The presence that inhabits this place with me emits pulsing signals that translate as raw sexual desire, the distillation of carnal lust. My conscious mind aims to erect a wall, block these pulses out. Yet my feral core—that weak spot where my wiring reaches back to antiquity—objects, craves the satisfaction that is proffered. I need not speak this desire, though, because IT already knows. So IT begins to please me: a trail of wetness around my ear; hot breath to my neck; a feather’s touch at one nipple, then the other. I tell IT to stop, leave me be. But IT knows my denial is transient, equivocal, fragile enough to be ignored. And so IT does. With reckless hunger, IT ravages. And I allow IT. But soon I wish I hadn’t. Because when the light comes, I see what I am complicit in, the depravity to which I have consented. And IT’s face is Owen. I bolt upright in a cold sweat, the urge to vomit pressing its way through my throat and into my mouth. Tim rolls over and slings his arm across my lap.
