Chapter 5

Cathy's eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright in the otherwise empty bed. Sunlight was streaming through the window. The clock read 9:45. She hadn't slept that late in years. But her mind was on last night and the exciting sexual odyssey which, even this morning seemed so vivid, so real. It was a dream, wasn't it? she asked herself. She glanced at the mirror, but the surface, though dark, was cold and hard once again.

Cathy realized she was naked, but that, in itself, proved nothing. She sometimes slept in the nude. Her eyes cast downward onto the shredded pieces of what once had been her teddy and panties.

She gasped, remembering how her lover had ripped them from her. Could she have torn them from herself, she wondered, perhaps in the throes of a vivid fantasy/dream? Almost having convinced herself that was the case, she smiled, telling herself she must have more dreams like that one.

Throwing back the covers, Cathy threw on a dressing gown and started for the bathroom. After only a few steps however, she stopped short, her eyes widening as she felt the fluid from her nest oozing down her legs. Collecting some with her fingers, she examined it, expecting a feminine discharge, but what met her eyes, fingers and sense of smell was the unmistakable texture and odor of..."

MY GOD! her mind shrieked, IT WAS REAL! But how? Why? Did he really come through the mirror?

She whirled to look at the silvered surface, but only her own image stared back. As she walked toward her reflection, her mind was a jumble of confusion, excitement and fear. What really happened last night, she pondered as she touched the hard surface. But the hazy glass was still, cold and hard and only her own reflection met her eye.

She jumped at the loud knock on the bedroom door.

"Hey, lazy bones, are you going to sleep all day?"

It was Sierra.

"Getting up right this minute," she shouted back, tying the sash of her robe and hurrying from the room.

As the four women sat around the evening dinner table, Cathy's mind kept flashing back to last night. Puzzled, yet excited, she was impatient for the evening to be over so she could return to her room and the mirror. Would it happen again? Could she somehow summon her spectral lover for another romantic/erotic tryst? So engrossed in her own thoughts was she, that Cathy was hardly aware that Sierra had turned the conversation to her now favorite topic, boys.

"Are there some good looking boys here Grandma?"

"Nope. Sorry, they're all as ugly as mud fences," teased Jessica.

"Oh, come on now Grandma. Surely there's one who would have pity on me and take me on a date... when I turn a hundred and ten, because that's how old I'll be before Mom gives her OK."

"Hummm, what's that about dating?" Cathy joined in, breaking her private reverie.

"Dates, Mom. You know, boys and girls, going out together... alone!"

"Well it's that alone business that scares me. Honey, you know I trust you, it's just..."

"Yeah, I know. We've been over this again and again. But Mom, not every guy is out there just waiting to rape me."

"I know, honey, I know. But when the day comes, I want your first time to be special. I want it to be with whom you want and how you want and for all the right reasons."

"How about you Grandma? What was your first time like?" asked Sierra, turning to Jessica.

"Sierra!" cried Cathy, shocked by her daughter's frankness.

"No, it's all right," responded Jessica, "maybe she needs to know. Sometimes we parental figures can teach best by horrible example."

"What do you mean Grandma?"

"Honey, there was absolutely nothing special about my first time. I was a senior in high school. Three other girls and I were invited to a fraternity party at the college near where we lived. I lied to Mom and Dad, who I knew would never have let me go and told them we were going to the movies. The four of us showed up at the frat house only to find four fraternity brothers and no party. They said we'd have our own party. There was some drinking and necking and finally the boys suggested we play strip poker there on the floor in the front room of the frat house. They assured us the other brothers had been warned off and the house was theirs for the evening. Either the other girls had some experience at playing poker or else I just had a run of bad luck. Either way, they still had most of their clothes on while I was quickly down to bra and panties. The boys suggested we play the next hand double or nothing. If I won I got to put all my clothes back on, but if I lost I had to strip naked. Like an idiot I agreed and then lost badly. I was ready to pick up and leave, but my girlfriends chided me into it. I took off everything. Needless to say I was absolutely mortified as my girlfriends giggled and the boys eyes nearly popped out. Then my girlfriends suggested one more hand. If I won, I could dress and we would leave, but a losing hand meant the boys could draw straws for who got to take my virginity."

Sierra's eyes widened as Jessica continued.

"Foolishly I agreed, but when I lost again, I really didn't think anyone was serious about me going through with it. When the boys started to play "high card", I got up and started to dress, but my girlfriends shamed me into staying and paying my bet. A boy with wavy brown hair won and so, with my girl friends and three other fraternity brothers watching, I lost my virginity on the floor of a fraternity house to a boy whose name I didn't even know. I cried for three days, not so much for losing my virginity, but to think I gave it away so cheaply. Luckily, I didn't get pregnant and I met your grandfather a short time later. We were married as soon as I graduated. Your Mama was born nine months later."

"So it turned out OK," opined Sierra.

"In the sense that your Grandpa and I were very happy together for twenty-two years, but the one regret I have is that I couldn't give him a virgin on our wedding night."

"Is that story really true?" asked the teenager.

"Absolutely," replied Jessica.

"OK, lesson taught and learned," said Sierra.

"I hope so," chimed in Cathy, "now let's get these dishes washed."

The evening hours had seemed to crawl by for Cathy as she impatiently waited until the earliest possible moment she could feign sleepiness and proclaim it bedtime. The others chided her kiddingly as she excused herself and tried not to rush up the stairs to her room. She quickly undressed, turned off the lights and stood naked before the mirror. Only moments later the misty surface began to swirl and glow. She waited, her mind picturing the handsome and rugged figure from the previous evening.

"Catherine," came the same low voice.

"Yes, Yes, I'm here," she cried softly.

"I am here for you if that is what you want."

"Yes! Please!" she implored.

The same figure as before stepped slowly through the glass.

"I... don't have to touch the glass?" she asked.

"Not any more," replied the handsome lover. "Once the link is established I can visit you whenever you want. All you need do is wish it so, either aloud or in your mind."

"Then I wish for another night just like last night."

Instantly she was in his arms, within seconds on the bed and within a heartbeat he was filling her. Her orgasms were, if anything, even more intense than the night before, Cathy screaming with ecstasy as her body convulsed with pleasure, knowing that no one else could hear. Again she was sated to near exhaustion.

"My God," she cried, "can you be this good every night?"

"Of course Catherine, I can be anything or anyone you want, real or imaginary"

"You mean you can become someone else?"

"Of course. Who and what I am is determined by your thoughts, your desires, your wishes."

"You mean you could change into someone else right now if I simply wanted you to?"

"Go ahead try it. Picture someone in your mind."

"Man or woman?" she asked, the latest syndicated episode of her favorite feminine TV adventure series flashing through her mind.

"Whatever you desire," he answered.

She closed her eyes and conjured the beautiful blonde woman in her mind. She created a scenario in which she, Cathy, would assume the role of the heroine who had just rescued her companion from certain death.

The voice which came to her was soft, feminine and unmistakable.

"Xena, I owe you my life. How can I ever repay you?"

Cathy opened her eyes and beheld by candlelight the lovely face, expressive eyes and sensuous lips of the woman Cathy had found even more fascinating than the lead character.

"I think you'll find a way, Gabrielle," whispered Cathy, pulling back the sheets to reveal her nudity and accepting the warm lips and inventive tongue of the beautiful woman.

"Here, here is where I want your kisses," crooned Cathy as her hands gently led the woman's face to her nest. Cathy had had a brief lesbian affair in college, but the woman between her legs at this moment made her previous lover seem inexperienced and crude by comparison.

"Yes, Gabrielle, yes, I'm coming!" she moaned, and in her mind and her bed, the tender lips of her companion kissed her to climax and drank deeply of her precious orgasmic juices. The two women feasted on each other's bodies until the early morning hours when, again, Cathy slept in the arms of her lover only to awaken alone the next morning.

Cathy wondered how such erotic delights were possible, but as, each night, she was swept into the arms of a new lover, she feared questioning her good fortune, concerned that too much analysis might in some way corrupt or even destroy the good fortune she was enjoying. Over the next two weeks the thirty-one year old sampled the romantic, sensuous and carnal favors of many of the leading men and women of Hollywood and Television. She was becoming more inventive in terms of the scenarios she thought up to accompany her sexual trysts. One night, two weeks after her first sexual adventure with the mirror, she stood in front of it and its swirling glow.

"Catherine," came the whispered voice.

"I'm here," she answered.

"I, of course, will give you whatever experience you desire. So far, you have always chosen sensual pleasure."

"Is that so bad?" she asked of the voice.

"Not at all, and if you so desire it can continue, but you should be aware that other experiences are also possible."

"What kinds of experiences?" she asked.

"Those involving other emotions."

"What do you mean?"

"An example: think of someone who has wronged you, hurt you deeply."

Cathy did not have to search far in her mind to provide a name.

"Janice Wong," came the voice, "You detest her."

"That might not be a strong enough word," smirked Cathy.

"Would you like revenge?"

"How?"

"Just will it and that too is possible, just as your sexual needs have been met."

"She won't really be hurt? I mean the real Janice Wong?"

"The reality exists in this room but nowhere else. Simply picture in your mind what retribution you desire."

OK, here's what I want, she thought. Instantly she stood in leather corset and spike heels as Janice Wong knelt at her feet in chains, hands behind her back. Janice had been Cathy's superior at the company from which Cathy had been let go. Twice Janice had copped Cathy's work calling it her own and had dressed Cathy down in front of company executives. Finally, Janice had recommended that Cathy be released while keeping a younger male graphic artist, Jim, whose work was vastly inferior to Cathy's. Cathy knew the reason; Janice was bedding down the young man on a regular basis, so when someone had to go, it was the woman by whom she felt threatened professionally and who was the wrong sex to satisfy a straight woman's sexual needs. Janice had somehow found out that Cathy was bisexual and had spread embarrassing rumors. Cathy had come to hate the woman long before she had been given the axe, but had never confronted her. Now was her chance, at least in her world of fantasy.