Dream World (11 page)

‘Go ahead if it'll make you feel more comfortable.'

Kate swivelled around to find Dexter behind her. He was shivering and dripping cold water onto her carpet. Her eyes latched on to the knife rack which rested on the kitchen work surface less than three feet from where he was standing. He noted the look.

‘Thanks,' he said. ‘I could use a sandwich right about now.'

Kate's temper flared. ‘Will you stop it. I'm trying to have a serious panic attack here and I'm not going to manage to do so if you keep cracking bad jokes.'

‘I didn't think they were that bad.'

‘Six out of ten, could do better.'

‘You give jokes marks?' He shook his head. ‘That's harsh.'

‘Let's face it, most of them are more like casual flippant comments than jokes.'

‘Even harsher.'

‘Do you do serious?'

‘Sometimes.'

‘Like when?'

‘Like now.'

‘This doesn't sound very serious to me.'

‘Is fainting serious enough for you?'

‘What! Don't you dare...' Kate never got to finish the sentence because Dexter stumbled forwards and keeled over. She reached out and grabbed him just in time to stop him hitting the unforgiving kitchen floor. She knew all those hours she had put in down at the squash centre would pay dividends one day.

Dexter was having a nightmare. He had experienced far too many recently. This one was no different to the last. He was running across the top wall of a dam. The masonry was crumbling all around him as if the dam was cracking. To make matters worse, Richard and Nadia were chasing him, but that couldn't be right, surely? They were his friends. He lost his footing, slipped and fell. Stretching out with his right hand he grabbed the ledge and clung on for dear life. As his body swung in the air he knew that he daren't look down at the drop below, so he gazed up instead. Richard stood above him.

‘Help me,' Dexter pleaded.

‘Gladly,' Richard replied, then lifted his left leg.

‘Why?' Dexter asked.

Richard declined to answer. Instead he brought his foot down hard on Dexter's hand. Dexter tried to hold on but the pain was too much. He let go and found himself falling, falling, falling...

Dexter woke with a start and glanced around. The bedroom he found himself in was unfamiliar, as was the beautiful girl who was kneeling on the duvet next to him. He tried a name, experimentally. ‘Kate?'

She nodded.

‘What happened?' he asked.

‘You flaked out.'

‘Damn. Did I miss anything?'

‘Me dragging you upstairs.'

‘That must have been fun.'

‘Like you wouldn't believe.'

‘Anything else?'

‘The bit where you thank me.'

‘Oh, yes, of course, thanks.' He tried to sit up. He didn't get very far. His head felt like it weighed about a hundred tonnes. She mopped at his temples with a slightly damp cloth.

‘Hey, I remember now,' he said. ‘You were torturing me.'

‘No I wasn't,' she said.

‘Yes you were. You forced me to strip, then you made me take an ice bath and,' he sniffed at the cup that lay on the bedside cabinet, ‘now it smells like you're trying to poison me.'

‘It's herb tea.'

‘I knew it. Foul stuff.' He sniffed again. ‘What flavour?'

‘Raspberry and ginseng.'

He pulled a face. ‘Uuurgh. The worst.'

‘You really don't know how to be serious, do you?'

‘It seems a waste when I'm in the company of such a beautiful woman.'

‘Compliments will get you nowhere.'

‘So what will?'

‘An explanation.'

‘You won't believe me.'

‘Try me.'

Dexter struggled up into a sitting position, leant back against the headboard and, taking her at her word, tried her. ‘What do you know about the history of Dream World?'

‘Not much,' she admitted.

‘Doesn't it surprise you how few details there are out there in the public domain with regards to how Richard came up with the idea in the first place?'

‘I don't know, I hadn't really thought about it before.'

‘Do you want to know why?'

Kate shrugged.

Dexter took a deep breath. ‘It's because he didn't come up with the idea. I did.'

Kate laughed.

‘I'm being serious,' he said.

‘By your own admission, you don't how to be.'

‘Well I am being serious now and if you don't believe me then I guess that's my own fault.'

‘Alright, prove it,' she said.

‘What?'

‘If you came up with the idea for Dream World, prove it to me.'

‘I can do that easily if I can get hold of my legal documents.'

‘Where are they?'

‘In a safe.'

‘Where's the safe?'

‘Inside a dream.'

Kate laughed even louder this time. ‘You must think I was born yesterday.'

‘No, I think you were born back in the Cold War and that's why you sub-consciously tapped into the Russian dream scenario in which you confronted Nadia.'

‘I've told you before, don't do that,' she said, sharply.

‘What?'

‘Read my dreams.'

‘So you don't want to talk about Paris either?'

The colour rose in her cheeks. ‘That's none of your business.'

‘Oh, so it's OK for you to use me for your naughty little fantasies, but not for us to discuss them.'

‘I didn't know you were real back then,' she protested.

‘Yes you did. We bumped into one another in the car park beforehand, remember?'

‘How do you know all this?'

‘Perhaps because I've studied peoples dreams for years. Perhaps because I've learnt how to read them. Perhaps because I put all this knowledge into creating Dream World in the first place. Or, alternatively...'

‘What?'

‘I could just be very good at guessing.'

She took a moment to consider all that he had said then asked, ‘How did Richard steal the idea?'

‘Being my old partner he was in the perfect position to do so.'

‘Do you really expect me to believe any of this?'

‘No,' he admitted.

‘Good.'

‘So what are you going to do with me then?'

Kate took a moment to consider. ‘The sensible thing would be to call the police.'

‘But you're not going to,' he said, hopefully.

She hesitated momentarily before replying. ‘No.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Why don't you challenge him, legally, through the courts?'

‘Because legal is what Richard is good at. I was the ideas man, he was the business half of the partnership. I developed Dream World, he took care of all the legal stuff and security.'

‘Security?'

‘Yes. He wrote the programmes that police Dream World. For instance, Comrade Nadia.'

‘Nadia is a programme?'

‘She patrols the dreams, ensuring that criminals and deviants don't take advantage of the centre, which is fine, someone needs to do that. But Richard has corrupted her from what she was originally designed to do and these days her main task is to keep me away from the safe that guards the original documents that prove I'm the real inventor of Dream World.'

‘That's crazy. You can't store hard copy documents inside a dream.'

‘No, not hard copy. But you can store the information digitally and encrypt it within a programme.'

Realisation dawned on her. ‘That's what you were doing in the dream, trying to steal it back.'

‘Yes.'

Kate's head was starting to swim. ‘There's still one thing I don't understand. How did I get involved in all of this?'

‘By accident. I've waited several months for someone like you to come along.'

‘What do you mean, someone like me?'

‘Someone who Richard finds irresistible, therefore distracts him.'

‘Don't try and flatter me.'

‘It's true. I could tell how badly he wanted you that first night he took you to Sydney.'

‘You were watching?'

‘Monitoring.'

‘You pervert.' She slapped him.

‘Sorry. You're right, I deserved that. But I didn't know you back then, I thought you were just as bad as that other woman I thought Richard fancied.'

‘Sylvia?'

‘Yes, Sylvia.'

She slapped him again.

He rubbed his cheek. ‘I'm not sure I deserved that.'

‘She's my best friend,' Kate said.

‘OK, maybe I did,' he admitted. ‘Did you know that she...'

‘Don't tell me!' Kate cried.

‘OK, I won't. But, boy, is she one naughty lady.'

‘You don't know the half of it,' she mumbled.

‘I think I probably do.'

In spite of everything, Kate found herself giggling.

‘What's so funny?' he asked.

‘You are,' she replied.

‘But only six out of ten funny?'

‘Seven.'

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I'm improving then?'

Ignoring his comment she tried to get back to the more serious matter at hand. ‘So what went wrong?'

‘An unexpected eventuality arose.'

‘Which was?'

‘You,' he said.

‘Come again?'

‘I managed to reach the plans when you distracted Nadia in that café in Red Square, only...' he trailed off.

‘Only what?'

‘They'd captured you, remember.'

‘So?'

‘I couldn't just leave you there.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because I... like you.'

‘You like me? You don't even know me.'

‘I know that you fancy me.'

‘So what?'

‘Ah, so you admit it!' he exclaimed.

‘What if I do?'

He leant forwards on the bed and kissed her. ‘Your lips are as perfect as they are in your dreams.'

She slapped him a third time.

‘Will you please stop doing that,' he said.

She glared at him. ‘You've got a bloody nerve.'

‘Thanks.'

‘I didn't mean that as a compliment either.'

‘Well maybe you should do after the hit I took for you back in St. Basil's.'

‘What in God's name are you talking about now?'

‘Kate, if I didn't agree to go with them, they'd have hurt you.'

‘Inside my dream? Get a grip, Dexter, they couldn't do that, they're not real.'

‘Would you like to put that theory to the test?'

‘Are you trying to tell me that they can harm you inside your dreams?'

He sighed. ‘I'm not sure. Maybe. A lot's changed since I developed the initial programmes.'

‘Is that how you...' she broke off and touched one of the marks on his chest.

‘No. This was handed out by the security guards at the centre. But since Nadia captured my dream self, I won't be able to break into anyones dreams now.'

‘This can't be happening. It sounds like something out of a Christopher Nolan film.'

‘I know, great isn't it? Well, apart from the bit where they captured me and us having to come up with a plan how to get the information out of that safe.'

‘Us?'

‘Aren't you going to help me?' he sounded surprised.

‘Give me one good reason why I should.'

‘Because...'

‘And don't say because I fancy you,' she interrupted.

‘I wasn't going to.'

‘Good.'

‘Because you like me?' he suggested.

Kate raised her right arm to slap him a fourth time, but playfully, not in anger. He cowered in anticipation of the blow. She hit him, softly.

‘Ow,' he yelped.

‘Wuss.' She went to smack him again, only this time he caught her hand and began to kiss her fingers. ‘Don't,' she said.

He broke off just long enough to ask, ‘Why not?'

‘Because...'

He stopped kissing and started to suck her fingers instead.

‘Because...'

‘Yes?' he said, transferring his lips from her fingers to her inner arm.

She allowed him to kiss all the way to the very top before replying, ‘Because I do like you.'

He gasped in mock surprise at the admission. ‘You know what that means don't you?'

‘No, what?' she murmured.

‘I'm going to have to do this.' With that, he showered her neck with a series of kisses.

‘How on earth could you possibly know about that,' she whispered.

‘You wouldn't believe me if I told you.'

‘Then don't even try.'

He didn't bother to respond. He was far too busy concentrating on her neck to do so.

Up until that moment Kate had thought that her experiences in the Dream Centre were just as good as the real thing. As his lips feathered around her neck - kissing, nuzzling, nibbling - she realised how wrong she was. The sensation was so much more intense and thrilling. As his hands began to remove the clothing from her body she stripped the towel from his waist, pleased to note that in one respect, at least, the real Dexter was actually an improvement on his dream counterpart.

Kate was torn. Though she would have happily let him kiss her neck forever, she longed to reciprocate his kisses and tend to his gorgeous thick cock. Taking it in her hands she stroked him as he caressed her breasts. He pulled away from her and they gazed deep into one another's eyes. Their lips met for the second time that night, only this time the kiss they shared was a sensuous, passionate one. As they kissed, his hands felt as if they were everywhere as they explored her body; stroking, touching, teasing, tantalising.

She let go of him as he eased her back down onto the bed. In order to encourage him to enter her, she parted her legs. She could feel his cock seeking her pussy. When the tip eventually nuzzled against her lips, he reached down with his left hand and gently massaged her clit before entering her. His touch was so much more light and gentle than that of any of her previous lovers. Whether it was his technique, Kate couldn't be sure, but in no time at all her juices had begun to flow. Aching to feel him inside her, she flexed her hips upwards in an attempt to snare his cock. Sensing how much she wanted him he allowed the tip to part her pussy lips, but deliberately withheld the rest, determined to heighten her pleasure further before allowing himself to fully join in the fun.