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CASPIAN

For fuck’s sake, she’s even more beautiful when I have eyes to see her.

When she said to stay still if I wanted to fuck, I had no choice but to stay still because I was inanimate. But I was extra still. I banished every thought in my head. I went from inanimate to frozen.

She heard me. Maybe she heard what she wanted to hear but, in that case, she wanted to hear me consent as loudly as a completely silent thing could. Pleasuring her was beautiful. Re-entering my body while it was inside hers was… a revelation.

But mental distress is beating back physical bliss. She’s rightfully angry and I’m too overwhelmed to explain anything right.

My body feels new. I can feel its contours and its purpose.

I am aware of everything. My jizz-coated, half-hard dick.

The thirst in my throat. The racing heart.

My brain is different. I’m having real thoughts.

Full ideas. There’s so much input here. She smells like an orange creamsickle dipped in sex.

Her voice is a song written for my ears.

Her skin, in all its naked clarity, is as gentle on the eyes as it was to the touch.

My body may feel new, but I remember how to use it. When her knees bend, I know she’s going to faint. I catch her in my arms and bring her to the chair.

“Hey.” I tap her cheek. She’s out. Her lips are parted sweetly. I want to kiss her, but she’s woken up to enough unexpected affection today. “Okay.”

She’ll be up in a minute. No one dies of fainting, right? I take a deep breath.

Wow, that feels like something. Lungs filling. Chest tightening. Head clearing. I do it again and feel a little better.

We’re both naked. I whip open the blanket that’s folded at the end of the bed and put it over her. As far as my own nakedness goes, I have no idea what to do. I’m over six feet and she’s what? Five-three? She won’t have anything I’d fit into.

With a sharp intake of breath, she wakes. Notices the blanket. Scans the room, then looks at me.

“Fuck.”

“I think we should wait before we do that again,” I joke, but she doesn’t laugh.

“It’s real? That happened?”

I sit on the edge of the bed, facing her. “It’s still happening.”

“Fuck.”

My brain, at full capacity, assesses the situation and what I have to do. I got my body back for a reason, and if that’s my only purpose, I have to serve it.

“Julia, you need to get out of here.”

“Where?” She sits up, holding the blanket over her beautiful breasts.

“Here. The compound. The island. Probably, you should move and get a new name. I knew a guy once, but that was a long time ago.” I’m fucking this up. She’s just confused, and actually, I am too. “Let me start from the beginning.”

I’m about to launch into the longest story ever told when my stomach grumbles like a drum with a beehive trapped inside it.

“You’re hungry.”

“I haven’t eaten in a long time.”

“Well”—she stands—“let’s take care of that.” Keeping the blanket around her shoulders, she picks up her jeans, then hesitates. “I don’t even know your name. I’m not getting dressed in front of you.”

“Fair.” I stand. “I’ll wait outside.”

I grab the doorknob and pause when I realize that once she’s out of sight, she can call the police, or Bruce the sunburned security guy, or anyone within screaming range.

She’d be right to do it. I can use my size and strength to make sure she doesn’t.

But I won’t, ever. I’ve done enough harm for ten minutes back in my body. I have to trust her.

“Where are your clothes?” she asks.

I shrug. “This is what I got.”

“I mean, it’s not bad, but you can’t go out like that.”

“Yeah. By the way, my name is Caspian.”

“Weird to meet you, Caspian.”

I close the door so she can change, and maybe, hopefully, not call the police.

The first thing I do is turn on the kitchen faucet and put my face under it. I drink with my head in the sink until I feel as if I’m drowning. I stand and push back the hair that got in the way of the water.

Now I’m just starving. The bowl of apples doesn’t seem big enough for my needs, but they’re handy.

I bite. My mind has expanded a hundred times since waking up inside her. Now it’s blown.

Did apples always taste this sweet? What’s with the way my teeth smash the pulp, grind the skin, extracting so much sugar my face tingles? I finish the fruit down to the core, toss it, and grab another, standing over the sink with juice dripping off my chin.

In the market, she told Dan that honeycrisp were her screwdriver’s favorite.

She was right.

Fuck, she was right. Even if she was making it up, she nailed it. Nothing has ever tasted like this. Or everything always did and I just forgot.

Julia comes out of the bedroom fully dressed.

“This is so good,” I say around a mouthful of smashed apple.

“Yeah. Sure. Glad you like it. This is the biggest sweatshirt I have.”

“Thanks.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my wrist like a fucking savage and pull it over me. It’s too small to get past my crown.

“Bend this way.” She touches my arm, which is like getting hit by a lightning bolt, and pulls me forward so she can see the top of my head. She hooks her fingers in the neck and yanks so hard the stitches break, then she jerks the sweatshirt down over my shoulders. I stand straight.

“ Grazie .”

“Oh, Italian? You from there?”

“Only until I was old enough to get into trouble.”

“Well, then. De nada. ”

I get one arm through partway, but the armhole is too tight, and there’s not enough room across the chest and shoulders to maneuver my other arm through the sleeve.

“That’s not gonna work, is it?” she asks.

“I’m afraid not.” I pull off the shirt. She takes it with a sigh.

“We can definitely forget about the pants then.”

“Probably.”

She goes back to the bedroom, coming out with the blanket I put over her. “Just cover up your junk for now.”

She tosses it to me. I catch it and wrap it around my waist. My stomach demands more food. Hearing it, she grabs an apple and tosses it to me.

She is perfect.

“You want some noodle soup?” She takes a pot from the draining rack without waiting for my answer.

“I do.” I’m biting into the apple before I even finish the sentence. “Fuck, this is delicious.”

“So,” she says, filling the pot, “you were a screwdriver until you suddenly turned into a man who was in the middle of fucking me.”

“I’m really sorry about that.”

“Napkins are in the drawer right there.”

“The spider said I had to charm you.” I pull a square of paper from the drawer. It says STARBUCKS on it. “In the dream. And you know, in dreams, it’s hard to have complete control over every word.” I wipe my chin.

“I’m not mad we fucked in the dream.”

“Good, because it was truly magnificent.”

“I’m not taking credit for dream sex.” She puts the pot on the stove and turns on the burner. “And I’m not going to start by asking you how a spider told you anything or why you’d even believe it. Like, I can’t chase everything down at once or my head’s going to explode.”

“Fair.” I pluck out another apple. “All you need to know is, I could hear and see well enough to know you’re in danger.”

“No. I need to know how my fucking flathead ended up between my legs.”

“Well, that was your decision.”

“Fuck you.” She grinds her teeth while ripping open a package, as if she wants to rip me open the same way.

“All right. Fine.” I swallow a bite without chewing and manage to not choke.

She has the right to know how her screwdriver turned into a man.

An hour ago, I didn’t know any more than she did.

I couldn’t put together what happened when I was a tool, but now that I have a brain, the memories are coming back. “It was a curse.”

“A curse?”

“My friends and I were cursed by a demon.”

I wait.

She doesn’t faint.

I know her well enough to know she doesn’t believe me either. She wants to, but can’t. Or does, but wishes she didn’t.

“I’m gonna let you finish.” She takes another apple from the bowl and tosses it to me.

“But first, you’re gonna know that if you’re trying to tell some bullshit story as an excuse for ending up in my bed with your dick in me, it’s not gonna work.

The fact that you don’t have the claw end of a hammer in your skull right now is because of the dream. Like, it was you. I know it was you.”

“You believe I can enter your dream but don’t believe I can be cursed by a demon?”

“Yeah.” She drops the noodles in the boiling water. “You got a problem with that?”

“I guess not.” I bite the apple.