THE MUSE

Feature Writer: EdwardsOtherSide

Feature Title: The Muse

Published: 23.04.2021

Story Codes: Erotic Horror

Synopsis: Inspiration finds a hard working woman

The Muse

Sunday

I watch the mass of humanity swirl in their pointless gyrations. All but a very few are of interest to me. Most are vapid, dull, colorless souls. They chase comfort like any addict chases the next hit. They seek to make themselves numb, hiding in cocoons of games, of alcohol and stronger things, of shared fears or fantasies, of simple and desperate pursuit of the most banal physical experience, blocking out perceptions past the shell of the world around them, deaf and blind to anything more than what is perceived in the quickest glance. I hunger for the ones with deeper needs, with unsated longings, the ability and willingness to see substance beneath the thin layer the crowds refer to as “reality”. Dreamers, psychics, a few artists, and many madmen are my sustenance.

She came into view. I could feel her needs, throbbing deep in her belly and aching in her heart, and yet her soul shined with a clear innocence, a perfect white candle flame in a dark and still room. Her mind was tangled, frayed in places, but intelligent, creative, and possessing more sight than the masses who walked through the world with their heads wrapped in wool. An artist, but also versed in sciences, and languages. A unique morsel that stoked my hungers. She was burning with passion, yet lonely, and she could perceive me past the constant babbling of the world around her. My passion resonated with hers. I could feel myself swelling and throbbing in time with her aching need to be filled, and I was drawn to her, with an equal desire to fill her.

Her art spoke of loneliness and desire. She was timid, though, afraid to let her creativity off the restraints she kept it in. She drew beautifully, and wrote lines that would make the soul tingle with the feelings of her characters, but there is always the note of hesitation. I wanted to caress her neck and back as she worked, lick the curve of her ear, taste her focus, and feel the intensity as she created. But while the sun was up, while the lights were on, while she gave her attention to the monitor or sketch pad was not my time.

After she turned off the lights in the evening, while she drifted between wakefulness and sleep I came to her.

She lies on her side with her arm under her head, and I spoon against her, my thighs a tingle against her bottom, my breath a thrill down her spine, my voice an echo in her head, half heard half dreamed telling her how beautiful she is, how inspiring she is. She stiffens, not from the physical sensations I tease her with, but at my words. She doesn’t see herself that way, and thinks my words are her own thoughts, that she is just having a stray thought. I nuzzle into her hair, and continue my attentions to her lovely waist and hips, but remain silent. Slowly she relaxes again, taking pleasure in the sensations in her body while thinking of herself as naughty and dirty for the harmless pleasure she is starting to feel. Her thoughts are as clear as her voice to me, and as beautiful. I will take her, but not until she asks me to, and not tonight.

As I continue with my exploration of her lovely body, she puts a pillow between her thighs and rolls on top of it. Her mind is starting to float, letting go of all her reservations and worries, and getting into the moment of what she is doing. I lie on top of her riding her, grinding against her bottom as she grinds against her pillow. I can feel her movements pick up pace, and the thrills running from her mons outward through her body, and as her peak swells through her I groan from the pleasure I feel in her. Immediately, she stiffens, hearing me, and feeling my presence. I had underestimated how sensitive she is. In a moment, she has convinced herself it was a stray cat outside, or wind, and relaxes into the aftershocks of her climax. As she drifts off to sleep, I reflect on what just happened, and wait for her dreams.

“Sveta, I am here for you”, I said as I stepped out of the mirror into her room.

She looked at me, clearly aware that this was in her dream, and yet confused, as if she knew at some level that this was not one of her usual dreams.

“Who, what are you? Why are you here?”

She saw a haze, a dark smear shaped like a man in front of the full length mirror on her closet door. Features would become clear for an instant before going misty again. I picked through her memories, imagination, and dreams and created an appearance that drew upon things she had never shared. The haze coalesced into a tall slim man, wearing a charcoal grey suit with a jacket and a red vest over a silver-grey shirt and a dark red tie with a fine paisley pattern. He was dark blond with a stubble beard and green eyes. His complexion was fair, a contrast to her tanner skin and black hair and eyes.

“I am Ster du Matin. I am here because of your desires and your gifts. You called, and I am here.”

In the fluid truths of Sveta’s dream, she was sitting on her bed wearing a loose silk shirt and shorts. Her hair was perfect; black with a very slight curl at the ends framing her face. She was trying to process his words as he stepped over and sat beside her. Ster placed his arm around her shoulders and could feel her struggling to wake, scared, but at the same time free of the inhibitions of waking hours, aroused by his presence. His arm on her shoulders made her body sparkle with pleasure. In her sleep, her nipples hardened again, and her core melted with renewed desire. Ster gently cupped her chin, tilted her face up to his, and kissed her. Sveta cast fears away and forced her tongue between his lips.

With that, Ster became a mist, and dissipated. Sveta woke with a start, in her bed, wearing her usual cotton tank top and panties, with her heart racing. She was alone in her room and there was only a faint light through the curtains, instead of the soft, sourceless light of her dream. She felt the wetness between her thighs and her nipples were tight, sensitive little knots under her top. It was definitely the most vivid dream she could remember, but she told herself it was only a dream. To help herself get back to sleep, she slipped her hand into her panties and stroked her pearl, as she imagined Ster’s lips on hers, and his hands exploring her body. She pinched her nipples in turn and massaged her sweet spot furiously until she saw stars and panted for breath. As she drifted back to sleep, she felt watched, but in a tender, protected way.

---

Monday

She is excellent. She wants what I bring her, even if she can’t say the words out loud.

The sun shines through the curtains, and Sveta stirs. When she had slept, she had slept well, but the dream that had woken her up is still vivid in her memory. She uses the water closet, then starts a small pot of coffee between the stove and the sink. Her apartment fills with the warm smell of coffee brewing as she pulls on sweatpants. When the coffee is ready, she takes it out on the fire escape that she laughingly referred to as her balcony. She lit a cigarette, and took a drag, then sipped her coffee, and as her caffeine and nicotine cravings subside, she thinks. Looking out from the third floor, into the trees between the apartments on her block is her place for reflection, but today is still echoing from the strange dream. Ster’s voice is echoing in her head. Desires, gifts, calling. Sveta plays with these words. How did I call, she asks herself. What gifts did he mean? What desires- Sveta blushes deeply thinking of how her body had responded to him. Ster. The… what? Man? Figure? Spirit? In her dream. Reaching through the window, she picks up her notebook and starts writing down what she remembers of the dream. Normally she can only remember a paragraph or two of her dreams, but today she fills three pages. She turns the page again and sketches what she remembers of him. Her first sketch satisfies her, a tall slim man in an immaculately tailored suit. She reaches through the window again, and grabs a couple of colored pencils, and starts adding the red to his vest and tie, and green for his eyes. Turning the page again, she starts over, recreating the smudges that spoke to her before resolving into the man she drew first.

Sveta turns back to the first drawing, and something tugs at her memory, the flees, like a dust devil on a windy day. Dust devil, she thinks, Mr. DeBiase who runs the Italian delicatessen on the next block would tip his hat to the little swirls of dust, leaves, and papers when he sees one outside his store. He said they were how folletti, the fae folk, the little people traveled, and you always have to be respectful of them. Looking at the face she had drawn, she caresses the line of his jaw in her mind, then his cheek bones, running her finger along the page.

I shiver at her touch.

Sveta pulls her hand back. Something made her fingers tingle. Picking up her pencil again, she starts on a fresh page, this time drawing a three quarter view head and shoulder portrait.

Blind and weak in the sunlight, I dimly make out the subject of her sketch. I smile as I recognize the lines of the face I had presented her.

Sveta goes back into the apartment, sets her notebook, pencils, and coffee on the tiny table she uses for her dining table, throws the cigarette butt in the trash, draws the curtains behind her, and peels off her sweat pants. After she rolls out a mat on the wood floor, she begins a series of sun salutations. After half a dozen sun salutations, she is glistening with perspiration. She rolls up the mat and works through Wing Chun forms for twenty minutes. Her friends do Pilates and barre classes, aerobics, or run or swim, but living in the city she always felt safer practicing a martial art. So once a week, she went down to Chinatown, and practiced kung fu from China’s southern cities. The class begins with qigong exercises to warm up, and finishes with meditation. Every morning she practices the forms, visualizing her opponents and feeling the weight of her imaginary adversary as she executes each technique. She’s shy about it in front of her friends, even though they complimented her on her physique.

She doesn’t even realize how she has honed her perceptions.

She showers, and dresses for work. The subway ride is the usual noisy, crowded trip, but as a city dweller, she has mastered the art of armoring herself against the pressures of people around her while still maintaining awareness of her surroundings and the hazards of the big city. Ster still dominates her thoughts. Du Matin was the last name, “morning” in French. No, she corrects herself, “of the morning”. Sveta again feels that there is something she should remember, but the doors open at her stop and it is time to walk the rest of the way to her building.

Sveta’s day is remarkable. She isn’t tired at all, despite an interrupted night’s sleep. The typical meetings with her boss, and the calls with her clients go flawlessly. Analysis that would have taken all day takes an hour, and answers seem to come to her spontaneously. She’s worked into her normal lunch hour without realizing it when Bonnie, a co-worker she met during the corporate on-boarding week stops by and invites her to a late lunch. Bonnie is sweet, and works in human resources. She grew up in the rural South, and in her words “got out of there as fast as she could”. She is literally a preacher man’s daughter, and takes the inevitable jokes in stride.

Sveta and Bonnie walk a couple of blocks to a deli and order lox and bagel platters. Over the smoked salmon, cream cheese, onions, and capers, Sveta shares a little about her dream with Bonnie, holding back how horny the visitor had made her feel.

“Well, Sveta, where I grew up, we’d be praying over you hard. That sounds like you were visited by a demon.”

“But he was, I don’t know, so charming, so good looking.”

“After he stepped through a mirror as a dark mist? Hon, I know what my Daddy and his church would say. Don’t pay me no never mind though. You know I left that stuff in North Carolina when I came here. Did the guy in the dream get your motor running?”

Sveta blushes and mumbles a bit.

“He did! You were ready to take that pony for a ride, wharn’t you?”

“I just wanted to wake up!”

“Hon, you didn’t just kiss him in your dream. You kissed him like you wanted him to kiss you, didn’t you?. I was raised with all the ‘wait until you’re married’ and ‘good girls don’t’ stuff, so I have an idea of what’s going through your haid. It was only a dream, enjoy the ride! Lord knows I would have. Finding a straight single guy around here is pretty hard, and the ones I run into are pretty soft, if you know what I mean. Don’t turn down what comes your way!”

The women laugh together, and Sveta knows the truth of what Bonnie is saying. But the “visited by a demon” part is still echoing for her. The thought nagged at her.

“Bonnie, what if your Daddy would have been right about this? What if, you know, this was some sort of… I don’t know… demon, spirit, thing?”

“Sweetie, the way I figure it, a demon has to have some darkness to latch on to. You have lived in the city long enough that you ain’t lily white, but there’s lots worse than you to draw the attention of something like that. Could be, this guy was an angel. Or a ghost. But hon, it was just a dream.”

The rest of the day goes as well as the morning had. Even the commute home seems not as grubby as it usually is. Between the subway and her apartment she picks up chicken piccata, Italian chicken with white wine, lemon, butter and spinach on a bed of angel hair pasta. She puts on some music, and takes her time with her dinner. It is early, but the substantial meal and a productive day have her yawning as twilight spreads over the city.

The sun is going down and I can feel my strength flowing through me again. I kneel astride her on the couch where she drifts in the place between the waking world and sleep, and caress her hair as I learn of her day. Her Bonnie is interesting. Not as aware or sensitive as Sveta, but smart and defiant. Perhaps she merits a visit. But for now, I want to touch Sveta, and have my way with her.

The apartment is dim, lit by the telltale lights of the computer and other electronics, and a faint glow from the windows. Sveta’s mind is riding the stream of sensations; the sounds of the city, the changing light in the apartment, and the feeling of warmth from her lap, as if something is gently pressing on her mons. She feels a tingling from her scalp, as if there were feather light caresses on her hair. The warm electric sensations drift down her neck, past her collar bones, to her chest. She feels her breasts cupped in warmth and her nipples harden. The stimulation of her nipples and the warm pressure on her mons are deeply exciting, but she is so sleepy, she can only accept it passively. Bonnie’s voice whispers to her “only a dream, enjoy the ride!”

Her body is so sensitive, so responsive. I resonate with her pleasure. I will let her think of me as a dream for at least a little longer, but in the meantime, I will enjoy myself.

Sveta is completely relaxed, but can feel her body responding to the unseen presence. Is it Ster, or is it her own imagination running away with her? Her last few partners had been so disappointing. They would climax before her, and go flaccid when she tried to get her satisfaction. Worse, they got so angry when she reached down to bring herself off, their image of themselves as great lovers deeply bruised. No, more than bruised, left in shreds crying. Slowly, languidly, she inches her hand to the waistband of her panties, and slips her fingers down under the warm pressure she feels on her mound.

She is so eager, even when she is half asleep. Let me see how I can assist her.

As Sveta gently parts her labia, and starts rubbing her pearl, Ster strokes the sides of her breasts, and her tummy. He licks the side of her neck, and nips her shoulder as her fingers dip down to her entrance, to pick up some moisture to apply to her bead. She is soaked and slippery, and her fingers spread the honey on the sweet morsel at the top of her vulva. Ster caresses the sides of her mound, and her thighs as she pleasures herself, and he vibrates with her sensations. After a brief and endless stretch of touching herself, and the unseen touches, she cums hard, soaking her panties, and quivering with pleasure. Her whole body clenches with the aftershocks. Still trembling, she forces herself to go to the bathroom, and get ready for bed. The moment she crawls beneath the covers, she falls into a deep sleep.

Ster is relaxing, reflecting, planning.

Biding his time, Ster waits.

In the small hours of the morning, Ster feels Sveta slip towards the dream world.

“Sveta, I am here for you.”

Ster steps out of the mirror, almost the same as last night. This time, he steps out in human form, but Sveta thinks she sees a flickering red light around his head. Sveta is wearing a sheer peignoir in her dream, her body both covered and exposed to Ster’s gaze.

“What are you?”

“What do you think I am? Do you think Bonnie is right?”

“That you are a dream, or that you are a… a… something… not real?”

“How real is a dream?”

His lips twitch with the smallest of smiles, and the spectral red light casts odd shadows on his face, but not on the room around them. He sits beside her on the bed, and cups her chin, lifts her mouth to his.

“Don’t disappear again!”

“Excuse me?”

“Please don’t go again. You aren’t a dream.”

“But you are dreaming now. How am I not a dream?”

“Ster, I don’t know. I just know that I feel you near me when I am awake.”

Ster lovingly cups one of Sveta’s small breasts, and runs his thumb over the nipple. She trembles torn between fear and desire, but leans forward, reaches and pulls his face to hers, and kisses him, feeling the tip of his tongue between her lips. Sveta relaxes, and pulls him down on top of her. As she reclines on the bed, Ster fades into a mist with a chuckle.

As he vanishes, Sveta hears him whisper “What are you willing to do for me?”

Sveta’s eyes open. She groans with frustration as she wakes.

She is alone in her bed, in cotton panties and a worn tee shirt. Her body is tingling with unsated desire. Maybe Bonnie’s daddy is right. And yet, he is so attractive. You would think if he was really evil, there would be some clue, some hint. He’s a tease, but he is leading me someplace.

---

Tuesday

The sound of the garbage trucks wakes Sveta shortly before dawn. Somehow, she knows she is alone, really alone in her apartment this morning. Start the coffee. Pour the coffee. On with some sweatpants. Out on the fire escape for a cigarette. As she opens the pack, she realizes she only smoked about half as many yesterday as she usually does. That is… strange.

Then, something changes. The sky was growing light as the sun came above the horizon behind the buildings. Sveta isn’t alone now.

The dream, or whatever it was replays itself in her head as she sips coffee. Why is my dream teasing me like this? She chuckles to herself; I can only be teased, if I really want what I am not getting. I need to admit it; I want Ster, and I want him ferociously. I want him between my thighs, in me, on top of me. Like Bonnie said- Ster used Bonnie’s name. If it was just a dream, of course this all from me. If it isn’t a dream, how does he know her name, and what else does he know?

She is asking questions. Good. These will lead her where I want to take her. And she wants me to take her.

Sveta wonders briefly if she is imagining things; about being alone then not alone. But deep inside herself, she knows that there is nothing to question. Ster had left, and is back.

She shakes it off, tears off the ember and the scraps of tobacco so she only has a filter to throw out, and goes back inside. Setting down her coffee, she closes the curtains and strips off what she had slept in. After rolling out her mat, she does her sun salutations, then Wing Chun forms naked. Halfway through the second form she realizes what she had unthinkingly done.

She is glorious as she goes through these drills. She doesn’t believe it yet, but her body is divine.

Sveta blushes as she realizes she is putting on a bit of an exhibitionist display for her unseen admirer. As she closes the third form, she smiles; he teases me, maybe it works both ways.

It does, Sveta. It does.

As she showers, Sveta feels something between her thighs. Two fingers stroking her labia ever so lightly. She gasps at the touch, then finishes rinsing. As she towels her hair, her left nipple hardens as she feels an electric tingle circling, tracing the edge of her areola. Trembling, she finishes her hair and makeup, and heads into work.

By noon, she is well caught up.

“Sveta, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I like it. The past couple of days, you have been working miracles. Just, be careful. I don’t want you to burn yourself out.”

“Mr. Angleton, nothing has gotten into me, I swear. I am just feeling great lately. And thank you. I will be careful.” I can’t tell you how accurate that is; nothing got into me at all, and I am so ready for something to get into me. But you don’t need to know that.

“Maybe it is the cutting back on your smoking. When I quit, the first week or so was horrible, but I had so much more energy after a bit.”

“That must be it, sir.” Internally, she laughs; cutting back on smoking seemed to be a symptom of whatever was happening to her, not a cause.

As Mr. Angleton walks away, Bonnie shows up.

“Sveta, is this a good time for lunch?”

“Sure. Give me two seconds.”

They walk out of the building, and Sveta can see that Bonnie is itching to share something, but obviously doesn’t want to be where people from the office can hear them.

They go into a pizza place on the bustling street. It is busy, and noisy, and Bonnie seems relieved no one from work is there.

“What you told me about your dream; that must have spooked me or stuck in my head. I had the most vivid dream ever this morning! I told you I don’t wear nothing to bed, right?”

Smiling, Sveta nods.

“It was just like you described, a man stepped right out of the mirror, but he weren’t a man at first, it was like a cloud, then he just… came solid. Hard. Except he weren’t wearing nothing, and he was hard. Impressive, too. An’ I was wearing lingerie like I don’t have, like something out of an old movie, a corset, with garters and stockings, but I wasn’t wearing no panties or nothing.”

Sveta still smiles and nods, but she is a little puzzled. Bonnie has joked about how a “skeeter bite” would double her cup size, and lingerie was a waste when she didn’t fill it. But it was her dream.

“He was huge, and broad, with dark eyes, and black hair, and I swear, he had little horns on his noggin. Maybe as long as the tip of my finger, but red, and when he got, well, when I, we, started, there was a little wisp a smoke come off a them.”

“Bonnie, that wasn’t the guy in my dream.”

“I know! But we was just talking about getting visited by demons in our sleep! And this happens! And he was a demon! I never had a dream so vivid, like he was right there doing me!”

“He what? I told you that he vanished in my dream.”

“He sure didn’t vanish! He was real gentle, but when he touched me, I liked to melt right there and then. He sat next to me, and him touching me felt so good, I just threw a leg over him, and, you know… got in the saddle.”

Bonnie was always candid, but this is graphic for her.

“Anyways, I swear I cum a half a dozen times. I feel like my butt should be sore from the size a him, but it ain’t. My, you know, insides, are… like… tired. But in a good way. Ain’t no man ever made me feel this good.”

“Wait a second, are you saying…”

“Yeah! I woke up just as the sky was getting light and I had to change the sheets and the mattress pad! They was soaked!”

“What did he say to you?”

“Nothing. We just… did it. I didn’t think I could bend like some of them positions, but that is all we did. Then, he groaned and, you know, came in me. And I tried to kiss him an he faded into a mist. An my… I could feel his hard just vanish. It didn’t get soft, it didn’t slip out, it just weren’t in me no more. It was an amazing dream.” Bonnie pauses, then looking Sveta straight in the eye, “You don’t think I was visited by no demon, do you?”

Grinning wickedly, Sveta says, “It was only a dream, enjoy the ride! Lord knows I would have. Don’t turn down what comes your way! But you might want to take a ‘Morning After’ pill if you didn’t use protection.”

“This ain’t funny now!”

“Bonnie, like you said, what I told you at lunch must have spooked you or something and you had a dream.”

“I know, but that was an amazing dream. Even if it were a little messy.”

When Sveta walks to the subway that afternoon, it hits her. Bonnie said she woke up just around dawn. That the dream ended just before I felt the presence in her apartment again. Like it returned just after Bonnie’s dream. It’s weird sharing an experience so deeply personal with Bonnie. She’s, well, Bonnie. A preacher’s daughter from between the corn and the tobacco fields. And while Bonnie is sweet, she’s not a creative, and still a bit of a wide eyed tourist in the big city, always amazed at the weirdness that is city life, when I take it in stride. All we really have in common is that we work for the same company and started the same week. But now, we have dreams with so much in common. Except Bonnie was sated and here I am aching to have a man inside me.

Bonnie was pleasant, but last night was a gift to her. I would not normally bother with people like her. Wholesome and hungry for pleasure, but lacking what I really crave. Bonnie was a thin beer, next to the moonshine that is Sveta.

Oh dear. “Moonshine”. I need to be careful. Bonnie’s talk rubbed off on me. Much as she did. Several times.

Sveta considers the leftovers in the refrigerator from last night, but gets a salad on the way home. I have questions, and I don’t want to conk out like last night, she thinks to herself.

Sveta walks through her apartment door, firmly says “Ster du Matin!”

She feels a presence, but it is only a feeling. As she looks around the apartment, her head pauses, and looks, and pauses. As she turns her head, there is something, a shadow, or a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye, but looking straight where she thought she saw something, there is nothing.

Sighing, she puts away her jacket and handbag, kicks off her shoes, and sits down to eat. Daylight fades as she eats. As shadows grow in the apartment, Sveta turns on a small light by her favorite chair and picks up a book, one of her favorite books, “The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft”, but sets it down. This isn’t the time for stories of nameless terrors and unimaginable and ancient powers in the universe. Shoving a Clive Barker book to one side, she finds a biography of Alphonse Mucha she had been meaning to read. Mucha’s life is interesting, but not exciting, and as darkness falls, Sveta’s head nods a bit. Catching herself dozing off, she gets up, changes, and cleans up for bed.

It seems like she hasn’t been asleep at all when the dream starts again. The hazy shadow of a man comes out of the mirror, like smoke through a doorway. Sveta glances down at herself, and she is wearing a deep red silk nightshirt that barely covers the top of her thighs, with nothing under it. Ster takes form, still a tall slim man with dark blond hair, a stubble beard, and green eyes, but this time wearing a pale silvery grey suit with a brilliant white shirt, a gold paisley tie, and a gold and black paisley vest. Around his head, there was a glow- no, a halo of golden light. This time, her room is lit with a faint pale blue illumination, and the halo around Ster’s head makes for odd shadows in the corners. He is smiling as he walks over and sits next to her on the bed. The warmth and passion flowing into her when he puts his hand on her knee is intoxicating.

A small voice inside her is telling her “Ask! Ask! Ask!” but her insides are quivering and she can only reach up and pull his lips to hers.

Before they touch, she stiffens, and looks him in the eye, “Don’t vanish.”

He hesitates, then smiles, as Sveta leans into the kiss. Without breaking the kiss she twists, and kneels on top of Ster. Carefully, she leans back a little and begins to untie his tie, and unbutton his clothes. A complex tattoo is revealed when his shirt starts to open. Sveta gasps when she realizes it isn’t a tattoo, but a scar. No, deliberate, meticulously crafted scars that cover his chest. It is a circle inside a square, a ring of symbols, and lines and angles making a complex web behind the circle, and as she looked, stars and triangles moved in the design, almost hypnotically-

Sveta is staring into Ster’s eyes, “Don’t look too closely. That is not for you.” She can only nod.

Still kneeling over him, Sveta sits and rests her bottom on his lap, nuzzling her face into his shoulder, holding to his wiry torso tightly. Ster strokes her hair with one hand as his other hand moves under the hem of her nightshirt and massages her ass. All her earlier questions forgotten, she looks into his eyes and whispers, “Please.”

As you wish, my dear.

Ster’s eyes glow with a faint golden hue from behind the green, and a smile flickers across his face as she loses herself in his eyes. As her mind floats, lost in his eyes, she realizes he is nude under her, and her core rests on his manhood. Her labia part against him and she feels her own wetness soaking him as she slowly grinds on him. Stretching a little, she centers her entrance over him, looks him in the eye, “I want you.”

Ster smiles, and flexes his hips up, and pulls her down onto himself. Sveta feels him slide into her in a single thrust. She impales herself on his shaft, and feels the nub at the center of her pleasure mashed against his pubic bone. She rocks her hips against him as he thrusts up into her, and her core is swelling around him as he stretches and fills her. Closing her eyes, she rests her head on his shoulder as her wetness spreads on their thighs. Sveta begins to rotate her hips on Ster, feeling his manhood move on her g-spot as she grinds down, and his hair against her labia and her sweetest folds. Her nipples are hard little berries as his hand cups a breast and makes circles around the sensitive tip with his thumb. Her pleasure wells up from the center of her, and she feels herself contracting and squeezing his shaft in her as her climax hits. Her whole body shudders on him as she cries out in pleasure and hugs him tight. As her climax starts to subside, his hands drop to her hips and start pulling her onto his swollen rod. He pulls in time with his thrusts, and his breathing grows rough. Ster pulls Sveta tight, his shaft deep in her, and she can feel him start to tremble as he groans. Again, her climax takes her and she whimpers as her core gushes juices onto him and she shakes with the power of her orgasm. As her cunny squeezes his shaft, he erupts in her, and she can feel his hot seed inside her, washing her pussy in pleasure.

As they tremble after their climaxes, Ster lifts Sveta’s chin and kisses her deeply. She melts against him, surrendering herself to him, heart and soul.

With that, he fades, one moment solid as a door, then next a mist. As the mist dissipates, Sveta hears a whisper, “Soon, my dear.”

---

Wednesday

The glow of the coming sunrise wakes Sveta, and her panties and the sheets are soaked with her pleasure. While the morning is a little messy, she feels amazing. She wakes clear headed, and as the coffee maker gurgles, she feels calm, not jittery in anticipation of her first cup. She still has questions, but she is not frustrated this morning. Her wing chun forms are effortless, smoother than she had done before. She loses herself in the movements. Completing the rest of her morning rituals, she walks out the door for the subway station. As she gets off the train at work, she realizes she hadn’t had a cigarette this morning. Lighting one, she draws on it as she walks the few blocks to her office.

“Sveta, do you have a moment?”

Sveta starts from the data on her computer screen and her notes to see Mr. Angleton standing by her desk. “Of course, sir. I was just checking the numbers on the stochastic analysis for the Sevmorput shipping forecasts. I will be ready to brief after lunch.”

“Fine, fine. You might not need to brief that assessment.”

Sveta’s stomach goes tight, and she can feel a blush coming on. This had been her magnum opus; the biggest, most complex project she had taken on so far.

“I think I need you to tidy up your desk.”

Sveta starts to tremble; nothing good starts this way.

“I will need you to move your desk up to room 1205.”

Now her blush comes on hard. That is adjacent to the executive suite; the special projects analysts.

“We have been looking for a new analyst for the executive support team, and your work is the best in the company.” With a small grin he adds, “I think we can see our way clear to a private office for you. A small one, but none the less. Hand off the Sevemorput project to Ms. Bergquist; I am told she has traveled to that part of the world. As for the new position; take the rest of the day to clean up here, move your things up to your new desk, and meet the team in executive support, and we can talk about your new projects after lunch tomorrow, once you are settled.”

“I don’t know what to say, Mr. Angleton. Thank you, of course, but…”

“I have faith in you Sveta. You’ve earned this. But you will have to keep up the good work, not that I am worried about that.”

She starts to reap the rewards she deserves. She reminds me of dear Elisabetta Sirani; such a passion, and such wonderfully varied gifts. And, of course, with twenty first century medicine, Sveta is likely to enjoy a far longer life than my beloved Elisabetta. Three hundred and fifty years has seen some progress in those arts and sciences. My poor Elisabetta, in an age of unwashed louts, she deserved so much better than she had in life. And what a lover. Women of the twenty first century are hamstrung by the dreadful expectations in their fashion industry. Those dreadful, starved and useless women are the worst examples. To the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I can reminisce while Sveta spends her day in the light.

Walking out the door for a lunch time stretch and nosh, Sveta almost bumps into Bonnie.

“Sveta! Did you hear?”

“I am not sure, what’s up, Bonnie?”

“I am the new deputy director of HR!”

Hugging her, kissing her on the cheek, “Oh Bonnie, that is wonderful!”

“An’ I heard about you moving your desk?”

“I am still in shock. A week ago, Mr. Angleton didn’t even know my name. I mean, I thought he didn’t know my name.”

“Well that don’t matter none! You’re gettin’ some recognition!”

“What do you say we celebrate a bit? Do you have time for Hatsuhana Sushi? No – that’s right, you don’t do raw fish. How about Gyu Kaku?”

Bonnie looked at Sveta suspiciously.

“Japanese barbeque, you’ll love it.”

Over lunch, Bonnie made appreciative sounds over the different strips of marinated and grilled meats. As the meal was winding down, she looked Sveta in the eye, “Have any more of them dreams?”

Sveta blushed deeply.

“Oh you shore did! Okay, I am a little jealous. You wouldn’t be blushing like that if it wharn’t somethin’ special!”

“Um. It was.”

“Okay now, I won’t press you. I am happy for you, honey.”

Returning from lunch, Bonnie allowed as how it wasn’t the barbeque she was raised with, but it was tasty. They hugged again, and went to their offices. Sveta spent the rest of the day saying her goodbyes to the team, and setting up her new desk on the twelfth floor.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a temple of memories; humanity’s memories, but many of those memories have profound meaning for me. My beloved Elisabetta, of course, but as I move through the corridors, a profound sadness fills me. The Egyptian collection always summons the echoes of my first, Hypatia. She was the first that I remember. Before her my memories are dim and indistinct. She told me the name of my kind, and in gratitude I inspired her to a passion that was too much for the world she lived in. Her fate at the hands of the ignorant and hateful masses stings even after sixteen centuries. The memory is so painful, I feel compelled to pause for a moment in front of stones from Alexandria, and honor her memory, but I cannot linger.

In the Venice and Northern Italy collection, I find a work by my Elisabetta, and others by her students. Our time was so short, but she did so much with it. Like Hypatia, her actions have ripples spanning centuries. Even people who never learned her name, see echoes of her works. Of course, the loss of her left me heartbroken, but Julie d’Aubigny lifted my spirits. Just the memory of Julie beating the men she dueled makes me smile after all these centuries. And such a voice.

Sveta had finished what needed to be done for the day, but there is something she should be able to connect about Ster that she has not. The symbols she saw carved into his skin were disturbing, but that is not it. Bonnie said demon. He appeared to her looking demonic some times and angelic others. Angel, she remembers, is from the Greek άγγελος; a messenger. Typing out a search, she sees the root of demon, δαίμονας; daemon. So what is a daemon, she asks. “A lesser deity or guiding spirit”, a “tutelary deity”. As she reads the explanation of tutelary deity, a line jumps out at her; “one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual”. The Greeks divided these spirits into agathodaemon and cacodaemon. Cacodaemon brought chaos, and madness. Agathodaemon or eudaemon were “guardian spirits, bestowing protection and guidance to ones they watched over” and “a counselor, the eudaemon whispered advice and opinions in one’s ear. Such a person escorted by the eudaemon was considered fortunate”.

So Ster Du Matin, Ster “of the morning”; could Ster mean “Star”? Like “star of the morning” or “Morning Star”? After a few minutes, Sveta finds that Ster is Dutch for Star. So, my visitor is the Morning Star. Another search. “Morning Star, another name for Lucifer”. Lucifer was a fallen angel, but he was also the light bringer. Other references make Lucifer a guardian spirit or inspiration, or a bringer of enlightenment. So Lucifer was an eudaemon? Or did someone misname an eudaemon Lucifer?

Eudaemon… and only days after my first dream, I am promoted, she reflects. But that had to be coincidence, or my hard work. Hard work that went from good to, well, miraculous, in the days since that dream. It has been like I suddenly have been touched with genius, like I have someone whispering advice. And Bonnie dreamt of a demon having… no, Bonnie dreamt of having her way with a demon. Or more accurately, a daemon, and she is promoted. I am glad she is not in my field. To have some… dream setting us against each other would be unbearable. As things are, I can celebrate her success, and she mine. We have shared a lover though. That is complicated. Or it would be, if it wasn’t just a dream. This is getting filed under “never tell with Bonnie”. Be happy for her. But is this a real thing? Or just coincidence?

Sveta makes a call, and walks out of the office.

Getting off the subway a stop early, she stops at a small day spa for the Thai massage she booked on the way out of her office. As the masseuse cleans her feet, she sips the tea and lets go of the day, and of the city. The tiny therapist leads her to a dimly lit room, where Sveta changes into the thin shirt and pants. When the Thai woman returns, she begins kneading Sveta, and the tension melts. Alternating between kneading and stretching Sveta, the therapist continues, and Sveta lets the soft, ethereal music carry her as the knots are worked out. After an hour and a half, and a final round of stretches for the spine, they are done, and Sveta feels a world better than she did before. As she leaves, the last glow of daylight has left the sky, and the city lights have come on.