This story contains sexually explicit material.
Please e-mail comments to twalden4 at juno dot com with ASSTR in the subject line.
Copyright 2004, 2007. All rights reserved.

Technical note: A gasp is a rapid intake of breath. In this story, it also means a rapid expelling of breath, since it is close to the sound I mean. Sigh, grunt, groan, pant and scream don't work.

Max Came Back

I always liked the taste of metal. My earliest memory is eating a couple small chips of paint from the baseboard in our apartment. I knew I wasn't supposed to, and my mother was always careful to clean them up and scrape off any that were loose, but I found some behind a box in the back of the closet. They tasted like sugar and lemon, like I had known they would. I always knew what things would taste like. All kids think they do, but some of them can be surprised. The lead got into my brain, I could taste it in there. I knew it wasn't supposed to be there, only iron and the stuff from milk, so I didn't eat any more.

I had learned the taste of different metals and elements without realizing it. I remembered a silver toy gun I had and how I used to suck on the barrel. It had the hollow dusty taste of iron and chromium. There was the tang of copper and zinc in brass door hinges. There were flavors of nitrogen and oxygen in the air, a buzz of oxygen and hydrogen in water, and the sharpness of sodium and chlorine behind the taste of salt. Food was a complex combination of carbon and other things. I liked the taste of some things better than others, but none of them bothered me.

I loved the ringing metal of the kalimba, a thumb piano based on the African mbira, as soon as I first heard it at school. Beyond the actual sound, I could taste the changes in the metallic structure of the silver and red tines as they vibrated up and down, the beauty of the pattern of compression and extension of each side in turn, the effect the different tones had on each other and on the wood of the resonator box as they were played together and in sequence. I played it as much as I was allowed, and I found various jobs around the neighborhood until I had enough money to buy one of my own. I'd take it with me and practice when some friends and I went fishing out on the breakwater. They'd tell me to be quiet, I was scaring away the fish, but they didn't catch any more when I didn't play so I ignored them.

I slept on the sofa in the living when I was growing up. My mother, who cleaned rooms in a hotel, had one of the bedrooms, and my two sisters, whom I fought with, had the other. The fights I had with the younger one were just annoying. She would usually ask before she took one of my shirts or used my radio. Sometimes at night, though she tried to be quiet, I could hear sounds coming from her room as I lay in the half dark. There were a few squeaks of the bed and a quick gasp. I thought about her, with her hand moving between her legs and trying not to wake her sister, as I slowly stroked my penis. I don't know if she could hear me when I came.

When I went to a party or something I would sometimes sleep over on somebody's floor, or a sofa that was longer and less lumpy than mine. My mother didn't like my not coming home, but she knew I needed relief from the cramped conditions and vicious fights with my older sister, and that it was often safer not to be outside at night after the busses stopped running, so she accepted it. There was alcohol and marijuana, and sometimes I tried other stuff, sometimes I didn't. I tried crack. It was a brief and intense dislocation, and I didn't hate myself enough to want that. Some people I knew only tried it once, but I tried it another time and still didn't like it.

There was a girl I liked. She talked to me, and eventually I got her to stay and share the floor with me. She was a little short and had nice wide hips inside her tight pants. When she undid the buttons of her shirt, the bright green jade disk she wore suspended between her breasts by a black silk cord appeared to glow against her dark skin. Her breast felt soft and her skin tasted salt. The jade held her warmth and tasted like iron and blood. She peeled off her pants and was hot and wet when I slipped into her. I felt her gripping me tightly as I slowly stroked in and out of her. My body fit the curve of her breast and thigh. She moved with me, meshing her pubic hair into mine each time we pressed together with a grunt, and drawing a breath as my length slid back out through her passageway. I gave myself up to the experience.

Where the jade disk pressed into the skin of my chest I could taste the interlocking crystal fibers that made up its substance. Atoms of magnesium and iron linked short grids together to form the fibers. Eight atoms of silicon and twenty two of oxygen aligned in a row of nine triangles to form half of each grid. The pattern repeated millions of times as if it was shouting at me, and I could taste any part of it if I paid attention. Five of the metal atoms were in each link, and two calcium atoms and parts of two water molecules filled holes in each grid. Tasting the arrangement of atoms inside a crystal was something new. She didn't seem aware of what was happening, but through her skin I could taste the iron in the marrow of her bones, and it tasted like jade. She got louder and the walls of her vagina started contracting. I matched my thrusts to her gasps and felt the pressure moving inside my groin. It collected at the base of my penis and burned its way out to fill the tip of the condom with cum.

At the beginning of karate class Sensei would talk about Zen attitude and discipline. Sometimes we would meditate for a few minutes, sitting cross legged in rows on the mats, the thick white jackets of our uniforms contrasting with our dark skins, our backs straight and our breathing deep and slow. I don't know how he managed to get a bunch of kids to sit still. One of his quotes was from Huang Po. Since Mind is the Buddha, it embraces all things. All are of the substance of the One Mind. All sentient beings have always been of one substance with the Buddha. This puzzled me. Is mind all things? Are all things imaginary? Are rocks sentient? Is metal part of mind? I knew I had iron and lead in my brain. Another quote was DT Suzuki. The Zen approach is to enter right into the object itself and see it, as it were, from the inside. I understood that one, it was sort of what happened when I tasted things. He encouraged us to meditate on our own. I tried to and practiced everyday for a while. The only time I had alone was in the middle of the night, so I would sit still on the floor in the light that came in from the street and do the breathing. I could taste all the different things around me better, the wood and nails in the floor, the fibers in the sofa. I kept going back to it, sometimes doing it more consistently, sometimes less.

When Sensei wanted us to move our right side, he would sometimes tell us to move our liver. The right side moved differently than the left since it contained a solid mass of liver, while the left contained a hollow stomach and heart, and a person could learn to feel the difference. Many Asians could feel the insides of their bodies since they weren't taught that they couldn't. If you could feel your throat and stomach when you drank something cold, your lungs when the air is icy, and your intestines and muscles when they were cramped or sore, why couldn't you feel them at other times? Because you couldn't see them? Most people couldn't feel their back for that reason, unless it hurt, but we were learning to. We should feel our muscles when we did the movements, and our lungs when we did the breathing, and become aware of our body.

I thought about that. The strange thing was that I could always taste the inside of my body, and had only gradually become aware that other people couldn't. I could taste what it was made of and how things were arranged, and that wasn't much different from feeling it. When my mother used to ask if I needed to go to the bathroom, I learned not to give a detailed description of the insides of my bladder and bowels. Other people only taste with their mouths, and what they call taste is really a combination of taste and smell. I could taste with any part of my body but best with the more sensitive parts like hands and feet, and I didn't have to actually touch something. It was like things gave off a glow that extended out about two or three feet, and though closer was better, if part any of me was within that glow I could taste them.

I didn't want to get involved in selling drugs, but that was not an option. I managed to put it off until my last year of high school. I could taste the purity of the drugs and tell what was used to cut them. I tried not to let anyone know how accurate I could be, but they still thought I was valuable. Maybe I should have tried less hard. When I was arrested, I wasn't released for lack of evidence like those who were better connected usually were. I got an eighteen month bit. That was okay. I could do eighteen months standing on my head.

I was considered a gang member because I was black and put into solitary. Twenty three hours a day sitting alone in a cell. Each day they were required to let me out for one hour of exercise, but I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone. Maybe they ran out of space or I wasn't important enough or I coped too well, because after a while I was moved to a regular cell.

I knew a few of the guys from before. One had been in my karate class, and one I used to go fishing with. They told me how to get along with the staff. I wound up saying yes sir, I'll do that, I'm sorry, and I didn't know a lot. There was a cafeteria, showers, a yard, a visiting room, some classrooms and a day room with a television and rows of plastic chairs. If we had credit in our account, we could fill out a commissary sheet to order toothpaste, soap, paper, pens, pants, shirts and shoes. The state provided clothes for indigent prisoners. The library was required to have a set of law books so men could work on their cases. Sometimes the gym was open and we could play basketball or use the weight room. It was easier to control us when we had something they could take away for real or imagined infractions. This worked best with people who got visitors. There were random body searches that weren't supposed to be used as punishment. There was no music or video games. The only computers were in classrooms and not connected to a network. Some of the men had newspaper or magazine subscriptions. We were only allowed to have a few books, and notebooks and photo albums counted, but not required textbooks. Phone calls were collect only and expensive. We weren't allowed to receive food from outside. Four times a day we had to stand up in our cells for count. One time a man had been counted while lying down and he turned out to be dead. Beside health and GED classes, the classrooms were used for programs run by inmates or volunteers from the outside. There were AA, NA, Growing Together, Toastmasters, Fellowship and religious services.

If it was warm enough and there was enough daylight, we were sometimes allowed to go out in the yard after supper. Men could gather in small groups and talk, or walk around the track. There were a few exercise stations. There were some weeds and a little grass growing in patches of dirt. There were sparrows by the chain link fence and razor wire, and I would sometimes see a great blue heron flying back to the swamp next to the prison or a dragonfly darting around. I would squat down and watch an anthill. I could taste the crystals of silicon and aluminum in the sand and clay of the soil, and follow the ant tunnels straight down into a collection of round chambers where the ants kept their eggs and larvae and pupae and queen. So much goes on under our feet that we can't see.

I wasn't allowed to practice karate, but if I walked slowly around the track, pausing to turn as if I was looking at something, I could do part of a kata without the strikes and kicks without the staff realizing it. I just had to sometimes walk a little strangely at other times so it wouldn't seem out of character. If I sat up to meditate I would draw attention to myself, so I meditated while lying down in my bunk. I got to know the metal bars and concrete walls of my cell intimately. I could taste every crystal, grain, and flaw.

When I got out, I moved back in with my mother and younger sister, who was now going to community college. I had no place else to go. The dealers told me I had to go back to selling, and KFC wasn't hiring. I thought I would just save enough money to leave the neighborhood.

I wanted to understand the things I was sensing, so my sister found me a used chemistry textbook someone hadn't been able to sell. I didn't tell her why I was interested in the subject. The book was pretty basic. Some of it we had covered in general science in high school. Which element something was depended on how many protons its atoms had. Atoms liked to have a certain number of electrons. If that was the same as the number of protons, everything balanced out and they didn't easily combine. Atoms could gain or lose electrons to get the number they liked, but then they were unbalanced and had to be around something with the opposite charge, like sodium and chlorine in salt. Or atoms could share electrons and each feel like they were gaining something, like hydrogen and oxygen in water. Or atoms could let some of their electrons float around between them and each feel like they were losing something, like iron and other metals. That was the first third of the book. It also covered gases, solutions, energy and acids.

Most of this was stuff I had already sensed directly, but I learned the terminology and formulas. It was all interesting and useful, but it didn't explain things like all the different changes I could sense happening when I watched cement dry, or the two different ways that I could sense iron atoms combining in steel. They could form crystal grains made of iron atoms packed together like the corners of boxes, with an extra atom inside each box, or crystals with one carbon atom for each three iron atoms in a more complicated structure. The crystals with carbon formed layers, spikes or balls inside the crystals without carbon. I went to the main library downtown to try to find out more. When I finally found a librarian who could understand what I was talking about, she figured out it was material science and found me some books. That was exactly what I was looking for, but before I could go any further I was sent back to prison, this time with ten years mandatory minimum.

I ate, I slept, I walked around.

It was painful for my sister to visit me. I had been selling the same drugs that had gotten her boy friend killed. She tried not to blame me, but she did. She asked me about my plans. How was I going to keep from coming back again once I got out? I didn't know, but I knew I needed to do something. I knew guys who came back a third time with life sentences, and I admitted I was scared. I had finished high school, so I was better off than many of the others. There were a few programs I could go to, AA and NA, and Toastmasters so I could learn to talk to white people. The major positive influence in my life, outside the family, had been karate, but I wasn't allowed to practice that in prison. She asked about the prison library, and I said it didn't have much, but she encouraged me to read whatever I could. That was all she could do.

On a visit a few years later I could see she had changed. She said she wanted to order Wandering on the Way for me. It was about Taoism, and the stories in it sounded like the Zen stories our instructor used to tell. Books on karate were not allowed. She also wanted me to have The Art of Loving. Her boy friend had given it to her, and she hadn't realized he still had more to give until the book had led her to Mark and Judy and Frank. Now she wanted to share it with me, so I would know what I meant to her. I said I was sorry for what had happened between us, and she told me not to be stupid. She treasured the time we spent together. I had always respected her and let her choose, and she was able to do so. The only thing I had done to hurt her was not be there when she needed me most. But I had to fix that. I had to stay out the next time, so I could be there for our mother and nephew and her. If I wanted books, I should tell her, and she would get them for me. If I had to send some out because I was at my limit, she would keep them for me. If I wanted to take a correspondence course, she would find a way to pay for it. I had a support network, and it had just expanded.

I thought for a while about what she said. I read the books she sent. I remembered the book on chemistry she had given me. I remembered a quote from our karate class. I thought about what I had been told in different programs, that the only person who could turn my life around was me. I asked her for two more books. She found me Materials Science and Engineering, and The Zen Teaching of Huang Po.

The Art of Loving talked about actually getting to know someone, respecting them and caring about what was best for them, being responsible instead of just taking all the time. That made sense but was a lot different from what people usually thought about love, that when it didn't work it was because you hadn't found the magic person. Wandering on the Way was Chinese stories with the same idea, that the world is crazy and you have to find what works for you. I could relate. Huang Po said Mind is the Buddha. I would have to work on that one. The material science book talked about metals like copper and iron, ceramics like glass and brick, and polymers like plastic and rubber. It was a long book, but after reading about crystals and diffusion and copper and nickel I finally got to steel.

When molten iron and carbon are cooled they generally form ferrite (a body centered cubic crystal of iron which is soft, this is the iron atoms packed like boxes) and cementite (Fe3C which is hard and brittle, this is the one carbon atom with three iron atoms). It's the combination of these two phases that makes steel hard and strong, like reinforced concrete. How they combine depends on the ratio of iron and carbon, what other elements are present, how fast it's cooled, and what heat or mechanical treatments it receives afterward. If cooled slowly it forms pearlite, with layers of cementite in ferrite. Pearlite is coarse or fine depending on how far the carbon atoms diffused. If cooled more quickly and nickel or certain other metals are present it forms bainite, with spikes or strips of cemantite since the carbon atoms do not have time to diffuse as far. Ferrite and cementite adhere to each other better than to themselves, so the smaller particles of bainite with more contact area between the two phases make it stronger and harder than pearlite. If pearlite or bainite is heated and held at the right temperature long enough it forms spheroidite, with the cementite broken down into balls and less contact area between the phases, which makes it softer. If quenched quickly it forms martensite, with the body centered cubic cystals of iron stretched in one direction to fit the carbon atoms in the spaces between the iron atoms, since the carbon atoms have almost no time to diffuse. This is very hard but too brittle to be useful. However, if heated and held at the right temperature long enough it forms tempered martensite, with balls of cementite much smaller than spheroidite and a greater contact area, which makes in very hard but not brittle. If cooled at intermediate speeds it forms combinations of these different microconstituents. With silicon or more carbon or if cooled more slowly it forms cast iron instead of steel, with graphite instead of cementite.

This stuff is not rocket science. They should teach it in high school. The hardest part was the funny names they gave everything. And although the math wasn't too bad in this book, I would need to learn more before I could go any further.

My sister sent me a picture of herself in a bathing suit. She looked nice. It was a fairly skimpy white two piece, and I was a little surprised they let me have it. She told me someone she had met would be helping with the Wiccan religious services at the prison and I should go. Volunteers are not allowed contact with family members of inmates, so I knew there might be more to it than she could say.

The service seemed like most of the other programs. We met after supper in a classroom and put the chairs in a circle. The leader introduced her assistant, who hadn't been here before but had been helping out at other prisons. Her name was Owl. She had short brown hair, a moderate tan and fairly small breasts and wore a bright multi colored top and dark pants. She told us that the man who ran the protestant service at another prison had a harmonica and she had wanted something, so a friend had lent her this. Then she opened a box and lifted out a kalimba. She looked me in the eye and asked if anyone knew how to play. I said I used to and would see what I could remember. She handed it to me and I almost dropped it. It was my kalimba, the one I had played while fishing. Every piece of metal has a pattern of microscopic cracks that's as distinctive as a face. I could taste the flaws in the metal tines and the grain of the wood. I knew where the microphones were hidden, so I couldn't ask her about it. I just looked at her. She smiled a little and looked away.

It had been a long time. I didn't know if I still knew how, but it all came back. I didn't know any pagan music or if there was such a thing, but anything upbeat seemed to do. I don't know how seriously the guys took the service, but we treated it with respect as we would any church service. We did get to talk to women who weren't staff, which didn't happen that often. Men volunteered to do the readings even though they had trouble with some of the words. They were about nature and respecting the earth and giving thanks and asking for help in our lives. There were some prayers, a short talk and a meditation. During the discussion some of the men went aside one at a time to talk with the leader. I went up to thank Owl before they left and found myself looking down at her. She was shorter than she looked. I asked if she would be back, and she said they didn't have enough volunteers to do all they wanted but would be back in two weeks. Her eyes were deep green and I liked her smile.

A couple days later I was out in the yard sitting on the ground looking at the clouds behind the guard tower as the sun got lower. A blue dragonfly came by and perched on a piece of grass next to me. They usually just hovered a few seconds and left. This one stayed there, making forays and returning to the same piece of grass. I couldn't see what he was after, and it was too far away to taste. Nobody else noticed. After a few minutes he left. A few days later the same thing happened.

I was looking at the picture of my sister and noticed Owl sitting in the background with some other people. I thought it was her. Her head was half turned, and she was talking to the man next to her. She had on a shiny blue bathing suit.

Owl came back and I got a chance to play my kalimba again. The service went pretty much as before. She seemed friendly toward me and a little amused, like we shared some secret joke. I wondered what my sister had been telling her.

The spider was watching me. This was a weird place and sometimes people got strange ideas, but I was sure the spider was watching me. There were the usual thin brown spiders that leave cobwebs and people don't notice. This was a small black and gray jumping spider that lived near the window. In the evening when I was lying in my bunk, he would crawl across the wall to a spot near my head and just sit there staring at me. I don't know how far spiders can see, but this one got pretty close. Close enough that I could taste the chitin of his exoskeleton and tell when he was there without opening my eyes. After a little while he would lose interest and wander off, but the next night he would be back. I generally left the wildlife alone if it didn't bite, and in here it wasn't safe to take offense at strange behavior. But this guy was starting to get to me. When it first started I didn't think anything of it, but it had been going on for a while now.

I decided to start staring back. When I tasted him there I opened my eyes and he left, which was a little strange. The next night the same thing happened. On the third night he didn't leave. He sat there staring for a while. I began to get the idea the spider didn't particularly want to stare at me, that he would just as soon be about his business, but that some outside force was at work. I usually only tasted non living matter. It was easier to understand. Now that I was paying attention to a living being, I was starting to make some sort of contact with it. I wasn't sure I liked the idea.

The spider and I were staring at each other again, and suddenly there was a girl, four inches tall and just floating there in space with a very surprised look on her face. She had wings but wasn't using them. Then just as fast as she had blinked into existence, she blinked back out again. The spider had wandered off.

The next night I waited for the spider, but of course he didn't show up. I had given up and was just about asleep when he crawled over. At this point I didn't care. The girl came back and said hello. It was Owl and this time she was using her wings, four dragonfly wings, and hovering. She had on the same blue bathing suit as in the picture. I asked her what took her so long. She said she had to wait until I was asleep, that she couldn't make contact with me when I was awake. I said I wasn't asleep. She told me to go look out the window. This seemed like an awful lot of trouble, but I didn't want to appear rude. I slid out of my bunk and padded over. I asked if she knew anything about the line of pine trees growing in the yard, from the edge of fence over to my window. She said they were hers. She could travel wherever the creature she was riding went, but most often traveled through the green. She couldn't reach my window when she was awake, so had created the line of trees in the dreaming as a bridge. It got easier each time she did it. She didn't control the creatures, but her interest in me did bleed through a little. I said that was nice and went back to bed.

She flew over and stood on my bunk next to my pillow. She was too close to focus on easily, but when she reached one hand over her shoulder and the other behind her back, undid the fastening of her swim suit, pulled the yoke over her head, pushed it down over her hips and stepped out of it, I made the effort. She was thinner as a fairy than she was in real life, with bigger eyes and flexible shoulders. Her wings were clear and their span greater than her height. She had no hair at all and small but noticeable breasts. I said I didn't think this was going to work. She asked if I wanted her to be big or me small. I said whichever was easier. She flew off, and then it got very crowded as she climbed into my bunk with me. I asked what happened to her wings. She said you can't have an insect wing that large, it would fall apart. It would be like trying to build the Empire State Building out of mashed potatoes. Besides, there wasn't room. She had a point. She also had hair again, on her head and, judging by the feel of her crotch pressed against me, down there as well. I said maybe we should go somewhere with a little more room. She told me I didn't know how to travel in the dreaming, and she wanted me now. I asked about my cellmates. She said they weren't part of this dream, and we wouldn't wake them up unless I yelled. She said I talked a lot. I said she had a point. She told me to shut up and fuck.

So I kissed her. Maybe I should have been scared. She was taking advantage of me while I was off balance and couldn't think. She had been interviewing my family and stalking me for the last few weeks. I was in one of the most secure situations possible and she had waltzed right in. I barely knew her and had no idea what she was capable of or wanted. (Except right now it was pretty obvious what she wanted and I was working on that.) But my sister apparently trusted her, she had taken a risk to give me back my music, and what did I have to lose? If I had known what I was doing, I would have done it anyway. She kissed me back, gently, and I slid my arms around her. I had never made love to a white woman. She didn't feel any different, or look as pale and washed out as some of them did. I felt her hands on my back as my tongue brushed along her lips and our bodies pressed into each other. I was wearing underwear. (You couldn't expect guys in prison to wear pajamas, but a little bit of modesty helped prevent problems.) My penis was erect and could feel the front of her hip through the cotton fabric. I slid my hand down the bumps of her vertebrae and rubbed the top of her buttock. The lump in her back from her wing muscles had disappeared. She ground her pubic hair into my hip. Our lips slid across each other, and I sucked her lower one between my teeth and nibbled it. Her tongue followed and I moved my hand to the side of her breast. I ran my thumb over her nipple and felt how stiff it was. I moved down to suck on it and she wrapped her legs around my chest. I took her whole breast into my mouth and massaged it with my tongue while I worked my jaw. Her hands pressed against the backs of my shoulders. Her body slid down mine and her hand into my briefs. Her palm rubbed across the moisture at the top of my penis as she grabbed it and pulled. Then she pulled off my briefs and climbed on top of me. She guided me to her opening and slid all the way down. She was wet and soft and warm and all around me, gripping tightly as she slid up and down. Then she leaned forward and put her arms behind my shoulders as she continued to pound onto me, our pubic hair grinding together on each down stroke. She was eager but so was I. I felt heat rush all through my body, gather in my hips, and flood up into her in pulse after pulse as we kept pounding into each other. We didn't slow down as the torrent subsided and then her gasps were rising in pitch and she yelled and I tasted her fluids as they gushed out her urethra and vagina onto my belly. I tasted my semen splashed against her cervix and my sperm as they worked their way up her uterus. She lay panting on top of me as they made it to her fallopian tubes and continued into them. I felt her stiffen as they approached a ripe egg cell, and then spasm as one of them made contact and penetrated inside.

She was crying softly into the hair of my chest. It had not occurred to her that she could get pregnant from dream sex and she felt so stupid. She had learned that during meditation she could become whatever plant was close by and travel through the green. Later this ability expanded to include mushrooms, insects, crustaceans, worms and mollusks, but not more complex animals or anything too small to see. She had learned some things from dreams and could use the dreaming when she needed to. It overlapped the real world but was not the same. I was the first one to see her while she was traveling, although the creatures she rode had some awareness of her. She had never been able to see sperm or eggs before.

I told her I was able to taste things that were close by, to sense what they were made of and their structure down past the microscopic level. When she was in the spider and I tasted it, a connection was made. Our orgasm had strengthened it so that she could taste things that I did. And I noticed that she was apparently allowed to make as much noise as she wanted. She said she wasn't the one who was really here, and her neighbors would just think she was entertaining her boy friend. I said that we probably needed to talk.

She said she had a part time boy friend. She was his secondary, and he had two primary partners, one of whom was my sister. She also sort of had a girl friend. She was looking for a primary or three. Was I interested? I said um. I thought about it. It certainly seemed to be the night for surprises. I thought about it some more. Then I said yes. What should we name the baby? That sobered her up again. I got out the picture of my sister and asked if I could turn on the light. She said no, she better do it in case I was sleepwalking. She pointed out Stephen, her boy friend, and Karen and Leon, but I was mostly looking at her. I told her she was beautiful. She smiled and asked if I wanted to make love again. It wasn't often she could have sex all night long and still wake up rested. Besides, she was already pregnant. So we did, and I let her do all the yelling.

She cut her visits back to twice a week. I didn't complain. At the next Wiccan service she startled me by saying hello inside my head during meditation. She asked me to check if she was pregnant in real life. She was too far away and I hadn't thought to check earlier. When I went up to shake her hand at the end of the service, I tasted the inside of her tubes and womb. She tasted them too and smiled thanks, that she hadn't thought so but just wanted to be sure. I wished I could say as much with a smile as she could. She smiled that she thought I could learn. Most of the guys could tell there was something between us, but they were careful not to pay any attention to it.

Implantation had been successful, so now she really was officially pregnant in the dreaming. It was a girl. All of her cells had two X chromosomes. I couldn't have told the difference, but Owl could. She showed me the X and Y chromosomes in my cells and the two X chromosomes in hers. She told me I didn't carry any genetic diseases that she knew about. She said it was time to bust me out of there. The bed was crowded, I needed a change of scenery, I was better than a microscope, and she wasn't all that fond of my cellmates. I said they were okay once you got to know them, but she did have a point. What was the plan? She asked if I wanted to change into a water mite and hitch a ride with dragonfly girl. I asked about plan B.

She said the easiest way for her to travel through the dreaming was the same as in the real world, through the green. If I could ride her the way she rode insects, maybe she could take me with her. I asked how she did it. She disappeared. She said she had never ridden a human before but that it wasn't so bad, at least in the dreaming. There were all these thoughts cluttering up the place, but she had already gotten used to most of them. She asked why I was so ashamed of what I had done with my sister. She thought it was beautiful. I froze. I suppressed all sorts of violent reactions that I knew she could see anyway. I really didn't want to go through this. I mean I REALLY didn't want to go through this. But I knew we had too. She just sat and waited. After all the things that had flashed through my mind, most of them about her, she just sat there and waited. I had been lucky in my life. I had known a lot of good people. My family, my friends, my teachers. The mess I had made was my own. But never had I known such acceptance. I had never let anyone get close enough for it to be a possibility. I hadn't known it could exist. And here it was, just handed to me, by a goddess from the forest. I did the only thing I could do. I loved her. I didn't want to start crying in here. She told me very gently to walk over to the window. I saw her line of trees leading off into the swamp. And then, just as gently, she pushed. And we stepped out into the green.

We were a pine tree growing up through the gravel of the yard, our roots reaching down into the soil, our branches out into the moist night air and the glow from the perimeter lights. We were two pines growing next to a building. We were three pine trees, five, eight. We were a strip of mown grass and clover and dandelions and plantains. We were arrowheads and sedges growing up through the water. We were a bank of cattails growing along the watercourse. We were an oak and pine and hickory forest covering the hills. We were a tangled thicket of mountain laurel. We were a tall red oak overlooking a swamp with a large barred owl perched on one of our upper branches. Owl asked if I was okay. If I had been myself, I wouldn't have been able to cope, but part of us was now the same person and we were used to it. I said I just needed a minute to catch my breath. We stood there swaying in the breeze and the moonlight. I could see that she found it peaceful out here, but I had grown up in the city and found it strange. The tree's being was spread out, instead of being focused on a set of senses. I could see all my different parts at the same time, the fluid moving in my roots and trunk and all my leaves breathing the night air. The different parts worked together instead of just sitting there like a rock, or reacting passively like the plucked tine of a kalimba. Owl used sight to interpret what she sensed, instead of taste.

I was ready. We flowed through forests and fields and parks. I was standing in the middle of a small room in my underwear, and Owl was sitting on the edge of a large bed in her nightshirt. I asked if I could have a drink of water. She stood up and I followed her over to the kitchen. We sat on the sofa and she handed me my kalimba. I played it softly while she leaned against me and put her arms around my waist. Then we went to bed.

Owl said she wanted to try to find out about her pregnancy. We were sitting in her living area. I said that sounded like a good idea. How? She didn't know a lot about how the dreaming worked, but she wanted to try something. She handed me a box of my clothes that my sister had given her, and we got dressed. She put her arms around me, her head on my shoulder, and we stepped out into the green. Flashes of tree lined streets and grassy yards. We were standing in a living room with a small sofa and large pillows all over the floor. There was a candle burning on a low table. There was a naked woman sitting cross legged on the floor facing it. She was short, a little heavy, had light skin, large breasts with pink nipples, short hair that was bright red, a large patch of pubic hair of the same color, and freckles over much of her body. She opened her eyes and smiled. Owl introduced Linda, her sort of girl friend. She said the others who lived there had gone out. They hadn't been sure how visiting while in the dreaming would work and thought it would be easier with one person.

We both sat down. They said they wanted to do a spirit journey and explained. Linda picked up a hand drum and started beating it slowly. Owl and I sat with our eyes closed. We waited. Nothing happened. Linda stopped beating her drum and said this was lame. We should try something else. No one had any ideas. I looked at Linda. I looked at Owl. I got an idea. Linda said they had already tried it. It had been fun, but they hadn't learned anything. They could try it again if I wanted. I couldn't tell if she was serious. I said maybe another time. I asked how they had learned things before. Owl said she just did what she knew how to do, and when she was ready something different happened. I said it was the same with me. Maybe we should try that. Maybe the life growing inside her was still simple enough that she could make contact with it. She looked at me strangely. She said maybe I wasn't as dumb as I looked. I couldn't tell if she was serious. Linda said we should have body contact so we could reinforce each other better. We could sit with our legs out and the soles of our feet touching. That didn't work. Owl said we could hold hands. I said we could sit back to back. Owl said okay, but she was going to take her shirt off. So I did too. We sat on the floor and leaned back against each other. I closed my eyes. Before I did I saw Linda slide a finger into her slit. I wondered if she had a thing about black men. I felt owl's body relax and her breathing slow down. I tasted her presence in my mind.

I was four millimeters long and floating in a warm sea. My heart was beating but I had no blood. My arms were buds and I had a tail. My organs were starting to form. I was waiting, waiting.

I felt Owl shaking and heard her sobs. I turned around to hold her. Linda was already there. We held her and rocked her, waiting until she could talk. Linda looked at me. I shook my head. Everything had looked fine to me, but I didn't know anything about fetal development. Owl said it was a three week old embryo. I didn't understand. She said it had been four weeks, and it should be further developed and twice as big. Something was wrong. Linda said she was only in the dreaming part of the time. Maybe it took longer here. I was tasting the emrbryo, every single cell of her tiny body at the same time and looking for large scale movement inside. I waited. There wasn't any. I told them no, she was waiting. She was alive and healthy, but she had stopped growing. There was no cell division at all. She had said she was waiting, and it was true. This was the dreaming and apparently things worked differently here. They both looked at me. I let Owl taste for herself. I said if she was waiting, then there must be something she was waiting for. That meant there was a purpose to what was happening. If we couldn't find out any other way, we'd just have to wait and see what it was.

Owl wanted me to meet Stephen and for us to have a three way together. I agreed to try it. We tried to visit him the same way we had Linda, but he couldn't see or hear either of us. Owl tried having him over to her apartment. When we got there he still couldn't see us. She tried waking herself up. She went and lay down on the bed. When she got up Stephen could see her and she could see me, but Stephen still couldn't see me. I watched the two of them have sex. Stephen watched the two of us. He said it looked like she had an orgasm with her arms wrapped around empty space and no one touching her. Since Stephen and I could occupy the same space at the same time, she tried having sex with both of us at once but found it too confusing. It didn't do much for me either. I tried to pick her up and carry her across the room while Stephen was watching but woke up back in my cell. There seemed to be a limit to how much the real world and the dreaming could overlap.

Owl had another idea. I could ride inside her mind while she and Stephen made love. That way all of us could touch each other even though he couldn't see me. I said I didn't much like men. She said it wouldn't be two men having sex. I would be in a woman's body so it would still be heterosexual. I thought about it. I wasn't sure I liked the idea but agreed to try it.

Owl appeared in my cell as I was falling asleep. We had planned on my riding in her mind the first time I entered the green, but it had wound up more like she was riding in mine. That had worked out well, but now we wanted to leave my dream body behind. I stood up. She looked into my eyes. She told me she was going to disappear. When she did, I should turn around and see myself still lying in my bunk. She asked me if I was ready. I said yes. She wasn't there. I could hear my cellmates breathing. I turned around slowly, expecting to see my body lying there but not sure. There I was. I thought I looked pretty good, which was a strange thought. I looked down at myself and saw breasts. They weren't that much bigger than my own, and they weren't black. I felt between my legs and there was nothing there. No, that wasn't true, there was definitely something. Owl said we didn't have time for that right now. We walked over to the window and stepped out into the green. It was just the same. The trees and marsh and hills and fields. I had learned a lot about plants since the first time we had done this and could see a lot more. I was sitting on my bed without my nightshirt. I was naked this time because Stephen was there, asleep. I pulled down the sheet and looked at his naked body. He had a beautiful ass. He was medium height, had a nice build, dark hair, and slightly bronze skin. I lay down next to him and watched him sleep. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I reached out and touched him. He opened his eyes. He smiled. He asked who I was. I tried to figure that out. It depended on how we wanted to think about it. I said we were both of us. I decided since we were going to have sex with Stephen, it would be easier to think of myself as one person instead of two. We'd have to shelve the idea of a three way for now.

He came closer and kissed me. I closed my eyes. Someone was kissing Owl and it felt really good. I held on to that. It sounded normal. I liked the way her mouth felt, her lips and her tongue. I felt a hand on my back and Owl's breasts pressed between us. I felt the hand slide down my back, over my hip, through my pubic hair, and rub my sex. I was getting more excited and felt wetness. The fingers collected some wetness and slid over my sex. The reaction was intense and familiar, but this time I was experiencing it from the inside. It felt much more intimate. I felt a warm mouth take my nipple inside and suck. I felt Owl's pleasure and anticipation. A weight moved over us and I parted my legs farther. I felt a penis sliding into a vagina but couldn't tell what belonged to whom. What I remembered and what I was feeling were telling me two different things about what was happening. It felt the same as before, but it was inside out. Our penis and vagina slid against each other. Slowly pushing all the way in. Pulling back out. Pushing back in. The sensations were centered in different places than I was used to. The speed picked up. It felt so good. Our breathing matched our movements. I was getting wetter. We kept going. I felt a stirring inside me. My breathing started to get faster. Our strokes matched it. I was thrusting faster and faster. My gasps were rising in pitch and I yelled and my fluids gushed out. I wanted a vagina filled with cum and it hadn't happened when I came. It was a frustration I had never felt before. I had to keep going and there was nothing holding me back. It was a delight I had seldom experienced and never as intensely. I was still almost there from the first orgasm when the sensation built up again and the second one hit. I knew Stephen was getting close and I wanted him. I continued to pound onto him, our pubic hair grinding together on each up stroke. I felt him accelerate and his breath deepen and pulse after pulse filling me up as he came inside me.

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