“I had a dream about you last night,” I say, holding Gina’s hands in mine, as we sit on a small couch in a living room I don’t recognize.  The floor creaks quietly beneath us as she grins back at me.

                “Really?  What happened in it?” she giggles with a kind of joy I haven’t seen in her tired eyes in months.

                “We were big again,” I sigh, frowning a little as I scan my eyes around the room, not quite making out what’s happening or where we are.  I can barely discern what I see across the room.  A few wicker coffee tables with glass leaves, a couple pots of large white flowers, a window through which the sun glares with warm, blinding light that I somehow find myself able to look directly into without blinking.

                “Really?”

                “Yeah.  We were… were back… home… somewhere…” I groan wistfully.  “Together.”

                “Like we always said it would be,” Gina whispers.

                “I… um, yeah,” I answer.  Somehow I don’t know what she means.  We’ve never said anything like that.  Sure, it’s my deepest fantasy to run away to safety with Gina, but we’ve never discussed it.  I was always far too terrified to say it.  Partly because of not wanting to be rejected, and partly because the hope of such a thing drains a little bit more every day like a cancer of reality attached firmly to each of us.

                Gina nods.  “I’ve had a dream like that too.”

                I smirk back at her, squeezing her palms against mine, not wanting to let go of her: the one sure, safe thing in this world I know of anymore.

                “Really.  Tell me about it,” I request quietly, leaning in closer.

                “We had a house.”

                “What kind?”

                “An old one.  But… but a nice one.  Something built by people who cared about where they lived, but… but they weren’t there anymore.”

                “Where was it?”

                “Out in the country.  Far off.  Somewhere where they couldn’t find us.”

                “They?”

                “People,” Gina shrugged.  “At least at first.  I just… I guess I just wanted a break from it all first before we can go back.”

                “I know what you mean,” I say with the pain of someone who hasn’t known what it’s like to be normal sized in two years.  Somehow, even if everyone were about as tall as me or even a little shorter, I don’t think I could walk among them and not feel the gut-rending fear that at any moment one of their shoes would list a little too far to the left and smash me bloodily into the pavement against their rubber sole.

                At this point, not even a sight of glorious reality could convince me otherwise.

                “What did it look like?” I wondered aloud.

                “It was beautiful.  Little picket fence, a weird little broken cobblestone path, the outside with kind of worn off paint.  Surrounded by nothing but tall, grassy fields.  A pond, with fish and geese.  Pine trees clustered around the road.  To make it harder for anyone to know we were there.”

                “I love it,” I smile warmly, leaning in forward a little further, the tip of my nose nudging Gina’s.

                “And we’d always start each day,” Gina continued, moving in the rest of the way and softly planting her lips against mine.  “On a couch, in our living room, just… just watching the sun roll over the sky and up through the clouds.”

                “Oh?” I whisper with sudden imperiousness, looking down at the couch we’re sitting on as I slowly begin to realize we’re already, somehow, in the house Gina was describing.

                “Well, yeah,” Gina shrugs again, wrapping her arms around me slowly.  “To me, it’s the perfect place.  My paradise.”

                “Mine, too,” I say with a slight frown, beginning to question more and more what’s happening here.

                “But you know what completes it?” she asks, planting a second kiss on my cheek.

                “You,” I smile confidently.  “Just you.”

                There’s peaceful silence for a second as we clasp our fingers back in between one another, our bodies pressed together, her cheek against mine, her long hair tickling my neck silkily.

                Bliss.

                “But it can’t happen now,” Gina sighs, suddenly pulling back and causing me to startle.

                “What?” I ask dryly, afraid now.

                “It can’t.  Not after she found out about the plan,” Gina shrugged.

                “It… it does look… grimmer after that, I admit,” I say as positively as possible, swallowing a lump in my throat.  “But please, Gina, you can’t give up hope with me yet.  You’re the main reason I’ve got to try to get us out of here.”

                “It’s no use unless you find out how.”

                “What do you mean?”
                “How Julia found out about the plan.”

                “What?  I… I mean, she probably just looked it up, found something we overlooked on the computer, she…”

                “No,” Gina interrupts with surprising shrillness.  “Wrong.”

                It’s as if Gina is no longer sitting in front of me, but someone- no, something else.  Yet, despite the fact that this new Gina has called an abrupt halt to our embrace, I feel something new and almost as powerful other than love overcoming me.  Attentiveness.  Determination.  Aggression.  Somehow it’s re-energizing me.  I don’t know why.

                “I know it’s wrong.  Brian told me how you all triple-checked every nook and cranny it could have disappeared to on that computer,” I sigh with confusion.  “I know it wasn’t that.”

                “Then what was it?” Gina queries, arms crossed.

                “What does it matter?” I groan with exasperation, less at Gina and more at myself for having concocted this odd display in my mind.

                “A lot,” Gina says simply, raising an eyebrow at me, as if expecting the situation to be completely changed already.

                There’s an uncomfortable pause.  “Is this a dream?” I growl to no one in particular.

                “What does it matter?” the metaphorical Gina groans back mockingly.

                “Okay, fair enough.  So what are you trying to say?  Why is my mind fucking with me when I’m trying to sleep?”

                “You’re not really trying to sleep, and it’s not fucking with you.  Of course, it… could be, if you want,” Gina coos slyly, placing a hand on my crotch without another thought and rubbing it in an act diametrically opposed in every way to the real Gina’s personality: the one I fell for.

                “Okay, okay, stop, now I know for sure this is a dream,” I say suddenly, pulling back, causing the fake Gina to snicker at my fearfulness.  “If you’re trying to say something, say it soon before my brain wraps itself around what’s happening here and I wake up.”

                “Fine,” Gina sighs, clearing her throat.  “Just think.  How did Julia find out?”

                “I have no goddamn idea,” I mutter, scratching my head.  This idea has bothered me endlessly over the countless sleepless nights as Julia’s boyfriend and over the nearly crippling days as her toe ornament, and I’ve come no closer to knowing.  I know there’s no way to directly ask Julia.  It’s almost hopeless.

                “Yes you do.  You’re just not thinking straight.”

                “This is my dream, not yours.  How do you even know something like that?”

                “Well, obviously you do know it, or I wouldn’t know it.  It’s buried in there.  You have an idea, you just haven’t come to it yet.”

                “I feel like I’m at a business meeting with my subconscious,” I groan, leaning back further on the couch.

                “Stop goofing around or you’re not gonna get anywhere,” Gina whispers through gritted teeth.

                “Okay, fine, so if this is all just me not able to decide, TELL me something real!” I demand a little more harshly than I intend.  Obviously, this version of Gina is just something I’ve created in my mind, but it still pains me to have to yell at the face that looks so remarkably like the real one.

                “The way out is also the way in.”

                “What, now my brain is giving me fucking riddles?” I half-shout.

                “It’s a dream,” Gina shrugs.  “Nothing makes sense.  It’s all there, but you have to put it together.  Besides, it’s not a riddle, it’s just something to think about right now.”

                “Well, yeah, no shit it’s not a riddle, it’s a sentence that sort of makes sense on its own anyway, but it doesn’t help me!” I cry back, clenching my fists in frustration.  “And I still don’t understand why knowing is going to help me get us out of here.”

                “Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.  That’ll depend on what you decide to do with yourself,” Gina shrugs finally, slowly rising from the couch and walking across the room toward the window’s flaring white light.  “We’re counting on you.  You know that.  That’s why you’re repeating it to yourself now.  And that’s why you can’t let any of this go, because everything is important right now.  You think you have nothing, but you do.  You have suspicions and you have thoughts.  For now, that’s all the tools you’re going to get.”

                “But…”

                “And you have the biggest, most powerful tool of all: Julia.  She’s strong enough to break your spine between her fingers but she’s still just a scared little sixteen-year-old girl without any friends who doesn’t understand her own feelings, let alone the world.  Think straight and you can work it to your advantage.”

                “Where are you going?” I gasp, starting to rise from the couch.

                “Stay there.  You’re about to end this whole thing anyway,” Gina suggests, raising a hand as she is swallowed up by the light.

                “No… WAIT!  I still don’t know what I’m supposed to DO!” I shout, but feel my words drowned out as the serenity of silence is shattered by an earth-rumbling thud that causes me to lose my balance and buckle over against the wood floor.

                “Where’s my baby?” Julia’s voice whispers calmly, although the strength of the voice is omnipresent, filling my ears and all the air around me.  “Where’d he go?”

                “God damn it…” I mumble, staying huddled against the ground.

                “I’m here for you, lover,” Julia calls out like a desperate songbird, the volume rising.

                I feel another thud before hearing a loud rumbling from the other side of the mysterious house.

                The ground trembles.  Items in the room clatter.  Flower pots topple, water gushing from the bases.

                Julia steps into the room, looking just a tad shorter than me, like she did the day we first met face-to-face.  Normal.  Utterly normal.  A pair of skinny jeans adorning her legs, a simple bright orange blouse covering her torso, her chocolate brown hair done up in a tightly wound ponytail.

                My eyes boggle but I waste no time.  She’s right there.  Right in front of me.  A target.

                She smiles and waves.  “Found you, baby.”

                I lunge at her as hard as I can.  She goes down without a fight, smacking hard against the wood boards of the floor.  Instantly I’m upon her, grasping at her arms with my hands and pinning them down, wrapping my legs around hers and holding her down.

                “Wow, Jack,” she laughs happily.  “I love this.  I’ve never seen such… PASSION in you.  My God!  This is…”

                “Shut up, you fucking piece of shit,” I growl, my body trembling, my rage barely quelled.

                “Oohhhh… dirty talk.  That’s it, Jack.  Keep it up.  I’m LOVING this!”

                I can’t hold it in any longer and, rearing back, I land a hard right hook across her face that leaves a painful sounding crack hanging in the air.  She reacts to the punch, her head nudging to the side, but it returns to the same spot, her mouth still spread out in a grin, with no mark at all.

                Not to be immodest, but with the strength I just hit her, all my pent-up anger unleashed in a single hit, there should’ve been, at the very least, some teeth lost and a mouthful of blood on Julia’s part.

                Nothing.

                “Oh, yeahhhh… like that, Jack.  Just like that.  That’s how I like it.  Go on, fight me.  Get me.  Show me how mad you are, little guy,” she taunts playfully, sticking her tongue out, her cruel blue eyes dancing like flaming crystals before me.

                That’s it. 

                Taking a deep breath, I let go of both her arms and unleash a flurry of strikes across her face like I have never known in my whole life.  I feel my fists beginning to fall as dead weight after a few minutes of continuous motion.  I feel my eyes watering, my throat going dry, my muscles becoming sore as I put every bit of remaining energy I have into each punch in rapid succession.

                By the time I’m done I’m so spent I practically collapse on top of the totally unfazed and unmarked Julia, who just continues to giggle, nod, and offer encouragement to continue.

                Squirming a little, it’s at this moment I realize that neither of us is clothed anymore and, as I lie across Julia’s body, perfectly aligned, I become aware that my member is buried deep in Julia’s womanhood.

                Yelling with disgust and surprise I begin to struggle, pushing up against the ground, but it’s no use.  Julia’s moist lips seemed to have clamped impossibly powerfully onto my dick, and escape is impossible.  I gasp with terror and fight, moving back and forth in an attempt to release myself, inadvertently thrusting myself into my captor.

                All the while, Julia begins to moan with pleasure, allowing her muscles to relax, and the longer I fight, the louder her cries of passion become before she explodes with a joyous shriek and a ceasing of motion.  She shuts her eyes, sighing.

                “Oh, Jack.  That was wonderful,” she whispers softly, leaning up to my shocked eyes and pressing her firm pink tongue against my cheek before sliding it with a sultry moan up to the top of my face