Love in Dreams: Rescue (3 page)

Cass continued in to the house and lit candles in the
kitchen and back room. She didn’t have much. Hot dogs, buns, potato salad,
cookies, beer, bottled water, canned green beans, and bananas. She laughed
ruefully and put together two identical plates, each with a hot dog and bun, a
scoop of potato salad, and a serving of beans. A beer for herself, still icy
from the cooler, and a bowl of water for him.

Him
.

Cass was already thinking of a
him
, rather than an
it
.
Or a dog. Or a wolf. She paused, holding the plates and drinks. Strangely, it
felt like she already knew the animal next door. And now she was on her way to
eat dinner with him.

“Silliness,” she told herself. She set her plate and beer on
the counter. Clearly, she was compensating. The stress of her escape had driven
her to see or feel something that wasn’t there. She was helping a starving
animal. She’d feed the dog and then come back and eat and that would be all.
Tomorrow she’d go to town and ask about her neighbors, maybe even find an
animal control officer.

Cass walked to the neighbor’s lot briskly. She set the food
down in front of the dog and watched in amazement as he gobbled up every last
morsel – except for the beans, which he pawed off the plate and sniffed at with
disdain. He moved to the water bowl and drank steadily until it was nearly
empty. Cass wanted to keep things strictly business-like and impersonal – she
knew she was fighting an impulse of some sort – so she patted the dog twice
before saying, “There you go, champ. I’ll check back in the morning.”

It took all her willpower to walk away. She wanted to hold
his head in her lap and pet him until his eyes closed and he slept peacefully.
He needed a companion. How could someone leave an animal chained up alone in
the woods?

Back at her own cabin, Cass devoured her food with similar
speed. She gulped cool swallows of beer and grabbed a second bottle when she
moved to the living room. She spent a few minutes getting clothes unpacked and
straightening up, and she remembered to crank open the water line where it
entered the cabin – under a trap door in the back room. There was enough
pressure from the well to have a working toilet and sink in the bathroom. For
any more than that – including the hot shower Cass craved – she’d have to wait
until she had the power turned on.

Cass changed clothes, donning her favorite green plaid
flannel pajama bottoms and an old sweatshirt. She pulled two large blankets
from the hall closet and wrapped herself up on the couch in the living room.
She blew out all the candles and sat, sipping beer, as she stared out the
picture window into blackness.

What should have been calming was in reality sheer torture.
The dark glass rectangle in front of her was a portal, a negative space filled
with invisible monsters. Cass fought the urge to run to the bedroom, where
small windows yielded hardly any access and she could curl up on a cot and
squeeze her eyes shut like she did when she was a child and strobe light
lightning flashes scared her half to death.

What if he’s out there? Watching me? Laughing at me?
Picking up a large rock, about to shatter that huge pane of glass? Was that a
twig snapping? A thump on the door?

Every sound, every whisper, was Preston. The fear had
returned. Preston could be five feet away from the window and staring at her.
Plotting. Scheming. Holding up a fist, about to smash her world apart. Her
cheek ached with the memory of his cruelty. Other incidents flashed through her
mind like a news ticker: his obsessive control of their joint checking account,
his insistence on choosing her outfits when they went out, his cruel jokes at
her expense around friends.

Why hadn’t she known? Why had she been so blind?

You trusted him Cass. That was your only mistake.

Her guiding voice calmed her. It was as if Grandma Florence
was stroking her hair.

He is the one who made the mistake. He violated your
trust.

He was wrong.

He was wrong.

He was wrong.

“Never again,” Cass whispered. She imagined herself bricking
over the picture window, walling herself into a fortress nobody could
penetrate, not even Preston. Brick by brick. By the time she was halfway
through her imagined masonry, she felt strong and secure. She mapped out a plan
for the next day, leaned back on the couch, and drifted off to sleep.

~~~

Cass is a nurse, stationed somewhere in a desert. This makes
sense like dreams make sense – instant authenticity and urgent action.

Many women and men around her are wounded. Her pulse races,
but she’s confident as she paces through operating rooms. She’s the most
experienced in her unit. She directs doctors and other nurses to patients with
wounds of war: missing limbs, bullet-ridden torsos, shellshock and trauma.

There’s a small green tent, and Cass ducks inside. For some
reason this case concerns her the most. Her heart leaps as her eyes adjust to
the hazy dark. She feels a huge rush of both hope and despair when she sees her
patient.

He’s on a cot, covered from the waist down with a light
green sheet. From all appearances, he’s sleeping peacefully. His figure is
lean, still muscular although whatever caused the apparent coma has weakened
him greatly. His chest rises and falls steadily. His dirty blonde hair, once
cut high and tight, is growing out, like his beard. He has been there for quite
some time.

Cass responds to this patient differently than the others.
Warmth fills her chest. Her cheeks flush. She falls to her knees at his side
and places her hands on his, squeezing his fingers and hoping for a response.
There is none. She drifts her fingers over his midsection, tracing the lines of
muscle and trembling as she brushes the patch of fine hair leading past his
navel toward the edge of sheet.

She is devastated but determined. She fights back tears. She
bites her lip, resolute, and reaches down for a cool, damp washcloth. She
caresses the man. She doesn’t simply wipe him with the cloth. Every movement is
a loving one. All around his chest, dabbing a corner of the cloth around his
nipples, gliding over each curve of his abdomen and hips, along each powerful
arm, against each cheek, she slowly and carefully cleans the silent figure.

His skin is damp and warm. His lips part slightly as he
breathes harder. Cass purposefully allows her forearms to brush across him.
Every point of contact raises her temperature and makes her thirst for more.
She sees his pulse beating quickly in a vein on his neck. When she leans
forward, her breasts press hard into his body, sending a thrill to her core.
She slides back and forth, back and forth, feeling her tender nipples go stiff
under her tight t-shirt and thin cotton bra.

She grazes a fingertip over his lips, as if to say,
“Remember me?”

She kisses him gently to make sure he
does
remember.
He’s hot with unknown fever, his lips dry and cracked.

When Cass completes the tour of his upper body, she hops up
to check outside the tent. Nobody else is around. The compound is quiet.
Returning to the man’s side, Cass slowly pulls the sheet down to his ankles.
Another hot rush swells in her chest and cheeks. She knows it’s wrong. This is
not part of her standard procedure. She can’t get caught, she’ll be exposed,
they’ll
be exposed, and all will be lost.

The man is naked, his penis resting gently against a thigh,
relaxed but long and hinting strongly of a thickness Cass somehow knows and
craves. Cass swallows hard and freshens the washcloth in a tub of water. She
wipes the man’s legs, starting at the wide, muscled inner thigh and working
toward his feet. She just needs to bathe him, nothing more. If someone walks in
on them she can explain.

I’m sorry sir, it was a mistake sir, I thought he needed
special attention under these grave circumstances.

The man is firm. Powerful. Taut. Cass tries unsuccessfully
not to stare at his member.

It’s too inviting. She very carefully slides her fingers
around his shaft and lifts his cock, wiping gently all around and even
underneath, caressing him, losing herself to the steady rhythm of washing,
squeezing, tugging, tugging, working her closed hand up and down his member
until it grows and stiffens.

Oh, how he stiffens. He swells, as dream-Cass certainly
expected. She knows this man and his girth and every muscle and his
intoxicating scent. She wants to lean forward and press her lips to his tip.
The skin is already stretched shiny and tight. She barely resists flicking her
tongue around his glans, wanting to drink him in. Her free hand drifts between
her legs, sliding under the waistband of her scrubs and pressing against her
swollen, nearly melting sex.

It feels so good, in the dream, and in the wonderful way
that Cass sometimes watched herself in dreams from afar. She experiences the
imagined pleasure...while very consciously pleasuring herself.

Dream-Cass circles her thumb and index finger at the base of
the man’s cock and slowly takes him into her mouth. His skin is impossibly
soft, stunningly warm. She works him up and down, sucking as she pulls her head
up, letting his cock pop free with slick sounds. Her panties cling tight and
wet. She pulls them aside, her motions frantic. Her fingers find her slippery
outer lips and she slides them first down, then up slowly. Torturing herself.
Feeling her wetness pulse and surge forth, soaking her fingers more and more.
She pushes deeper, pressing past the outer folds into the hottest part of her
center. The man’s girth fills her, pressing against the back of her throat, and
Cass holds herself above him, sucking hard and raising her head high before
descending down again and again. Her hips rock in sharply against her eager
hand. The cushions underneath her are surely soaked. Her two fingers plunge
deep, in and out, her clit engorged and throbbing and then that glorious
waterfall explodes from out of nowhere. A shock of electricity courses from her
sex to her chest and fill her vision with fireworks. Cass groans against the
man’s shaft, unable to stop her frenzied sucking even as her body tries to
explode.

The cushions. The blankets. The cabin’s familiar scent.

The tent was gone. The man vanished. As Cass simultaneously
awoke and came down from her delirious high, she fully realized the dream. The
wet, wet, oh-so-wet dream. She was still gasping. Her hand was still between
her legs, her two middle fingers deep and bent and stroking the walls of her
pussy as it spasmed. Her thighs quivered. She’d raised her hips from the couch.
She took huge gulps of air, there in the black of night. Her eyes were open
wide and her cheeks burned. She cried out, a harsh yelp of a noise caught in
her chest as she continued to buck wildly.

Holy shit.

Cass hadn’t come like that in ages. Quite possibly, never.
Her body shook. She swore she could taste the man’s salty musk on her lips.
Part of her was deeply saddened that he hadn’t finished – that she hadn’t kept
her mouth around him until he exploded and covered her tongue with his hot
release.

With no idea of what time it was, or how long until morning,
Cass turned on to her side. Her thighs were wet, her sweatpants warm and
clinging, and she reveled in the sheer rawness of it all. She clutched a small
throw pillow between her legs and slowly drifted back to sleep.

She tried as hard as she could to conjure up the desert tent
and its mysterious occupant.

~~~

A sunbeam woke Cass the next morning. The golden ray spun
through a wisp of branches near the picture window and warmed her chest as she
blinked her eyes open. She’d slept well. Surprisingly so, she thought.

Then she remembered her combat nursing efforts. She lifted
the blanket and saw that her pajama pants were twisted and tight between her
legs, packed in close by the pillow she’d squeezed with her thighs. Cass
blushed and coughed lightly. She couldn’t remember if she’d returned to the
desert dreamscape, but all signs pointed to a repeat performance. And the hazy,
soothing warmth of stray endorphins only served to confirm her theory.

She stood, brushed her clothes straight, and stared across
the shimmering lake. No boats were out yet – only a stray duck or loon in the
distance. It truly looked like an open and endless canvas, perfect for Cass’s
newly designed life.

Cass traipsed to the bathroom to prepare for her day as best
she could. She found a bucket and filled it with enough cold water for a quick,
icy rinse-off in the shower stall. She dropped her clothes in a heap and,
shivering from the get-go, braved a few quick splashes that snapped her
completely awake. The cold made her heart pound in her chest. Instant
goosebumps bloomed across her milky skin and twisted her nipples hard. It
wasn’t altogether unpleasant; Cass felt like she was covered with liquid
electricity that may or may not have had something to do with the memory of the
sleeping soldier.

“Sleeping Beauty,” Cass giggled. She wet her hair and pulled
it back for the first time since Preston’s attack. Studying herself in the
mirror opposite the shower, she shivered and realized anyone – like the
policeman the day before – could very clearly see her injury. She’d been
thinking of it as a mask of shame. Something to run from, or hide behind.
Everyone else probably saw it as a giant warning sign. Nothing but trouble with
good ol’ Cass.

No more covering up, Cass. No more hiding.

The voice was back. Cass swallowed hard and traced a finger
over her bruised cheek, purple as a spoiling plum.

Fuck him! I said no more covering up!

Cass nodded to herself, still holding her hair in a loose
ponytail.

You look good, girl! Don’t be ashamed!