The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  She held it for only a second, however it was enough time for Jim to see the full length of her long slender legs, as the black dress slid down them. Just as he caught sight of the gentle curve of her small round buttocks and the tantalizing whiteness of her cotton panties, she went into a back walk over, ending up facing him three feet from the desk, the smile having never left her face.

  Jim stood spell bound, his mouth hanging open by the simple gymnastic maneuver, but Talitha giggled at him and then casually kicked the desk, hard, sending it sliding into Jim's thighs and he fell back into his chair.

  "Ok, this is serious now," he said, hauling his weight up. He took the desk, upended it, and stuck it against the door leading to the parking lot. He shoved the chair aside as well.

  Reek, reek, reek.

  Talitha, like a five year old, was jumping on the bed, smiling, looking insane with glee. Jim cautiously moved toward her expecting her to jump away at any moment, but even so, he was too slow. Reaching out to snatch her, she emitted a loud girlish shriek and ducked under his arm, rolling across the floor in a tight ball, before popping up and jumping onto the low dresser.

  "What are you doing? You're gonna break something," Jim said.

  "Are you calling me fat?" She was still smiling and playful; Jim's heart felt huge, full of her. He jumped at her again, but again she was too quick. She became a giggling electric butterfly. Weightless, alighting upon the bed or dresser or chair, only to flit away without reason or purpose, in random directions. A half dozen times he could have caught her, but he was having too much fun.

  Finally, she purposely allowed herself to be caught, practically leaping into his arms, but once there, she went spastic, wiggling and kicking, all the while keeping up an endless giggle. This forced him to drop her onto the bed where he smothered her with his bulk. He knew how his size and weight could induce temporary claustrophobia and he quickly rolled off of her. He lay beside her panting slightly, however she, despite the fact that she had ran about like mad, wasn't winded in the least.

  But now the game was over.

  Talitha was irresistible. Her thick brown hair splayed out around her head, shimmering, catching the light in such a way that Jim couldn't help himself and he touched it. He ran his fingers through her hair, running its length. It was amazingly soft and he was about to comment on it, when he saw her lips part.

  They were full and alluring, and the temptation to kiss her was nearly uncontrollable, but now he became the fearful artist once again, afraid to make that first stroke, seeing failure past every action. But then she licked her lips.

  This one small compelling movement sent a surge through him and casting aside his fears, he bent down gently and brushed his lips against hers, not engaging in a full kiss yet, just touching his lips to hers.

  This was perfect.

  And natural. So natural that her body reacted even if her mind still hesitated, her lips parted invitingly, hungry for affection.

  And then they kissed as new lovers do. Exploring the beginnings with tentative almost fearful excitement. The kiss was glorious and alive, and Jim felt it run through his body as if her tongue traced a conduit directly to his penis, causing it to leap and throb.

  The kiss blazed huge, but somewhere his artist's stroke went awry and Jim suddenly felt Talitha stiffen coldly beside him and her lips withdrew from his and she turned her head away, only just so.

  Surprise kept him silent, but he had the sense to lean back away from her so she wouldn't feel trapped and to his dismay, she promptly slid from the bed and stood with her back to him.

  "I'm sorry, that was..." He felt the need to call what just happened a mistake, but it felt too right. But he said it anyways, "That was a mistake, it won't happen again."

  "What?" Talitha asked quietly as if she hadn't been listening. She turned and he caught sight of a single tear coming down her cheek.

  "I'm sorry that I messed this up," he said.

  She looked around the room, which appeared to have been struck by a hurricane and after taking a deep breath she replied, "Turn off the lights."

  It was a command, spoken in a voice low and husky, and it sent Jim's heart hammering in his chest. And when the room went dark, the thudding of it seemed to magnify, but it got worse, becoming a trip hammer, when in the dim light he saw her slowly unbuttoning the black dress.

  He noticed how white her teeth were in the dim room when she said, "There's no need for you to apologize. I was wrong. I was thinking of Brian, when I should have been thinking of you." She strode toward him, the long black dress now completely open and the sight was undeniable. He couldn't have torn his eyes from her even if he wanted to and the sudden throbbing of his penis became pleasantly painful as it tried to fight its way out of his jeans.

  He wanted to say something, but she wouldn't let him. She pulled his face down to hers and they kissed in earnest and she was no longer tentative, but hungry. As they kissed, she undid his pants, releasing him and then stroking him. While he gently slid the black dress off her shoulders, it whispered down the length of her body, gathering in puddle at her feet.

  Jim pulled away from the kiss, meaning to take his shirt off, but he paused at the sight of her wonderful tan body. He felt a moment's hesitation, knowing this couldn't be real. He was hallucinating, or in a dream, or in heaven.

  She was too perfect, all of her, there wasn't a scar or a blemish to mar her smooth skin. His eyes travelled the length of her body taking every inch of her in and he knew he could stare at her forever, but she wasn't in a pausing or hesitating mood.

  Quickly, she helped him out of his clothes, before leading him down to the bed. There they kissed and explored each other's bodies with their hands and he found that she was not going to need much foreplay. She was wet, deliciously so, and moaned loudly at his touch.

  He moaned at her touch as well, but it was a moan of pain, she was not experienced and it quickly began to hurt. She was very strong and he had to take his hands from her body to stop her.

  "Just excited," she said with a smile that spoke of ravenous sexuality. "Here, this will make it feel better." She pulled him on top of her and he slid in like he had been greased.

  He was not a virgin, but no girl he'd ever had could come even close to this. She was hot wet silk and had spectacular muscles that rolled, undulating up and down him, but there was something else that drove him wild and nearly had him exploding in minutes, it was her desire.

  Her need.

  Nothing is more provocative to a man, than a girl who desires him, who wants him as badly as he does her and Talitha was animalistic in her passion. Her moaning became intense and the undulating muscles rippled in a frenzy and squeezed him to the point where there was no going back and now he groaned as well, deep in his throat.

  "No," she said, "Don't...not yet." However, there was a momentum building in him and try as he might he couldn't hold it back. But Talitha could. She slid her hands between his legs and pinched him viciously hard on his inner thigh.

  The pain was similar to, but far worse than a wasp's sting. Jim never knew that such a thing could hurt so badly and his body jerked back from it and his great building lust was gone, just like that. He was still rock hard though and Talitha began grinding herself against him, coaxing him.

  For a second he was angry with her, but her eyes pleaded with him to keep going and her hands pulled at him, to enter her again, "Please," she whispered. With that one word, his anger was a distant memory in a second and when a minute passed, he was glad that she had pinched him.

  She began to moan and thrash uncontrollably and her muscles, spasming and squeezing his penis reached a fevered pitch. And even with the spot where she had pinched him, throbbing painfully, he was close to coming before her, but he was somehow able to hold back.

  Suddenly she stopped moaning and her body relaxed beneath him, "That was good, that was good," she smiled up at the ceiling, "You should be proud of yourself." She lay there for a second and
he thrust again into her, his need still with him.

  "Hold on." She wrapped her legs around him, tucking one up under his right arm. "There you go," she said and she began squeezing him as he thrust deeper and deeper into her. He was only a moment away and she could tell; she wore a predatory smile, a wicked one that were he thinking straight, would have baffled him.

  "I told you I would be there for the honeymoon," she whispered into his ear and sent one last fantastic ripple up the length of his penis. He pulled his head up in time to see the smile vanish from her face and now there was only puzzlement, which turned in a flash to revulsion. Right then, even as he began exploding into her, he realized he had been with the wrong Talitha

  "No! No! Stop!" she suddenly started screaming from beneath him.

  His Talitha was back, but his body was practically paralyzed by the intensity of his orgasm, waves of pleasure turned his muscles to jello and as she thrashed and struggled to free herself, it only made the feeling more forceful. They were a tangle of arms and legs and sheets, but finally, he got her leg from off his shoulder, which allowed some space to come between the two of them, and Talitha took advantage of that space.

  The last thing he saw was her fist flying up at his face.

  Chapter 22

  12 Shots and a Dream

  Will fell asleep with the murmur of voices coming in from the room next door and began dreaming almost immediately. This was his way every night, drunk or not, and if he were ever to wake up in the middle of the night, he could remember every last detail of the dream. At least until he dreamed again.

  He never talked about his dreams, not even with Lisa, and not because of their horrifying or vivid nature—not all of his dreams were scary, but they were all vivid. He never spoke of them because he absolutely hated to hear anyone else's dreams and couldn't imagine anyone enthralled over his. As a rule, dreams are only interesting to the person who dreamt it; to everyone else they are senseless, fragmented, meaningless, and above all dull.

  His first dream was a fine example. If Will ever had to mention it, he would say, "It was about how I tried to fix my lawnmower, but I ended up cutting my hand and had to see a doctor." That dream last 56 minutes, from 10:08 to 11:04, and in it, among many other things, he sailed a boat in search of a doctor, traveled to Washington DC by plane, met the president while he was eating lunch, but in the end, never did fix his lawn mower, or his hand.

  Senseless, fragmented, meaningless and above all dull.

  Of course, his main purpose tonight was to dream in the opposite fashion. His dream needed to make sense, it needed to be whole, and it needed it to have meaning. He could only hope it was dull, but he wasn't counting on it.

  In fact, he was afraid it would be far from dull and he drank that night because of that fear. He had only looked into the future on purpose once and it had been horrible beyond the telling. Now he was trying to use his dreams for the same purpose, it made his insides quiver.

  There was a chance that this wouldn't work, that he'd dream all night about lawn mowers and rabbits and lunch dates with the president, but once again, he wasn't counting on it. Despite almost his entire being, demanding to dream nothing but trivialities, there was a small part of him that couldn't be denied and insisted on seeing what lay ahead.

  Like a single grain of sand in his lunch, or a splinter in his palm, this tiny part of him, his sense of duty, would be noticed whether he liked it or not and it would order his subconscious about.

  And this occurred at 11:21.

  One minute he was arranging orchids with Lisa, staring at her, seeing her belly now huge, and the next he felt an ice-cold wind sweep over him. It brought with it a familiar feel, as if he had dreamed this once before. Perplexed, thinking he was supposed to be dreaming of the future and not the past, he turned from his wife and saw the source of the cold.

  He was now in an office building and in front of him was a bank of heavy steel doors, one of which stood open—he went to it, and discovered it to be an elevator. The buttons for the floors were strangely arranged with G for the ground floor at the top and the numbers counting down instead of up.

  Will figured he would find what he was looking for, somewhere in the building, but didn't know for sure where, so he decided to start at the top and work his way down. He hit the lowest button, 36 and oddly, the elevator went down instead of up.

  At the 18th floor, the elevator came to a halt and a man in what looked like a space suit stepped in. Will shrunk back afraid, but the man ignored him and punched 22 and four floors later, he stepped out into a dimly lit corridor and it was then that Will noticed the man's boots were huge and heavy, causing him to walk slowly in an exaggerated fashion.

  Will decided to follow the man and he trailed him at a distance, agonizing over the slow pace, and long dull minutes slipped away as the man passed door after door, all of which were constructed of heavy steel. Finally, he found the door he was looking for and after pushing buttons on a numbered pad next to it, entered.

  Once in, the room was a complete disappointment to Will. It held two caskets that were made of steel and glass and there was a monitor attached to each, similar to what one would find in a hospital. One of these showed what looked to be a very slow, but regular heartbeat, the other was a flat line.

  "Damn!" came the muffled voice of the man as he bent over one of the caskets.

  Will leaned over his shoulder peering in and saw a blonde girl of about fifteen, who looked to have frozen to death. Her lips were blue and her skin frostbit in places, was a very pale white. Will then went to the other casket, which housed a live woman of about thirty, her hair was black and her skin tan. She seemed asleep and in perfect health.

  Will left.

  So far the dream was meaningless as well as dull. He made his way back down the hallway checking doors as he went, they all opened under his touch, and they were all identical to the room he'd already been in, except they held live women.

  Getting in the elevator, he hit 36 again and didn't plan on getting out until he reached the bottom. When he did, he wished he were wearing one of the space suits. The cold was indescribable and even though he knew he was dreaming, he was afraid of freezing to death, but there was another fear down there as well. The cold, once again, had a familiar feel and his mind kept picturing Ba'al Zubel.

  Looking around he saw a long row of lockers and inside, happily, were space suits and he soon donned one feeling immediate relief from the cold. Will saw also that the lockers held oxygen tanks like a scuba diver would use and he quickly attached it to a hose at his side and slung it over his shoulder by a strap.

  He was now ready, but for what? Heading away from the locker, he followed arrows on the walls until he came to an intersection where hallways met. To the right was a door that he would never walk through in his waking life.

  There were danger signs of every sort written in a dozen languages: cautions not to proceed, cautions about proper gear, cautions about authorized personal and so on. He went anyways. Everything about the place so far had fairly screamed: secret military base, but he was wrong.

  The door was pressurized, as was the one after that and the third. Each led to a small chamber, where the door behind would shut before the door to the front would open. Finally, he knew he would see what all the fuss was about. The last door, covered with more of the same cautions was all that stood between him and the cause of his dream and the unforgiving cold.

  But he couldn't bring himself to open it.

  "It's a dream, it's a dream, it's a dream," he chanted repeatedly but he still didn't move. Ba'al Zubel was on the other side. Will knew it and he didn't see any reason to go on. He knew the future now, Ba'al would be somewhere in a great underground building, what more did he need to know?

  Obviously, his subconscious and his stupid sense of duty wanted more and the door in front of him began to open all by itself. The air in the room was sucked out first and he felt himself pulled to the door, almost as if
her were falling sideways. Too late he read one of the caution signs about attaching a tether line to his harness.

  He slipped out of the door, thankful for the weight of his boots; they gave him enough time for him to cling to a tether line by hand. The room was a gigantic steel cylinder, lit by hundreds of huge spotlights and there was a tremendous vacuum in the room, sucking him upwards and on instinct, he pulled himself up the tether and wrapped it around his arm. It was then that he felt the true presence of Ba'al.

  The power of the demon made him go numb and he suddenly didn't care about the tether, or the dream. Millions of bees worked busily, buzzing throughout his mind and for how long he clung to the rope before his brain began working its way through the noise, he didn't know. But finally, feeling slow and stupid, he was able to comprehend what was around him.

  Looking up he saw a tremendous column of black and dark grey smoke, many stories high. It whipped about furiously as if it were boiling when in fact, Will knew that it was cold. Colder than anything possible in nature. He felt the cold now, even through his suit, it pulled at him, making his joint stiff and his eyes water.

  The smoking maelstrom was huge, over a hundred feet tall. And now he began to see the faces under the outer stratum of smoke. Layers upon layers of them. They cried and screamed in silent agony and Will suddenly felt like he was going to throw up in his helmet. He gagged and heaved, feeling sudden panic over the idea of drowning in his own vomit. He scrambled blindly for the door, his sense of duty forgotten, only the door wouldn't open. Further down, he saw another door and pulled himself upside down, feet dangling toward the great beast, along a steel cable. This door too was locked.

  His hands on the cable were tiring and now the urgency to vomit was replaced with a fear of falling upwards and the more he worried over it the more he felt the exhaustion of his muscles. To relieve his hands, he hooked a leg over the cable and from that position, he saw how it ran about the gigantic room in a great circle and he guessed its purpose, but he had no tether to attach to it. However, nearby there was a person with a tether, and one who didn't really need it. His body dangled lifelessly from it, in a perpetual state of falling upwards.