Mirage.

Yvette had a strange dream. Nicodemis wanted more and more of her presence lately, showing up on her phone or in her mind when she was least expecting him. Now he clearly haunted her dreams as well. Yvette had a single, vivid, terrifying memory from the dream. She is sitting on a great throne made of stone, wearing light Egyptian garments and thick golden bracelets, while a figure clad in black robe lays in front of her, with his black hood up, but still she knew who he is, begging for her, like for a Goddess, in a strange, ancient language which Yvette did not understand but the meaning, the obsession, the desire burned through them like the blaze of hot iron in a forbidden cellar workshop.

Grace left early morning, with a gentle kiss on the cheek. Yvette spent the rest of the day with taking a short hike around the lonely family house, sitting in the middle of the forest. She found a peaceful clearing and stood still under a great oak tree to meditate.

Her subconscious worked on her conversation with Grace last night. The world offers plenty but the challenge is to satisfy ones true desires. The wildflowers need sunlight, water, soil around their roots and bees to help them in reproduction. These are their true desires. The wildflower knows this, and acts accordingly. But the wildflower, unlike us, knows nothing else, and can't do anything else.

Sometimes we identify pleasure with physical, mental or even spiritual pain. Ecstasy is escapism. If one remains silent and pays attention to her innermost callings, the true desires, and answers to them, than the world around will change from hostile and frightening to caring and harmonic. It's all in the eye of the beholder. The subject determines everything by classifying, categorizing, tagging things and events of the outside world. Yvette realized that this is what quantum consciousness must be about, something she is just scraping the surface of - maybe this will be the one real Truth she wanted to uncover since she started her journey to know more about the things people usually avoid.

Her one true desire is unconditional love. But is it something one can achieve? You can work on love, you can work towards love, but you can't create love. Love is created by the Universe. One, two generations back, people loved each other, unconditionally, by decision. Young men and women, living in the villages and towns, did not have an elaborate process for dating each other for months or years, and they married young, especially women. Their love was sanctified by their children. After that, there was no place in their lives for anything else but unconditional love. One of the toughest challenges of the new generations is to find that trail again, to learn again how to trust universally and love unconditionally. Yvette realized that it is not up to her, it is simply beyond the capabilities of a single person. Unconditional love is created by the "Universe within oneself and the ability to love someone no matter what they don't do or say" Self-less Love of another without expectation.

So, there is only as much as she can do except to continue to love and accept herself, be grateful for the love that presents itself and to quit obsessing over not knowing every little detail.

When she got back to the house, she spotted Jack's car outside. Her heart pounded and she got wet, than immediately embarrassed. Her sexual willingness was significantly heightened since that night in front of her laptop, wearing stilettos. Since then, her fantasies about having sex with complete strangers returned being more vivid than ever. Doing it for real, that is something she never even considered, and deemed impure. Only those kinds of women would do such thing, her morals were higher, and she was not that easy. But now the rules and obligations she lived by earlier did not seem so important. Their lost their significance. Did they have any at all? Do these things exist for anything else, besides themselves? Aren't they just like memes on the Internet, used again and again to describe this or that situation in life? For some, they are needed, for sure. Clear and simple rules, like electric fence for the sheep. After someone learns to trust her inner self, they lose their function. For making matters worse, Jack was wearing his working clothes, the classic grey bridled working trousers, and his million dollar smile above his well-built upper body. He sat in the driving seat of his old Land Rover, waving to the small figure appearing at the edge of the woods.

"Hey there, Yvette. I just saw your Audi in the driveway but no one answered the doorbell, I figured I wait a bit, maybe you return. Now I'm glad I did."

"I'm glad too. Come in, I get you something hot. It's a bit chilly now."

"Nah, thanks a lot, but actually I'm on my shift and I got some addresses. I just thought I drop by and tell you about the prints."

"The… prints?"

"Yes. You know, the letter you gave me?"

"Oh! Sure. Those… fingerprints."

"Yeah, well, it worked out fine, my cousin, that geeky little devil got the pattern in no time with his toy set. Actually, you don't really need much else than a little powder and a thin brush. Now, thing is, he has been playing investigator since he was like, four. It means he took the fingerprints of basically everyone who ever visited their house. I was a kid back then, I remember, he even took prints from the postman, Mr. Valdez. It was so embarrassing. My auntie was always turning red like a tomato when Jimmy ran to the next guest with the ink cushion and the paper. Well I knew this, but it still just blew my mind when he started to go through his collection. It was insane. He has literally hundreds of prints there! He is 14 now, and he took prints from everyone who got to their place in the last ten years! And since his mom, my auntie Rachel is a teacher and there are always kids coming to study with her… and Uncle Jamie has these big board game parties… there's hardly a living soul in Ten Oaks who did not turn up in their house at least once, through all these years. Well, anyway, sorry to hold you up, Yvette. Thing is, he got the print. Jimmy identified the fingerprint. He had it."

"Are you...serious? Wow." Yvette did not know if she was amazingly entertained or shivering in fear. The story was completely weird.

"Yeah. Now, what I wanna say is… it was a teenager, and I'm sure he means no harm to you… kind of a loner… perhaps he spotted you somewhere and thinks he has fallen in love with you, which, I think, is easy to understand…" Jack threw a gleaning smile at Yvette again, and she blushed. She had no idea what to say.

"Who is he?" she pressed the words out somehow finally.

"So, you sure want to know? I mean, I did not think all this through very much but I don't want the kid to get into any trouble… not him and not Jimmy…"

"Oh, of course! I want nothing like that either. I'm just… curious." exclaimed Yvette "I would love to know more about this, but for sure, I don't want to frighten the kid. You say he is a teenager?"

"Yep. 16 years old. Okay, his name is Kevin. He rarely leaves his room, playing on his computer all day, you know, nerdy kid. It's hard to imagine him coming out here… but I saw the print myself, and well, it was similar. Same pattern, really, as far as I can say. Jimmy sat there, spent at least two hours while he went through his… freaking database, and then spent another half hour to make sure those are the same prints. They are. If it's not him, well, that would be… well, that can't be

Yvette did not know what to think of all this, while she stood at the gate, watching the off road vehicle disappear in the corner of the road leading down towards the town.

"So, you like the flowers?" asked Jay. He was driving with one hand on the wheel, his head comfortably resting. He looked at the traffic ahead with a casual interest, while half-turning towards Yvette, eyeing her with a quizzical look.

"Um. Yeah,." she said, glancing up from her phone and flashing a wide smile at Jay. She touched the white tulips in her lap, gently. "They are beautiful." Then she looked down to the phone again. Nicodemis was especially mysterious lately. Yvette could not always grasp the meaning of his words, and of course, when she asked for clarifications, he did not respond to it. He never did. She felt like he is preparing something; that his words point to something in the near future, and will only make fully sense when that something happens. Yvette knew his website by heart by now, and she guessed that he will announce new tour dates soon. Maybe he is coming to the States? Shidonii tried to prepare her for that, long time ago. But she still was not ready to face that decision, meeting him in real life or not.

"There's something about tulips that remind me of you. They have this humble, innocent beauty…"

"Hmmm"

"You probably know more about these… what flowers represent…, you know, in your… studies?"

"Hmmm. Maybe. Not so much."

"You do actually hear, what I'm saying right? I hope I'm not holding you up or something…"

Yvette looked up again, to face Jay, rolling her eyes.

"Of course I do. Am I not taking part in this conversation in your opinion?" she answered, irritated.

"Well, you are. Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"Yeah. Sort of."

"What should I do? Should I phrase my answers more... elaborately? To satisfy, your, what, high intellect?"

"I don't know. You could be a bit more engaged. Anyways, no worries, go back to your phone. We're almost there."

"Duh…" grumbled Yvette. She quickly typed in that she won't be available for a while. She somehow did not notice that they almost already arrived.

The piece was delightful. Jay was a fan of modern contemporary theatre and knew all the indie performers and art groups in town. The original story was set in the age and setting of Romeo and Juliet, or something similar - it was hard to say since it was presented in a strange way, using many contemporary items and costumes. The show was funny, full of comedy, laughter, dance, and people having sex wearing huge Venetian masks. Yvette had a lot of fun, though she did not pick up much about what exactly is going on. Maybe she exchanged a few messages with Nicodemis at some crucial plot twists or some important development, but he did not mind at all.

Jay was very upbeat after the show, and willingly explained some of the twists that Yvette somehow skipped, and provided explanations for the numerous interesting metaphors and symbolic layers of the piece. He explained passionately, with waving gestures, while driving through the uncharacteristically mellow evening and Yvette could not stop laughing at his hilarious but clever observations.

Back at Jay's, Yvette lit a few candles just for the fun of it, while Jay opened the wine he selected for the night days ago. It was a deep red Merlot from Italy. Jay talked about where his passion for live performance comes from, and how he loathes musicals - Yvette heard that one three-four times at least, but Jay was so funny when criticizing something from popular culture that she did not mind at all. They finished the bottle fairly quickly and Yvette went to take a hot shower, leaving Jay in the kitchen who lit up, and started smoking one of his tiny cigars. He reserved the pleasure of smoking only for these quiet evening moments.

Yvette rubbed lotion into her skin, all over her body, after playing with the foam of the soap they made with Grace on a workshop a few days before. She removed the remains of her make-up, put on a fresh white bathrobe. She felt pleasantly tired, ready to grind a few episodes of the series they started watching together, and drift into sleep.

It all came apart when Yvette stepped out of the bathroom and ran into Jay, who held her phone in his hand, staring at the screen.

"You in a cooking club or something?" asked Jay, slightly irritated, handing the phone back to Yvette.

The words "I feel your taste." gleamed on the screen, the last message from Nicodemis. Yvette did not know whether she should feel angrier, or more ashamed, so she just stood there, lips slightly parted, and blushing steadily.

Jay just watched her with a sad smile for a few seconds, then went back to the kitchen, lit a cigar, grabbed his keys, and left his apartment. "Feel free to stay for tonight. I won't come back for a few days." And he disappeared.

An hour later, Yvette was staring out the kitchen window, with cried out eyes, dropping the ash of the cigar she was smoking onto the splintered remains of her iPhone. She drank the glass of wine, the last of the bottle she opened, and stood up, taking a few uncertain steps. Suddenly she grabbed her things, got dressed and left. She ran down to the street and waved down the first cab.

Twenty minutes later she was kissing a very surprised - and a bit sleepy - Ben violently, pushing him back into his own flat.

Ben was sure that something wrong is happening, but after a few half-hearted efforts to talk some sense into Yvette, he gave up, and let the woman relieve him of his shorts. If his ex wants to have sex no strings attached, why should he try to stop? It's been a while anyway… his body instantly started to respond to the sweet kisses on his stomach and the caressing touch. He leaned down and grabbed Yvette, who let out a tiny ecstatic shriek. Ben brought her back into his bed, removing her shoes while carrying her lithe body. He put her down gently and started kissing her neck, while Yvette unbuttoned her shirt.

Yvette felt tons of pressure, leaving her. The familiar caring and tenderness of Ben drove her away from her woes to a peaceful land of highly connected erotic pleasure. She grabbed his hands and pushed them on her breasts, while Yvette breathed heavily. She urged him to remove her panties, as she already kicked off her pair of trousers when Ben put her down. She grabbed his head and pushed it upwards. Ben obediently crawled up to her and they joined in a passionate kiss. Yvette moaned, entwined her legs around Ben and rolled them over so she could be on top. She reached back to rub Ben's hard cock gently to the soft skin of her inner thighs while she whispered to her ex, asking him to cover her neck with little kisses. She waited until she was shivering from the excitement caused by the small kisses, the kisses she knew so well that Ben is capable of, and then, she launched backwards to penetrate herself with his cock, violently, painfully, as far down as she could go, than coming up again, and this time, Ben grabbed her hip and now he controlled how he drove his cock inside Yvette, much more slowly, making sure he is running smooth like silk, lubricated by the plentiful fluids of the woman in top of him.

Tears ran down on her face as she eased into the rhythm of the man under her. Rage, memories of humiliation, doubts washed away with every new waving motion. Ben held her tight, strong, and gentle, controlling the movement of her hips but leaving Yvette doing the movement. Instead of the wild chase of pleasure sex resembled with Jay, she felt safe and comforted in the embrace of Ben. It was like coming home, which was something bitter to bevallani , but Yvette, drifting over the steady, detuning waves of alcohol and the fading hurt, felt blissful, letting every heartache of hers sink back into dark oblivion.

She moaned and subconsciously, she urged Ben to up his tempo so she could up hers as well, riding herself into an orgasm. Though she was pretty drunk, she did notice that her powers do not rest, and that she is reaching out with tentacles of pure energy, tapping into Ben's subconscious, and when her relief got close she could hardly decide that is she controlling Ben, leading him into doing what he is doing, or does she only feel his will and acts accordingly?

Ben was close, but not that close, so after she came, he quickly changed their posture to bury Yvette with his kisses from top, and making her his from the top, becoming one.

They fell asleep embracing each other, like careless teenagers in love, from a more pure and happy time.