These days, I’m sleeping in a converted attic, my childhood bedroom. Back then, it was a thrill to make this space mine. Dad works in carpentry, so it became a project we shared. The angled ceiling already gave the space a certain drama, and we installed a skylight window and added a balcony. I insisted on painting the ceiling a dark blue and dotting it with yellow so I could have my own night sky.
It’s a great room except during storms like this, as summer becomes fall. Without proper insulation, the attic runs cold.
After a full day working at the museum, my imagination runs wild. I tell so many stories during the day that they often slip into my dreams.
I know there are no monsters under my bed, only books. Except when thunder booms and the rafters shake, I warily eye the door leading to the deck.
I’m thankful. I am. I have a roof over my head and a job. It’s sheer luck that Hopkins needed help. In my tiny hometown, job prospects aren’t exactly great for recent graduates with master’s degrees in museum studies, or, well, for anyone. In all the years I’ve lived here, the town hasn’t grown. It’s antiquey and unique, even quaint, though depressed. There’s little to no growth. People don’t move here, and everyone who leaves never comes back.
Everyone except me.
I miss my friends and my life before, discovering what a real town, even a city, feels like. So whatever gratitude I do have comes easier some days more than others.
My limbs are heavy when the whole attic shakes. There’s a heavythump,and the skylight darkens more than it should—even in the rain, the outside house lights normally reach me. I grab my glasses, but by the time I can see there’s nothing.
I lower my head back to my pillow, drifting somewhere between wakefulness and sleep.
“My name is…”
My eyes crack open, and I look around my room thinking I heard a voice. The cut on my hand tingles.
There’s nobody. Yawning, I flip onto my side and snuggle back into my bedding.
Something cold brushes my lips. Softly swaying back and forth, it whispers like a kiss. I turn over and lift my hands to my mouth.
My lips are chilled like they’d been caressed by frost.
I run the back of my hand over them until they’re warm. Squinting, I look around my room again. It can get drafty in here. Sighing with frustration, I drop back and throw my blanket over my head.
I’m drifting on the edge of sleep again when the sensation returns. Only this time it’s more insistent. It doesn’t simply whisper a kiss upon me—it crushes against my lips, cold as stone.
“My name is…”
It’s that voice again.
Annoyed, I explore, running my lips against whatever it is, learning the shape of what’s kissing me without bothering to search my room again.It’s just a dream. An interesting dream.The rounded tip is rigid. I follow up its length and discover a thick, smooth stone.
I’ve dreamed up a stone phallus. I clench my thighs as I test it out. I’ve never given head or sucked a cock. It’s surprising, how sensual this is.
The cock is so cold that my lips fail to warm it. And as the cold, tingling sensations become familiar, my lips part, determined to heat it, warm it to my touch. I invite it into my mouth, stroking it with my tongue, savoring the first bite of frost.
My hips buck. I gasp as the head is pushed into me, over my tongue. But when I open my eyes, there is nothing above me except the blanket.
I grasp at it, shifting the blanket off of me—finding the cock impossibly long and thick—only it’s invisible, feeling like ice, and my fingers can barely brush its surface before they become numb. The cold is sensual, awakening my usually elusive desire. I lower my fingers under the blanket and toward my sex, twitching under the cold contact they bring to my sensitive flesh.
I work my fingers over my clit as my mouth strains. My hips sway against my hand, moving forward and back, my head swaying too. I gag as the invisible shape taps the back of my throat, forcing me to back off. It’s so cold. The heat of my mouth changes nothing.
Like a popsicle that doesn’t melt.
What am I doing? Confused, I pause.
“My name is…”
That voice… It’s inside my head.
I chase my release with reckless abandonment, certain I’m alone.
I moan and shake, whimper and shiver as the cold rod thrusts in and out of me. I suck and suck, desperate to warm it, furious to do so. If I can… I can accomplish anything.
