Mike Reynolds was naked and standing in an old churchyard. Above him the moon shone brightly in the night sky. The night air was cool enough to raise goose bumps on his exposed flesh. The long grass felt damp beneath his toes. A thick layer of white mist, enough to cover his feet up to his ankles, flowed over the secluded graveyard.

Mike didn't know what he was doing here. He thought he was asleep in bed, but this felt too real to be a dream. His senses were sharp and fully in focus. He felt the crispness of the night air. He felt the dampness of the grass sticking up between his toes. He heard an owl hooting in a nearby copse.

She waited for him on a raised gravestone. Her narrow face was whiter than the moon and glowed with its own luminescence. Her long black hair was swept back and flowed down between her shoulders like a waterfall of shadows. Hers was a cruel beauty; icy, perfect and utterly irresistible.

A shawl or cloak, raven-black like her hair, was wrapped around her pale body. Mike saw only the tops of her pale shoulders. A pale white hand emerged from the darkness. She looked down at Mike with cold blue eyes and beckoned him with an elegant finger. Caught, hooked like a fish, he couldn't resist and stumbled up the small rise towards her. She smiled with full lips the colour of a bruise.

Mike didn't know what he was doing here or even if this was real. All he knew was he had to go to her, to be with her, fulfil her desires.

This was wrong.

She opened her arms and her cloak opened out with them. Her slender white body sat at the heart of unfolding darkness. Around her the complicated folds of her spreading cloak quivered with an obscene life of their own. It looked like the membranous wings of a bat, the midnight black material held together by a complex framework of thin bones. The edges of the cloak were ragged and the bones extended outwards into long, curving black hooks.

She transfixed him with her piercing blue eyes.

Come to me.

The words resounded in his thoughts without ever having passed through his ears.

No. Wake up. He had to wake up.

Come to me.

He stepped forward into her embrace. Her arms came together behind his back and pulled him onto her. The black folds of her cloak wrapped tightly around him, enveloping him in darkness.

He felt the sharp pinpricks of hundreds of needles all across his body. The pain was immediately numbed as an icy liquid flowed into his veins. At first there was discomfort and then it was swept aside by a tsunami of euphoria that flooded his body and dissolved his mind.

Her black folds pulled tighter, dragging him down into endless darkness.

Mike woke with a gasp. He was disoriented at first, but then he recognised the dim walls of his own bedroom. It was still dark outside. Dawn was a long way off.

That dream again. The pale girl and the graveyard. The same uncomfortable tightness in his boxers.

It was never a proper wet dream. Even though he always woke with a massive erection straining against the fabric of his nightclothes, there were never any stains or dampness. The dream always took him close to the edge of ejaculation, but never over.

For which he was grateful. He feared what might happen should the dream ever last long enough for the apparition to bring him to orgasm.

Shivering, Mike slid out of bed and walked awkwardly to the bathroom.

"Mike?"

Mike's eyes flicked open. He realised his head was nodding down towards the keyboard. His boss, Greg Snow, was staring at him with a concerned expression.

"I'm worried about you," Greg said once they were both in his office. "You look tired."

Mike was mortified. He'd fallen asleep at his desk, right in front of his boss.

"I haven't been sleeping very well," Mike admitted, hanging his head.

"I want you to take a couple of days off," Greg said, "and go see someone. She's unorthodox, but she's very good from what I've heard."

"But the deadline," Mike said.

"It's an order," Greg said firmly. He looked at Mike with a warmer expression. "You're my best developer. If we're going to have any chance of repairing the damage left by those cowboys over at Streamline Software I need you firing on all cylinders."

Come to me.

Soft membranes slid over his naked body. He was wrapped in darkness, his movements restricted, his limbs pinioned at his sides.

Bony ribs dragged against his flesh. He felt something sharp scratching his skin. There was brief pain as his skin was punctured. Icy venom flowed into his veins.

Mike woke with a gasp.

"How long have you been having these recurring nightmares?"

"A few weeks now," Mike replied.

He was a little embarrassed to talk about it, but not as embarrassed as he'd thought he'd be. Inari Kitson helped. She projected a calming aura that put Mike at ease. That surprised him as well. He'd always used to feel a little uncomfortable in the presence of pretty girls and Inari was strikingly beautiful.

Her face could have belonged to a model. She had long, platinum blonde hair so light it was almost silver. This was no blonde airhead though. Her blue eyes sparkled with intelligence and she was immaculately dressed in a no-nonsense business suit. She was here to do a job and wasn't about to let her appearance become a distraction.

She had a psychiatrist's couch, but perhaps sensing Mike would be uncomfortable lying on it, she'd motioned him to one of the comfortable black armchairs instead. Mike had been reticent at first, but gradually he'd picked up more composure until he'd described the dream in full detail.

"Interesting," Inari said. "You describe the dream as a nightmare and yet you wake up with a full erection. When you are in the dream, do you feel arousal or fear?"

"Both," Mike replied. "I see the girl and I want to be with her more than anything, but that isn't me, it's like something else is making me feel this. And as I get close to her a feeling of anxiety grows inside me, like I'm walking to my own doom."

Inari was impassive as she wrote down some notes.

"Have there been any nocturnal emissions?" she asked.

Nocturnal emissions? What did she... ? Oh.

Mike blushed.

"No," he said. "The dream always ends before I ... uh ... come."

Each night the dream seemed to take him a little closer though.

"After you wake do you ever attempt to finish yourself off manually?"

Mike blushed again, remembering his furtive night time trips to the toilet.

"Yes," he confessed. "But I never manage it."

He would sit on the toilet and rub his hand up and down his swollen cock until it was sore from the fiction, but he couldn't find relief or even produce so much as a single drop. Eventually he'd give up, go back to bed and lie awake until his alarm went off several hours later.

"Do you ever find your job stressful?" Inari asked.

"Sometimes," Mike replied, "if there's a tight deadline looming. But most of the time I enjoy it. I'm a software developer. I like creating tools that help other people."

Inari scribbled down some more notes. She looked straight up at Mike.

"When was the last time you had sex?"

There hadn't been anyone since Alex, Mike thought. A dream job offer had taken her out of the country back in ... wow, had it really been that long. Since then he hadn't really had many opportunities to meet members of the opposite sex.

"Not for some time," Mike replied.

"I thought as much," Inari said. "The mind is a complicated organ. Outwardly you might think you're coping fine, but inside you're squashing down a lot of repressed desires. Mix in a little stress from work and it's inevitable that some cracks will start to appear. These nightmares are an expression of that strain."

She noticed Mike's look of fear and softened her serious expression to a warm smile.

"You're not nuts if that's what you're worried about," she said.

Mike let out a pent up breath he hadn't even realised he'd been holding.

"You are a little over wound though," she said. "We need to do something about that before it starts to damage your physical wellbeing. I want you to take tomorrow off. I'm going to send over a specialist to visit you. She'll show you a few relaxation techniques to help you get some of that tenseness out of your system."

Inari smiled brightly.

"She's a lovely girl. I'm sure you'll get on very well with her."

Come to me.

The pale girl waited for him on a tombstone. Above her the moon shone luminously in the night sky. A thick layer of white mist carpeted the graveyard.

Come to me.

The girl opened her arms wide. Her cloak unfurled and surrounded her like a black pall.

It wasn't a cloak. It was alive.

He saw a series of membranes stretched over a web of narrow bones. The black interior was tinged with red and put the uncomfortable image of a gaping maw into Mike's mind. Serrated ridges extended from hollow grooves within the ribs. A greenish fluid oozed from their tips and glistened in the moonlight.

Come to me.

He couldn't resist.

Mike stepped forward into her embrace. Her membranes folded around his body, wrapping tightly against him. Her legs opened to receive him and he shivered in pleasure as his cock plunged into her waiting warmth.

Her membranes pulled tighter, enfolding him with a warm second skin. He felt the serrated ridges puncture his skin. The pain was immediately numbed as icy venom trickled into his body. The drug saturated his nervous system and a euphoric blast of bliss roared through him.

He felt a strong suction as her vagina tugged at his cock. The pulses travelled out across her membranes and he shuddered with delight as she rhythmically squeezed him.

Come into me.

Her voice whispered seductively into his mind. Her membranes throbbed around his body. Her pussy throbbed around his cock. He felt the substance of his body stream down into his balls until they were swollen with his vitality.

Come into me.

Oh yes, he was going to—

Mike woke up. His cock twitched and throbbed painfully against the constricting fabric of his nightclothes. His balls ached. He was so close to coming it hurt.

He rushed to the bathroom, but the feeling was already starting to subside. He masturbated vigorously, but was unable to obtain the release his body craved. He sat on the toilet and tugged up and down until his cock was bright red and painful.

He sat there for a while in the darkness. Then he went back to bed and stared at the ceiling until dawn's glow finally seeped in through the curtains.

The doorbell rang at two in the afternoon. Until then Mike had been at a bit of a loss with what to do with himself. He'd pottered aimlessly around the house.

He opened the door and found a surprise waiting for him on the other side. There was a girl waiting for him on the doorstep. That wasn't the surprise; Inari had told him the specialist was a woman. The surprise was what the girl was wearing.

The girl was wearing a two-piece bikini. That was all. She carried a blue plastic bucket in one hand and a long blue lilo under the other arm. The plastic air mattress was bigger than she was. She was dressed like she was just about to walk down to the beach.

Mike lived a long way from the coast.

"Hello, I'm Arisa Harte," she said. "Inari sent me."

She was very pretty, Mike thought. Her face was clearly Asian, epicanthic folds giving her the classic almond shaped eyes. Those eyes were brown and glittered with the promise of fun. Her body was a little curvier than the typical oriental figure though, her breasts filling out her pink bikini top quite nicely.

Mike realised more of a response was expected from him than standing around with his mouth hanging open like an idiot.

"Come in," he said.

"Thank you," Arisa said, breezing past him like a gust of summer wind.

She walked into his house with the same confidence as if it was her own. She checked the rooms until she came across the bathroom. She looked at the small room and clicked her tongue against her teeth.

"Too small," she said. "We'll have to use the kitchen."

She turned briskly round and headed towards the back of the house. Mike, confused, followed in her wake. He found himself staring at the tight little globes of her bum. She was in very good shape.

And wearing nothing but a bikini...

And in Mike's house...

This was turning into a strange afternoon.

"Yes, that's perfect," she said, looking at the wide expanse of his tiled kitchen floor.

She laid the air mattress down on the floor in front of the sink. She put the bucket down next to it and took out a selection of small plastic bottles, which she placed on the floor next to the head of the lilo. Humming a tune to herself, she took the bucket to the sink and started to fill it up. She selected one of the plastic bottles and squirted its contents into the bucket. The water started to lather up in foam.

Mike watched in bemusement. At least she seemed to know what she was doing.

"So you're suffering from stress," Arisa said as water flowed into the bucket.

"Lack of sleep mainly," Mike said. "A recurring nightmare keeps waking me up."

"You do look a little tired," Arisa said. "We'll soon sort that out."

She put the half full bucket down next to the bed. She scooped up handfuls of soapy water and splashed it onto the air mattress.

"Now if you could take off your clothes and lie down here please," Arisa said.

"What, all of them?" Mike asked.

"Well, you could leave something on, but it's going to end up getting very wet," Arisa said. She looked up at him and smiled. Her brown eyes twinkled. She splashed more soapy water onto the bright blue lilo.

Mike did as she asked and undressed. He lay face down on the mattress. It was warm and slippery with the soapy water.

"Um, what exactly are these relaxation techniques?" Mike asked.

"Massage," Arisa replied. "Remove the tension from the body and you remove the tension from the mind."

She kneeled next to the raised pillow of the air mattress. She was reaching up behind her back to unhook her bikini top when she paused and looked down at Mike.

"Oh, you don't mind if I'm fully naked while giving the massage?" she asked. "I prefer to work that way, but if you feel uncomfortable with that I can perform the massage with my clothes on."

"It's fine," Mike said. "Do what you feel is best."

Arisa smiled and removed her bikini top. Her unfettered breasts jiggled as the pink slip of material fell away. They were very attractive breasts, Mike noted, ripe and full and topped with dusky brown nipples.