“Bah.” Lily threw her glass on the ground. It bounced twice, spilling its contents across the sand. Glaring at the unbreakable glass, she lashed out with her tail, snapping the tip like a whip. This time the glass shattered, sending tiny glowing embers into the sky. Affection was a farce, a mask worn in the name of love, but only as a means to an end.
Or was it? There had been a time when she hadn’t thought so, but it had been so long ago that she couldn’t remember how she was supposed to feel. Staring out at the waves, she wondered what Mike had been up to. Did he spend his days plotting? Or maybe screaming at the visage of his mother? He was taking his time doing something.
Suddenly, there was a flash of light along the water’s surface, a wave of energy that sparkled along the sky above, tickling Lily’s senses: Mike had called to her, and it was time to go. The Dreamscape folded itself around her, like the turning of a page, and she was suddenly back at the house.
“Okay, so this is clever.” Lily stared at the large maze around the house. Stone had been pulled up from the earth beneath, forming a labyrinth that led to the house. Long, slender vines clung to the stony walls, vines with tiny thorns. “You’ve built a maze. Good for you. Did you put traps in there? I love a good trap.”
“Come and find out.” Mike’s voice came from somewhere within the maze.
She rolled her eyes. Clearly, the man had snapped. Best case scenario, some dream contraption he built could actually kill her, driving her out of the Dreamscape and back into the real world. It would take her all of a minute to get back in, and their game would resume. Lily sighed — the last thing she needed was to spend all night trying to seduce a man who had lost his mind.
Walking into the maze, she was immediately assaulted by a winged figure made of stone. In the real world, such a creature would have a fighting chance. Here, however, Lily was the queen. She whipped her tail, cracking the stone figure in the head. When it shattered, the pieces turned into fluttering butterflies.
“Cute.” Lily navigated the maze. Every few turns, a new stone guardian sprang from the shadows, and Lily quickly dispatched each one, her tail destroying them with relative ease. The maze itself was intricate, but she was far too curious to simply fly over the top. Mike had spent his time mastering the Dreamscape, but to what end?
Moving ever deeper, she couldn’t help but laugh at the childish traps he had set for her: A deep pit full of water, spikes that came out of the walls, and even a rolling boulder which she swatted with one hand, making it float away like a balloon. Just when she thought she was near the center of the labyrinth, she was surprised to emerge back where she had started from.
“Wow. Nice job, Romeo.” Chuckling, she turned around to walk back in. She was in no hurry.
This time, the stone warriors were short men with spiked knuckles. She made short work of them, casually breaking them into dust. Spike pits, logs, and even a pit of paper tigers were no match for her, but she kept going. She found the whole thing rather amusing.
The stone walls suddenly became smooth, with giant letters carved into them. Lily laughed. Clearly Mike had attempted to write something in the maze, hoping the large letters would remain in place. While true, the letters shifted back and forth between similar shapes. Lower case “a”s transformed into curvy “e”s, and Lily had to hold her stomach when she found nearly half a mile of stone with poorly spelled iterations of the word “penis.” What the hell had Mike been up to?
Soft music played ahead, and the sky grew dark. She had fucked around in his maze for so long that she hadn’t even noticed the passage in time. She made the final few turns before stepping into a lavishly-decorated room. In the middle of the room was a table lit with candles, and a large vase of roses. Sitting at the table was Mike, who flipped casually through an old, leather-bound book.
“Hey there, Romeo.” Lily sauntered forward, her hips swaying. “This is super cute. Did you spend all week making this?”
Mike held up a finger in response as he scanned the rest of the page. He wore a button-down dress shirt over his jeans, and his bare feet were in the sand. The rest of the room was empty, though tiny waterfalls along the edge of the room filled water troughs.
“Oh, please. We both know you can’t be reading anything in there.” Lily smirked. She was dying to know where this was going.
“On the contrary.” He flipped the book over, revealing the word CAT in giant letters. “You can call it an exercise in concentration.”
“Is that why you wrote “penis” so many times?”
“Oh. Yeah, that was an exercise in frustration. Please, sit.” He gestured at the seat across from him, which slid away from the table. “Would you like something to eat?”
“Sure.” She sat across from him. Gone was the man she had left defeated on the beach. He now radiated confidence in such a manner that she felt like she was in the presence of an Elder Demon. She chalked it up to his fragile mental state. “I was under the impression that you were ready to continue our little game.”
“We have plenty of time. You taught me that.” Mike clapped his hands gently. Plates and cutlery with wings flew in from outside
