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From: "Jim C" <jimc_author@hotmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Dream State 12 (MF FF Mult fant rom cons mc Mdom oral) by JiMC
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Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 17:10:04 -0400
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JiMC is only a pseudonym.  Respect my privacy and I'll respect yours.

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Copyright

    This work is copyright (c) 2000-2004 with all rights
reserved by its author.  The author specifically states that
this work may be redistributed, without charge, as long as it
is published with the same the story name ("Dream State"),
author ("JimC"), and that the story is distributed in its
entirety, including the disclaimer and all chapters.  You may
also modify this story by partitioning this into multiple
parts, as long as this disclaimer is included on each part.
I specifically do NOT permit this story to be published on
any site that charges any mandatory membership fees.

    The web sites StoriesOnline (http://storiesonline.net)
and ASSTR (http://asstr-mirror.org) have explicit permission to
archive this story.

    The following is a work of fiction (actually, "FANTASY").
Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely
coincidental and rather far fetched, if you ask me.

    This is a story that describes some sexually explicit
situations in a fictional (remember fiction?) setting.  The
target audience is adults (people over the age of eighteen)
with broad minds.  This audience is getting harder and harder
to find each year.

    Final disclaimer--I doubt that any of the people would
act in the way described herein, or even if things described
herein are even possible.  This is just fantasy, and should
be treated as such.  This fantasy takes place in the mid
1970s to late 1980s, without any fear from AIDS or any other
sexually transmitted diseases, so don't try this at home.

[Author's note: The first two parts to this story were
written as a setup for the rest of the story.  As such, they
are trying to convey a rather unique experience and don't
convey much (or even any!) sexual debauchery.  But you really
should read them if you wish to enjoy or understand the rest
of the story.]

Title: Dream State

Author: JiMC

Version: $Revision: 1.12 $ $Date: 2004/07/31 03:06:02 $

Chapter 12--"I'm not one of those who can easily hide..."

    I'm not sure how long it took for Aimee to drive the four
of us to Debbie's ranch.  I sat in the back, laying on Mary's
lap and closed my eyes.  I let the girls think that I was
asleep, but I was really just trying to work out the
situation in my mind.

    Somebody was interested in us--probably interested in me.
The "why" was understandable; I had this mind power.  The
interesting question was, how did they know about it?

    There were a number of possible answers to that question.
One answer was one or more of us did something that may have
given us away.  Another answer was that whatever happened
that had given me this power was by design; it could very
well be that somebody may have known about it even before I
became aware of it!  Yet another possibility was that one of
my lovelies, or one of Debbie's assistants may, in fact, be
working for somebody else.

    Part of that last possibility I really had to reject.  I
had been inside the minds of Mary, Debbie, and Aimee... with
(and, I had to admit, without) their permission.  Not one of
them had given me any reason not to trust them completely.

    When I first met Debbie's employees, I had a fleeting
desire to scan their minds.  At the time, I had rationalized
that desire as being similar to with Aimee's "are these good
people?" feelings.  However, that justification fell apart
even as I thought it; it just didn't ring true.  There was
also the realization that I haven't yet figured out how
Mary's and Debbie's "binding" to me had occurred and I had no
desire to expand my harem.

    I thought about Debbie's two other employees that I had
met.  June was cute, probably the image that comes into your
mind when you hear the Beach Boys singing about California
girls.  She was tall, skinny, dirty blonde--almost
brown--haired with one blue and one green eye.  Her breasts
were a bit on the smallish side, compared to Mary or
Debbie--about the same size as Aimee's, come to think of it.
I found out from talking to June that she fit the Beach Boys'
image in at least one other way: she loved driving cars fast!
June was professional enough that she didn't do any
unnecessary speeding when she chauffeured Debbie around, but
one of her pastimes was to race cars and motorbikes on race
tracks.

    Mely, Debbie's jet pilot, didn't strike me as cute at
first.  She was short, like Aimee, only five feet tall, give
or take an inch.  She had brown eyes, and larger breasts than
Aimee (at least, they looked large on her small frame).  Mely
had a boy friend that she has been seeing for a few years,
and I was told that she had been looking to marry him
sometime in the future.

    Thinking about Debbie's employees made me reject them as
possible spies.  If they were, Aimee should have definitely
been able to tell, right?  To tell the truth, even if
somebody had "planted" this ability into me, how would they
have known that I would eventually meet Debbie?  Debbie,
after all, was the wild card--who could have predicted that
she would have become susceptible to what I had to assume was
to a brain probe during a love session with Mary?  She seemed
to have been an innocent bystander that I seem to have
connected to at the time, and she's been with me ever since.
June and Mely had been working for Debbie almost as long as
Aimee had--it would have been one hell of a coincidence that
any of Debbie's employees could be spies.

    There were two other people that may have noticed
something suspicious about me: the purse snatching kid and
the policeman that apprehended him.  The policeman had been
suspicious about me at the time, although he seemed to soften
after talking with Mary and Debbie.  The fact remains that I
had manipulated the minds of those two people; they might
figure out that something abnormal was going on.

    For the first time since that happened, I thought about
the park.  At the time, when I realized that I had
manipulated the minds of two males without having them become
bonded to me, I felt as if a burden had been lifted.  Now,
thinking over the event, I wondered if I had done the proper
thing.  I had witnessed a crime in progress, and what I had
done, I had done without thinking, not even suspecting that
what I was doing had even been possible.  Maybe I shouldn't
have manipulated the policeman other than alerting him to the
event (I had also tried to make him think of me as not being
a threat), and if I had to do it all over again, maybe I
should avoid making that mistake again.  My only excuse is
that my mind seemed to do this on its own--maybe it was some
sort of defense mechanism.  As it was, neither the pickpocket
nor the policeman had any clue as to who I was.  At least, I
couldn't think of how either one could figure out my identity.

    Were there other people around when that scuffle
happened?  There was the victim, of course.  She might have
been amazed at how easy the purse snatcher had been caught,
but I decided that the whole event had shaken her; I didn't
see any reason why she would suspect that I had any special
powers.

    Apart from the victim, I couldn't remember anybody else
who saw what had happened.  I mean, the park wasn't empty at
the time.  I vaguely remember the policeman's entrance sort
of drew a crowd.  If anybody else saw what happened, would
they have been suspicious of me?  I couldn't see any reason
why, but I couldn't really discount the possibility.

    So, it was definitely possible that my own actions may
have given me away.

    In thinking about the incident in the park, I realized
that there was another thing I might be hesitant to repeat:
my "suggestion" to the kid to join the military.  It was a
stray idea at the time; I've known quite a few people that
were straightened out by basic training, and I had thought
this might be a way to reform a social deviant.  In
retrospect, I realize now that if the military was interested
in me, sending the kid to a recruiting office might be giving
them access to somebody that I had manipulated!  This was
probably just paranoia, though: my experience with the
military was that any part of it seldom had any idea what was
happening anywhere else within it.  I would have to give very
long odds that somebody in the military would ever be able to
associate that kid with me.  That thought still nagged at me,
however.

    Then there was one other possibility: that somebody knew
about my power, maybe even before I knew about it.  However,
like associating the purse snatcher with me, I considered
this to be another long shot.  After all, with the exception
of Aimee and me, who else would have such powers?  Aimee
talked about these powers almost mystically.  How much
credence would something as reality-based as the military
give to such superstitions?

    I still realized that sometimes long shots did pay off.
I couldn't simply ignore these things, but I also just
couldn't let myself be bogged down worrying about things I
couldn't control.

    Another uneasy thought had come to me: had there been
some sort of experimental procedure done on me while I was in
a coma?  If so, who had done so, and why?

    The "why" part was easy, if the person or people
responsible was trying to come up with a way to manipulate
minds.  Only a few years before I was hit by that jeep, the
excesses of the government had been splashed over the papers.
The American government had a long history with brainwashing,
behavior modification, and psychedelic drug tests.  However,
these had ceased after they became public knowledge... or had
they?

    It was easy to see that having a mind power like mine
would probably be seen as a useful tool by the intelligence
services, and also within the upper levels of the defense
department.  This was where the "who" question came in... and
it scared me.

    Aimee must have thought much along the same paths as I,
which is why she gave me that clue that it might be the
military.  How would I find out?  I was not trained for
intelligence gathering.  I was trained as a soldier, and then
had training with special operations.  Of course, O.C.S. was
there, but that was basically development of leadership
skills, and military analysis.  Intelligence was part of
O.C.S., but only as a tool.

    I believed that Mary had mentioned on some occasion when
I was recuperating in the hospital about being familiar with
intelligence, but I figured that to mean she was as familiar
as I was.  I just couldn't picture my lovely Mary as that
kind of an operative, but you never know.  I was on a marine
base that night, and the accident happened between two people
who were based in the army.  What were the odds of something
like that accident happening to two people who were only
supposed to be on the base for a very short period of time?

    I started thinking about the psychiatric debriefings at
the hospital after I awoke.  I wasn't a psychologist, but I
may have revealed something during one or more of my sessions
with the shrinks.  I really hadn't known anything about my
powers at the time, except that I didn't want to reveal the
dreams that I had while I was in a coma.  Shrinks are pretty
shrewd; they may have noticed that something in my answers
may not have been consistent, or that may have been evasive,
and they may have suspected that I must have been hiding
something.  How would they get to the truth?  What could I
have said that might have given somebody a clue as to my
powers, especially when I wasn't even conscious about them at
the time?

* * *

    As I was thinking about the hospital, I found myself back
in one of the therapist's offices.  I was amazed at the
amount of detail that I was remembering, when it occurred to
me that I wasn't remembering what I was seeing; I was
actually seeing it!  My presence had transported back into
the shrink's office.

    The office was empty, and was much the way that I had
remembered.  However, something told me that something was
subtly different than when I was there the last time.  What
was different?  I looked at the walls and tried to think if
anything had changed.  For some reason, something within me
told me that this was important.

    There were folders on the desk.  I could see a name on
the topmost one.  It wasn't mine, of course.  I had been
discharged many weeks ago, and any files about me would have
long ago been filed away.  There was a phone, a
calendar/blotter with some scribbles on it, a green desk
lamp, a name plate, a pencil holder.  Normal things found on
a desk...

    Wait!  The name plate.  It read Marcus Andersen.  That
was wrong!  The doctor that I had talked to was Dr. Farren.

    I looked around the office.  There were no signs of
somebody newly moved into the office.  It looked well used.
I looked back on the wall and saw Mr. Andersen's university
diploma.  There was a little dust on it.  Looking very close
at the wall, I could see that where the frame touched the
wall was a barely discernible mark where the paint hadn't
faded underneath the plaque.  This diploma had been on the
wall for some time.

    Most everything in this room was as I remembered it.  Why
did Dr. Farren use this office and not his own when he was
interviewing me?

    Maybe Dr. Farren was just a visiting doctor who happened
to get me on rotation from whatever hospitals he visits.

    Maybe somebody had sent Dr. Farren especially to
interview me.

    That would indicate that somebody would have a reason to
believe that there was something special about me.

    If that was true... then how long has somebody known that
there was something special to investigate?  Before I woke
up?  My mind boggled.

    This might be an important clue, but I couldn't see how
this could be useful to Aimee or Debbie in trying to find out
who was trying to investigate us.

    It did tell me something clear: I had reason to believe
that whoever was following us was probably focused on me.
This fit in with what the girls had told me.  If whoever was
involved could get in and out of a hospital without a
problem, then Aimee's hunch that the military was involved
was probably sound.

    I returned my presence back to my mind, and I woke up
with a start.  I hadn't realized that I had been sleeping,
actually!

    I could feel Mary's fingers idly rubbing my hair.  I
opened my eyes and she was smiling at me.  "Have a nice
sleep?" she asked.

    "I always love waking up and seeing your lovely face," I
said, intentionally not answering her question.

    Mary didn't seem to notice my subtle evasion and accepted
the compliment with her cute dimples reappearing.

    A thought remained: How would I get to the bottom of what
was going on?  How much could we do out here in the middle of
nowhere?

    I started to rise from Mary's lap, and she offered her
hand to help me up.  We were on a long, obviously private
road.

    Debbie noticed me getting up and turned to look at me.
"We're on the road that leads to the ranch."

    After a few minutes, Aimee pulled up to a rather
nondescript ranch house.  There was a pick-up truck that must
have been old even before I went into a coma, parked
haphazardly in the driveway.  This was a marked contrast from
the opulence of Debbie's "little shack" in Hawaii.

    Aimee parked the car in the driveway and told me she'd be
back in a few minutes.

    While Aimee was gone, Debbie explained about her ranch.
Despite the ranch house that I was looking at, the actual
spread was quite large.  There were two parts to it.  The
first and largest part was called the "working ranch" where
there was a family (Debbie's tenants) that actually worked
the ranch; the second part was a private domicile for Debbie
and Aimee's use called "the cabin."

    Debbie's tenants were a family that raised livestock like
horses and cattle and a few crops on the ranch.  The tenants
also maintained Debbie's cabin when Debbie wasn't around.
Apparently, we were at the ranch house at the working ranch
right now.

    Aimee was only inside the ranch house for a few minutes,
and when she came back out, she was carrying a basket.

    "Andrea told me to give you these," Aimee said to Debbie
as she got back into the rental car.

    Debbie looked into the basket.  Inside there were about a
dozen eggs, apparently freshly laid.  I figured that we
wouldn't have too much difficulty with breakfast.

    Aimee drove the car a mile or so down further down the
road until she reached a closed gate.  She left the car, and
went to the left side of the gate, where there was some sort
of an electrical box with a keypad within.  She typed
something and the gate opened.

    Aimee drove through the gate, and when Mary and I turned
back, I saw that the gate was closing behind us.

    Debbie saw our actions and grinned.  "This place is
pretty private.  Not as beautiful as what Aimee had done with
the shack in Makena, and, I'm afraid, we only have two
bedrooms..."

    "Four," corrected Aimee.

    "Four?" Debbie asked her assistant/co-wife, surprised.

    "You keep forgetting the guest house behind the kitchen,"
Aimee said with a smile.

    "Oh, yeah," said Debbie, looking a little flushed.

    I wondered what that was all about.

    Aimee answered my unasked question.  "In most of Debbie's
properties, she has places for her assistants to live.  You
could think of them like servants' quarters, except we really
are employees, not servants.  We just do our jobs, or lounge
out at the guest house.  If Debbie is going to be around for
a while, she lets them go and explore the cities, towns, or
whatever else can be found in the general area."

    "Debbie does this mostly for our privacy, as opposed to
separation from the 'real guests' at the house.  Although
Debbie sometimes throws outrageous parties..."

    "Never in the cabin!  I decided that this place is going
to be for peace and quiet!" Debbie protested.

    "And," continued Aimee, unperturbed, "having separate
quarters allows the three of us to get some sleep at a decent
hour while Debbie and her boyfriends..."

    "I never brought boyfriends HERE," Debbie complained
again.

    "... carouse the entire night," Aimee finished.

    The interaction between Aimee and Debbie was comical.  It
was as if Aimee and Debbie always acted this way... they
seemed used to the give and take... and it had Mary and I
laughing hysterically, taking our minds off the reason we
were here in the first place.  It occurred to me later that
this was a sign that our relationship was starting to mature:
Debbie and Aimee were once again being themselves, and seemed
to have become more comfortable in our strange relationship.

    It must feel strange, I thought.  Debbie had Aimee as an
assistant and a confidante, and now Aimee was a co-wife.  I
wonder what Debbie thought about this, or if she had even
considered this aspect to her relationship with me when she
had insisted of me "marrying" Aimee.

    Anyway, once we passed the gate, it was another five
minutes until Aimee pulled up to a large single storey
structure.

* * *

    Like Debbie's "shack" in Makena, the cabin that we went
into had large rooms.  The front door opened into a hallway
with a large living room on the right.  Unlike the shack in
Hawaii, the cabin only had one floor.

    Aimee led us into the living room, which had three large
sofas and an equal number of overstuffed reclining chairs.
These were set up in a semi-circle, all focused on a rather
large screen television set built into a cabinet that
contained what appeared to be a bunch of stereo equipment
underneath the screen.

    I had never seen such a large television screen before.
I imagine that during my "absence" from the human race, TV
sets naturally got larger, but the screen looked much
different than the sets that I had remembered.  For one
thing, the screen wasn't shiny, but had tiny horizontal lines
etched into the screen that sort of resembled corduroy
fabric.  Also, it was rather thin.  I couldn't figure out how
the picture tube fit within it.

    Debbie noticed my curiosity and picked up what looked
like a calculator on a cocktail table and pushed a button.
The television came to life, startling me.  I looked from the
television to Debbie and then knew that what I had assumed to
be a calculator was actually a remote control.

    Debbie pushed a few more buttons, and the image on the
television changed, showing some words superimposed on the
top.  The words changed quickly as Debbie continued to push
buttons until I saw the words "CNN" and "FINANCIAL REPORT" on
the top.  There was now a newscast underneath the words.

    After about ten seconds, the words disappeared, and the
newscast took over the full screen.

    The three girls were watching me intently, apparently
used to my "Rip Van Winkle" reactions to modern technology.

    Aimee explained to me that I was looking at an
entertainment center, with the large screen projection
television as the focus.  There was something called a "VCR"
which could record broadcasts or play prerecorded movies.

    As Aimee explained, Mary asked Debbie if she had Star
Wars on cassette.

    Debbie shrugged and said "Probably.  Why?"

    "Jim never saw those movies.  He's missed a lot.  We saw
'The Natural' a couple of weeks ago at a second-run theater,"
Mary explained.

    "I'm not sure it's here at this ranch, but I figure that
Aimee would probably have all the videos we have cataloged
somewhere," Debbie shrugged.

    Aimee had, by this time, taken the remote control from
Debbie and showed it to me, showing me how to turn the set on
and off and how to change the channel.  She explained that
Debbie had a satellite dish on the property that was hooked
into the entertainment center.

    While I was looking at the entertainment center, I looked
to the right, and saw a few tables with smaller television
sets on it.  These sets were smaller than I remembered in the
past.  I idly wondered why Debbie would need so many
television sets for; up until now, I hadn't even seen her
watch TV before.

    Aimee saw where I was looking.  "These are personal
computers--PCs," Aimee explained.

    "You mean that Debbie uses those computers that you were
telling me about?" I asked, amazed.

    "Well, Debbie owns them, but I'm usually the one using
them," Aimee answered, smiling at her boss/co-wife.

    "I didn't know that you were a programmer," I said,
having a bit more respect for Aimee.  I knew a few
programmers back in the service; nerdy guys for the most
part, but sharp as a tack.

    "I don't program them, really.  Unless you call 1-2-3
macros programming," Aimee said.

    "1-2-3" and "macros" sounded very much like the words
that those programmers used.  I smiled at her.

    "I can teach you, if you're interested," Aimee offered.

    I nodded in response.  I noticed that Debbie and Mary had
left the room.  I figured that Debbie was taking her on a
tour of the cabin.  I felt a bit left out, but enjoyed having
some time with Aimee.

    Aimee was over by the computers and had picked up a book.
"This explains about 1-2-3, a spreadsheet program that I use
on the computer.  There are other programs, like Word
Perfect, and I have some custom programs that were written
just for Malen Associates, and I have gotten pretty good at
using them.  We can even send and receive e-mail."

    Most of Aimee's words were gibberish to me, so I smiled
in response.

    Despite my attempt at hiding my confusion, Aimee seemed
to know that she was speaking Greek to me.  She smiled and
said, "I think you'll pick up the jargon pretty quick.  If
you'll excuse a few more acronyms, we have a T1 line into the
property."

    I was actually familiar with that term.  "Aren't T1 lines
used for sending television signals coast to coast?" I asked.

    Aimee smiled at the fact that I got that one right.
"They used to be," she said.  "They still do, I think.  Now
there is something called the 'Internet' which hooks up
computers like these with big ones at universities and some
companies all over the world.  T1 lines are needed for the
amount of information flowing through newsgroups, email, file
transfer, and other stuff.  I can send a 'buy' order to Malen
Associates in just a few seconds from here without having to
pick up a phone, although Debbie doesn't really play the
markets.  The T1 line was already here when we first visited
this place, and I convinced Debbie that this would make a
nice and quiet not-quite West Coast location for an office.
We called the phone company and made sure the T1 was
connected and a router installed."

    "Sounds convenient," I said, quite impressed.

    "It is.  We have a flat-bed scanner so we can send images
of documents as well.  Our graphics manipulation program is
proprietary, but it can import and export FAX documents
easily enough."

    "If you say so," I said, laughing, having no idea what
"FAX" was.

    Aimee's face dimpled as she laughed, herself, realizing
how she must sound to a person that wasn't attuned to the
lingo.  I had the germ of an idea on how Aimee could teach me
about computers, but filed that thought away for later as I
continued to look around the room.

    Near the entertainment center was a wine rack holding a
couple of dozen bottles of wine.  I walked toward it and
looked it over.

    Aimee saw what I was looking at, and told me that Debbie
was quite fond of wine.  She pulled out a couple of bottles
for me to examine.  I wasn't a sommelier, and wouldn't know a
bottle of Burgundy from a bottle of Chablis, so I just gave
an appreciative smile as Aimee showed me each one.  Aimee
noticed my reaction and just smiled.

    "I wasn't much of a wine expert before I met Mr. Malen,"
Aimee admitted to me, quietly.

    "He must have been a nice man," I said.

    Aimee just nodded, as if her thoughts were a thousand
miles away.

    I thought about the wine, and then about Utah.  Something
had been nagging at me since I knew that our destination was
Utah, and finally, the wine was the piece that fit: Utah was
generally thought of as a place where liquor is frowned upon,
mostly because a good portion of the population were part of
the Mormon community.

    Now, that was the bit that struck me: Mormons!  Didn't
they have a history of polygamy?  Of course, that practice is
illegal today; I believed it was in a constitutional
amendment or something like that that expressly prohibited
it.  I guess it was a word that describes my relationship to
Mary, Debbie, and Aimee...

    Although it was strictly illegal, it was understood by
some people that there were still some pockets of
"fundamentalist" Mormons that had never given up the
practice.  These people lived quiet lives, never drawing too
much attention to themselves.

    Perhaps Utah might be the best place for me and my
"harem" to reside right now!  Although, if whoever was
interested in the four of us knew about our relationship,
perhaps Utah might also be too obvious a place for us to hide.

    Aimee noticed that I had an odd expression on my face,
and said, "Jim, is something wrong?"

    "Um, no, Aimee.  I was just thinking... about wine... and
liquor... and Utah... and Mormons... polygamy..."

    Aimee smiled.  "Actually, I had suggested this ranch to
Debbie for a similar reason.  You see, I knew that Angus has
both a wife and two previous wives living with him on the
working ranch."

    "Angus?" I asked.  For some reason, an image of a steer
came into my brain.

    "He's living on the working ranch," Aimee repeated.

    "Oh.  I remembered you mentioned the name Andrea before,"
I said.

    Then what Aimee said just before hit me.

    "Previous wives?" I asked.

    "Yes.  Angus is technically a polygamist," Aimee
explained.  "From my understanding, Angus avoids the legal
technicalities.  When he wanted a second wife, he 'divorced'
his current wife, and married the next.  The first wife still
lives with him.  Angus did this twice."

    "Really?" I asked, amused.  I always found it humorous
when I hear how somebody was able to beat "the system."

    "I don't think Debbie knows Angus' relationship with the
women living there.  She knows that Andrea is his wife, but
she's really his third wife.  I never explained it to her
because I didn't think it was pertinent.  What he does in
private..."

    "I can see that, Aimee," I said.  "However, if Angus
practices polygamy, then he'd be very disinclined to report
us if he suspected our relationship..."

    "Which was exactly why I had suggested the ranch," Aimee
said.  "In addition, not very many of Debbie's properties are
as connected as this one; we reconnected the communications
lines when we were here last year, so it's useful for staying
connected." I had a new respect for Aimee.  I had to keep
reminding myself that she was not only perceptive, but
extremely intelligent... maybe even the most intelligent of
the four of us.

    Aimee started to head for the kitchen, and then stopped
and turned to me.  "You know, Jim, you might want to talk
with Andrea at the working ranch.  You'll find her quite easy
to talk to.  She's the one that explained the relationships
at the working ranch to me."

    I shrugged, wondering why Aimee suggested that.  Did she
want me to expand my harem even further?  That was definitely
not what I needed!  Then again, Aimee was quite intelligent.
She must have had some reason for making the suggestion.

    Aimee led me into the kitchen, where I saw the basket of
eggs that Aimee received from the working ranch on a counter.
At that same moment, Debbie and Mary entered as well.

    Mary gushed about the two bedrooms.  They were both very
large.  Mary seemed excited about a piece of fruit in the
room.

    "An apple in the bedroom?  What's unusual about that?" I
asked, confused.

    Mary looked at me for a second, and then burst out
laughing.  Aimee and Debbie joined her.  I looked at the
three of them as if they were completely nuts.

    "Sorry, Jim," Aimee said, having laughed the least.  "The
'apple' that Mary was talking about was a Macintosh... it's a
computer from a company called 'Apple.'"

    "Apple?  You mean the company that the Beatles started?"
I asked.

    Aimee shook her head.  "Apple was started by two guys
named Steve in a garage about ten years or so ago."

    Once again, I felt that Rip Van Winkle feeling going
through me again.  I knew that the girls weren't really
laughing at me, but at my confusion.  Apparently, this Apple
company had been around long enough that they simply didn't
realize that I had never heard of it.

    "What would anybody want with so many computers?" I
asked, wishing to change the subject.

    Aimee explained that all the computers were connected
with each other, and to something called NSFNET.  Her
explanations still confused me, the idea of "personal
computers" (PC's) being quite foreign to me, but I was able
to glean from her comments that Apple's computers, for some
reason, were never referred to as PC's.  Were they, perhaps,
impersonal computers?

    I shrugged off my thoughts about computers.

    As Aimee had told us earlier, there was a guest house
behind the cabin.  It was visible from the window in the
kitchen.

    The four of us ate breakfast.  Aimee had called earlier
from Salt Lake City and Andrea had made sure that the
refrigerator was stocked with some staples.  Aimee and Mary
scrambled the eggs in butter and added a little cheese to
make a simple omelet.  This was augmented with some toast and
orange juice found in the refrigerator.  Normally, I don't
eat cheese, but I'd let the girls know my food preferences at
a later time.

    The breakfast was delicious and quite filling.  After
finishing my plate, I brought them to the sink, and Debbie
got up after me with Aimee's and Mary's plates as well.  The
two of us cleaned and dried the dishes, and Debbie put
everything away, since she knew the layout of the cabinets.

    After breakfast, Debbie and Mary headed into the living
room to watch some television.  Aimee seemed to sense that I
wanted to talk with her, and I motioned to one of the
bedrooms.

    Without saying a word, both Aimee and I sat down on
chairs, moving them to face on another.

    Without any fanfare, I began discussing my thoughts and
suspicions with Aimee, recapping my thoughts as she had been
driving earlier.  I also told her about my "visit" back to
the hospital, finding another doctor's name in a room where I
had once been interviewed.

    Aimee didn't say much.  She occasionally asked questions
to bring me back on track when I started going on a tangent.

    When I finished, Aimee finally spoke.  "I had much of the
same thoughts as you.  It is now almost certain that it is
the military that is following us, and they probably know
about your special gift."

    I nodded.

    "I am afraid for us, Master," Aimee said.

    I looked up and saw her eyes tearing.  I drew a breath,
and finally said, "It might be a good idea for me to leave
the three of you alone..."

    "No, Jim!" Aimee said, adamantly.  "If they are following
all of us already, and we have good reason to believe that
they are, then it is best if we remain together."

    I was unconvinced.  "Why, Aimee?"

    "I have a feeling," Aimee said, emphasizing that last
word.  "A feeling that we would be better off together than
separating, now."

    I had a deep respect for Aimee's feelings.  "All right.
So, what do we do?"

    Aimee gave me a thin smile, and answered.  This was the
"take charge" Aimee that I had started to get familiar with a
few times back in California and Hawaii.  "First, we need to
get Debbie and Mary on board with us.  Let them know the
risks.  Then, we need to fight back."

    "You, Aimee..." I said, surprised by the conviction in
her voice that I was hearing.  "You want the four of us to
actually fight?  The military?" She had to be crazy.

    "Jim," she said, a fierce determination in her eyes.  "We
have a right to privacy!" She was positively adamant--a side
of Aimee I had never seen before.  "We aren't hurting
anybody.  We aren't even hurting ourselves.  If somebody
tries to hurt you... or any of us... we should be willing to
fight back."

    "Nobody has hurt me--or any of us--at least, not yet," I
said.  As soon as I said it, the words rang out hollow to me.

    "Not yet," Aimee echoed.  "I'm not suggesting that we
fight them unprovoked, but we should at least use whatever
resources we have in getting to know exactly who and what it
is that is interested in us."

    I nodded.  This flashed true in my mind.  It is a stupid
leader that doesn't plan for contingencies, but I didn't want
to go off, half cocked, fighting what could just be phantoms,
either.

    "Aimee," I said, slowly.  "I agree that if anybody finds
out about this power of mine, then we are all in danger.
There is nothing that will be able to stop them from getting
us.  The military has thousands of people at their disposal."

    "I think I know how we can win," Aimee said, almost in a
whisper.

    "Win?" I asked.

    "Please wait, Jim.  Let's discuss this with all of us
together.  After all, each and every one of us has something
to lose if anything goes wrong."

* * *

    Aimee and I shared a hug, and then hastened a "family
conference" together.  We were now in the living room.  Aimee
had fetched some lemonade from the refrigerator, and we were
sipping the ice-cold drinks.

    I started by telling Mary and Debbie about my suspicions.
Aimee helped, filling in my narrative with her own thoughts.
After five or ten minutes, both Mary and Debbie were also
adding their thoughts.

    I had almost forgotten that Mary had military experience.
She immediately understood the need for us to get more
intelligence from those that may be pursuing us.  She even
outlined one problem.

    "Right now," Mary explained.  "We can be reasonably sure
that we have eluded them, at least temporarily.  Only June
and Mely know that we got off in Salt Lake City, and even
then, they have no idea whether we were going to drive here,
or take a plane somewhere else."

    All of us nodded at Mary's analysis.  She continued.
"Our presence here will be detected sooner or later."

    "Can they get past the working ranch?" Debbie asked, a
bit worried that her place for privacy could easily be
breached.

    "Yes," Mary and I said, together.  We looked at one
another and smiled.

    I added, "The defense services aren't chartered for
domestic surveillance... hell, nobody is supposed to be
spying on innocent civilians.  That didn't get past tricky
Dick..."

    Mary cut me off, bringing the conversation back on track.
"Let's assume for a moment that it's the army that is
interested in Jim.  It's a safe assumption, both he and I
worked in the army, and I have knowledge of army
intelligence.  Jim was staying at a hospital while he was
still in the service."

    I nodded.  I hadn't followed that particular line of
thought yet.  "So, we're either talking Army Intelligence, or
a special ops force.  The latter would have no trouble
getting into this compound."

    "Special ops?" asked Debbie.

    "Rangers.  Like my old unit," I said.

    "You were Army Rangers?" Mary asked, looking at me.

    "Only been in the corps a couple of years," I said.  "I
was going to be a gofer for a bird colonel for my real
training, though."

    Mary looked at me with a new respect.

    I blushed.  "Mary, I'm totally out of shape.  Three
months ago, I could hardly walk."

    She nodded.

    Aimee cleared her throat, wanting us to get back on track.

    Mary nodded at Aimee.  "OK.  Either Intelligence or
Rangers.  Maybe both.  Either way, this is bad news.  We do
have one advantage: we can safely assume that there are only
a few people--one or two at most--that actually know about
the nature of Jim's talents.  The others will only be given
enough information on a 'need to know' basis."

    Debbie was confused.  "But why would the army do anything
to a soldier in a coma?"

    Mary answered.  "I am not sure when the experiments
became common knowledge, but there were reports that the Army
and the CIA were doing experiments with mind-altering drugs
on patients without informed consent during the 1950s or
1960s.  More recently, there were revelations about
intentionally not treating syphilis on a number of
African-American men during that period well into the late
70s."

    I hadn't heard about that last bit.  I nodded to Mary
anyway, and said, "I was thinking more of the radiation
exposure experiments during the 1950s, myself.  Mary is
more... up to date... on things.  Looks like Uncle Sam still
has his hands dirty.  Look at the Arms for Hostages scandal
going on right now!"

    Debbie's eyes got wide.  It was apparent that most of
these things weren't common knowledge to her.  Aimee didn't
show any surprise or emotion in what Mary and I had explained.

    "Anyway, let's say that they were still up to their
tricks when Jim was in a coma," Mary said.  "Actually, it
would explain a period of time that I wasn't able to visit
you while your condition had supposedly remained unchanged."

    "Huh?" I said.  This was news to me.

    "Jim, I made a promise to you... to myself, maybe... to
visit you every day after you got out of surgery," Mary
explained.  "I met your parents on many of those occasions."

    I nodded, trying to get Mary back to the point.

    "Well, there was a period of a couple of weeks where I
wasn't able to visit you.  Nobody could give me any
information.  I thought your condition was deteriorating, but
everybody assured me that your condition was unchanged.  They
just couldn't tell me why you were unavailable."

    Aimee's eyes got bigger.

    Something clicked.  "Mary, do you remember the first time
I visited you in your dreams?"

    Mary nodded.  "Yes.  Why?"

    "Was it before or after I was 'unavailable?'"

    Mary thought.  "It was... afterward," she said,
doubtfully.  She closed her eyes and thought deeply.
"Definitely afterward.  Once I met you... as a younger
person... in my dreams... I visited you just about every day."

    Aimee said quietly, "Well, we now have opportunity.
Motive is obvious.  The means is pretty obvious..."

    The four of us sat, digesting this information.

    After five minutes of silence, I spoke up.  "OK.  Let's
not dwell on the past.  Our problem right now is the present.
What can we do that will help us right now?"

    Aimee answered immediately.  "We need intelligence.  We
need to get the name of the person or entity that is
interested in us.  We need to find out who they are, and what
they are planning to do with us."

    "OK," I said.  Aimee was a very down-to-business person,
and I smiled at her.  "How do we do that?"

    "Well, from Hawaii, I enlisted the services of a PI that
sometimes did some work for Debbie's father.  He has military
and intelligence experience.  He's good... both in terms of
competence... and he seems to be a good person inside,
although I never met him in person.  He'll do the right
thing." Aimee looked a little uncomfortable explaining that
last part in front of Mary.

    "OK.  What if he thinks the 'right' thing is to inform
the military?" I asked.

    "Debbie's father and I used him to ferret out somebody
that was using inside information to make millions on the
commodity's market.  I know for a fact that he turned down a
fortune in bribes, exposing the criminal to the SEC."

    "All right.  Let's assume that he cannot be bribed.  Is
he 'My country, right or wrong?'" I asked.

    "I don't get that vibration from him," Aimee said.  "Of
course, I've never met him directly."

    I pondered this information.  "Let's see what he can find
out, then.  If he is good at counter-intelligence, then he
can be a very useful tool at our disposal.  When will you
hear from him?  Does he know where we are?"

    "He'll send email to me at Malen Associates," Aimee
explained.  "He's pretty competent with computers, and he
also has a few people working with him that he's pretty
confident in that are geniuses with computers.  When the
email arrives at Malen Associates, I'll find out on the
computers here."

    I nodded at Aimee.

    The conversation pretty much died off at this point.

    "So... what's for dinner?" I asked.

    This got everybody thinking along other lines.
"Hamburgers on the grill," Aimee said.  "Jim can be our grill
chef."

    Grill chef?  Almost every red-blooded American male has
grilled burgers on a barbecue.  "Well, if you are up to it,"
I said, with a mixture of doubt and pride.  "After all, it's
been--what?  Fifteen years?  Sixteen?  I might be rusty.
Where's the grill?"

    Debbie smiled at me and led me into the kitchen, where
she found some ground beef and I watched as she molded it
into some patties.

    "No buns," Debbie said.  "We do have English muffins in
the fridge."

    She led me outside, holding a platter of newly formed
burger patties.  She explained the workings of her gas grill,
and in a matter of minutes, I had the burgers sizzling
thereon.

* * *

    Dinner was a minor success.  Mary showed her cooking
expertise by making some excellent hash browns, Aimee put
together a salad, and Debbie set the table.

    The gas grill was faster cooking than the old Hibachi
that I used to use many years ago.  It was convenient and
easy to get the right temperature using the dials provided.
It only took about ten minutes before I had the burgers
cooked.

    We made small talk during dinner, and afterward Debbie
and Mary did the dishes.

    Afterward, we retired to the living room.  Aimee located
Star Wars on videocassette, and I watched the movie on her
large television.

    The movie started out with typical B-movie laser fight
scenes, and I was wondering what would make three grown women
actually enjoy such tripe.  It seemed against everything that
I knew about females and science fiction.  The movie actually
started to pick up after a few minutes, although the dialog
was so crappy, it was difficult to see how the actors and
actresses uttered some of their lines with a straight face.

    There was a scene early into the movie where the old man
says something like "These are not the droids you are looking
for," mentally commanding the storm troopers to pay them no
attention.  This brought back to mind the episode in the
park, where I thought to myself, "Please, officer, You don't
need to see my I.D." Talk about deja-vu!

    I found the movie to be engaging, but found that the
heavy handedness of the pseudo-religious implications of "The
Force" (they seemed to refer to it in capital letters) really
detracted from my enjoyment.

    After the movie was over, Mary asked if I wanted to see
any of the sequels (there were two), and I politely declined.
Debbie turned on a stereo to a station that played soft jazz
numbers.

    I thought about the movie that I had just seen.  What if
there was an all-seeing, all-powerful "force" that I had
managed to tap into?  Something like that could explain my
mental capabilities, once you got around the "good side" and
"dark side" black-and-white-isms that the movie described
with the subtlety of a sledgehammer on the side of your head.
I dismissed this as impossible; most religions have some sort
of leader... God, if you will.  if this power was given to me
by this "God," then why hasn't he made his presence known to
me?

    I grew up as an agnostic during the seventies, and
avoided the mind-altering drugs of the sixties and seventies
as well.  I wasn't one to jump on the T.M. bandwagons; I
wasn't particularly religious, even in my agnosticism.  I
would hardly be the sort of person that a deity would select
for such a mind power.

    How had I been using it?  I inadvertently enslaved two
wonderful people, people that have told me that they enjoy
being enslaved, but they were still enslaved, no matter how I
looked at it.  I also enslaved Aimee, but with her express
and informed consent beforehand.  Certainly, this wasn't the
"appropriate use" that a deity would want such a power to be
used.

    My mind followed that particular thought to its converse.
Most religions that I have known have had a devil or Satan.
Even the movie's Force had a "dark side." The "deity" that
may have given me this power may not have been of good
conscience.  If that was the case, my enslavement of Mary and
Debbie may have been appropriate, considering the
Judeo-Christian image of the devil.  Once again, I rejected
that.  First, my "enslavement" of Aimee was by her own
choice.  Second, being an agnostic, I had to reject the idea
of a devil as much as I did the idea of a God without proof.
I didn't want to undergo any religious conversion right here
and now in response to my obtaining this mind power.

    I looked up in my thoughts, and Mary had just re-entered
the living room with two glasses of wine.  Her hips were
swaying in time with the a song called "This Masquerade."
Mary gave one of her glasses to Debbie, who was seated in one
of the reclining chairs, and then she caught my eye.

    I had been watching Mary's seductive hips going back and
forth in time with the slow melody.  She saw what I had been
staring at, and blushed slightly.

    "May I have this dance, Madam?" I asked, using a phony
French accent and rising from my seat.

    "Let me put down this glass," Mary said, and she put her
wine onto an end table next to an empty recliner.

    I hadn't danced in quite a while, but this was a slow
number, and I simply moved close to Mary and put my hands on
her hips, pulling her close to me.  I felt her hips bobbing
to the rhythm of the song, and we moved together.  I'd never
be a Fred Astaire, but I didn't really care.

    Toward the end of the song, Debbie got up and went
through a stack of little plastic boxes, looking for
something.  She apparently found what she was looking for and
opened it up.  I watched Debbie over Mary's shoulders.  She
had a small silver plate, and she pushed a button on her
stereo and a little drawer popped out.  She put the plate
into the drawer and pushed the drawer back into the stereo,
and pressed a button just as the song on the radio had ended.

    Debbie turned around and looked at me staring at her.
Mary, at the end of the song, pulled away from me a bit,
knowing my attention was elsewhere (she didn't seem upset,
though).

    Debbie smiled at me and said, "You appear to like George
Benson.  I have a disc with his greatest hits on it."

    A funky song came on, "Turn Your Love Around." It wasn't
something I felt comfortable dancing to, but Debbie
approached me, and we slow danced to the funk number.

    Since this was his "greatest hits" and I hadn't heard the
song before (it was quite catchy), I realized that I had
missed a lot of contemporary culture during my coma.  There
was a twinge of regret at having lost a portion of my life
like this, but it was quickly overwhelmed with my happiness
of being able to hear it now, anyway.  It was great being
able to enjoy it with these three women that I cherished so
much.

    Debbie usually brings out the "monster" in me, and it was
only a minute or so before I found myself digging my fingers
into her wonderfully padded ass cheeks.  Debbie responded by
hugging her hands, which were around my neck, tighter, and
moving her body completely into mine.

    I felt myself growing hard, feeling her tits against my
chest.  I pulled her ass closer to me, and felt her pelvic
region grinding against my groin.

    Offhand, I wondered if Mary would feel this as a
rejection of her; after all, we had been slow dancing and it
hadn't gotten sexual.  I turned Debbie's body so I could see
where Mary had moved to, and saw nothing but a smile on
Mary's face.

    Inwardly, I breathed a sigh of relief.  Jealousy was one
thing that could really ruin a relationship like the one that
the four of us shared.  Luckily, none of the girls have
exhibited even the slightest hint of it, and while this
seemed unnatural to me, I was glad of it right then.

    I mention earlier in my story that I hadn't had too many
bed partners before my coma.  I do not want to give you the
impression that I had no lady friends.  However, I had known
from my teens what my career path would be, and having a wife
and family wasn't really in the cards at that point.  I
didn't really believe in sex just for the hell of it (at
least, not until I had met Mary!), and the female friends
that I had eventually became good friends, if not intimate.

    One of the things that I noticed when you had a group of
females, is that when one leaves for a moment, the others
start talking about her.  Maybe not every time, but it seemed
to be a natural tendency.

    With my three lovelies, however, I never saw even a hint
of that with one exception: when Aimee was the person
leaving, there would usually be a comment made about how
intelligent she was.  This seemed a bit unnatural to me as
well; it didn't fit with my previous experience.  I filed
this observation in my mind for examination at another time.

    Debbie's lips were on mine, now.  I was no longer
listening to the music, but reacting to Debbie's fervent
advances.  I kissed her back, our tongues touching.

    One of her hands dropped from my neck to the front of my
pants, and I realized that it wasn't going to be long before
I had a sticky situation to put up with.

    I turned my face to the right in order to escape from
Debbie's mouth.  When I got clear, I said, huskily, "Let's
adjourn to the bedroom.  I think it will be more comfortable
in there."

* * *

    Debbie and I retired to the master bedroom, and we
started a long slow strip tease, while we fondled each
other's bodies.

    I'm not sure what Mary and Aimee were thinking about
Debbie and I going at it, and at the moment, I didn't really
give them much thought.

    When Debbie was clad only in her panties and bra, and I
picked her body up and deposited it on the bed, slipping off
her panties as I did so.

    My face was over her crotch as I did this, and within
moments, the scent of her musk was wafting through my senses.
I placed both hands between her legs, opening the folds of
her vagina with my two thumbs, exposing her pink vulva.

    I lowered my head into her snatch, and stuck my tongue
out, tasting her.

    Debbie shuddered just a bit as I made contact.

    I moved my tongue up and down, in tiny motions, causing
Debbie to spread her legs wider.  I broadened my strokes, and
then I went for the kill.  I started at the bottom near her
asshole and taking a long, leisurely stroke, I moved it
slowly upward.  I could taste her feminine secretions, and it
gave me a heady feeling.

    As I got closer to the top, I moved my tongue to the
left, and then to the right, kissing her vaginal lips with my
lips and sucking them into my mouth.

    Debbie now had her hands on the back of my head, and she
was trying to get me to move my head up towards her clitoris.

    I wasn't to be rushed, however.  Instead, I kept
returning my attentions to her lips, moving just slightly
upward with each suck.

    Debbie was now trying to grind her clit into the top of
my lips.

    I didn't want to torture the girl too much, so I finally
gave the sensitive spot a tiny jab with my tongue.  I heard
Debbie exhale sharply.  I continued to jab at it repeatedly,
and Debbie started making cute squealing noises.

    Finally, I took the nubbin between my lips and gently
sucked on it.  I felt Debbie's hands pushing my head down
again, and I ignored her.  Instead, I increased my suction on
her clitoris, licking it with my tongue inside my mouth.

    Debbie's hips were moving spastically now, making it
difficult for me to retain my rhythm and to keep my lips and
tongue where I (and Debbie!) wanted them.

    I still had my boxers on, and I moved my hands down to
pull them down my legs.  My cock got caught on one of the
folds, and it was rigid enough that there was a slight amount
of pain, but I finally got them down to about my knees.

    Debbie's hips were now moving from side to side like a
snake, and it was next to impossible for me to maintain
proper contact with her clit without using my hands.

    I swung my hands up towards her shoulders, and in a
single quick move that surprised even me, I pulled myself up
her body and within a second, my cock was poised at the
entrance to her gates of heaven.

    I had intended to start sucking on Debbie's breasts, but
she still had her bra on.  So, instead, I moved further
upward and as my cock slipped inside her, my lips found hers.

    Debbie didn't hesitate and sucked my lips into hers as I
started my thrusts into her.  She licked the juices that
accumulated on my face, and sucked on my tongue.

    I had just about reached my peak and my balls started
constricting.  As if on cue, Debbie started her squeal, which
I had come to know was a signal that her own release was
imminent.  I knew from experience that I had another minute
or two, and slowed my thrusts as an admittedly futile way of
staving off my own orgasm until hers had begun.

    I was nearly successful, but in the end, my balls won
out.  I started erupting into her love hole, sending my first
eruption into her.  My hips went on automatic, and I thrust
again, sending another stream on its way.  By the time I
thrust the third time, Debbie's orgasm started.

    Having had sex with Debbie before, I was prepared for
when Debbie achieved orgasm.  I instinctively breathed in an
entire lungful a fraction of a second before her powerful
arms started pulling my body onto hers.  Debbie was in
complete control now, holding my body with her hands behind
my back as close as possible to her own, and thrusting her
hips on and down about five times faster than I was when I
had started my orgasm.

    Her hips continued vibrating up and down quickly, moving
my cock in and out.  She had her hips and back in such a
position that her clitoris was situated on my base of my
cock, and was getting plenty of stimulation.

    Having reached her peak, Debbie's hip movements slowed,
and her powerful arms released their vise-like grip on my
back.

    "I love you, Master," Debbie whispered to me.

    "Call me Jim, Debbie.  I love you, too," I answered her.
I looked at her and smiled.

    "Calling you 'Master' makes you uneasy, doesn't it?"

    I simply nodded in response.  "You know, we're still not
completely undressed!"

    Debbie giggled at that, and she unsnapped her bra as I
removed my T-shirt and boxer shorts.

    I saw her breasts, and they looked so tasty and inviting,
I just had to suck on one... and then the other!

    Then my hand moved down her body, and found her wet hole.
I probed with my index finger, and started caressing her
clitoris.  Experience told me that Debbie really likes this.

    In the space of a half hour, Debbie had a couple of
smaller orgasms.

    I eventually fell asleep.
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