Is your fantasy partner your equal, your better, or your lesser?

Is your fantasy partner your equal, your better, or your lesser?

***

There was a moment of silence between them. The dad was seriously considering Charlie’s words. Suddenly the phone on Charlie’s desk began violently vibrating. His eyes flashed to the screen: My Love

His heart skipped, then sank. He hadn’t heard from her during the whole week she’d been at the conference. More than anything, he wanted to answer. But he felt a weight in his chest. Maybe if I let her go to voicemail she’ll get disappointed or worried. See how she likes it. He felt disgusted, but he was sick and tired of the cold shoulder and was damn near ready to try anything just to get her attention. Hell, he even agreed to make this his last semester.

“Sorry, it’s my wife.” Charlie reached over and silenced his phone.

“You’re not going to take that?”

“Sir, I think your child’s education is very important.” Charlie asserted, putting his full attention to the man. “I understand there’s a lot of misconceptions about theater. But let’s set aside the tights and the make up. These kids aren’t just playing make believe. They’re learning real, marketable skills. Right now I have kids in the shop measuring, cutting, and fastening together 2x4s to build the frame of a front porch. After that they’re gonna paint it. Last week I taught them how to wire high voltage lights and sound equipment to a controller and had enough time to teach them the different types of plugs. One student who’s playing a mechanic in our upcoming show researched how an engine works so he could be convincing. I understand the hesitancy at your son being interested in acting given the one-in-a-million career it is, but you’re not going to find an elective that teaches real trade skills under real, practical circumstances. I mean, would you rather have CJ building a birdhouse on his own, or building a porch as part of a team of his peers?”

Mr. Swanson left the meeting decidedly much happier than he’d entered it. No teacher at the school liked Mr. Swanson as he was a difficult parent. But Charlie knew the man was just scared and felt like nobody took his concerns seriously.

Having a kid is the biggest responsibility he’s ever had. Charlie had to remind himself, feeling the anger he felt towards the man bubble away. God help whoever takes over for me because his son is the gayest kid I’ve ever seen and I doubt that’s gonna be easy for dad to swallow. If Charlie was here just one more semester, he knew he could prime Mr. Swanson for such a reveal and encourage CJ to be more confident in himself. He’d done it before.

But no. Tori said she wanted him at home. It made sense. His salary was nothing compared to hers, basically just a savings builder. While at home he could make it more comfortable so she’d want to spend more time there. They both worked too much and it was driving a wedge between them. Charlie loved teaching, but he hit the jackpot with Tori and was not going to ruin that.

Love means the most when it’s hard. He reminded himself as he got into his car, looking at the little envelope on his passenger seat which contained the tickets for dance lessons. He’d picked them up this morning, hoping that it would give them something to do as a couple once his schedule opened up. Given his theater background, he already knew how to dance, so really the lesson part was for Tori. He just couldn’t get her to do anything she liked with him. ‘Tori’ was written on the envelope, suddenly reminding him of the missed call. He yanked his phone out of his pocket and saw that she’d left a message.

Hey, Charlie, just calling to say I, uh missed you. And, I know things have been hard for a while, now, but the conference went well and, uh… I want to take you to Paris. Do another honeymoon. Oh, and I’m sorry for being so cold and probably cheating on you. But I love you and I’m ready to focus on us.

Charlie smiled at his pathetic little fantasy. He wasn’t expecting anything like that. She probably just wanted to check in and share the news about a networking thing or bonus or something. This conference was supposed to be really big for her career, and knowing her, things went well. So he braced himself for the good news.

He was definitely baking her a cake. He’d have a nice bath drawn up when she got home on Monday. Cook her favorite dish—he’d head to the store right now—put on her favorite candle… maybe some rose petals on the bed…

The message started with a really long and tired sounding sigh, which told Charlie to scrap the cake and rose petals. This was about to be bad news.

“Look, I don’t know what your, uh, plan was. But I just saw the charge from the dance studio on the joint account. I. Do not. Have time. Okay? I’m an executive for one of the biggest clothing brands in the world. I don’t know why you’re acting all busy in the theater when you apparently have time for dance lessons. So, instead of wasting my money on fucking dance lessons, maybe you could go buy a fleshlight or sexdoll or something so I don’t have to deal with your endless whining about sex. Ugh, look, I’ve gotta go. Don’t bother calling back I’ll be in a seminar and frankly I don’t want to talk about it, just fix it.”

Seventeen minutes later, Charlie’s car was wrapped around a tree.

***

Charlie woke up with his hands braced in front of him, panting and gasping in surprise to see he was in Tori’s room. Our room, he reminded himself. Jens was not kidding about those dreams… it was just like being there beside myself.

Turning to the empty spot beside him, Charlie started crying. He cried a lot. Only recently could he feel somewhat comfortable doing it in front of Tori, again. How’s the crybaby? That was how Tori’s friends asked about him in their group chat.

He didn’t used to suppress tears, and when he was alone he most certainly didn’t. But if anyone was around, he really considered how safe it was.

He checked the clock and saw that there was still about fifteen minutes before Tori’s work day started. He furiously opened his phone and tried to face time, growing more depressed with each unanswered ring. Ring. It’s ok, she probably didn’t have it in her hand. Ring. Fishing it out of her pocket. Ring. Really stuck in that pocket. Ring. Hiding something. Ring. That bitch Mary’s running out of the room and Tori’s fixing her fucking hair—

Badum.

Tori’s face filled the screen. Eyes puffy, face red. Preemptively she turned the camera around to show her surroundings. Back of an empty, moving limo. Empty aside from her. “I, uh, was just crying.” She explained, chuckling a bit at her poor attempt to hide it. “I was beginning to think you weren’t gonna call, and spiraled, and then you did call and I didn’t want you to see.”

“Sorry.” Charlie nodded, buying her reasoning, though he always felt that jealous suspicion. “I had a nightmare and overslept.” He said.

“Aw, sweetie, what about?”

He had wanted to say he couldn’t remember. “The uh, day of the accident.” He admitted. The crash was still a difficult conversation. Charlie believed it was an accident, though he didn’t remember the few minutes immediately prior. Everyone else seemed to think he crashed on purpose for obvious reasons. “It was weird. It was like watching myself in a memory.”

Tori nodded, wiping another tear off her face as she tried to be the strong one so he could open up. But he knew the crash was extremely hard for her to talk about given what she was doing at the time. And how she chose to respond. She felt responsible, though Charlie was certain he hadn’t crashed on purpose. Their therapists most certainly made a killing off that event alone.

“It was hard watching it all just happen. No weird dream logic or anything, just straight unaltered memory.” He explained, but saw Tori fighting back tears and decided it wasn’t worth talking about. He didn’t want her first day back in the office to be so sad. Tori had wanted to be an executive since forever. If their relationship was going to work, he needed to let her have her pride and joy. He loved that she was so motivated to achieve. He was easy to make content and often had trouble knowing when to move on to better things. But she took what she wanted and was always looking for the next opportunity. He liked to think they balanced each other out, though sometimes he just felt like dead weight.

“I, uh, had a similar dream the other day.” She admitted. “Same day. Really vivid, more like watching a movie of what happened.”

Definitely the pills. Jens warned that programming the brain for wet dreams was a process that took time and made the dreams during the transformation very uncomfortable. Charlie remembered his answer on the questionnaire

85. Does your fantasy partner have wet dreams?

Occasionally, and they’re always very cozy and leave her feeling very satisfied, loved, and well rested.

He remembered Tori’s answer, too…

85. Does your fantasy partner have wet dreams?

Every second she sleeps is spent having hardcore and explicit dreams that are indistinguishable from reality until she wakes up glazed in her own cum and still horny.

Seems like I’ll be having a lot more of those weird dreams than Tori. Charlie had really thought his fantasies had been pushing the limits and were inhumanly cruel. But when Tori filled out the questionnaire and he saw what future waited for him, he felt a bit more comfortable with his soon to be not-so-secret desires. There was probably only one instance on the whole questionnaire where he thought he outdid Tori in intensity.

Even still, the guilt was killing him. She still didn’t understand the gravity of what was happening to her. Did she really not notice how cut she was beginning to look? How could she possibly not notice having grown an inch? Perhaps because Charlie knew what was coming he noticed every minute change—his chest hadn’t even visibly swelled yet and he could feel the tenderness of what were to become breasts.

She’d outgrown all her shoes, bras, and pants and her biceps were snug in her sleeves and still she thought she was taking glorified gas station boner pills. Even if his fantasies were less **** than hers, he still felt disgusted with himself watching her miss the signs. He wanted to just tell her.

But the thrill is so. Fucking. Bad. He shivered at the thought, staring at her gorgeous face, one wrinkle shorter than when she’d left. I wonder if she notices my transformations before hers…

“First day back!” Charlie made an excited face to change the subject. “Exciting.”

Tori reciprocated his face and laughed a little bit. “I wish you were here. But yes, this is very exciting for me. I can already smell the chaos and I can feel my heart pounding. I don’t know how to describe it.”

Tori considered herself to be a fuck up in her personal life. She wasn’t good at making friends, burned the bridge with her family, been the cause of all of her breakups… but Charlie knew she knew business. Marketing was not her passion, but she was damn good at it. It was just the next step up. He’d seen her manage a crisis, seen her negotiate, seen her when everything was going wrong.

She was always smiling.

He suspected, that she subconsciously created chaos through self sabotage just so she could be in her element. Her focus was always clearer and her mood more stable when there was a lot happening all at once. Which Charlie really admired about her.

He egged her on for a few minutes, feeling the tears dissipate as she talked about her excitement. He was not pumped for her to be around Dane and especially Mary. But seeing that clarity in her eyes, the old, self-assured Tori, that brought him comfort.

“Let’s talk again at lunch, yeah?”

“I’d really like that.”

“And do you have an answer, yet? About the burlesque lesson?” Charlie had asked her yesterday if he could enroll in Gina’s workshop. The reason he gave was that he wanted to learn how to move his body sexier and more femininely, gain some confidence for their ‘roleplay’. However, his main reason was that he felt really bad for Gina. She seemed like a good kid who just needed someone to give her a chance. A burlesque workshop was something to do on a Wednesday.

Tori nodded, sucking in a breath through her teeth. “I can recognize that I’m a little insecure with you going to a restaurant like that while we’re still working through stuff. But so long as it’s after hours, then sure.”

She was going to definitely be checking my location the whole time to make sure I get there and leave on time.