Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Dan Porter awoke with a jolt, hurling words into the darkness that surrounded him. “Don’t go! Not yet!”
Useless words. The dream was over.
Except Dan knew deep down it was no dream, felt it all the way to his soul.
He flung back the damp sheet and sat up, tremors still rippling through him.
This is not fair. The vision—because that was all it could be—was unchanged from its previous incarnations.
Some higher cosmic force clearly thought it acceptable to send him the same fucking vision for thirteen fucking years.
At least he didn’t get it every night. Sometimes Dan would go for months without it. What followed those stretched-out periods was nothing but stark fear.
What if I never get it again?
What if I never get to know why I keep having it?
What if I never learn who he is?
Those fears outweighed any feelings that some… thing was treating him unfairly. He’d rather have the vision than nothing, because he lived in hope that one day….
It always began the same way. Dan was on all fours on a bed, a rumpled sheet beneath him, and some unseen figure was behind him, sliding into him.
The friction was exquisite, as was the scent that permeated the air around them, a hint of patchouli and a woody aroma he couldn’t place.
Now and again his mystery partner would move, covering Dan with his warm body, and it was then that Dan would see the man’s forearm with its tattoo.
No images, just two words: Never Forget.
Dan’s heart pounded as it did during every such cryptic encounter.
He longed to see the guy who alternated between fucking him with passion and making slow, lingering love to him, but there were no mirrors in the vision.
Everything was distilled down to touch, smell, and sound.
The man’s breath tickled his skin. His fingertips brushed against Dan’s nipples, tweaked them, tearing groans from his lips.
His lips grazed Dan’s neck, his shoulders, his back.
His grunts mingled with Dan’s, and they were noises of pleasure, desire, lust… .
And with each sensual encounter, Dan knew, from balls to bones, that he was safe. On awakening he yearned to sink back into the vision, but it never replayed more than once a night.
I want to meet him. I need to know if he’s real.
Dan rubbed his chest, his fingers sliding through sweat. He traced the line of his scar.
Is he as real as this?