders -- he even had a great relationship with an amazing woman. But there were some things he just couldn't get his head around. At first, he hadn't given them much notice, but once he'd gone back to the regular semester at college, he'd started to notice... oddities.

He was a healthy male. Not outstanding-looking, but he was in generally good shape. Despite spending most of his time at a keyboard, he enjoyed mountain biking (he, Sandy, Ken and Jane still did that at least once a week), the martial arts classes were great, and he had even grown to enjoy swimming. (Well, what was not to like about that? The women at the mansion swam nude.)

Still, this semester he seemed to be getting more than his fair share of looks from women, and a rather large number of them were making a point of trying to get to know him. The women at the mansion (and they were not what he would call typical) would make love with him at the drop of a hat. And he'd found himself more than ready to go when they wanted to play around. There was no jealousy (something that still puzzled him) and everyone was generally happy. But here on campus, he'd been hit on more times his first week than he had in all his previous years. It was unnerving. Of course, these women didn't react the way the he was used to. Some got huffy, no matter how graciously he turned them down. Some didn't understand the word 'No', and a few, when he'd told them that he was engaged, offered a threesome. He'd tried discussing it with Genie, but she'd just smiled and told him he should enjoy himself.

As if. There was no way he'd risk getting some kind of disease, or getting someone pregnant. He was protected at the mansion; he knew everyone there was clean, and that they weren't going to get pregnant (not that he'd ever stopped to wonder why he was so sure of those things). However, his experience with the women on campus did not match what he'd spent the summer learning at the mansion. Hell, even Tina acted more mature than these girls did, and she was only fifteen!

It wasn't that he wasn't interested in some of them, either. Which brought him to wonder about some of the fantasies he'd been having. There was one girl in particular, in one of his classes, that he thought was very attractive. He had been sitting there watching her one time, and started to fantasize about her. One would think that with all the sex he was getting, that he wouldn't have the energy for fantasies, but he did. In this one, she was opening herself to a man for the first time. She was nervous, but he calmed her and slowly took her virginity, even managing to bring her to orgasm more than once. Her sweet nipples, long and hard, spent a lot of time in his mouth, where they received plenty of nipping and sucking. He ate her to orgasm once before sliding into her pussy, breaking her hymen and then slowly fucking her to another orgasm.

Once he had returned his attention back to the classroom, he could see the points of her nipples pushing against her tank top. She had been squirming in her seat, and she had turned to look at him, her eyes glassy with lust. Now, Bill was very used to getting that look from the mansion women; he wasn't used to seeing it on a woman he didn't know, who was just sharing a class with him. But he couldn't shake the feeling that she had been having a fantasy, too. In fact, insane as it sounded, he was beginning to think she had been having the same fantasy that he'd been having... naaa. That was nuts.

But the incident had followed him the rest of that day. And he'd had the same sort of experience twice more during the week -- once more with her, and once with another cute girl he'd been checking out. Actually, the second time with Carol (he'd discovered her name), it hadn't been a fantasy... exactly. It was more like he was viewing a sexual encounter from her viewpoint, which had been very disconcerting. Also, very intense.

Then there was the fact that most of his classes seemed ridiculously easy this semester. He couldn't understand why. These were some of the most difficult classes he'd taken yet, but they seemed far easier than they should be. He'd always been smart, but these classes were supposed to be challenging him, and they...