Chapter 1

That night, Alison came to me in a dream. She was in a silver cage, naked, crouched like an animal. Her wings and tail added to her predator aspect, but she was also a beautiful woman, in trouble. I don’t remember much, but I know that she told me she needed me. She told me to come to Manresa, California. She said I should get a job - something that will let me meet people - and to wait for her to contact me again. The next day I drove there. The day after that I rented an apartment. The day after that, I got a job at a deli.

Manresa was a small Northern California town surrounded by a handful of wineries and orchards. It was a nice place, full of character. The deli that I worked at was on the central town square, and it gave me a good opportunity to meet people. That’s not something that comes naturally to me, but I made it a point to try. I had the feeling that it was important to Alison’s plan.

Of course it was easiest to get to know the people my age: recent high school graduates - the ones who hadn’t gone off to college and were now begrudgingly joining the working world. Most of them talked about where they would move, once they had some money saved up. I was something of a mystery, having chosen to move to the town that they dreamed of fleeing.

It was a slow rainy day when I met Clover and Sarah. They came in for sandwiches, and we chatted while I pretended to clean near them. They had just come a movie, and we talked at length about how it had differed from the comic.

That night I left the windows open as I fell asleep to the sound of rain, and Alison came to me in my dreams again.

She was in her cage, in a basement. The cage was made out of twisted strands of silver wire. It was too short to stand up in, but big enough to afford some comfort, sitting. Moonlight streamed in through a window. I would have expected Alison to be distraught, but instead she was happy.

“So what do you think of Clover?” Alison asked excitedly.

“Clover?” I asked, a bit confused. “I like her. She’s different.”

“She’s super-cute, huh?” Alison went on. “And nice. And she likes the same music as you.”

“Well, yeah...” I stammered. “Alison, what’s going on?”

Alison’s face got serious again. “I’ve been captured by a coven,” she said. “It’s really just Clover, her mother, and grandmother, but they’re organized. I don’t know what they have planned for me, but I think it’s going to be bad. Whatever it is, it’ll happen at the winter solstice.”

She shifted to sit more comfortably. God she was beautiful. My eyes traced the curves from her naked back, to her butt, to her thighs, over and over. Sometimes when she moved I could see some side-boob that kept derailing my thoughts.

“I need you to take Clover’s virginity,” Alison said. “Or rather, I need her to give it to you. I need her to fall in love with you, and forsake her chastity. That will weaken the coven’s spell enough for me to break free.”

I frowned. “Alison, I would do anything for you. But make a girl fall in love with me? You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m not someone that girls fall in love with.”

“Believe me, James, you are!” She said. “I ... You’re a romantic, James. Just get to know her. Don’t force it. See what happens. Anyway, you’re off to a good start. Tonight in the bathtub she made her self come with the shower head while thinking of you. That’s the first time she masturbated in all the time I’ve been trapped in this house.”

The dream started to break apart - I knew it was ending, somehow. Alison did, too. “James, when you sleep from now on, leave the curtains open. I can only reach you if I have a moonlight bridge!”

The next day, Clover and Sarah came in for sandwiches again. Clover blushed a little when Sarah pushed her into talking to me while I made their subs. You wouldn’t choose the word beautiful for Clover, but it wouldn’t be wrong to describe her as stunningly, breathtakingly cute. She had short strawberry-blond hair, held out of her face with a hair clip. Her eyes were Lake Tahoe blue, and she had a light sprinkling of freckles on her nose and cheeks. I couldn’t tell much about her upper body through her baggy sweatshirt, but her legs were smooth and sexy.